Japan to Australia via Eastern Europe and stuff - Part 24 - Day 20 - Mostar to Dubrovnik... We had another bad night sleep (recurring theme of holiday! Celebrate!). The owners of this Pansion Lombrelle have a café downstairs and people seemed to be partying all night long.
We wake up to some over-analysis of the overnight shootings in VT… The news was exactly the same as the night before – nothing has changed in “Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room”. That show has to get the prize for being the most stewpid name for a show. It sounds more like a stewpid Tom Clancy book with terrorists blowing up Baltimore or something.
We grab some breakfast at a nearby Bakery. Ant and I quickly pack up our stuff (never really got a chance to get our stuff out in Mostar) and check out – where we pay that guy who wanted $$ from us using the internet the night before… It ended up being about $5AUD for 3 hours which seems a little expensive relative to what you could buy for that around BIH.
We head over to the bus station for our 10am Eurolines bus ride to Dubrovnik. I do a bit of a mad rush to get rid of all of my KM and buy some sugary crap.
We have had previous experience with Eurolines before – Ant and I had caught a bus from Amsterdam to Paris – which was long and hell… plus the “Surprise Police Search” wasn’t all peachy… The bus had been pulled over by some border cops – and they wanted to search all the people who had come from Amsterdam (including us) – but Ant and I sheepishly just pretended to not know what was going on to save the police from searching our stuff (although we didn’t really have anything to hide from).
Eurolines was living up to its hell rep – as the bus arrived 15 mins late and was fully packed. I quickly raced on to the bus to grab a couple of seats whilst Ant chucked our bags underneath the bus.
The bus driver had obviously had a customer service bypass – as he seemed crankier than Hitler on PMT drugs. He checked, then double checked, then triple checked everyone tickets… then huffed and puffed and did a bit of a diatribe in Bosnian or Croat (or some language)… 15 mins into this – some passengers started firing shots (verbal ones) back at the driver to get this rock show on the road to Dubrovnik. He finally got his s### together and we left Mostar.
Just to pish everyone off just a little bit more – he constantly played really bad early 80’s croat music which distorted at the drop of the hat… So loud – I was probably doing irreparable damage to my ears by cranking up my Ipod to 11.
The bus was truly living up to Eurolines’ low standards – the bus was really slow, hot and stuffy. To top it off – the bus driver stopped at some seedy motel right near the BIH/Croatian border – with no food or drinks or toilets (bloody bus driver kick backs).
At the border – we pull over into this trucking/bus pen and the bus driver gets up and collects everyone’s passports/IDs – and in no particular order. I started to think to myself – “is there any sort of method in this guy’s madness? How is he going to hand back our passports??” The bus driver leaves the bus – and a few border guards check the bus. 10 mins later – and I start to get a bit panicky (I hate not having my passport on me)…. But the bus driver returns with a big wad of passports and IDs and just hands it to some girl sitting at the front of the bus… What a bastard…
Anyhow – the bus soon left the border crossing – when the bus driver continued to crank that bad 80s music up to 11 and started shouting and carrying on. I was now getting irreparable brain damage at this stage.
When we finally arrived at the bus station at Dubrovnik – I’m sure I can remember usually mild mannered Ant calling the bus driver “asshole” as he stepped off the bus.
As soon as we stepped off the bus – a swarm of touts descended onto us. I did my usual trick of trying to ignore them… One tout took “offence” to this – he shouted at me “If you didn’t want anything then you could have just told me!!”. I replied back “you don’t have to stalk me!”. There was some other old creepy guy who kept waving his 85 year old copy of LP saying that his place was in LP.
We managed to fight through the hoards of touts to grab some cash from a nearby ATM. Ant wanted to buy 4 lots of day bus tickets at about 25 Kuna (or KN) each or 100KN total. He gave the woman at the counter a 200KN and she tried to short change Ant the 100KN change – before Ant chucks a hissy fit and gets his change back.
