Friday, 17 February 2017 to Thursday, 23 February 2017
We woke up groggily this morning after yesterday’s 12 hour bus journey from Belgrade; we were still in recovery mode. The weather was a cool but balmy 15°C, a welcome change from the negatives in Belgrade.

Our new apartment is wonderful and has everything to make our lives very comfortable, even a large balkoni (balcony) with a view over the adjacent apartment blocks and across to the mountains that surround the town. Out to the right one can even see a sliver of sea in the distance.

The wifi in the apartment though was just woeful. Normal surfing is a journey into the futile, receiving emails as bad, streaming movies is downright impossible. I did manage to stream music, but after just one song that went south as well.

The one song I managed to stream was Whip It by Devo, and I wished that the wifi could be whipped up a tad. Not sure how many of you remember this song from the early 80s. Our circle of friends – more often than not – spent Friday evenings at the Pig and Whistle Pub at the old Milpark Holiday Inn in Johannesburg where a British band called Dutch Elm used to entertain. One of the songs they covered was Whip It and great memories of beer infused evenings with great friends came flooding back. Man, those were the days.

I went for a shower in lukewarm water and by the time I had finished the water had turned icy cold. Not sure why this was, maybe Adri used too much hot water when doing the dishes? Adri waited an hour or so for the water to heat up before attempting a shower. The water was now even icier. I texted Milos with our little freezing problem and he promptly responded that we needed to check a certain switch in the lounge. This particular one switches the geyser on and off… and of course it was off. How were we supposed to know? Anyway, after Milos seemed to have had a good laugh at our expense on the other side of the text he responded with “Haha, most of them in Europe will work like this”. Okay, now we know.

We read and relaxed and had every intention today to walk down to the old town that is situated right behind the marina, which we managed only as darkness started to creep up on us. We strolled slowly along the promenade, passing the marina on the one side and restaurants such as The Old Fisherman’s on the other, and finally reached the entrance to the old town.

 

Walking among these old stone walls and narrow cobbled stone streets one is reminded of Dubrovnic in Croatia, just on a much smaller scale. There are wonderful little shops and pubs and restaurants and it was not long before we were enticed into a little Irish pub where we had a Guinness each. We then wanted to order a Leffe Blond draught but that puppy did not pomp (pump), they would have it fixed by Monday we were assured. We took that as our cue to leave else we might have spent too much time and beer there.

By now we were hungry so we headed to a restaurant we saw on our way to the old town. But, on the way back we found the Adriatic Restaurant and decided to stay, it looked nice and comfortable and local. We would not be disappointed.

 

 

 

Adri had the chicken and vegetable dish which was a type of paella with rice and all, delicious. I had to once again counsel my trust in pizza after the last abomination of a pizza we had at Bucko in Belgrade. I ordered the Sicilian which came with ham, bacon, egg and olives and man, was that good! Trust restored.

Saturday was cloudy with rain forecast for most of the day. We sat in the lounge reading and relaxing, it felt like we were on holiday… and that’s when it hit me, we were on holiday!

The wifi was still horribilis, it just seemed to be getting worse and my frustrations were as well. I did a test on the wifi speed using an app called Speedtest by Ookla, a pretty cool app. It measures ping, download and upload speeds by communicating with an identified server in your region. It accesses the identified server, downloads a packet of 0.3 MB data and uploads a packet of 0.9 MB data. The results were: Download (0.11 Mbps), Upload (0.98 Mbps), Ping (104 ms), spectacularly terrible. Compare this to the speed test I did at the Tropico Restaurant later in the day: Download (20.55 Mbps), Upload (2.74 Mbps), Ping (30 ms), no contest.

I sent the results of the test to Milos who promised to take it up with the network provider on Monday as their helpdesk don’t operate on weekends. At this point I did not have much faith in having this thing rectified any time soon.

So with the above wifi speed, or lack thereof, we turned on the TV and was pleasantly surprised to find quite a number of English channels. There are a few news channels such as CNN, France24, Sky News, a number of movie channels and also National Geographic, Travel Channel, music channels and many more. Still, I like to watch what I want when I want, so I’m dearly missing my Netflix already.

Later on in the afternoon the rain eased off and then stopped completely. We took advantage of this weather window and walked to the eastern part of Budva along Jadranska Majistrala. Reaching the end of the town we walked towards the beach and the promenade. We intended to continue east towards Becici but the weather was turning dark again so we turned west, back towards centre town.

 

It was not long after that when a few large drops struck my head and then the tip of my shoe, we were forced to take shelter at the Tropica Restaurant. After we ordered two Niksicko draft beers the rain came storming down, mist rolled in over the sea and the mountains, flashes of lighting were followed by deep throaty rumblings over the sea. We were thankful to be inside with Nik the sicko.

