Enduring the tourist season in Montenegro

The heat of the sun and the stuffiness. Walking through the Ulcinj city in search of a place to live for the next month. We tried a couple of local websites like “realitica” and “patuljak” with no luck. But locals do not use the internet as much. And the tourist season is starting full on. Everybody wants to rent out their apartments for 30+ euros per night for the next 2-3 months until the end of the season. Locals expect to get huge returns in comparison to the average salary across the country. Tourist hype drives the prices up. The same accommodation will go 3 times cheaper as soon as the tourist season ends in September-October. Then all those 3 floor mansions will become empty for the winter.

We walk through the areas we like the most, enter the properties and ring those door bells. Sometimes people come out and let us into their tourist spider webs. Although we try to be upfront in telling that we need just a normal accommodation for some modest price. Sometimes we have to use a mix of different languages until finding the touchpoint. But it never goes as you may expect.

There are many houses offering apartments and rooms. In every seashore village across the Montenegro. Very easy to find something European tourist oriented. But most locals we met would never change their perception in favour of a regular persona. As they’d rather expect a tourist emploi. So it takes time until we inspect everything they want us to, before getting into details like price. Not to mention our feelings about their offers. Hence from the talk to talk we became stiffer and bolder. We started asking for something more concrete. To be able to respect our own feelings and time too. In the meantime the heat is shutting us down more and more with every minute.

Every person we meet is a unique experience. Pleasant, fun or draining. By the end of the day we are looking back tiredly to see how far we have dived into the local reality. Nothing inspiring so far. And it is even not about the price, but about supporting this kind of business. 3 days of searching and it feels like a dead end.

Sometime during our search we have stumbled upon a man in the central area of the town. Although his accommodation was taken already, he kindly offered us to make a phone call to his friend. He speaks over the phone: “Here are guys looking for a place to live. Do you have something? … they want for a month… they can pay 12 euro per night. For 30 days. So 12 times 30 is 360.” Next five minutes or so he was trying to explain this equation with an infinite smile on the face. Repeating it many times from different angles. We were amused by their conversation.

At some point they have finished the talk. Then the man said that his friend across the street has a room for us. Having some pain in the leg, he asked a young man, possibly his son, to show us the room. Together we went across the street to a small nook. Behind the entrance of a fancy hotel. There stood a building with a small sign “Lux apartments” and the phone number. Up the stairs there was a small room and it was open. The young man said we can check everything and call the number from the wall in case we like. He quickly left. There was nothing special about the room aside the price. We still wanted just a little bit more space in case someone visits us. So we saved the number and went on the search further.

Most of the time we have to reply that we are going to think a bit and call back. Cause they use to show everything extensively before naming the price, which appears to be hyped just enough for us to doubt. Kind of a hook, when you feel that the person made an effort for you, while you really did not want anything. I honestly tried to ask for the price upfront many times. Sometimes you can almost tell exactly what you will see for the price. They never tell.

Then once the accommodation inspected we are always unsure. The one may guess we look among the cheapest. Always shaky, here you never want to jump into anything under the influence. Sometimes we have to say no thanks straight away. Yet some offers went away in front of us in hours. Those less hyped, and having some good features. After a while we realised that this small room was a heck of a deal relative to whats going on during the season. So we called the number. Unsurprisingly the room was taken by someone else. So we gave up.

We sit down in a cafe, ask for beans and some french fries with a cheese. They bring us the biggest portions we have ever seen in the country. Not sure how to eat all of this. And the phone rings at the same time. From the number from the wall. A man speaks long Serbian, telling something like to come now. We are not sure where to come. Asking for the location but the conversation just goes on and on with no details. Now we get little bit nervous. Need to eat those huge portions and have to come somewhere not sure where. I gave the phone to the waiter, and he speaks and speaks. For five minutes they talk. He is saying something like ok many times in a raw. And finally he names a particular hotel which is present on the map. So we realise with google maps that it must be somewhere near that very room we inspected the other day.

