Serbia and Montenegro- Near Death by Rakija!

26/08

Everyone enjoys a train ride but no one more than one Paris Petrovic, a local Belgrade man who was returning home from Croatia via a 20 hour train journey with his wife and two daughters ages 6 & 8. He was not in our compartment but barged in and started to make friends. He informed us that the best way to ride the train is to start with a line of coke followed by 10 beers and some pot. His parental techniques were questionable however his life and tourism advice was second to none as he owned ibikebelgrade (offering some fantastic deals) and pulled out some excellent one liners such as “The Balkans are like south east asia except more expensive and complicated”.

Arriving in Belgrade we said our goodbyes to Pairs and his family and headed off to our hostel. However our hostel informed us that they overbook and we could no longer stay with them which was not what we wanted at 9pm after an 8hour train ride. We eventually found a hostel and put our tired bodies to rest after a Loki burger.

27/08

Refreshed we awoke and assembled in the city square to join the free walking tour. The tour took us to the bohemian street, only surviving mosque in Belgrade (guarded by a hot Serbian police woman) and the fortress. From the vantage point of the fortress situated on top of a hill we could see almost all Belgrade including:

·         the confluence of the Danube and Sava

·         New Belgrade

·         War island – a strategic military island located between new and old Belgrade

·         All 7 of Belgrades main bridges including a brand new cable stayed number, Andy and I were frothing, while Finlay didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It was explained that they have so many bridges because Belgrade has no metro system and to ease traffic congestion they keep making more bridges…

·         During the NATO strikes of 1999 when NATO wanted to destroy key Serbian infrastructure (bridges) the locals all camped on the bridges and had huge parties creating a human shield for the bridges

·         A prominent building that was built by Tito initially as his offices; it then became a central TV station that was also bombed by NATO

·         Nude man statue

·         Boat night clubs

After the walking tour we checked out of our temporary hostel and arrived at Madness Hostel. We were greeted with a smile and pint of beer. Madness was full of characters; Mark the Swiss; Bryant the Dominican born New Yorker; Harriet the English freelance writer and employee of Madness hostel and Goran the always shirtless owner of Madness Hostel.

Upon laying eyes on Andy; Bryant immediately commented on the length of his green shorts. “Hey you were the guy on the walking tour with the short shorts!! I have photos of you on my ipad!” he exclaimed. “normal shorts are like a 5 or 6 but yours are a 9; I could nearly see your balls”. We had a new friend... Bryant could not only point interesting things out about Andy but also Finlay; Silent Bob. Yes Finlay looks exactly like Silent Bob, from the movie Jay and Silent Bob strike back.

Goran produced a bottle of homemade Rakija (which tastes like flavoured methanol) and between the 5 of us we downed it. As things got rowdy, doors nearly got ripped off hinges we decided it was time to hit up the famous boat night clubs on the Sava river.  We had a reservation for River Club which proved to be an interesting place. You had to stay at your table and couldn’t really interact with the locals plus there were half nude Serbian dancing girls in the middle of the club. The only real entertainment came from an Aussie girl and her NZ mate who were both extremely intoxicated and bets were taken on who would spew first. Confused by the situation Bryant went for a stroll to the other boats and soon came back with excellent news, a Drum & Bass club!! Swiftly exiting River Club we entered Povetarac and bossed the dance floor to the we hours of the morning.

Unbeknownst to us the next day some guys we had shared the reservation with at River Club called us up and demanded that we pay $200 that was owed on the tab. We only had a beer each so we offered to pay our part and later found out that the Aussie and NZ girls had racked the phenomenal amount up and then done a runner.

Rakija shots, breaking hostel door, break dancing for cab fare, club with trashed aussie and NZ girl, runner on the club 200$ debt, drum and base boat club, dominate club,  burger and finlay stealing belt and whipping himself

28/08

Getting home at 5 am, the wolfpack -1 were resigned to today being a slow day. But we were all keen to head out and do some sightseeing. Harriet, the killer free lance journalist and photographer chick from our new Madness Hostel directed us to both the Nikolas Tesla Museum, the Cathedral of St Sava, the largest orthodox temple in the world and the bombed-out buildings. First stop was the Tesla Museum, devoted to Nikolas Tesla which according to Wikipedia, was a Serbian-American inventor,physicist, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and futurist. He is best known for his contributions to the modern alternating current (AC) electrical supply system. Tesla's patents and theoretical work helped form the basis of wireless communication and radio. His many revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism were based on Michael Faraday's theories of electromagnetic technology. The coolest part of the museum was the various electromagnetic demonstrations with crazy lightning, fluorescent lightbulbs and various types of electricity generation devices. Fair to say the engineers in the group were frothing.