We head off in the direction of the bus station – while that rude tout who went off at me shouted out “I hope you don’t sleep on the beach!”… Mild mannered Ant replied “D!ckhead”…
After a bit of confusion – we find A bus stop – not THE bus stop we needed to catch a direct bus to our hotel. So after waiting for 5 mins – we catch the next available bus into town.
We had been warned about how busy the buses in Dubrovnik were on the internet – but it was a mosh pit with added “backpack and luggage” spice. The bus was full of these local cranky grannies (the word for today – “cranky”) who demanded us to move our bags so they didn’t have to walk an extra meter to get off the bus. Mild mannered Ant directed one woman to go around – complete with psycho hand actions. (I get the feeling that Ant is going to go Michael Douglas/Falling Down today…)
When Ant realised that the bus was going in the wrong direction – we hopped off – went to another bus stop and caught a number 6 straight to our hotel. The cranky locals continued –despite the temperature of the bus being over 50 degrees Celsius – some old cranky grandpas continued to shut all the bus windows. I’m starting to get flash backs to China – pushy people, no queuing etiquette, cranky oldies… plus both countries begin with a “C” or something.
Our hotel – the Argosy Hotel – was right at the last stop of the bus line (although the bus trip would have only been about 10 mins long). The hotel was in a bit of a “resort” area of town – there was the more “flashy” (in run down 80s style) Presidential Hotel next door – but the Argosy was more of a 3 star affair – at about $100AUD a night.
After checking in – we had a one queen sized bed room on the ground floor facing out to the sea. Despite the lobby to be really clapped out and depressing in an 80s sort of way – the room was quite modern and flashy for a three star (probably more of a 4 star back in Australia).
Because we were getting extremely desperate – Ant and I did a bit of “Super fun laundry time” for a whole hour – desperate housewives indeed. I bags being the slutty Gabrelle! Ant can be Bree… (well – they both have red hair).
Anyhows – we caught another number 6 back into town. A good thing about the bus tickets is that they are valid for 24 hours, not like most day tickets which are only valid for that day. Despite our hotel being on the “outskirts” of town – it only takes 10 mins to get to the old town of Dubrovnik.
Now LP waxes lyrical about Dubrovnik being “paradise on earth” or “pearl of the Adriatic” or something. Maybe the first thing that hit me about Dubrovnik were the amount of tourists. Not that we were in “peak season”, and not that it was overloaded touristy – but I wasn’t used to the volumes of tourists here – not since Prague anyway.
But despite the tourists – Dubrovnik is very pretty. The old town (well new old town after the war) contrasts strongly with the very deep greenish-blue and clean waters of the Adriatic. The old town is surrounded by a big wall and the fort at the corner of the old town is pretty much instantaneously recognisable.
Because it was about 3pm and I was getting hungry – we find a nearby sandwich bar where I buy a hot dog and coke at Western Europe prices of $5AUD – and Ant gets a sandwich thingy plus one of those meat pastry Bosnian/Croatian things.
The prices for things here are a little bit of a shock to the system (after the rest of relatively cheap Eastern Europe). There were a tonne of restaurants in old town (selling the same stuff mind you) at outrageous prices ($15 or $20AUD for some pasta with tomato sauce). We were both sure that if Croatia was to introduce the Euro – it would probably bring the prices of things DOWN. I mean – this place has Australian prices for a bottle of coke – and Australia has the most expensive coke on the planet.
Ant and I explored a few churches and stuff in old town. We also explored a few “suburban” areas of old town – where Ant made the comment that the locals must get sick of “living in a museum”. Old town is quite steep in parts – and it sure must be a bi#ch to carry the groceries up to some of the houses, let alone bulky furniture and stuff.
