How would you think of a rich Russian
businessman? Probably as shown in many Hollywood movies; riding a luxurious
car, speaking English with the famous Russian accent and having a bad-tempered
wife. Well that’s exactly what we have experienced in the black Mercedes at the
border of Croatia.
The first thing we encountered other than
the Russian accent of course was the bad temper of the angry wife. Dorota got
into the car first, sitting behind the driver but for a while I couldn’t do the
same and guess why? Because the Russian woman lying down comfortably on her
seat adjusted to its last position, didn’t want to sacrifice even a tiny bit of
her comfort. My legs were too thick to fit in the small gap between the back-
and front seats. The man tried to convince her for a while to readjust the seat
to its original sitting position but she got immediately angry; so in the end
we had to say that it’s perfectly OK for me. I put my legs horizontally to the
right, trying at the same time not to make the car dirty with my shoes. It was
a painful ride for me but thank God Dubrovnik is so close to the border so I
didn’t suffer too much.
Of course our driver liked to talk as all
Russian businessmen do. Actually they were not Russians but Ukrainians; anyway it’s
all the same :) So we learned that he is
in the fashion/textile business; making connections between Russia and famous
brands/fashion houses such as Gucci, Versace etc. and he has been running this
thing for sth. like 25 years from San
Francisco, where he also lives with her wife. He said that when they were
young, they also hitched in Europe, but he was quite amazed at the fact that it
still works. They came for holiday; rented a car and were traveling around
there.
When we were on the road to Dubrovnik it
was just before sunset so he stopped somewhere to let Dorota -and himself too-
to take pictures with the beautiful sea at the background; a mixture of colors
blue, green and red, any colour you like as Pink Floyd would say.
Finally we arrived to Dubrovnik and
although he missed the turn to the city center he made a u-turn to be able to
leave us somewhere appropriate. If his wife didn’t intervene he would probably
had taken us to the very center of the town but it was good enough for us; we
were just at top of the city and had to walk down.
Walking down the stairs at Dubrovnik
reminded me of the countless stairs leading to Galata/Beyoğlu district in my
city Istanbul; one famous example though nothing similar to the ones in
Dubrovnik is this one: http://www.artfacts.net/exhibpics/16896.jpg
, a photo taken by Cartier-Bresson by the way.
After we had arrived to the very center of
Dubrovnik, just at the entrance of the old town, we paid a visit to tourist
information, as usual to get some maps and have a look at some other stuff like
a Playboy party advertisement or another
ad for a different party with the motto “The best night you’ll never remember”.
The lady in the tourist information couldn’t get rid of us easily since we went
back again to ask for free internet; which however in Dubrovnik doesn’t exist
contrary to what the lady said to us. Actually unlike other countries in
Balkans nothing is for free in Dubrovnik (except water) and moreover it can be
said that everything is too expensive. We found it out firstly in the small
square in front of the tourist information.
An old woman, probably at her mid-sixties,
approached us just at the moment we got there and asked if we want to rent her
room. Our rule of thumb for the accommodation throughout the journey was 15
Euros for both of us, so anything around that price would be acceptable but we
were shocked when we heard the price: 80 Euros per night! And that not for a
hotel but for a room in an old woman’s house! No ma’m thanks. We have seen her
several times more; well it seemed like she was struggling to find dumb people
willing to pay that price.
After this not so particularly good sign,
in financial terms, we decided to walk a bit in the old town and eat something
at a restaurant having wi-fi. Well when it comes to food you’ll hardly find
anything else than Italian in Croatia, of course for us it just meant pizza and
not all kinds of it too, no pricy ingredients such as seafood etc., so by this
process of elimination you’ll basically come down to margherita, the cheapest
one. The restaurant we have chosen among many in the old town was one who
claimed to offer wi-fi. However in the Croatian (or let’s say Dalmatian) coast
you have to learn that when you seem like poor hippies with backpacks, ordering
a margherita for two and not drinking anything, you have to pay for wi-fi too.
But that’s just the beginning. You can’t even be a gentleman there, leaving
tips at the end generously, no the Croatian way is much better, they don’t let
you bother with such issues and kindly take 25% tip themselves, what a great
service! We felt extremely happy about it of course. Thinking something like “I
have decided to take 4 Euros as tip, well I could take even 20 but I’m too kind,
goddamn it” in his mind the waiter asked “OK?”, not a real question of course just a
rhetorical one. Well, dobro.