Next stop was the Cathedral of St Sava a church dedicated to Saint Sava, founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church and an important figure in medieval Serbia. Again according to Wikipedia,  It is built on the location where it is believed his remains were burned in 1595 by the Ottoman Empire's Sinan Pasha. From its location, it dominates Belgrade's cityscape, and is perhaps the most monumental building in the city. The building of the church structure is being financed exclusively by donations. However the lack of donations and corruption inherent in its construction has meant that after about 70 years the church is still not finished. But when it is it will be truly amazing. Nursing rakija hangovers, we skipped the bombed out building to head back to the hostel to nap- well earned and needed.

29/08

Our day was planned to start with another infamous MUNBATS pr- season training session. We decided to warm up with a jog to a random Belgrade park where we found some open grass to throw a ball. But a little more exploring led us to a long set of stairs alongside a monument and a lovely water feature. 10 reps up there and we moved on to another set of stairs to do a circuit of up and down stairs to step ups and then push ups. A quick game of American Football with the Dominicano we ran back in time to catch our man Paris’ ‘I Bike Belgrade’ Bike tour. Waiting at Republika square at 2 pm we could see no one so we checked the meeting point and that’s where we weren’t. But that left us able to head to Serbia’s Central Bank where we had heard cool stuff could be done.

Of most interest to us was their personalised bank note printing service. Reading through the history of currency in Serbia led us to the moment where we were able to acquire a bank note. With bank note in hand were like little kids checking each others notes. Next on the agenda was a quick coffee at the question mark kafana, a Belgrade establishment and a trip to the train station to purchase tickets for our next destination- Kotor via Podgorica. 

At the train station we were greeted by an extraordinaryily helpful elderly man who went about booking us 3 sleeper places in the overnight train the following night. He also got us a discount for a 3 person booking- legend!

With our last night in Belgrade confirmed we knew we needed to make the most of it. So staring on the Jelen’s, we were all fighting to keep up with Harro, who we knew was in a shifting mood. Then it was Bryant who set off with Goran to get our hands another bottle of homemade rakija . On their return Goran again was off to acquire some pizza for the 4 of us because when drinking rakija, eating is most definitely not cheating.

Then the night out can be summarised in the dot points seen below ( it’s not worth trying to explain it!)

• -          To the river club for more Povetarac action
• -          Dominating the d-floor with Harro- other two doing their own thing
• -          Met a British Hens night- chick who looked like sporty spice were in for a ripper time so good to be around, told me I had a better beard, Harro running off insulted
• -          Pulled out of the club by Bryant who had 6 Serbian girls whom they met at another club
• -          Wandered with them down the river under many Belgrade’s bridges to a dead end
• -          Forced to get bailed out by a security guard with guard dogs at a cement yard- cement all over our shoes. Security guard lets us in to his bunker to wash our shoes.
• -          Continue walking down dark back alleys chased by dogs to cable stay bridge where we took group selfies
• -          Walked across the bridge to end up in abandoned carpark, to walk over train tracks through a construction yard under the escort of a construction worker back to the river path.
• -          Finlay and Bryants banter; “you Kangaroo Jack, Silent Bob, mother f#*!$%. You sound like Rosa Parks!”
• -          Ended up at temporary beach volleyball arena to be chased out of the surrounding area by aggressive security guards.
• -          Arrived at the river in the morning light to catch a bus back to the city centre.
• -          Dancing in the city centre to the Might Boosh moon song

30/08

Getting home at exactly 6:36 am the thought ran through some of our minds to stay up and push through the pain that we had caused ourselves. But common sense got the better of us and we crashed for until 12:30 pm to awake to more pain than we went to sleep with- the rakija had done it again.

