Monday 30th August

 

30/08/04 Day 58

Here beginneth the first day of what seemed like a week, but was actually just 3 days, of "Question mark" travelling.

We got too early, but the bristly balcony was still grey, although not nasty enough to supply Heathers daily morning sugar hit, and we were waiting for our bus, listening to the winds of change (for the 2nd time at that bus station) at 8:30.

The bus followed the coast for a bit, before heading inland, and then coming back to the coast on the Southern side of the fjord. Then things got a bit beautiful. The best bit was about half way up, where the road took a sharp turn to the right, creating a huge flat expanse of water backed by a beautiful curving cliff face on the far side. The hazy morning mist added to the serene & stillness, making the whole place seem very idyllic? Another appealing aspect was the road along which we drove: a small, windy, picturesque road? far too small for our huge bus (as most of the cars flashed!) and lined with lovely brick houses, many with their own beach sections and pontoons.

The head of the fjord, and Kotor, was less dramatic than the middle, with the surrounding mountainsfar less steep. Kotor's old town was a perfect mix of clean, pretty, real, busty, grimy, classy, crushed etc etc. A Budva, Dubrovnik Split, Chesky, Ravnij + all rolled into one. Full points, I say.

The hike up the very steep hill, following old roman (?) walls that ran up the ridge, was a bit grueling but just about worth it - not for the view of the fjord, from attest as far the old town and the ruins (very badly kept up, blur), despite the 1€ admission and the "Armenia is helping to renovate this place" graffitied sign). We had time for an ice cream and to buy some long beggar we set off into the unknown, hoping, possibly to be in Albania that night.

Following the now customary rendition of the 'Winds of change' at Budva, we bordered a bus at 13:30 for Ulcinj, and headed off down the rugged Montenegran coast line. I hope that this journey did not inspire me to write reams about it, because if it did, I've forgotten. I seem to remember it being a hot, a huge, huge quarry, and a hot blonde...

I remember the arrival in Ulcinj, though, because it was the start of a string of good luck that saw us in beautiful Ohrid 24 hours later: as we stood on the pavement wondering where to go, an English speaking Ulcinjan, hailed us from above, told us he could call "the Albanian bus-man" (later discovered to be a tricky nut to crack) who would pick us up at 6am next there (coming to road side) and we could stay in his hotel (and use the kitchen of his restaurant) for $10 each. Initially I thought we'd been duped, but as time went by I think began to entertain the possibility that it was a rather lucky outcome.

As if life travelling through the Balkans, in stunning weather, without a care in the world, is not good enough, I have to put up with emails from my parents telling me that I am one of the top 30 students in my year and thus deserexas (still waiting to clarify that) for doing well in an easy subject!

To be fair, I'm actually a lot annoyed.firstly, performance is not effort, secondly, what's the point of awarding good grades if you don't tell people about it before hand, thirdly I don't need extra money, whereas a lot of people do. Considering the people I've come across who are almost kill themselves working with no money to spend on having fun, I don't think I should be rewarded or rewarded with money.

But the £30 is 'congratulations money' from Mum + Dad put us both in a good mood as we discussed mo-peds in Southern Italy and Gondola rides a venice - so much so that we didn't mind Ulcinj being one of the worst places we've seen (tonnes of people fear) noise / congestion - classic British resort scene) or that the kitchen really wasn't that great. The pasta and sausages was tasty and freed up some room & weight in my bag, and we were in bed relatively early in preparation for our early start tomorrow.

A couple of points that can be inserted here: we have noticed that we have both started sounding very posh indeed. Oh rather! And Heather would like to talk about children---.

Correction. Heather, who is behaving rather like a chicken right now, refuses to sit up in bed and put pen to paper, so her comment (re. chicken is as follows: "in Dubrovnik, where we stayed, there were chickens up a tree. Which I thought was very clever and a very amusing sight."

Note similarity between above 'literary' skills and average primary school, short story writing ability.

Extra POT - we want to make it known that Kotor / put is an ideal place for a holiday due to the lack of tourists, the balcony views, the French/Italian style village-streets and the magnificent mountains.

Kotor was one of Heathers favourite old townsand she could have liked to have stayed for a night. She nearly didn't make it up the mountain hill but her stubbornness prevailed and she "marched" fourth". We too brought cheese from a crazy lady who shook it up her + nose before selling it to us, and later we discovered a maggot in it.

Another crazy lady (in Budva), when declaring Budva + Kotor "Beachgool", was being on, but when she called Ulcinj the same she was we realised that she only knew the one objective, and in fact, Ulcinj is not Beachgool, even with the air conditioning.