Bar,
Budva, Gin and Vodka!
So I met a Lithuanian guy and a Polish girl
on a sunny and hot day of August. Dorota was definitely not the girl in the
profile picture; in reality she looked very different; in a positive way of
course. The other girl, the other Dorota seemed a little bit more innocent,
which you can read as less colorful so I was pleasantly surprised to find a
more cheerful and entertaining travelmate than expected. Of course the shiny
and bright picture of Dorota will be clearer as we move on with the story, so
let’s try to sketch Eduardas, the Lithuanian a little bit.
Eduardas was 29, the oldest in the group,
but at the same time he is a guy who is childishly pure. As Dorota later told me -and also from my
brief experience with him too- he used to complain sometimes about small things
like my 5th grade cousin does, the fact that he had been travelling by
hitchhiking for 2 months when I met him and he was tired out should have also
played a role in it. Usually such an attitude might be nerving but with
Eduardas it was more the opposite; it just drew some more lines in the picture
of an overgrown child with a big heart. He is a heavy drinker too and is always
keen to drink some vodka or other stuff. I think if we had traveled as three
then I would have returned to Turkey with cirrhosis, as the fans of my team
say: Atatürk we follow your teachings (the founder of our republic who died at
an early age from cirrhosis) and we’ll die from cirrhosis.
So we went back to the shadowy place where
the two put their bags; over which a couple was keeping watch. It should be
also the first moment where I could understand that Dorota can actually speak
Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian-Montenegrian, and this is thanks to her very strange
field of study; tourism and Serbian. She is very passionate about Serbia and
loves the country and the people nationalistically. I was joking that she
should be the only non-Serbian, who is in love with that country as she is.
Anyway it was of course of great help for us, to be able to contact at least
with drivers is really important although sometimes it should have been tiring
for her to talk about the same things ride after ride, whereas I usually
watched outside silently. After taking the bags we went to have a breakfast, we
were looking for a pekara, bakery.
It would have been really strange if we
couldn’t find one since all ex-Yugoslavia is full of them so while they
preferred to eat burek with meat I stuck to the healthier choice of cheese. Bar
was not the most exciting town and since Dorota and Eduardas already spent some
time there, we decided to move on from the coast towards Croatia while Eduardas
said that he wants to go back home; so after spending another night he wanted
to head northwards to Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro and then continue
all the way back to Lithuania.
Dorota had some clues about the small
coastal towns of Montenegro, mainly from the Serbians he met during her summer
school in Serbia. She heard that Sveti Stefan (St. Stefan) is a nice place and
from there we could go on to Budva, the town where I came from early in the
morning. I had also passed by Sv. Stefan of course but this time it would be
not with a minibus but some truck. So the days of hitchhiking began officially
for me.
The map we used throughout our trip
belonged to Dorota, funnily a crappy map of ex-Yugoslavia. By going to Split
and then Albania we exceeded the limits of the map and from then on it was of
no use. But it was of course nice to have a map with us, at least it helped us
orienting ourselves, although some roads have changed and the new highways were
not shown. So checking from the map the locations of the towns and the roads
again we went on to hitchhike. Mission one was of course to get out of the town
which we could do all together, someone brought us to a crossroads where he was
to go to another direction whereas we wanted to continue to Sv. Stefan. After
trying a little bit to hitch as three we decided to divide into two; as an
introduction to coming weeks I was with Dorota and Eduardas was trying it alone
away from us. Soon a truck stopped for us and we quickly got into the truck.
One of the usual scenes of our trip happened for the first time: Dorota
speaking with the driver, the driver is happy to see someone studying Serbian,
she has been to Exit Festival, no, Kosovo is not beautiful, and I’m looking
outside, listening to the conversation simply out of the necessity. Soon I
would be able to say razumiem, but at the start I was still at my learning
period.