We check out one of the tourist information places to see if we can book a tour to Montenegro. There were a couple of things bad about the day trips on offer – firstly – they were only offering them for the next day (not available any of the other days), secondly – it was going to cost about $100AUD per person and nothing much was included, thirdly – they were going to be total ba#tards and pick us up from our hotel at 7:10am… I discover Ant’s evil intent behind going to Montenegro – to get another stamp in the passport – so we both mutually decide to blow it off and do a local island trip instead. Plus Montenegro was probably going to be pretty much like Dubrovnik. I was also getting flash backs to our day trip to Colonia in South America… Scary ones…
On our way back to the hotel – we pick up some “essential” supplies for our stay in the hotel (beer, chippies or “chippys” as they call them here).
We crash for a bit at the hotel and catch up with some CNN and Sky News – where they are going a bit mental over the VT shootings. Sky however seems a bit more focussed on whole second amendment and gun control debate more so than CNN.
I flick it over to the german version of MTV (not sure why – but the whole of eastern Europe is covered by German MTV) and another music channel called VIVA. MTV and VIVA suffer the whole Australian Channel V / Video Hits disease of non stop Jamstar mobile phone crap ads. Although over here – they call it “Jamba” (maybe Jamstar means “Nazis” in german or something?). The latest “craze” is for a rapping “Crazy Cow” who raps “Baby got Back”. Small factual error– the crazy cow appears to be male – yet cows are female or something…
At about 9ish – we catch a bus to the alleged “food/restaurant” area of Dubrovnik (as described by LP) – only to find that there wasn’t anything open – apart from a few cafes which are strictly coffee and grog only (a really annoying eastern Europe thing).
Getting a bit more desperate – we head back to Old Town (despite not really finding anything we liked previously at lunch time). Meanwhile – the hot dog from lunch is seriously disagreeing with my fragile eco-system that is my stomach.
Strangely – everything at Old town is shut too… For such a big tourist city like Dubrovnik – you’d think stuff would stay open till after 9:20pm at least… God – this place was getting worse than Canberra. At least I could go to Dolly’s food van or something! Meanwhile – I’m getting a little nauseous – I almost vomit when Ant and I were checking out a menu to a shutting Pizza restaurant (not sure if it was my stomach or the prices?).
We stumble across a small take away shop where we get some pastry things for 20KN each or about $6 each. It was a bit crappy – but we were desperate… desperate as housewives.
We head back to the hotel – feeling a bit defeated… and craving for asian a little. The whole continent seems to be devoid of any asian food. It feels like the local food here is pizza, pizza, pasta and the occasional hamburger…
We watch a bit of the “Mean Girls” movie back at the hotel. My favourite line “Somebody wrote in that book that I'm lying about being a virgin because I use super jumbo tampons... but I can't help it if I've got a heavy flow and a wide set vagina! …!”
We have had previous experience with Eurolines before – Ant and I had caught a bus from Amsterdam to Paris – which was long and hell… plus the “Surprise Police Search” wasn’t all peachy… The bus had been pulled over by some border cops – and they wanted to search all the people who had come from Amsterdam (including us) – but Ant and I sheepishly just pretended to not know what was going on to save the police from searching our stuff (although we didn’t really have anything to hide from).
Eurolines was living up to its hell rep – as the bus arrived 15 mins late and was fully packed. I quickly raced on to the bus to grab a couple of seats whilst Ant chucked our bags underneath the bus.
The bus driver had obviously had a customer service bypass – as he seemed crankier than Hitler on PMT drugs. He checked, then double checked, then triple checked everyone tickets… then huffed and puffed and did a bit of a diatribe in Bosnian or Croat (or some language)… 15 mins into this – some passengers started firing shots (verbal ones) back at the driver to get this rock show on the road to Dubrovnik. He finally got his s### together and we left Mostar.
Just to pish everyone off just a little bit more – he constantly played really bad early 80’s croat music which distorted at the drop of the hat… So loud – I was probably doing irreparable damage to my ears by cranking up my Ipod to 11.
The bus was truly living up to Eurolines’ low standards – the bus was really slow, hot and stuffy. To top it off – the bus driver stopped at some seedy motel right near the BIH/Croatian border – with no food or drinks or toilets (bloody bus driver kick backs).