 

We spent a wonderful time here with superfast wifi but when the rain eased off a bit we changed our scenery to the Zeleni Gaj Restaurant right next door. We had beer and a cappuccino there which was okay, but the internet was not. I realised that when the waiter gave us the wifi password but immediately added “It may not work… the storm you see”. He well knew it did not work, why not just come right out and say it! I’m just not having any luck with this wifi thing. Anyway, we made a mental note that in future, before ordering anything anywhere; we will make sure the wifi works.

A wifi-less hour later the rain stopped and we made our way home. We stopped off at the Franco Supermarket and bought mince meat for a spaghetti Bolognese supper. Quite weird, we could choose between beef, or a mixture of pork and beef, but no pork by itself. Seems like this pork-beef mix is quite popular here in Montenegro, the other night our gyro was also a mix if the above, the only variety they sell.

Supper was stupendous, complete with pecorino cheese, fresh bread dripping with olive oil, wow! After that supper an early evening was called for, and we headed the call.

First thing Sunday morning we went downstairs to the Franca Supermarket for washing powder and such stuff and came away with cocoa powder for hot chocolate as well proja sa sirom; don’t ask, didn’t know, but now I do. When we opened the cellophane packet of the proja sa sirom a lovely sweet smell escaped that had a familiarity to it, something like a soetkoek (sweet cake) from SA. We took a taster but there was no sweet, only salt, unexpected, but also unexpectedly good. After a quick giggel (google) we found that it is cornbread with cheese, pretty good.

Rain was imminent, we were housebound, we needed music, but the wifi was still too slow to stream it. I hooked up my music hard drive to the TV and voila, our own music filled the space. Adri requested the Buddhist Monks which initially I could not find, like before, because the album goes under the Spanish name, Monjes Budistas. The moment the Buddhist chanting came to the fore a wave of Thailand nostalgia swept over me, what a lovely and easy country it is to live in. Please take a listen to a few songs from the Monjes Budistas album.

Subsequently we listened to a Randy Vanwarmer album called The Third Child which contains that beautiful song Just When I Needed You Most. You can take a listen to it below.

Having followed the Trump train which is hopefully heading for a derailing, I have not given much thought to the antics of Zuma and his cohorts back in SA. This morning I received a link to a beautifully written opinion piece by Mathews Phosa, an ANC stalwart all his life, who has the cajones to speak out against his ANC leaders when the need arises. I sure do wish we had more Mathews Phosa’s in SA.

The mist moved over the mountain carrying the rain with it as it poured its contents over our hood while we were snugly warm inside with a mug of hot chocolate safely stowed in our hands.

Adri did some washing today after which she passed out on the couch, imploring me to wake her up in 20 minutes’ time, which I did, but she did not. It was another hour before she arose and settled down in front of the TV, in charge of the remote, rifling through the channels at a dizzying speed. Not sure whether the cause of this was the glass of Merlot she had in hand. I poured myself a König Beer, it was not quite fit for a king as its title suggests, but his underlings would have loved it.

A while ago I started reading a new book, or rather, listening to a new audio book, called Elon Musk: How the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is shaping our future, written by Ashlee Vance and narrated by Fred Sanders. It makes for rather fascinating listening, getting to know all the challenges and adversaries Elon faced throughout his life, but in the end he pulled though.

Today, Elon’s SpaceX hoisted a spacecraft, named the Dragon, toward the International Space Station, and the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket returned to Earth without issue, to be re-used for future missions, quite incredible. And you may or may not know this, but Elon is a homeboy who grew up in the Pretoria/Johannesburg area. After school he moved to Canada and then the US where he studied and worked and made his mark. He surely has come a long way.

True to his word, Monday Milos contacted the cell company to check out our wifi connection and apparently there was some issue that was rectified. We now at least had a wifi connection albeit a turtle-ish one, I wanted a hare-ish one. He also suggested that I take the modem to the cell company to have it physically checked out.

It was later in the day when we took a walk to downtown Budva and entered the t-Mobile shop. After handing over the device to the man for inspection I made up time by checking out the handsets on offer. The price of one particular model was obscured from view by some papers, probably a freshly signed contact. As I moved the papers away the man said with menace in his voice “Those are my papers!” but with a wide grin on his face. I was not quite sure how to read that combination but I moved the papers in any case.

A while later, the menace now gone, the smile still there, he informed me that the modem model was indeed a 3G one and that Milos would have to upgrade to 4G to increase the speed. After sharing this information with Milos he arranged for a 4G modem to be delivered to us tomorrow. Great!