The driver stopped atop Sveti Stefan and we
got out, saying the usual thanks. (“Hvala” is thanks in Serbian, thank you very
much is by the way “hvala puno”, where glad to meet you is “drago mi je”, funny
because in Turkish it’s something like “eat my drago”). Where we got out there
was a Polish couple who had been trying to hitch for hours there. It looked
scary for the future. After a few minutes Eduardas arrived as well, probably
the harmless look of him was very advantageous, I was amazed at how quickly he
found a car.
Together we began to go down the small hill to the beach of Sveti Stefan. The
view was amazing, a small island-like peninsula and a truly beautiful sea, some
light blue-turquoise color. When we finally achieved to be at the beach we were
already “sweaty” (“Sweaty Stefan”, a joke which I stole from the American guys
but I’ll come to that later on), so quickly changing our clothes and wearing
our swimsuits we let ourselves cool down in the clear waters of Sv.
Stefan. After a while together with
Dorota we decided to walk around in the small island but quickly learned from
the watchmen at the entrance that it was not possible since it belongs to a
private hotel. True Sv. Stefan was beautiful, according to the Polish
hitchhikers the nicest town in Montenegro, but what else to do other than
swimming?
So we moved on, this time to Budva. When we
get atop to the road we saw a couple taking pictures with the beautiful view in
the background and then they decided to bring Dorota and me to Budva, while
Eduardas somehow quickly managed to find another car yet again by himself. Our
drivers were from Republika Srpska, the Serbian region of Bosnia and they came
for holiday. So they brought us to Budva where we met Eduardas quickly again.
After buying some fruits, bread and some chicken paste, we went to a not very
nice but at least has a grass kind of park and sat down to eat our things
accompanied by some Pink Floyd music in my cell phone. There were not so many
songs in my cell phone and that was really a pity, listening to the same songs
again and again…
After our delicious meal we wanted
to visit the old town (stari grad), while Eduardas preferred to sit on the
grass and enjoying some music. We asked people in the petrol station about the
old town and one guy said that he can bring us there so we got in his car;
foolishly happy about how we can even hitch inside the city etc. What we did
not know was that the guy was actually a taxi driver, something like the
illegal taxis in my country where you don’t see any sign of a taxi from
outside. When he wanted money we, actually Dorota with her Serbian skills,
argued and in the end he didn’t ask any money while leaving us somewhere not so
far away from the petrol station actually. It was a good lesson for us at the
start; we had to be more careful and ask whenever we feel like there is some uncertainty
if the driver will charge money or not.
So we walked by the beach, through a street
with small stands, cafes and bars on both sides until the old town which was
nice for that time with its tiny streets; but after having seen all the others
I can say that it was not that special. So we went back, this time we walked
all the way of course, to find Eduardas sleeping of course.
The rest of the day was all about drinking.
It was already getting close to the evening when Eduardas and I went to the market
to buy some drink. He wanted to have some gin and I said why not? We bought
Fanta as well and went back. I think it was Dorota who got the plastic cups; so
but the main point is of course that we began to drink. Although Dorota didn’t
want to drink much; we finished the gin bottle. I remember me and Eduardas
talking about Iran and cinema –but not Iranian cinema-, he studied cinema in
university or at least something related to it, we got along pretty well
actually when Dorota was more silent.
The quick finish of the gin bottle was disappointing;
we had nothing to drink, so we went to buy a bottle of vodka this time, a big
one of course like the gin bottle. We began to drink it and since Dorota didn’t
want to drink anymore it was mainly us drinking, I remembered my adolescence,
to drink stupidly much was something to be proud of. But it felt good. We were drinking it in what
we called “Russian style”, straight.
After some time when it got dark, we went
to the beach since it was there we wanted to sleep. The heavy backpacks never
felt that light again. People were already dancing in the beach clubs we passed
by, to traditional Balkan music. Finally we found somewhere which seemed
appropriate to us at that time. We sat down and continued to drink there…and
that’s the last thing I remember about that night! The next thing in my memory
is that I woke up at 5 o’clock in the morning and had to find a toilet
immediately to defecate or let’s be honest to shit :) According to Dorota we
danced in one of those beach clubs but I don’t remember anything about it. It
was the third time in my life me not remembering anything, and the last one
before was after drinking 3 bottles of wine in the festival of my university.