The possibility of the bike tour was out the window but we thought that hanging around the hostel could be boring. So the group decision was to head to the movies and finally see Batman, The Dark Knight Rises. With the help of our man Goran we established a location and a time so we headed off via our favourite bakery Taze for a feed and to stock up for our overnight sleeper train to Podgorica, Montenegro. Watching Batman for AUD $2.60 was a luxury but even more so it was appropriate given the movie running time and our train departure did not agree with each other forcing us to leave early. We are yet to see the ending!  Leaving Bryant glued to Batman we headed back to Madness, grabbed our stuff, said bye to Goran and headed to the train station. We immediately found our sleeper train and we were on board. In our 6 sleeper room we were joined by 3 classic whingeing poms; we were so happy it was a sleeper train otherwise their endless whingeing about Eastern Europe would’ve done our heads in. With all of us desperately in need of sleep, we all soon crashed to the constant rattle and screech of the Montenegrin train.

31/08

Arriving in Podgorica at close to 7am, deprived of sleep, we were all pretty keen to get to Kotor, in anticipation of some great swimming spots (im not calling them beaches anymore) and fabulous mountain scenery. The 7:55 am bus was our ticket there so after a coffee and a fruit tea we were on the bus. With Harro persisting with his Russian learning and Andy and I again passing out we were soon greeted by Kotor’s steep mountains rising up from the Bay below. Sensible directions from our Hostel made it easy to find and we were soon at Old Town Hostel Kotor in our 6 bed dorm locate in a 13^th century building. First stop was food and after the cheapness of Belgrade where we all spent $150 over 4 days including accommodation, food, 2 big nights out and a train to Belgrade, 3 euros for lunch seemed outrageous. Anyhow, we found a bakery where we purchased some chicken schnitzel rolls and headed to the port to check out some of the multimillion dollar boats docked in the Bay.

Next on our agenda was to get wet. So we located the closest swimming spot and headed there in anticipation of some more fake shark attacks and Andy backflips. The water served its purpose by getting us wet ASAP and as the location for synchronised swimming competitions but there is something about a gravel beach which is odd for an Australian- but that’s not to say we didn’t enjoy it. We don’t get anywhere near the same views we got from the gravel anywhere back home!

Strolling through the Old Town, it was not long before all our minds turned to the next meal. To avoid overpriced tourist meals we decided to make use of the well equipped hostel kitchen and whip out our old Hvar favourite spaghetti with lentils arabiatta and pesto.  Still in a world of pain and sleep deprivation it was the consensus of the wolfpack-1 that we were in need of an early night. But first we headed to the lobby to make some new friends. One of them was Jess from the Gold Coast who joined us for a game of 500; where she partnered me to a slaughter of the opposition, Tristan and Andy.

1/09

Continuing on our fitness kick we thought we would start the day with a long run up Kotor’s fortress wall. We thought this would be tough but doable. Only a couple of minutes in, the three of us were in a world of pain as our legs cried out for a rest after negotiating the steep incline and rough terrain However we continued to first kind of platform we could find. After a short break, we continued onwards and upwards, with the top not arriving quick enough. By this stage our legs were numb and really the only thing keeping us going was the cheers and encouragement of the people already on the walk up to the same destination. Arriving at the fortress, we were greeted with amazing views of Kotor, its mountains and the surrounding Bay. But that was not enough as the 3 of us punched out our daily 100 pushups, chatted to some English birds and took some 360 degree panorama photos. After a while up there it was time to head back down and the run down did not even compare in its difficulty to the run up which was refreshing.

Back at the hostel the group consensus was to, again, get wet! This time we decided we would make an effort and head to Perast, a beautiful beach side town about 10 minutes bus ride from Kotor’s Old Town. Jess decided to join us on this adventure so off we went on the 1 euro bus to arrive a quaint little town apparently home to artistic types from the surrounding Balkans. Perast also overlooks 2 small islands on which Catholic monasteries were built a while ago (we don’t remember how long so just believe us!). Our afternoon was spent baking on the small pier we had to ourselves and jumping off it into the clear blue water surrounding it when we thought we were too hot- it’s a tough life in Perast! After a solid baking session and only breakfast under our belts we were all ravaged by hunger. With nothing within our budget to eat in Perast we were left with no choice but to return to Kotor. So we waited for the bus to head back; in this time we decided that dinner would consist of antipasti entrée and chicken leek and mushroom risotto for dinner. It was amazeballs- most of the hostel was entirely jealous of our super looking meal.