After our dinner we decided to walk
further, to discover the city a bit and more importantly find a beach to sleep.
The city was full of Turkish tourists
and not surprisingly some Polish too. A woman said that there were about
thousand Turkish tourists in Dubrovnik at that time, due to the Ramadan holiday
in my homeland. I was amazed to hear Turkish at every corner and spoke with
many of them, hoping that my countrymen could help me and Dorota to find a
shelter. Instead what we got were compliments to Dorota, made by women: She is very beautiful, has beautiful eyes, hmm
nice hair, oh yes she is sweet… No there hasn’t been even a single exception
throughout the whole trip, all the time Turkish
women kept on saying “She is beautiful”, in Croatia, in Bosnia, wherever we saw
them. Sometimes I translated to make her happy, sometimes not but once, I think
it was in Bosnia, a Turkish woman made so many passionate compliments for which
I had to thank her in the end. Nowadays
I’m thinking of opening a website to help Turkish lesbians to find Polish
partners, I believe there would be a huge demand coming from my beautiful
country :)
There was a concert on a square in the old
town, people gathered to listen to the orchestra. That evening we couldn’t understand
what it was but next day we found out, from the best newspaper ever “The
Dubrovnik Times”, that it was the
opening concert of a festival and the orchestra was conducted by the famous
conductor Zubin Mehta. Anyway after spending a little bit of time watching the
orchestra and the legs of people sitting on a platform made for protocol I
suppose, or maybe just stupid enough people who pay for a concert to which you
could listen for free, we left the concert for our not so artistic needs.
We walked out from the other gate of the
old town, went to a beach which was dark, looking perfect for sleep and
completely empty. A nice band was playing some rock’n’roll and blues classics
at a bar next to our beach. What more you
could expect? We could hide our backpacks in the bushes at the back and no one
could see them; at that time it was just a perfect place for two homeless
people. We swam, tried to climb to the platform on the sea which we could after
several unsuccessful attempts. To sleep on the platform in the middle of the
sea was just one of those stupid ideas :) Anyway after swimming we decided to
hide our backpacks in the bushes and to go to the old town again, maybe drink something
too. But you have to know that nothing could be that perfect, the best laid
plans of mice and men can go awry. Just as we were climbing the stairs leading
to the way from the old town, a man came and locked the metal entrance door of
the beach which had to be seemed as useless to us before. He told us there is
another entrance to the beach, that of the beach club at the other end of the
beach, but it will be closed as well since they don’t want drunken people to
swim and die afterwards.
So, shit, what to do? The solution we found
was to leave our backpacks there in the bushes which should be a safe spot and
just take our sleeping bags with us, then we could sleep anywhere we like. Of
course we had our money, passport etc. with us as well; so even if someone had
decided to steal our backpacks he would be very disappointed to find some dirty
clothes :) So with our sleeping bags in hand we began our quest for a good and
comfortable spot.
There was a small bay we had seen before
and since we couldn’t find so many other options we decided to spend the night
there. A small stony platform up several meters from the beach, next to some
small hotels facing the bay. It was relatively quiet there compared to other
locations. So we laid our sleeping bags on that small platform and slept. Well
about 3 o’clock I guess I woke up to find her awake. She was unable to sleep
comfortably so to give her more space I spent the rest of the night lying down
on the ground just next to the platform, some 20-30 cm. down but considerably
less comfortable. One of several reasons why I would choose being a female if I
had the choice, everywhere, anytime you get all the privileges just because you
have an extra X chromosome instead of Y :)
About 5 o’clock I woke up just before the
dawn. I saw the sun popping up from behind the mountains, it was really interesting
since almost instantly the sun rose up fully, I mean you could hardly see any
part of the Sun but then instantly you could see the whole. However it was not
the most amazing thing I saw.