That one cost me a wound on my leg, probably caused by a cigarette, but thank
God this time nothing happened. I just
hope that it also didn’t cost anything to the people around :)
Bring
your daughter to Kotor
The search for a toilet at 5 o’clock was my
most painful experience during the trip. I had to walk all the way until the
petrol station while checking all the toilets in between just to find out that
they are closed, but somehow I managed to make it without any accident. Oh it
was such a relief! Also taking advantage of the wi-fi I spent the next hour at
the toilet reading news. When I was just about to wear my pants again, a guy
working in the station opened my door, apparently thinking no one would be
there at such an hour, and in the last one hour or so nobody entered so it was
not a bad guess under normal conditions, but it didn’t save him from seeing me
naked. Poor or lucky, you decide :)
When I happily went back I found Dorota and
Eduardas sitting on the stony wall separating the beach and the street nearby,
they had to get out of the beach. Consider that a guy came one day ago and just
after one night he is nowhere! So they were very worried :). Also one thing to
note we didn’t know that we finished the bottle of vodka, that we understood
from the empty bottle lying next to us in the morning :) Anyway we sought
another place on the beach to continue our sleep and we found one. After a
little bit of sleeping, mainly on my part since I rejected to wake up for a
long time, and then swimming to wake up, the breakfast time came. Before going
to the same market again we filled our water bottles from the shower, and
stopped at the petrol station again for toilet. There we met a German cyclist,
who came all the way from Germany by bicycle. Is it worth the effort, I don’t
know. Only if you enjoy cycling itself and it’s not a very unusual and cool
story anymore, even during our not so long trip we met quite a few of other
cyclists, one being Dorota’s friend from Poland.
After having a “breakfast” in front of the
market, the sad moment of farewell came, Eduardas wanted to start his journey
back home. That was the last time I had any contact with him though it would be
nice to stay in touch. I hope he is doing well back there.
Wishing him good luck we went to an
internet café to check mails and also to find a host in Dubrovnik via CS but
unsuccessfully. Amazingly the guy running the internet café could guess that
Dorota’s nationality when we entered, but it should be because of the
incredible amount of Polish tourists in the region :)
We came back to the main coastal road and
tried to hitch for several minutes at several places but in the end had to walk
further, out of the town. It was an old man who finally took us, a man at his
sixties but he wanted to exchange numbers with Dorota and invited her to his
home in Podgorica. As every driver he too asked whether we were lovers or not
and got the usual answer as in Amy Winehouse song: Just friends :) Speaking of
Amy Winehouse, it was funny that Eduardas, a fan of her, did not know that she
was dead, one more proof of the fact that travelling makes you live in another
world. Dorota knew her death but she had never listened to her until I finally
made her listen to her songs later. But let’s come back to our old man; as you
see he was careful by asking. It’s a good place to share the link of the funny
Viagra commercial I
think :)
Anyway he was kind enough to bring us to
the very center of Kotor, the town we wanted to see, and we got out at the
entrance of the old town. The old town of Kotor was better than in Budva; it
was more touristic as well, there were 2 giant cruise ships and as you can
guess therefore lots of British and American tourists.
We faced two challenges in general when we
wanted to walk around in a town where we did not stay at a home or hotel: 1.
Find a city map 2. Find somewhere to leave the backpacks. The first mission is
generally very easy, you handle it at the tourist information which was just at
the entrance of the town in Kotor and you get advices and recommendations too,
but the second one is not that trivial although we didn’t have any problem with
that either. Generally cafes are good places for it, so we began to ask people
but separately. It didn’t last too long since the first café I asked did accept
to put my backpack in kitchen and then when I brought Dorota her backpack too.
It was great to be able to walk free and light like birds.
