At present we are in Montenegro. It's actually quite a beautiful place, in the sense that it has a beautiful coastline along the Adriatic (am still dubious about swimming though because of the Medusa), which is surrounded by magnificent, craggy mountains. The towns are quite historic, many are walled towns like Dubrovnik (although obviously not in the same league as Dubrovnik in that respect), with narrow, cobbled streets and gorgeous churches.We got the bus on Saturday night from Dubrovnik to Kotor. Actually, I have to make some more comments about Dubrovnik, because since arriving on the coast in Croatia we haven't been staying in hostels but in small, family-run pensions, and the one in Dubrovnik was gorgeous. We were accosted at the bus station in Dubrovnik by this little old Croatian woman harping on about accommodation. We were quite stressed because we needed to find accommodation, but also, as the bus station is quite far from the town, we needed to sort out how to get out of Dubrovnik. And this woman wouldn't go away, nor did she seem to get that we needed to sort some stuff out first.
Anyway, eventually we were able to find out what we needed, and then negotiate a good price for the room, including transport to and from the bus station! (she offered her daughter Rose as chauffeur for this, lucky Rose, eh?). She had said that the room was a 15 minute walk from the Old Town, try more like 30 minute walk - but by this stage it was afternoon and technically cooling down a bit (yeah right! It was still 35 degrees...) The two main selling points though for the room was the view over the harbour (and boy, was there this absolutely gi-normous ship, bigger than QM2 I'm sure, parked out there in the harbour, looked magnificent), and the fact that the room had air-conditioning! Yay! So she gave us a lemonade, a map, bit of a chat about the place, and then off we went exploring the town. And the rest I told you about in the previous blog.
So, back to Montenegro. We get the bus from Dubrovnik to Kotor, and get this, it was NOT air-conditioned. 3 1/2 hours we spent on this bus! Sooo hot.
Finally arrived in Kotor where we are met again at the bus station by what we think are people trying to sell us accommodation, but it turns out that they are the next door neighbours of the place we have reserved, because this place has no proper address (well not any with any sort of numbers we could see). They take us to the place and the woman there is sooo nice, except a bit touchy-feely, like she practically hugged me at one point and also when there was a bit of a situation about the water (after I had had a shower) she was rubbing my back and making cooing noises as if to say "It's ok" - like I was upset or something? It turns out that in Montenegro quite regularly the towns run out of water, so everyone has a couple of buckets or bottles of water by the taps just in case. She thought that I might not have had any water for the shower, or mightn't have turned the tap off properly or something - because if you turn the tap and nothing comes out, you have to turn it back off or later on you could have a mini-flood when the water gets re-connected.
She was also really nice because she gave us 2 huge tomatoes when she saw that we were trying to cook up some pasta for tea. They were really delicious too.
Anyway, the next day we headed off on a bit of a walk around Kotor. This place is so cute, with the cobbled stones (fortunately not as slippery as Rohinj, Hvar or Split - where you stacked it all the time on the worn out cobbles), narrow streets, rusty iron balconies, hairdressers... yes, you read right, there are more hairdressers per head in Kotor than anywhere else in the world! But we did do a stupid thing, we hiked up this mountain (in the stinking heat) to see the view of the Kotor Fjord from the old fortifications. Seriously, I was melting sooo much, and about 3/4 of the way up we decided that the view at the top would be much the same, so let's go back down, thank you very much. Had to have yet another gelati to regain my strength after such excertions.
The reason though, for the title of this blog, is to do with the buses in Montenegro. About 2pm we caught a bus from Kotor to Budva, with the intention of finding accommodation in Budva for the evening. We end up on this rickety old thing - a cross between a minibus and a proper coach - it did have room for our luggage underneath - but no airconditioning, and we were packed in there with the locals and with the chairs that didn't move back, or were permanently reclined so you had no room behind them. Oh boy was it hot! They had thick black curtains hanging from the windows to keep the sun out (but the heat in, of course). So after 40 minutes or so we arrived in Budva, sweat dripping down our backs. There was no, absolutely none, zilch accommodation in Budva. At least none for only 1 night. So we leave our luggage in Budva and get a local bus to Cetinje, to see the monastery where they have the mummified right hand of John the Baptist and also a bit of the real cross of Christ. Now this bus was a real adventure! Instead of the thick black curtains, these ones were red, and the bus was pretty much well packed, so I was crammed in at the back, no airconditioning, and no air at all because the sun roof thing was at the front of the bus.
Anyway, the monastery was very interesting, except we had to dress up in these white dresses because its a working monastery, with male monks, and they might get distracted by women in stringy tank tops and shorts... so I looked like an extra for Casper the Friendly Ghost, or something. Despite this, I enjoyed the monastery visit, and I have to say I thought it was quite interesting to see the mummified right hand of John the Baptist, and the little bit of the cross of Christ (they've made it into a mini cross). There were heaps of people crowding around to see it.
In Cetinje there is also a palace you can visit of Nicolas, the last king of Montenegro, which looked quite interesting, although we didn't get to see it because it was closing time (but Agata saw some because she went in to ask for directions and they showed her around quickly). However his daughter was the first woman in the Balkan states to pass her driver's licence.
After Cetinje, we had yet another Montenegrin bus ride back to Budva, this bus just as bad (if not worse) than the previous two - and the driver obviously had a bit of a death wish, I think he is really Michael Schumacher's Montenegrin cousin or something... speed demon to say the least. And I was stuck next to some bloke who obviously had never heard of deodorant!
Our final bus journey of the day though really took the cake. We got the bus from Budva to Ulcinj. This bus, from the exterior, looked like a normal coach. I started to get a bit excited at the prospect of several hours in air conditioned comfort, after all this ridiculous, sweaty heat. Especially as I thought that the windows were frosted over from condensation, thus indicating that air conditioning had been running at some point.
You know I was wrong, don't you. This bus was Satan's bus. Hotter than a hell hole. Let me put it this way, the bus was absolutely packed, even to the point that people were standing, again the seats were permanently reclined onto your lap, no room to move at all. The air vents (let alone conditioning) didn't work, so there was no circulation at all. There was no sun roof pop up air vent thingy, and the only way that air got into the bus at all? Through driving along with the door open...
It felt like an eternity later, but was actually only 2 hours or so, and we arrived in Ulcinj, to again find no accommodation available. Only now the tourist information is closed, and our only option is either to sleep in the bus station or find a taxi who might know of some place. So we opted for the taxi option, and he phoned a friend - and we ended up in a house for 5 euros each. Cheapest accommodation ever, with a very friendly woman who wanted me to fix her camera (I did my best but hey. I couldn't fix it).
So now we're waiting for a bus to Tirana, Albania. Will this relentless heat ever let up? Will we find somewhere to stay? Will Agnieszka ever reach that elusive goal to be "chocolate brown"? Stay tuned...
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