Back home the wifi once again took a dip for the worse when I needed to urgently send off some documents, it was futile and frustrating. I took my laptop across the street to a restaurant/pub called Millennium which had excellent wifi and beers. After sending off the documents and enjoying the beer at hand we took a slow stroll downtown to the marina and surrounds, very relaxing, frustrations dissipating with each step.

When we got home I was ready to try out my next beer, a Müller. Yesterday was the König, so all German, seems like the German styled beers in Montenegro are quite popular. What made this beer special though was its accompaniment.

Walking past the deli section of the Franca Supermarket my eyes caught a glimpse of something that looked deliciously familiar… Could it be? Biltong (dried meat)!? Turns out it was not, but rather a local specialty of smoked beef which they slice up into thin slivers. Looks the part, tasted great, but billies it is not.

You may be aware that there was an alleged coup plot just before the Montenegro elections in October 2016 after which a number of arrests were made. Today I read that “Russian state bodies” are now accused of involvement in the attempted coup, which they obviously deny. Be as it may, this will not be the last we read about this unfolding story.

Today there was a debate in the UK parliament as to whether Trump should be afforded a state visit rather than just a normal visit. It got quite heated and hilarious at times with Labour MP Paul Flynn who described “Trump’s intellectual capacity as ‘protozoan’ and that to grant the honour of a state visit to a president who had acted ‘like a petulant child’ would send the message that Britain approved of his behaviour and comments.” Flynn… funny fellow!

It was Tuesday and our wifi woes continued, the Speedtest app would not even let me do a speed test; it reported “Latency test failed”. Frustrating, but at least we had the prospect of receiving a 4G modem tomorrow, but we were not entirely confident of that promise materializing though.

We set our frustrations aside and got to the bus station just as the bus to Kotor was about to leave. It was a nice drive to Kotor although not a particularly scenic one. It passes by one or two scruffy looking beaches and then overland via some unkempt surrounds. On the bus I saw a familiar face, a lookalike of a friend of mine I have not seen in over twenty years, he was known by his surname only… Jones. Maybe I should try and make contact with old Jones.

The scruffy scenery all changed once we reached Kotor, which is totally stunning. We walked the few hundred metres from the bus stop towards the old town and the first glimpse one gets of the Bay of Kotor simply takes your breath away. The bay which is entirely surrounded by mountains has a fjord-like look and feel to it. Beautiful! If you have ever seen travel books, tourist brochures or websites of Montenegro, no doubt you would have seen this sight, this is Montenegro.

Entering the old town through the Sea Gate, or North Gate we marveled at the perfectly maintained walkways, alleyways and buildings. Even though Kotor old town is probably three times the size of Budva’s it is still small in comparison to Dubrovnik’s in Croatia.

We sat ourselves down for a cappuccino to map out our movements for the day. Apart from the walls that surround the old town there are walls right up to the top of the mountain beyond which were built for protection of the greater area in the Middle Ages. If we were going to attempt that walk we better do that first, we mused, else we were afraid it would never happen.

 

 

 

We easily found the alleyway near the River Gate, or North Gate that leads one up and up the mountain. Some of the pathways up the mountain are demarcated as dangerous and Adri quickly quipped that she was not keen on tempting fate. But, there was no point in going halfway up the mountain so we dismissed all the red signs and continued right to the top. In hindsight, the “dangerous” zones that we encountered turned out to be nothing really, maybe some loose stones instead of steps or maybe a lower or no barrier along the steps, nothing major.

Although the sun was shining brightly the weather was a mild 10°C so we were still dressed for winter.  Once the steps up became hard work Adri stopped suddenly and exclaimed “I’m boiling up”. As I turned around she looked like a steam locomotive in that black coat of hers, huffing and puffing along at breakneck speed, pumping steam that obscured her vision for miles around. Once she took off her coat the steam lifted and we could continue.

As one ascends the view over the Bay of Kotor becomes more magical by the minute, one simply does not know when to stop taking pictures, the next one is always better. After a silly amount of steps we finally reached the top which is where the Illyrian fort called Castel St. John is situated. We took a rest, walked around, took pictures and 30 minutes later we were rested enough to attempt the downward way.

Walking down those plentiful steps my legs turned to jelly. Whenever I stopped to take a breather my legs would start doing that Shakin’ Stevens thing, as per below.

Shaking my way down the mountain and finally reaching the bottom we needed a beer, but first, for the immediate thirst, Adri opted for a carrot and orange juice. Ambling through the amazing little walkways in the old town we emerged where we initially entered. We walked along the waterfront, passed a few little pub/restaurants until we could no longer hold out any longer and entered Mondo Café.

