Reflecting

Kotor, Montenegro

Kotor is a small, walled city sandwiched between seafront and the mountains. It was very charming but it was a culture shock after Albania. The affluence in the city was so obvious, actually almost obnoxious, if such things can be. The marina was stuffed full of multi-million pound yachts, the elite form of transport for the young and wealthy.

Montenegro has benefited from a huge tourist boom in the last decade and it seemed that all the money is pumped back into tourism. Any Euro that could be spared was. The hostel owner made us pay one Euro 'tourist tax' everyday that we there, saying it was necessary to cross the border in Croatia. It wasn't. So that was money lost. This kind of exploitation of tourism was evident in restaurants too if, for example, you had a coffee instead of a meal. I can't blame people really, everyone needs to make a living and if tourism is your country's forté then that's where the money is. I guess it was just a shame to see tourism do that to a country. Ironically, although Albania was a lot poorer there were no qualms with money. People would genuinely go out of there way to help you or make sure that you were okay. The people in Albania looked at you simply as a fellow human being, whereas unfortunately, a lot of the Montenegran establishments in Kotor saw you as an easy buck. I guess I had just had the Albanian blues.