1 October Mostar – Dubrovnik – Herceg Novi – Lepetane – Kotor

I get up at 6.15 a.m. to catch the bus to Dubrovnik and Herceg Novi. It takes with all the passport checks more than 5 hours. I ask the driver if he can stop at the ferry crossing. No problem.

We pass the delta and Dubrovnik once again.

Time to work on my blog and meet with some fellow bus travelers. I am sitting next to a young student from Bangalore. First he managed to be picked as one of the 500 from 200.000 applicants (0,25% chance) in a business management school that he has finished.  He has been chosen to do his business management PhD in a German university. He asks where I found the time for 4 months sabbatical and explains that in India the competition to get into university is so intense, that youngsters hardly find free time. To improve there chances they are constantly involved in extra assignments next to their normal school work. This ‘pumps up’ their curriculum, which is needed to get ahead in the rat race of university enrollment. And after graduation it doesn’t get any better if you want to work for certain well known and established (international) firms. Although you might have 6 days a week 8hr/day contract everyone works between 12 and 16 hours a day!

He is wondering Now that he has found two weeks to travel through Europe before his courses start he has been asking himself, if all those hours of professional input were really worth it? “What kind of life is that”?

Marcello and Angelo, two older Brazilians, so my age, are the next I start to talk to. They are so tranquil and do not easily get angry, even when the conductor/driver - who must have had a bad night - gets physical with one of their backpacks, because his opinion is that these belong on the floor, although the bus is but half full.

They are also going to Kotor and have a reservation in the ‘Old Town Hostel’. I decide to check that place out.

After crossing at the ferry as a non-paying foot passenger I get a meal (fish soup and a mackerel) at my former B&B. I pack up the bicycle and am a free man again. It feels great to any moment being able to decide where you want to go or stop. Was that not the same attraction with the private car?

Via a dreamy, quiet back road at the shadow side of the Bay of Kotor, I reach the old town of Kotor (Stari Grad). It’s beautiful, small, old, with streets not wide enough for cars. Transport is by foot, hauling by carrier tricycle, or Golf Cart with trailer. But most people just walk and the tons of tourists just ramble.

  

It’s the Montenegro procedure. Coaches come in around ten and leave at 15.00 hrs. Enough time for a one hour guided city-tour, a coffee, pictures an ice cream, a lunch and some touristic purchases. Some days of the week one or two cruise ships sail in. Small boats put the willing ashore. This makes that Kotor is almost deserted after 16.30. Waiters and shop owners, now bored try to catch the lost tourist.

The hostel is of high standard, not because you have a private room, but because of the two hosts that run the place. One is professor in the Italian language, the other a business marketer and place maker for foreign businesses that come to Montenegro. Both are in their thirties and want to work here for a while. The economic crisis is one of the reasons they took this job. They are helpful and full of tips for the backpackers from everywhere. They know almost everyone by name, but what really makes the place special is the atmosphere they create. One night the host prepared an enormous pan with Montenegrin mussels with bread. So when they are there, you should really check out this wonderful clean and nice hostel.

After dinner together with the Brazilians, I sleep well. Tomorrow is an easy day, to look around and do a lot of planning. I need to decide how and where I will go next. That depends on many things.