#2: Tendencies
Turkey has never been a point of interest for me. It just happened that a couple of my friends came to Istanbul, and it was also an inevitable checkpoint by the way to Yerevan, which my team decided to choose for urgent relocation, at least temporarily. So I decided to stop there for a week. That should also justify the price of the tickets, — I thought.
But you see, we turned not to be good friends with the universe recently, though here I should admit, it was also partly my fault, and just the general state of things in the world, of course.
But let’s rewind the story a little. In the middle of my stay in Montenegro I found out that they have a second international airport — in Tivat. And how happy I was, when I found you can fly from Tivat to Istanbul with a direct flight and for less than a hundred Euros, which was also very good. The problem was that the flight was either — a day before the last booked day in Ulcinj (the small town on the south of Montenegro where I decided to stay for a week), or a couple of days later.
And here comes my first mistake. I decided that I can leave the place I rented earlier and booked the flight. Then I checked the buses and thought that going there in the morning and arriving 40 minutes before the flight is not a good idea. So I booked a room in Tivat for one night and decided to leave Ulcinj two days earlier than planned.
My host in Ulcinj was a really kind person, and amongst many other good things that he did, he also offered to lift me up to the bus station. I happily agreed. We talked a lot on the way to the station, and then a little bit more near the station. We said goodbye to each other, I turned around, walked a bit and felt that I already missed the place. Interesting! — I noticed silently to myself.
Busses and their drivers in Montenegro are completely wild creatures. The bus business is a complete jungle. Most of the buses are small and operated by supposedly micro-companies with a couple of buses in their park, perhaps every one of them covers just one or two routes. Bus stations are also weird, as you might have guessed — same wilderness, all so different with their own rules and practices.
They share one common thing though: you have to print the tickets purchased online, showing the barcode on the phone screen doesn’t work. When you board a bus, a driver tears off a part of the sheet you printed your ticket on and leaves the rest to you. You also have to pay one euro to the driver for extra luggage, and then it’s stored in a special section of the bus.
So, when you arrive at the bus station, you first find a ticket officer and pay them a euro or two for printing your already purchased ticket. Sometimes you need cash for that. Then you need cash again to pay for your suitcase or anything bigger than a backpack.
Drivers — yet another speciality of Montenegro, they’re simply crazy and drive recklessly no matter where — on the narrow streets of towns, on winding mountain roads, they don’t care there sometimes are no sidewalks for pedestrians, so they have to walk on roads. They don’t mind riding on opposite lanes just before the 90° turn of a mountain road, where you can’t physically see if there’s anyone behind. But enough about them.
I entered the bus station in Ulcinj, which looked quite modern and spacious, compared to other ones, in much larger cities. I asked the only ticket officer whether I needed to print my ticket here and if she could do it, but she only answered something incomprehensible, came out to the hall and led me outside to the platform where many men were sitting and standing: one at the exit turnstiles, one at the entrance from the platform, one was sitting — and that was the one, the woman asked something, and then this man asked me with a very good but not very friendly English what was my problem. I asked him whether I had to print the ticket and if they could print it if I had to. Then a weird unfriendly conversation happened. The man was very angry, and when I asked him why he is so rude and angry — he replied that he answers this question 20 times a day, because ‘no one follows the rules’. I decided not to suggest to him the idea that unfollowed rules are usually broken and disconnected from reality, and also not to mention that people don’t usually have printers at home nowadays.
I boarded the bus, and thought that this accident was actually useful — it obliterated the warm feelings to this place that appeared before I entered the bus station completely. That’s how I left Ulcinj without regrets and hard feelings.
With a short stop in Budva, I arrived in Tivat. And once I reached downtown — I realised that booking a place to stay here for just one night was a terrible mistake. At first sight it looked very cosy and the most European place I saw in Montenegro. The apartment I rented made me even more sad — it was finally a good place to stay, the first decent place I rented in this country that appeared to be not just not worse than in the photos, but actually much better. In the morning, by the way to the airport, looking around, in a perfectly not-too-hot summer sunny weather, checking not so good weather forecasts for Istanbul in my phone, I was about to launch into cursing myself.
I arrived at the airport two hours before the flight, just as the flight company suggested. Check-in area was closed. And how I would find out later, after check-in that started an hour before the flight, I had to wait 30 more minutes, walking here and there before the closed security check area — there was nowhere to sit. Bringing that ‘rule follower’ from Ulcinj here seemed a good idea.
But before check-in started, I decided to eat something at the only cafe in this airport. The food was so-so, but the reason why all this story about the airport is here is the conversation I had with a waiter. I was about to leave, and he asked me whether I’m Ukrainian or Russian — we were talking in Russian, because he didn’t know English well. I said something that sounded like I don’t really like the place I’m from, to which he replied that there’s nothing wrong with ‘my’ country and I can actually be very proud of it, ‘because it was inevitable and NATO was about to conquer Russia’. We had a little argument, which stopped with my long tirade about constant lies, censorship and repressions of the Russian government which for me meant that whatever this government is saying is wrong if I have just a little doubt in it. He wished me something good, and I left. Perhaps, you already know what happened with all my hard feelings about not staying longer in Tivat. An interesting tendency! — I noticed to myself. Later this day I’ll write a letter to my host in Ulcinj, asking him whether he knows anyone in Tivat who rents places monthly for a reasonable price, which is usually 200–300 euro a month for a single-bed flat.
The huge modern-looking Istanbul airport instantly made me think that I arrived in a really big and diverse city. Something similar I saw in Los Angeles, with different people around of course. Staff spoke good English. It all made me feel reasonably good, even though the cold air wasn’t particularly welcoming after +20°C in Tivat.
The cityscapes by the way from the airport brought another tendency to my consideration. I came to Croatia first. And not really liking it, I decided to go to Montenegro, where, slowly I was coming to a decision that Croatia was actually quite nice compared to Montenegro. Now, in Turkey, the mixture of almost abandoned old houses falling apart and surrounded with new tasteless constructions was reminding me of the worst places in Russia. Once I exited the bus and set on the way to the rented room, almost fighting through the bustling crowd on the dirty streets of Beyoğlu I could only think ‘What the hell am I doing? Why am I here?’.
20 minutes later, entering a shabby place that was supposedly my hotel I felt really uncertain. Here I can give two advices:
- Look for reviews not only on the booking website, but also on Google Maps if possible
- Ask the receptionist to show you the room before you pay if you spot something weird about the place
I left that place 5 minutes after entering my room. Happily, my friend living in Istanbul offered me to stay at her place that night. But unfortunately, I got no confirmation from the host of the place I booked for the next few days even the next morning. And there were no places to stay in Istanbul that I could afford and of which I was certain it wouldn’t be some scam like the room I visited the previous day. That led me to a crazy idea to book a flight to Yerevan the same day. And so I did, leaving the most diverse city I’ve ever visited, full of extreme contrasts, almost completely unexplored.