After dinner, we again decided we would be social and head downstairs to the fairly packed lobby. On arrival downstairs our old friend rakija, in tall slender bottles, was floating around in the hands of Hostel staff and being served to unsuspecting hostel guests. We were 3 of them. But the foreigner’s dislike of rakija was a great icebreaker and our friend of the night was David, an American dude who had previously been overland from Singapore to Portugal through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. We decided with David at our disposable that picking his brain would be the sensible thing to do. This left Tristan and I drinking rakija and becoming more and more inspired to set aside the following day to organise all things Central Asian.

2/09

Still catching up on lost sleep from Belgrade we had a late start to our day. However by the time Harro and I were downstairs after finishing making ourselves look pretty, Andy had been nice enough to retrieve breakfast for both of us, acknowledging that we had a long day of organisation ahead of us. After some yoghurt drank and muesli (a ripper combination), we were down to business with multiple laptops and paper and pens everywhere. Within a couple of hours we had a number of possible itineraries planned out and sent off to a much talked about tourist organisation specialising in all things Central Asian. With more up to date Visa information at our disposal we also went about planning our Visa applications and within another couple of hours that was sorted! With brains hurting and productivity slowing down we were in need of some food. So Harros and Andy headed off to the supermarket to grab some food while I stayed at the hostel to complete my Travel Insurance Claim that I was yet to complete from Brussels.

After rolls and leftover Chicken, Leek and Mushroom Risotto we were back at it- all over the accommodation part of the trip. First looking at the abundance of hostels in the region and then onto couch surfing to find out whether couch surfing had caught on throughout Central Asia. With both expats and locals suppling their couches throughout all the countries of the region, we shot off some requests. Within 4 hours we had 2 confirmations- an American guy in Baku and an Uzbek guy in Tashkent. This was a huge win! Riding high on our couch surfing confirmations we took up the offer of the hostel dude to enjoy some gin and tonics in the lobby. And when I say dude he was a seriously interesting guy. 

 Unable to find gin we were treated to vodka tonics, first in a ‘student shot’ form and then in a regular drinking fashion. After the student shots we befriended a French girl, Nermina, who was of Yugoslav origin who we had met moments earlier in the kitchen upstairs. She was quite an interesting girl who was travelling around former Yugoslavia, seemingly making incorrect judgements about the temperament of various Yugoslav peoples, before heading to New York to complete a completely secret personal research project. Also joining our table was an English dude who had been travelling the world for 3 years which in his words left him ‘travelling the world smoking weed and drinking beer’- what a life ?!? He had spent a couple of years travelling around Australia doing the same thing. But after a sort discussion he confided in us that he rarely paid for a hostel that he stayed at - ie he would simply stay and then walk out the door. Given that hostels are cheap, accommodating and really don’t make that much money, we quickly judged him to be a bit of a knob.

Quickly the French girl began to pipe up. In her typically outspoken manner she then began to tee off on the three of us. Harro fishing for compliments on his green t shirt green watch combination was tagged as ‘the teenager’ as she thought that this kind of dress sense was teenage like! Needless to say she was wearing a blue and white striped sailor shirt, leather motorbike jacket, adidas 3 quarter trackies and heeled slide- very stiff! Attempting to deflect the comment on teenage dress sense, Harro then went about getting her opinion on the rest of us. Turning to me, she commented I looked like a ‘Muslim’ with my black, shiny beard- I took this as positive given the whole purpose of our beard growing challenge is to assimilate while in Central Asia. Asking her opinion on Andy she responded that with his long hair he looked like a ‘Woman’. On further inspection, particularly of Andy’s hands she noted that he had  the hands of a ‘Gay’- essentially making him a ‘Gay Woman’ a comment that was going to be tough to live down for the rest of the time he was going to be travelling with us!