While Dorota was sleeping peacefully and I
was looking at the beautiful view, sea, sun, sky and hills, I decided to stand
up and have a look at the beach down a few meters from where we slept and
couldn’t believe my eyes. A man completely naked shared some moments of
pleasure with his lover on the beach. Of course they could not see me, but all
the hotels facing the beach if there were anyone awake in those rooms the first
thing they would see would be a couple having sex in a typical missionary
position. Once you realized that, suddenly the selective perception began to
operate and all the other sound waves than the ones coming from the repetitive
crash of two bodies were filtered, or in other words porn radio is on! I was
glad that I didn’t pay for the sex theatre in Amsterdam, in Croatia you don’t
go to sex theatre the sex theatre comes to you :) After the end of the play
they dressed up again and went away, I had to applaud them for their nice
performance but apparently they didn’t care for the audience too much. If you
are interested in such a show, or if you want to realize one of your fantasies
send me a private message and I will tell the exact location to you :)
Dorota woke up about 7-8. A few minutes
before her waking up a homeless man who had spent the time after 3 o’clock next
to me apparently, stood up and went away, it was like seeing ourselves in a
mirror; probably someone could think the same about us :) After she woke up of course the first concern was what happened to our bags, were there still
waiting to be picked up by us or were our dirty clothes in the hands of a
pervert Croatian smelling them and wearing Dorota’s underwear? When we got to
that beach again, whose gates were opened, we found out that our bags were not
that hidden as we thought to be the night before, one could easily see them. In
order to see the city and the castle walls at daylight we had to find a place
to leave those heavy friends of ours.
So the first place to ask was the beach
club there, but we couldn’t find anyone to ask inside. But we got lucky, Dorota
asked a man, at first thinking that he was working at the beach club, whether
we could leave our backpacks somewhere. He was not a worker but a tourist just
like us, however he had a car and offered us to leave our backpacks in the
luggage of his Mitsubishi, if I remember correctly. His name was Jürgen, a
German yoga teacher who comes to Croatian coast with his pupil to practice
yoga. I’m somewhat more inclined to make fun of all such stuff which started as a
trend for rich people who look for inner peace for their rightly not so
peaceful life and nowadays it’s also treated like sport. But speaking of Jürgen
he was actually a man of inner peace, his way of talking, walking, chalking,
stalking etc.. were so peaceful, actually he is the definition of the word.
At first we hesitated a bit about his offer
since leaving our backpacks in a locked private car may not be the safest
option but you could easily trust Jürgen, a man at his 50s by the way. He is one of those good-hearted people, who radiate waves of peace and happiness. After leaving backpacks we wanted to swim, take shower and have a look upon the view of the
city from atop of city walls, which should be beautiful according to the
reference of Dorota’s mom who was in Dubrovnik just a little bit of a time ago
before her.
We paid for the entrance of the walls, me
paying a huge amount of money while Dorota was lucky to have her international
student card. The walls were nice but maybe not the most special thing on
Earth, so while for Dorota it was worth the money she paid, the same issue was
questionable for me due to the greater amount of money paid mainly. But it was
a nice walk anyway.
By the way one thing to note were the
Orthodox churches with people kissing the icons and leaving money which lie in
an open grail. It is the Holy Grail I assume :) Whenever we entered a church we
felt like taking the money but our good education of bourgeois ethics in the
end proved to be dominant. Anyway I’m sure we could spend the money better than
monks and priests :)
After the city tour we went back and found
Jürgen at the beach lying, although it was a little bit hard at first because
there were many people sunbathing. But my eyes, as sharp as of an eagle, were
able to overcome this small problem. Afterwards we made an appointment with him to
meet at a small square at the entrance of the old town and while he was taking
his time to have a look at Dubrovnik we went to swim at the small bay where we
spent the night and washed ourselves in the shower; it was a relief to be able
to make use of shampoos and shower gels we had; the feeling of being clean is
one of the prerequisites for a good day mostly.
So we, two unusually clean travelers, met
Jürgen again. He told us before that he will go to the small town Trpanj, which
is also on the way to Split and he said that he could also give us a ride and then we could decide on whether we’d like to stay there or not, the
town was very pretty according to Jürgen. So we thought of course why not?
