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October 19, 2004

In the land of the Yugo (Kotor, Montenegro)

KOTOR, MONTENEGRO: After two days in Rome, I was really ready to throw in the towel on reaching Constantinople by Halloween. When they announced final boarding for US Air flight 5 to Philadelphia this morning, I was ready to roll. Except I was at the gate for JAT Yugoslavian Airways flight 405 to Belgrade. Rome was at times fascinating but often choked with tourists with their Rick Steves guides thinking that they're "discovering" the "real" Rome as Steves exhorts them to do. Hogwash.

The flight to Belgrade gave me my first taste of what some have called Slavic hard-headedness, like the fact that the cockpit door was open the entire flight and, when overhead space ran out, passengers were encouraged to pile luggage on empty seats. No wonder the FAA says Serbia & Montenegro's air transportation system is unsafe. In Belgrade, where I planned to take a leisurely flight down to the coastal city of Tivat, three flights were cancelled into one. This meant I was sitting in the back of a 727 with the national kickboxing teams of Iran, Hellas (Greece), and Russia, in an old 727 with about 6 inches of legroom. I'm not kidding. I've never felt more like a sardine on a cattle car--yes, both. During the rough and bumpy flight, when the plane was making noises I've never heard a plane make, the female Hellenic kickboxer next to me said a prayer. I thought of Alanis Morrissette's Ironic: "and as the plane crashed down / he thought, well isn't this nice?". And hey, if I can borrow some Greek chick's goodwill with the man upstairs, why not?

I wrote on the Bhutan page in the gallery how the flight that weaves into Bhutan through the Himalayas is one of the scariest landings in the world, even scarier than the old Hong Kong airport landing. Add Tivat to the list of nerve-rattling landings. The flight descended out of the clouds, bumping all the while, and I look to the right: green. Look to the left: green. We are flying between two ridges of mountains, with the moutains and ground getting closer all the while. 1000 feet. 500 feet. Grazing treetops. Finally a soft landing at the Tivat airstrip. I say "airstrip" and not "international airport" because Tivat is really an airstrip: no hangar, and a tiny terminal building, with luggage brought by farm tractor to the terminal.

This as all worth it though, because Kotor, Montenegro, where I am spending tonight, is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to. Kotor is like a poor man's Cote d'Azur, with the streets filled with Yugos rather than Ferraris. (Yes, this is the former Yugoslavia.) Kotor is an old walled medieval city that, today, sprawls along a fjord in the Adriatic Sea with 2000-ft mountains all around. The mountains dip just low enough to allow a tiny outlet to the sea. Kotor's old town rivals the best in Europe and rightly deserves its place on UNESCO's famous list. Unlike, say, Estonia's polished but dead old town in Tallinn, old Kotor is still used by Kotorites and is alive with Montenegrins. Tiny clothing shops are patronized by local teen girls; schoolkids take French horn lessons, the sounds echoing down the street; people hang the wash to dry on a line stretching from one window to their neighbor's window; local boys amuse themselves chasing cats throught the maze of four-foot-wide cobbled alleyways; a simple church bell chimes 10 times as it is now 10PM. A cool 70-degree breeze blows off the bay. And, blissfully, one hears no English. Except one line on the bus schedule written in Roman characters: Dubrovnik 1315, the departure time of tomorrow's bus to Croatia, where I will update you again.

• Montenegro: Kotor. Kotor Fjord is the only real fjord in southern Europe. Here, the morning fog burns off the bay. Note the white mountains, comprised of white marble rock.


• Montenegro: Kotor. Kotor's Stare Miasto (old town) is on the UNESCO World Hertiage List, which generally doesn't disappoint.


• Montenegro: Kotor. Here, the Yugos still run. In fact, the Yugo is the most common car, followed perhaps by the Zastrava.

Posted by adrianjo at October 19, 2004 12:26 PM

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