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Published: October 23rd 2011
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Severely hungover, I reluctantly forced myself out of my deep drunk sleep to go and catch the minibus outside of Ploce Gate to Montenegro. This doubtlessly put a bit of a dampener on my day which is why I generally don't drink much whilst travelling. But what was done was done - I had gone out in Dubrovnik the previous night and got hammered on buckets of vast volumes of intoxicating liquids. Oh well.
The tour was going well from Dubrovnik to the border crossing with Montenegro - finding out little nuggets of information from the tour guide on the surroundings that passed us on our journey, for example, the best restaurant in the Balkans is supposedly in some woodland near the Montenegran border with a waiting list of something silly like 5 years. That is until we were informed by the tour guide that she had neglected to bring her passport... you know that thing you need when you cross a border.
The driver, thankfully, seemed to be on our side and he was visibly quite annoyed with the guide. Shame he spoke no English. We waited around at the service station just inside the Montenegran border after
being promised the tour guide's father was bringing her passport and she would meet us there. First taste of Montenegro was buying some tissues at the service station. I was happy that I was in a Euro-accepting country again, but the checkout guy clearly did not want to be there. He looked at all the customers with absolute hatred. I returned the look because I was hungover and a bit pissed off with the guide. I mean how arrogant can she get? She knew she didn't have her passport when we set off but thought she would be OK!
Anyway, she didn't return and we were starting to lose faith in this excursion. Our first stop was a photo-stop at the beautiful bay of Boka Kotorska which is at a UNESCO world hertitage site before carrying on to Kotor. There, another tour guide met us to show us round Kotor, starting at Sea Gate and taking us past Palaces, the Cathedral and the Church. We then got some free time where I just wandered around, encountering extremely rude shop owners. Went to buy a can of coke but changed my mind when she told me the price, so she
got shirty and actually pushed me!! Couldn't believe I had actually just been assaulted haha. I heard from several other people that the traders/business owners were really horrible in Kotor. Probably just sick of the usual hoard of tourists.
That makeshift tour guide promptly left us, and we were all feeling a little dejected at the shoddiness of the trips' organisation. We then made our way to Budva. I spent the first few hours just wondering round the Old Town. Unfortunately an Earthquake occurred in 1979 which destroyed most of it, so it is all rebuilt. It looks very pretty - but so pretty that it looks contrived. I then strolled along the beachfront to an emptyish pier where I sat sunbathing watching the landscape and the watersports which were going on around me.
Montenegro is a beautiful country which I would like to explore more, but needless to say me and a few of the others on the trip demanded a partial refund.
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