We ordered the draft Tuborg, one 30cl and one 50cl, “The large one is for her, the small one for me”. He smiled, disappeared, appeared, and placed the big one in front of Adri as ordered. He gave me a mischievous smile and then rearranged the beers. Cool guy, perfect English, nice place…

We clinked glasses on our feat… also on the defeat of the fortress… and of course also on our feet… which took quite a hammering on this trip. We relaxed at the Mondo Café long enough to watch the sun go down over the bay. Now dark, we walked back into and around the old town and found another lovely little pub called the Pub on The Square. I had a Becks beer and Adri the Pelinkovac which she first encountered in Belgrade, lovely stuff.

The cold air was moving in fast, it was time to go home. It was around 19:30 that we boarded the bus to Budva and arrived back to the comfort of our warm home just after 20:00. What a wonderfully exhausting day it was.

 

 

 

It was late Wednesday morning when I got a message from Milos. The 4G modem had been delivered to the little shop at the entrance to our building, courtesy of a friend of his from Podgorica. I picked it up, plugged it in and voila, the speed increased significantly. It was still not great but it was good enough, also good enough to stream Netflix.

The accusations and counter accusations regarding the attempted coup in Montenegro last year was ratcheted up today with Russia strongly condemning the allegations and saying that it has damaged relations between the two countries. Who knows what will happen next? One can only hope that cool heads will prevail.

After our 4G was activated we decided to stay home and marvel at this thing called the internet, which has eluded us the last few days. We surfed, and relaxed most of the day, catching snoozes in between.

It was late afternoon when we went for a walk, ostensibly to get chicken and veggies for supper, but we ended up taking a walk around the wider hood. At the local veggie shop down the road we bought some stock that was lovely and super fresh. I spotted dried figs; I have not had these for as long as I can remember, so a few of those also made it into the veggie bag…

We further found a number of coffee shops, restaurants and little bakeries that we did not know existed… and I am happy to report that these bakeries also bake the long thin burek that I so love, which we thought was only available in Serbia. I think I know what we’re having for breakfast tomorrow morning.

And in a roundabout way we came upon the main road that crisscrosses the town and this was where we happened upon a neat and well stocked electronics shop.

Now let me be clear; I simply detest those in-ear earphones. After an hour of having those puppies playing in my ears it feels like the pods have grown roots reaching down my ear canals and banging away on my eardrums. During this cultivation process my ears heat up feeling like a furnace blasting away at 1000°C. But it’s when that furnace goes beyond the 1000°C mark that it starts hurting; it’s more than just uncomfortable, it really hurts… Thus, I have been toying with the idea of replacing the in-ear earphones with over-ear headphones; the reason I now entered the electronics shop.

And while we’re about it, maybe I would prefer a wireless Bluetooth headphone. I always seem to get tangled up in those damn wires and, sometimes forgetting the pods are in there and plugged in, I get up and invariable those pods pop out of my ears with force or the Ipad attempts to follow me to the fridge for a beer.

Anyways, the shop had a rather nice selection of headphones but only one Bluetooth model, a Pioneer, which seemed pretty decent, but I will have to shop around for a wider selection.

Thursday was cloudy and 13°C outside, rather pleasant, but I’m starting to miss a glaring sun. Adri went out for a long thin burek but came back with something different. The lady apparently refused to give the long burek to her; the ones available were a few hours old and cold so she insisted Adri take the freshly baked rolled up long thin burek. Similar thing, tasted the same, it’s just rolled up to look like a mushy turd. Our two cheese turds were followed by a square of apple pie, with tea. Great!

It was mid afternoon when we took a walk to the old town and meandered along its wonderful little narrow streets. The gate that leads up to the fortress walls was open so we took the opportunity to walk along the walls where one has lovely views down to the old town on the one side and the sea and the marina on the other.

 

 

It was starting to get dark when we found the same Irish pub from last week. We both ordered a draft Leffe Blond, Adri the small and I the big one… of course. We spent in excess of an hour there, chatting and surfing with good wifi. We could easily have spent more time with another beer there but the hunger pangs were starting to ping at my insides, they needed to be fed.

 

Heading home on the main road, we turned down our road and came upon the tiny takeaway shop called Andora which we always pass when we head this way, so no surprise finding it there… but today we stopped. I ordered the hamburger, Adri ordered the cevapi, which quite frankly we did not know what to expect, had no clue really what it was. The burger was a burger was a burger, pretty good and the pomfrit was also rather good. But the cevapi was a revelation. It came in a burger roll loaded with your choice of toppings splashed over four sausage-like mince fingers. This… was zehr gut (very good), zehr zehr gut.

Home