The ride to Trpanj was a good one, but the
only issue was the Christian music Jürgen was listening. Respecting the driver’s
taste of music is the only thing you can do but that music was a little bit too
much for us :) I can listen some Christianity-inspired music such as Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion all day long but those hymns..oh God, glad that you don’t
exist, how popular those things would have been if you really existed :) One has
to give credit to Satan; death metal is more listenable :)
It was a relief when we got to Trpanj. He
asked for the price of the hotel at which he stayed and it seemed a little bit
too much for us, so instead he left us at the center of the town. We have to
thank him again for what he did for us, who is now also a Facebook friend of
mine like many others :) Trpanj is a small coastal town in a peninsula, so we spent
almost one hour turning away from the road of Split to the interior parts of
the peninsula to reach Trpanj at the other end. There was not so much to do in
Trpanj, it was a quiet little town but nothing special. So what we did was to
eat pizza and drink beer at the seaside, where Dorota was washing her dirty
shoes covered accidentally in asphalt before and because her flip-flops were broken
too she had to wear my flip-flops with a giant size for her, although her foot
size is not small compared to the Turkish girls, well she is also exactly as
tall as I am, only there I understood that I have feet of a giant, when she
wore my flip-flops. Of course I had to wear my sport shoes in the heat of
Croatia, not particularly comfortable. Needless to say when I got back home to
Istanbul my parents just threw my shoes out instantly to the garden, I had to
run to the shower to wash myself and meanwhile my father took care of the
shoes, washing them completely in water with detergent and leaving them outside
for two days :)
So after these three exciting activities we
decided to take a boat to the town lying at the opposite end of the sea, a town
called Ploce which is on the way to Split. The short ferry trip was nice but it
was unfortunately getting late. When we got to Ploce we soon found out that it
was not an easy task to hithchike to Split. There were not so many cars it seemed.
As usual we tried to get out of town which we did but it wasn’t clear which way
was the right way to Split thanks to the no sign policy of Balkan states.
Dorota asked two old men about it and they confused our minds as well, while
finally a bike driver told us to walk 1 km in a direction where we would see
the turn to Split. So we took the way he told us, it was really a nice road by
the way, just near a forest, walking in such a fresh air made absolutely fun.
But half an hour passed and although we walked a tempo there was still no sign
of any turn. Understandably for the motorbike of that guy it was a short road
but for us, carrying 12 kgs on our backs but still managing to walk fast it was
not that short.
Finally we found the crossroad he talked
about but it got completely dark after a little while we got there. Since there
were no traffic lights at all we chose to wait in front of some very
small hotels/restaurants for drivers. They were watching us trying to hitchhike
and probably having fun as well. We asked for water, which they gave and also
for beer since a small market was found to be there as well, although it was
closed the woman running the hotel was also taking care of that small market so
she opened it again. She could speak a little bit of German so that’s how we
got along with each other. We spent hours trying to hitchhike and just when we
were out of hope since it got really late a car which passed us by made a u-turn
to pick us. And guess from which nationality? A mixture of Polish and Russian!
The guys who took us had chosen Croatia as
their holiday spot and they were going to a small town called Baska Voda where
they wanted to take us as well. So we got out at Baska Voda although probably
it would have been better for us if they left us at the main road, then maybe
we could find another car/truck going to Split but anyway we were in Baska Voda,
you can read it as “just another small coastal town of Croatia”. Trying to
figure out what to do, I forced Dorota to try our luck at the main road in
order to make it to Split as soon as possible because it was absolutely clear
in Baska Voda there was nothing to do.
We found the way back thanks to a German
family spending their holiday there but as much as we tried no one was
stopping. As in all the occasions where we tried to hitchhike at night, Dorota
was angry and nervous so we went down again to sleep at the beach. Our plan was
having a good sleep on a comfy beach-chair and then wake up early in the
morning to go to Split. The second part became true actually but don’t ask about
the first!
It was about 2 or 3 when they woke me up.
Poor Dorota had to wake up even before me. Yes you guessed it correct, what we
saw were drunken Croatian guys, three of them. I was of course angry about
being waken up at that hour but what to do?
The next four hours were spent talking
about Serbians, how Croats kicked them in their ass all the time, the Croats
stopped Ottomans and saved all others, Croats rule, Serbians suck, they would
fuck every Serbian wherever they see one etc. I guess the reknowned fascist
Franjo Tudjman would be proud of such a generation. Of course the foremost non-Serbian
Serbian nationalist Dorota kept on arguing with them, while the others always
accused her of knowing nothing which made her even angrier. If you really want
to make a woman angry do not take her views in a discussion seriously, degrade
her self-esteem by either accusing her of not knowing anything or making her feel
as if her level of intelligence is not enough to grasp the issue as you do.
Well it applies for all girls even if they are Polish as it seems.