At the border – we pull over into this trucking/bus pen and the bus driver gets up and collects everyone’s passports/IDs – and in no particular order. I started to think to myself – “is there any sort of method in this guy’s madness? How is he going to hand back our passports??” The bus driver leaves the bus – and a few border guards check the bus. 10 mins later – and I start to get a bit panicky (I hate not having my passport on me)…. But the bus driver returns with a big wad of passports and IDs and just hands it to some girl sitting at the front of the bus… What a bastard…
Anyhow – the bus soon left the border crossing – when the bus driver continued to crank that bad 80s music up to 11 and started shouting and carrying on. I was now getting irreparable brain damage at this stage.
When we finally arrived at the bus station at Dubrovnik – I’m sure I can remember usually mild mannered Ant calling the bus driver “asshole” as he stepped off the bus.
As soon as we stepped off the bus – a swarm of touts descended onto us. I did my usual trick of trying to ignore them… One tout took “offence” to this – he shouted at me “If you didn’t want anything then you could have just told me!!”. I replied back “you don’t have to stalk me!”. There was some other old creepy guy who kept waving his 85 year old copy of LP saying that his place was in LP.
We managed to fight through the hoards of touts to grab some cash from a nearby ATM. Ant wanted to buy 4 lots of day bus tickets at about 25 Kuna (or KN) each or 100KN total. He gave the woman at the counter a 200KN and she tried to short change Ant the 100KN change – before Ant chucks a hissy fit and gets his change back.
We head off in the direction of the bus station – while that rude tout who went off at me shouted out “I hope you don’t sleep on the beach!”… Mild mannered Ant replied “D!ckhead”…
After a bit of confusion – we find A bus stop – not THE bus stop we needed to catch a direct bus to our hotel. So after waiting for 5 mins – we catch the next available bus into town.
We had been warned about how busy the buses in Dubrovnik were on the internet – but it was a mosh pit with added “backpack and luggage” spice. The bus was full of these local cranky grannies (the word for today – “cranky”) who demanded us to move our bags so they didn’t have to walk an extra meter to get off the bus. Mild mannered Ant directed one woman to go around – complete with psycho hand actions. (I get the feeling that Ant is going to go Michael Douglas/Falling Down today…)
When Ant realised that the bus was going in the wrong direction – we hopped off – went to another bus stop and caught a number 6 straight to our hotel. The cranky locals continued –despite the temperature of the bus being over 50 degrees Celsius – some old cranky grandpas continued to shut all the bus windows. I’m starting to get flash backs to China – pushy people, no queuing etiquette, cranky oldies… plus both countries begin with a “C” or something.
Our hotel – the Argosy Hotel – was right at the last stop of the bus line (although the bus trip would have only been about 10 mins long). The hotel was in a bit of a “resort” area of town – there was the more “flashy” (in run down 80s style) Presidential Hotel next door – but the Argosy was more of a 3 star affair – at about $100AUD a night.
After checking in – we had a one queen sized bed room on the ground floor facing out to the sea. Despite the lobby to be really clapped out and depressing in an 80s sort of way – the room was quite modern and flashy for a three star (probably more of a 4 star back in Australia).
Because we were getting extremely desperate – Ant and I did a bit of “Super fun laundry time” for a whole hour – desperate housewives indeed. I bags being the slutty Gabrelle! Ant can be Bree… (well – they both have red hair).
Anyhows – we caught another number 6 back into town. A good thing about the bus tickets is that they are valid for 24 hours, not like most day tickets which are only valid for that day. Despite our hotel being on the “outskirts” of town – it only takes 10 mins to get to the old town of Dubrovnik.
Now LP waxes lyrical about Dubrovnik being “paradise on earth” or “pearl of the Adriatic” or something. Maybe the first thing that hit me about Dubrovnik were the amount of tourists. Not that we were in “peak season”, and not that it was overloaded touristy – but I wasn’t used to the volumes of tourists here – not since Prague anyway.