Without expecting anything in particular, we finish the plates and go. As fast as we can. We end up in the same nook, near the building. And a man comes down from the stairs. He is smiling all the time, just like his friend we met the other day. And he seems to be enjoying every bit of talking. Still it feels a bit weird. He shows us another room down the floor to the one we used to check. It is a bit spacier, much lighter and even has a sink and a small space for cooking inside. Like a mini studio. He says the price. And we say alright. No concerns. He shows us something with a smile, and we say yes with a smile. Everybody are yes and happy. Deal!

Not sure how this switch from the not sure to yes happened. It’s pretty hard to be open and accepting, when everything feels closing around. The dark side of capitalism blossoms. Even those people who would not care much about making the money on you are under pressure from their neighbours. Locals here seem to be close to each other. They know who rents out and what, or at least they think they know. So I would imagine any idea about renting out your apartment would go through the judgement of everybody around. And yet you can see many houses, which look obviously empty. For some reason those houses are not treated as a possible space for someone. Probably owned by outsiders, they just stand. And someone just behind the corner pays space money to get a bed with the shower. I imagine a separation between locals and foreigners in terms of income is huge too. You can meet a foreigner on every street. No wonder it's all turned into a huge business here. I just hope my mind is not that closed and the world is actually much better. Be you on the honest search for something, it must exist somewhere, isn’t it?

I think the strive for something never comes from nothing unless it is based on a “schizophrenic” idea. I mean if it is based on a bare logical thought, then it might be a separation from the reality. Like a search for a flat on the planet Uranus. This would have led you into a world that is not around anymore. Can this kind of idea happen being based on the internal uncertainty? Seems like it would rather happen from a strong belief that the world is exactly like you think. Which is never the case when you are uncertain. Uncertainty in itself is the lack of a definite idea of the world and hopefully gradual acceptance of things. Possibly feeling that there is something hidden from our regular sight. So when this uncertainty comes from the deep feeling or intuition, given the interconnection of all with all, it just means the presence of real opportunity.

2 days later we came to move in. There was a man living, who wanted to prolong his stay. The landlord was not speaking english. The man in turn spoke only english. So they both stand in front of us and the landlord is trying to ask us something. We expect him to offer another room for a man. But it seemed like he wanted to offer us another room for few days instead. We used to move around rooms at previous places too. So we were already tired of bouncing back and forth by the will of landlords. I guess thats why we finally took a hard stance. We insisted that we had a definite deal and everything was planned in advance. So the landlord did not want to go into any conflict and moved the man instead. Thats how we finally got the place to live at, and moved our stuff in.

Everything seems to be resolved. Yet after the incident, i was little bit sorry for the man. As he seemed to be a nice guy, who just accepts whatever comes. He looked a bit strange, was talking to himself and laughing when winding up his stuff. Meticulously picking some small peaces from the table with his finger and putting them into the garbage bag full of little bottles from identical apple drink. When asked he would say that everything is alright, then happily discussing something under his breath. However me too became a little bit crazy, strangely condemning myself just after the agreement we reached. Thinking may be we could actually get a better deal with that another flat, that he wanted to move us to, and just stay there for the next month. I started blaming myself for being too rigid. Oh, this uncertainty can be over the top! Can we just be content with what we get? The mind is constantly manipulating our will.

That morning, we just moved our stuff in and went to town. I was not content, but consumed by the above negative thoughts. So i could hardly see anything beyond their horizon. However by the middle of the day, i started letting them go. In order to accept whatever we had at the very moment. I started writing the continuation of this story. And observing any gloomy thoughts coming up without digging into them. So after a while they started to leave one by one. Of course there were other “issues” to digest too. The brain can be a trash bin in that sense. Lots of meaningless thoughts sometimes, leading to lots of worries and doubts. In such moments it is far better not to focus on anything negative, and may be dive into a single positive routine or 2 instead.

Neutrally observing what comes up by “its own will” works great. In this way i get no momentum to blow issues out of proportion. Which our brains do every time. The brain clings on negative stuff and digs into it, so the negative mood grows. Hence whatever comes should go as it is. We have the ability to shift our focus from this negative stuff to something bigger - everything that we experience in the moment. We have many senses and the body to observe. When we place our focus there, we get the ability to notice the negative stuff as it appears. It tries to pull our focus. To the point we are totally consumed. But we can let it go as something not that important without clinging until the focus goes back to something meaningful.

One day we will come home. But that's what we have now.