The guys were celebrating actually the
birthday of one of them so we celebrated it together, drank alcohol and smoked
with them. While the birthday child and the eldest guy were really good and naive
guys, the half Bosnian-half Croat guy who claimed to be a Muslim was definitely
a cleverer and foxier one. When it was about 6 o’clock and finally they had to
sleep as well, he tried to tease Dorota in smart ways :) Never trust a Muslim
:P Recently I heard from someone who went to Russia that there is a saying
there: Beware your life from Chechens, your goods from Azeris and your wife from
Turks :) Is it a coincidence that all these three nations are Muslims, I don’t
think so :P
In order to stick to the plan we had to
leave early so by my wish especially we were again on the road after eating
burek. We went to the main road and soon after a truck going all the way to
Split took us. The driver, a young man, may be the nicest Croat we have met,
along with a man I will soon tell about. After all the nationalist crap we had
to listen, the driver was sounding like Gandhi to me. He was carrying a flag of
Croatia in his car so I expected him to be a nationalist as well which seem to
be a rule in Serbia and especially Croatia but what he said was touching. Back
then during the Yugoslavian wars he volunteered for the military but he said
that he isn’t proud of it, he wouldn’t have done the same if such a thing
happened now with his mindset of today. Having a purely socialistic view he
claimed that they fought for independence but now the power is not at the hands
of the people but of rather corrupt politicians and businessmen, sucking the
blood of people. Moreover he tries to take care of his small daughter alone
since he is divorced. So he works, drives hours, days and weeks while his
relatives took care of the daughter at those times whose photo he has also
shown to us. I felt deeply moved and gave my e-mail, phone number etc. for the
case if he ever comes to Turkey; such guys are making world a better place.
He left us at some small distance from the
center of Split and thus we were in Split in the morning having lots of time to
visit the city and still being capable of realizing our plan of making it to
Mostar by the evening which we also did.
The first thing done was to order crni caj
at a café near the port of course. By asking the sweet ice-cream girl working
for the café we also got the approval for leaving our backpacks there. A great
start to begin to discover the city of Split.
The old town of Split we found to be more
beautiful than Dubrovnik; because of mainly two reasons: the town of Split is
much older than Dubrovnik with things remaining from Roman period and also the
synthetic beauty of Dubrovnik whereas Split has a much more natural feeling
being not that well reserved as Dubrovnik. I also have to say that the best
tourist information award goes to Split who offer sim-cards for free with even
a little bit of credit in it. It was of great help to me; since in order to be
able to say I’m well and everything is fine I always had to find a way to talk
with Turkey which was sometimes problematic because you generally can’t top up
the card you bought in one land in another and the constant changes of borders
and countries made it a little bit complex and costly for me.
We walked through the city and tried to see
the important things. I told Dorota to see the synagogue as well so we entered
the synagogue of Split too. The guy in the synagogue, who has been working
there for tens of years told me that I’m the first one from Turkey to visit it,
just for the record I’m writing it here, I hope to take an important place in
the history of Turkey with this big achievement :)
After this historical sightseeing we have
visited both the fish- and fresh-markets, which Dorota found authentic and was
amazed by them since in Poland such things don’t exist. Well just wait for the
ones in my country Dorota :)
After the slices of watermelon were eaten
on a bench we decided that it was to start our journey to Mostar. For that we
presumably had to go almost all the way we did in the morning back. After a few
hitching attempts with no positive result, we decided that we have to go out of
Split which we did by taking a city bus. The bus took us back to the highway,
where after some time a man took us into his car.
He was the greatest guy of Croatia,
together with the truck driver of course. Making funny jokes all the time about
us two traveling as a boy and girl, how I will take her to Istanbul to marry and
add her to my harem, how we sleep together etc. he for sure made us laugh all
the time. He owns a cafe in a very nice small beach which is almost like
private. He took us there, fed us with
food, offered us beer, cigarettes and ice creams which he bought on the way.
His daughter also helped me in opening my Croatian phone line, and I’m not even
mentioning the beautiful sea. It was an incredible experience: once again: such
a nice guy!! Go and travel Balkans by hitchhiking but not for the sake of
seeing buildings, beautiful sea coasts or nature, only to meet such people like
him!
So after this amazing experience fully
happy and feeling lucky we went up to the main road again and caught a car quickly.
The driver told us that we don’t have to go all the way back and there is a
much shorter way to Mostar, so he left us a few kilometers away at the turn to
Mostar and Sarajevo. We waited there for a little bit of time but it was
definitely worth it. How could we know that we would meet the most amazing
woman of Bosnia? Our only woman driver throughout the journey stopped to take
us; at the first moment we were amazed by her perfect English, the most perfect
I have ever heard in Balkans. But her qualities as a person are even more
perfect than her English, which we found out in our time in Bosnia, the country
where we had the most amazing experiences with the best people on Earth…
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