But despite the tourists – Dubrovnik is very pretty. The old town (well new old town after the war) contrasts strongly with the very deep greenish-blue and clean waters of the Adriatic. The old town is surrounded by a big wall and the fort at the corner of the old town is pretty much instantaneously recognisable.
Because it was about 3pm and I was getting hungry – we find a nearby sandwich bar where I buy a hot dog and coke at Western Europe prices of $5AUD – and Ant gets a sandwich thingy plus one of those meat pastry Bosnian/Croatian things.
The prices for things here are a little bit of a shock to the system (after the rest of relatively cheap Eastern Europe). There were a tonne of restaurants in old town (selling the same stuff mind you) at outrageous prices ($15 or $20AUD for some pasta with tomato sauce). We were both sure that if Croatia was to introduce the Euro – it would probably bring the prices of things DOWN. I mean – this place has Australian prices for a bottle of coke – and Australia has the most expensive coke on the planet.
Ant and I explored a few churches and stuff in old town. We also explored a few “suburban” areas of old town – where Ant made the comment that the locals must get sick of “living in a museum”. Old town is quite steep in parts – and it sure must be a bi#ch to carry the groceries up to some of the houses, let alone bulky furniture and stuff.
We check out one of the tourist information places to see if we can book a tour to Montenegro. There were a couple of things bad about the day trips on offer – firstly – they were only offering them for the next day (not available any of the other days), secondly – it was going to cost about $100AUD per person and nothing much was included, thirdly – they were going to be total ba#tards and pick us up from our hotel at 7:10am… I discover Ant’s evil intent behind going to Montenegro – to get another stamp in the passport – so we both mutually decide to blow it off and do a local island trip instead. Plus Montenegro was probably going to be pretty much like Dubrovnik. I was also getting flash backs to our day trip to Colonia in South America… Scary ones…
On our way back to the hotel – we pick up some “essential” supplies for our stay in the hotel (beer, chippies or “chippys” as they call them here).
We crash for a bit at the hotel and catch up with some CNN and Sky News – where they are going a bit mental over the VT shootings. Sky however seems a bit more focussed on whole second amendment and gun control debate more so than CNN.
I flick it over to the german version of MTV (not sure why – but the whole of eastern Europe is covered by German MTV) and another music channel called VIVA. MTV and VIVA suffer the whole Australian Channel V / Video Hits disease of non stop Jamstar mobile phone crap ads. Although over here – they call it “Jamba” (maybe Jamstar means “Nazis” in german or something?). The latest “craze” is for a rapping “Crazy Cow” who raps “Baby got Back”. Small factual error– the crazy cow appears to be male – yet cows are female or something…
At about 9ish – we catch a bus to the alleged “food/restaurant” area of Dubrovnik (as described by LP) – only to find that there wasn’t anything open – apart from a few cafes which are strictly coffee and grog only (a really annoying eastern Europe thing).
Getting a bit more desperate – we head back to Old Town (despite not really finding anything we liked previously at lunch time). Meanwhile – the hot dog from lunch is seriously disagreeing with my fragile eco-system that is my stomach.
Strangely – everything at Old town is shut too… For such a big tourist city like Dubrovnik – you’d think stuff would stay open till after 9:20pm at least… God – this place was getting worse than Canberra. At least I could go to Dolly’s food van or something! Meanwhile – I’m getting a little nauseous – I almost vomit when Ant and I were checking out a menu to a shutting Pizza restaurant (not sure if it was my stomach or the prices?).
We stumble across a small take away shop where we get some pastry things for 20KN each or about $6 each. It was a bit crappy – but we were desperate… desperate as housewives.
We head back to the hotel – feeling a bit defeated… and craving for asian a little. The whole continent seems to be devoid of any asian food. It feels like the local food here is pizza, pizza, pasta and the occasional hamburger…
We watch a bit of the “Mean Girls” movie back at the hotel. My favourite line “Somebody wrote in that book that I'm lying about being a virgin because I use super jumbo tampons... but I can't help it if I've got a heavy flow and a wide set vagina! …!”
posted by NicknAnt @ 3:38 AM
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