After a long day of organising Harro and I were off to bed while Andy was left with the outspoken French woman….

3/09

Getting up and grabbing a quick bite to eat we were soon saying goodbye to our dudes at the hostel and headed to the bus station to catch our bus to Ulcinj, an ethnically Albanian town on the southern coastal tip of Montenegro. It was settled by a Sultan as a North African Pirate Base. It has a reputation for great beaches so it made sense for that to be our next destination. On the recommendation of the hostel dudes we had also booked a guesthouse right in the centre of town which was to cost us 5 euro a night- ridiculous prices!

After 2 and a half hours on the bus which included Harro ploughing through his Russian language learning’s and me Skyping Leah and Elies at the bus station in Budva we were soon in Ulcinj. A half hour walk from the bus station we arrived in the centre of town where the ‘1908’ building was located overlooking Ulcinj’s central mosque and the main beach of town. Greeted by an elderly lady with no English at all, who we all assumed must be Stevo (could be a wrong assumption), we were shown to our 3 bed room upstairs where we dropped our stuff and set off for the closest, nicest beach. Arriving at a bar perched on a bunch of rocks we entered, dropped our stuff, and dived into the Adriatic off the 2 metre high, 8 metre long pier. Life was tough! A couple of hours lying in the sun and our hunger was beginning to get the better of us. So we headed back to Stevo’s to get changed before we planned to head off to grab some more euro’s and then some dinner. With euro’s in hand we searched for a feed; given we were in a beachside town it seemed only natural that we should indulge in some fruits of the sea. We pulled up stumps at a fish restaurant and as we were shown to our table, catching glimpses of the other person’s dishes, we were looking forward to our dinner. Andy chose the whole Dorada while Harro and I chose the grilled Calamari. It arrived with a small kind of potato salad and wedge of lemon and it was amazing! Andy was so stoked with his Dorada, which we speculated may have been John Dory but who really knows, and Harro and I suitably amazed by the fresh and tender grilled calamari and all for 6 euro- great times! After dinner, following the Ulcinj trend, we grabbed an ice cream from the supermarket and headed to the foreshore to consume it whilst people watching. But we were warned not to ‘people watch’ too hard as Albanian men are quite protective when it comes to their females. As Andy headed back to the room, Harro and I went for a stroll down the foreshore and stumbled across a small carnival. But rather than getting sucked in to many of the money making schemes, we saved our euro. We tried to suss out somewhere to head out but Ulcinj we found doesn’t really have much of a nightlife. It looked like we were going to have to wait to Corfu for our party!

04/09

After a good sleep, despite being woken by the call to prayer at 5 am by the mosque outside our window, we were up and about and keen for a yog or jog (depends where youre from!). Our detination was the bus station to investigate options to get to Saranda, a beach town in Albania that links Albania with Greece and in particular Corfu. We were informed there is one daily bus to Shkodra and then from there we needed to get another bus to Tirana and then another bus from Tirana to Saranda- it was going to be a long day of travel. Jogging back to collect Andy from bed we were off again running along the beach road however it wasn’t long before Harro and I had hit the wall from our previous run to the bus station so we headed back to grab some brekky for the 3 of us.

Once Andy returned we grabbed our beach stuff and were out the door to the Ibiza beach bar. Lazing amongst the rocks on sun lounges in a secluded cove was a tough life but someone had to do it. So we spent out arvo in the sun, jumping off the pier when we overheated. Soon it came time to lunch so we walked a few steps up the hill for a woodfired pizza and a coffee. Then it was back down the steps for more lazing around, reading and swimming. Calling it quits at 5:30pm we headed back for a shower. Clean and ready to head back out we decided to head to the Old Town on a cliff overlooking the city. It was good to head up there and we snapped some great views both out to the Adriatic and inwards to the city centre. Hunger started to hit us so it wasn’t long before we made our way to the trusty and reliable fish restaurant where we downed more great nosh. Some changed their orders but others went with what they knew; regardless, it was awesome all over again. Reenacting the night before we grabbed an ice cream and headed to the foreshore. The sun had sapped our energy and given that we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow, sleep was a priority.