I haven’t taken an overnight bus in a while…. And it’s because it’s pretty horrible.
I actually have a magical power- I can fall asleep on any mode of transportation almost immediately in whatever position. So I wasn’t too worried… it was supposed to be 10 hours so I would arrive in Tivat, Montenegro by 840 then take a local bus 20km down the coast to Kotor. How easy!
Buses in the Balkans are quite the trek. And I hear trains are worse! It took 13 hours to arrive to Tivat and another hour and a half to arrive to my hostel. Almost 15 hours traveling from point A to point B…. Partially this has to do with how many stops we did along the way to pick up people from different towns, also we stopped several times for bathroom breaks, and of course we spent almost two hours at the border, and the roads are very narrow and windy. I felt like I was woken up every 2 hours for my passport, or people walking past my seat, or yelling outside. The woman behind me at one point woke me up to ask me to move my seat into the upright position when she had her seat back. I was just like you’re tacky and I hate you.
July 28 2015
At about 8am, when I woke up from my string of naps, holyyyyy shit the view just bus even was amazing! I have never seen something like this- aqua blue water with mountains and blue skies.
At one point, somewhere in Montenegro, we had to switch buses, which I of course was unaware of. Lucky for me, these two Serbian girls from Nis adopted me and told me what was going on and kind of held my hand through the transfers.
So I haven’t spent much time in Serbia, but the things I have noticed:
-Serbians have delicious food and it’s not very expensive
-Cheese, meat, and bread tend to the bulk of their food
-A lot of people do speak English! And very well!
-People are very friendly and helpful to tourists :)
-The men are HUGE and the women are beautiful! Really amazing eyes for both parties.
-Not all people in this area like their neighboring countries for a variety of different reasons.
Also, in Montenegro, they technically have their own language, but it’s like a different dialect of Serbian.
The two Serbian girls helped me find my bus and I was off for what I thought would be a 20 minute ride to Kotor center! But again the roads were so narrow and windy and cars literally had to back up to let the bus go…. I thought that renting a car would be cool to drive down the coast of the Balkans, but with the way the roads are and how people drive on it, I think driving would be the scariest most stressful experience.
When I finally got to Kotor, ah no picture could do it justice. Unfortunately, cruise ships make daily stops here so the old town is SO crowded of tour groups! After I put my bags down, I went just to grab something to eat and a coffeeeee
but I was so turned off by the amount of people and of course it was a million degrees and with all the sweating I have been doing, the water looked too inviting to not swim.
I stayed at Montenegro4U, an amazing hostel run by these two GIANT Montenegrin guys Boban and Marko. I don’t know if they were brothers or just friends but they had the same build- like almost 2 meters tall and probably welllll over 220lbs. They were super lax and didn’t have a great lax environment at the hostel with lots of planned events (boat tours/hiking tours/pub crawls etc). The hostel was RIGHT on the water so I of course was the happiest. Also, like a block down the road there was this shopping center that had everything! Grocery store, pharmacy, cosmetic store! I was able to buy a bunch of random things, nail polish included, to be ready to beach it up for the next couple days :D
Layed on the beach for hours chatting with a Brazilian named Michele who just moved to Rotterdam, Holland for his master’s program (ejem-Robby, let’s go to Spain) and an American that was doing an extended trip through Europe.
After, to the old town – still lots of people but so much more enjoyable without the sweltering heat!
Also there are cats everywhere- they actuallly have a cat muesuem that part of the ticket entry goes to feeding the cats of the town.
I went to bed relatively early that night after some long chats with the “grandpas and grandmas” that decided not to go out on the pub crawl. Even at night, the moon illuminates the water and mountains. I may or may not have fallen asleep for a bit listening to the water and admiring the stars and enjoying the breeze. If I hadn’t been woken up by an Aussie and two Finnish girls, I honestly would have spent the night outside…
Side note: It turns out one of my friends from the USA was looking for his next destination and he decided to meet me in Kotor and travel with me for a bit! After traveling alone for quite some time, I was pretty excited to be meeting someone that I knew (we actually realized this is our third time meeting ever). He actually got in around midnight and figured I was out- but no I am pretty lame hehe- and ended up at a 8 euro trance show in the old town with the people from the hostel.
July 29 2015
I woke up at 730AM because I am crazy and really can’t sleep in when I am in a dorm style hostel… The old town is really amazing without herds of people.
I was also able to hike up the fortress without having to pay the 3 euro fee to enter! The early bird gets the (free) worm!
Even though the sun still wasn’t completely up and the side of the mountain that I was climbing was in the shade the whole time, I was DRENCHED within minutes of starting. Fortresses really need to stop being on crazy tall hills… Talk about some fasted cardio.
I really don’t know the history behind the fortress because I haven’t looked it up, but the view…..
Of COURSE my real camera died, but luckily iPhones have a decently good camera. I really wanted to hike up to the to again at sunset because I was told it was really amazing to watch the sun set behind the mountains.
I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some fresh bread for breakfast and feasted before heading to the beach and running into Eden in the common room at the hostel!
We had a perfect beach day with a bunch of people from the hostel. It is way too hot to enjoy anything else other than swimming… And like Americans, did what we do best: day drinking!
Finally around 17h we decide it’s time to hike up the fortress with some newfound Australian, British, and Albanian friends with wine and beer.
Again, so hot even though the sun was setting…. And I broke a bottle of wine like a fool on the cobblestone right before entering the fortress so I had to run and find another one that was like 3 times as expensive as the one I had bought in the grocery store earlier -_-
We met a really cool Dutch girl at the top of the fortress that kind of joined our group for the rest of the evening. She was staying at a different hostel but was also traveling solo.
After a DELICIOUS seafood filled dinner- I don’t even think we talked during dinner we were all so hungry-
back to the hostel! Somehow I got talked into going to the pub crawl even though I was like seconds from falling asleep. I don’t normally like pub crawls at hostels- it’s normally a crowd that’s trying to just get really drunk and do shots and stay up all night.. Meh I have been on a few and I never really enjoy them that much. This one was actually really fun because the bars we were going to were outside bars so we could actually talk and not be screaming at each other over super loud music. I only had a beer though because we had stopped drinking for like three hours which is just enough time for the buzz to be gone and the tiredness to set in.
The old town at night is so cool! The roads are lit up and stones really shine.
I think I was one of the first to go back though- I was le tired from the sun and beer all day.. Waking up at 630AM for our 710AM bus to Dubrovnik was hard enough without being hungover :P
Montenegro was SO beautiful. It was actually really hard to leave the next morning- thank god we had bought our bus tickets or I would have stayed for another day. The best part for me though is that it was relaxing! I didn’t have to go museums or see historical buildings. I was just able to enjoy the company of the people I met- which by the way are very different than people I have met traveling through Western Europe. The Balkans are a bit more adventurous since it’s harder to find reliable bus and train timetables and not as many people speak English. It also seems like its more about experiencing the city and culture by living it and exploring versus just going to see the top 5 tourist attractions. They are both different, I love all the places I have been able to visit, but even though I am moving from city to city rather quickly, it’s so much more relaxing because I can just be! It is 100000 degrees so I don’t really recommend traveling in this area during the summer. At least for the next few days though I will be on the coast so when it gets too hot, I can just jump on in the Adriatic Sea :)
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