So we walked again through the tight and
very small, labyrinth-like streets and after seeing all the recommended sights
we went to the stairs leading to the castle at the top of the hill above Kotor.
But before that just at the corner where the way to the castle began there was
a guy standing in front of a shop who looked like a Turk with darker skin etc.,
so we asked whether he was Turkish or not but he was an Israeli; as he told me
he is a Sefarad and his ancestors escaped from Spain to Turkey like many Jews
had to do at that time. He filled our water bottle and advised us not to go up
in the heat of noon; but we didn’t listen to his advice (a very big mistake
actually but what to do, we were planning to reach Dubrovnik at the end of the
day) After saying a goodbye to our friend, we began to climb.
When you climb a little ramp and the
buildings of the old town end, you see the ticket seller, if you want to go up
you have to pay 3 Euros. We asked for a student discount but there wasn’t any. The
moment we heard that we should have looked really sad and poor enough, so when
Dorota bought her ticket and I was trying to work my way through all the coins
I had, the lady made a gesture like “Ok go on poor students” :) So we got
practically a 50% discount!
The walk upstairs was like walking in hell
although I’m not so sure whether hell is as tiring, probably not. Giving short
breaks throughout the long and hard journey and chatting with other people
trying to do the same and also with the water sellers who earn their bread
thanks to the heat. A water seller who gave us his own seat actually was a
middle-aged man who kept on asking about Istanbul and the economy of Turkey.
The most important problem in the region seems to be the economy, as it should
be in every country normally, frequently asked questions about my country were
about the economy and its so called “good” situation, although it’s just
another bubble in my point of view.
When we finally achieved our aim, we encountered
a beautiful view upon Kotor and the beautiful bay enclosed by green mountains.
So it was definitely worth 3 Euros. After having some photos with Dorota’s
camera, I didn’t take one with me, we went this time all the way down. In such situations my mother always tells a
joke about going down (or up) a slope: They asked a camel whether he likes
going down or up a slope. He replied: Is the straight road in your ass? (Düz
kıçınıza mı battı in Turkish) A wise
camel.
After making a visit to the city fountain
to fill our bottle and wash our faces, we went to the café where we left our
backpacks. Since they had been nice to us we decided to sit in the café and
eat/drink something, like the Montenegrian plate with cheese and olives and
prosciuttos too. The official drink of our trip was crni caj (black tea),
whenever we could find it of course. I used to be tea addict but after my
psychiatrist told me not to drink any caffeinated stuff; I hadn’t been drinking
tea, only occasionally. But during the trip I didn’t care so much about the
psychiatrist at all, forgetting to take my pills from time to time, drinking
alcohol, drinking tea, but more importantly of course feeling good. Maybe he
was wrong, is psychiatry a science anyway?
So the time came and we walked out of the
old town and asked the woman in the tourist information about the direction to
Dubrovnik and continued to walk to the outskirts of Kotor in the direction she
told us. Finally the lucky guy was a pharmacist who was driving to somewhere
near the Croatian border to bring a medicine to a woman.
The road from Kotor to Dubrovnik should be
among the nicest roads in the world, it goes along the beautiful coast all the
time and the beauty of the bay is amazing. There are some small islands on the sea as well with some monasteries upon them. According to what our driver told us, the Turkish pirates came to the Gulf of Kotor to rape women and plunder everything during 16th century; those Ottomans, they loved women and treasures so much...They were right in coming there, since it looks like a piece of heaven.What however made our trip even better was
the CD of the pharmacist; both Dorota and I were a little bit bored of Balkan
music at that time, so it was good to hear some well known foreign songs like Lemon Tree. The car was
very comfortable too; we could go on riding forever. But finally we arrived to
the border where he actually turned back, so he went out of his way just for
us. As Dorota says in such situations: Such a nice guy!
We walked through the borders, exiting Montenegro
and entering Croatia. When we were a few meters inside Croatia we began to
hitch. Just after a minute or so a black Mercedes stopped…
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