(And Why I Wore Heels)

Ah, Montenegro. The very name sounds like a Bond villain’s preferred holiday spot. Sophisticated. Dangerous. Expensive. Perfect for the crew of the good ship Sawasdeekat – that’s us, Heath and Pookie (yes, the Pookie, slayer of soufflés and champion of MasterChef UK), plus our floating home, whose name is a Thai "hello" with a very deliberate ‘t’ for ‘Catamaran’. Because why be ordinary when you can be pun-tastic? (did you see what I did there!?)

Anyway, life aboard Sawasdeekat is an ongoing masterclass in batting away minor disasters like errant tennis balls – mostly my department – while chasing sunshine, spectacular food, and the next absurdly wonderful encounter. And Porto Montenegro? Landing here felt less like docking a boat and more like accidentally gatecrashing the world’s most exclusive jewellery box.

Billionaires & Boat Blankets:

Our assigned berth? Oh, nothing special. Just snugged up beside the Black Pearl. You know, that one. The $300m sailing superyacht that makes most countries look fiscally challenged. Think less "boat", more "mobile mountain range clad in carbon fibre and sheer audacity". Its towering flanks and three ridiculously high masts did offer a welcome perk: acting as a billion-dollar windbreak against the Mistral screaming down the fjord-like mountains. Bonus! It also provided instant life goals. Mine now involve winning the lottery approximately… four consecutive times. Aim high, I say.

Porto Montenegro is where oligarchs polish their superyachts and retail therapy involves casually acquiring a small nation's GDP. The marina promenade is a gauntlet of Fendi, Bulgari, Louis Vuitton (note the spelling, even I know that!), Prada, Dior, Hermès… shops where the air smells faintly of truffles and bankruptcy. Did we fit in? Naturally. Our humble catamaran, probably smaller than the Pearl's tender, felt like the plucky terrier at a Great Dane convention. But hey, our winter berth was paid! That granted us the sacred right to walk the golden streets… and gawp. Fun Fact: Montenegro’s entire population? Roughly 625,000 souls – Montenegro’s 625,000 residents make it roughly the size of Nashville—coincidentally, the holy grail of my daughter Paris Adams (@parisadamsofficial), whose country-grunge vocals haunt honky-tonk bars there between serenading our YouTube channel (@sawasdeekat) as its resident backing-track siren. Small world, less marina parking spots! 

The €7 Death Trap & Culinary Recon:

Settled in, stomachs rumbled. Dining choices? Two distinct flavours:

1.  Authentic Balkan: Hearty, delicious, presentation… an afterthought. Think flavour bombs delivered with rustic charm.

2.  Millionaire Munchies: Places where merely stepping through the door (held by impossibly beautiful, immaculately clad staff whose shoes cost more than my entire wardrobe) caused my credit card to spontaneously combust in my pocket.

Winter in a marina, however, isn't just about dodging diamond encrusted shopping bags. It's about the people. Enter stage left: Hulgar and Karen, salt-crusted veterans with tales that could fill volumes, docked beside us. On the other side, a neighbour whose boat was already snoozing under a local tradesman’s watchful eye. Then Mark and Sally from Oz, wafting over from their decidedly posh motor yacht. Community found!

To escape the gilded cage, I secured wheels. The cheapest wheels. A princely €7 per day. Bargain? Oh, yes. Roadworthy? Debatable. This automotive marvel made a Trabant look luxurious. Dashboard warning lights? It didn't have a light, it had a festive constellation. Wheel trims? Luxury! Central locking? Ha! Functional seatbelts? Optimistic. But bless its rattling heart, it started… usually on the fourth attempt. It became our chariot of questionable fortune.

Kotor Calling & The Serpentine of Sickness:

First mission: Supplies! We raided local markets, emerging laden with goodies for Pookie to weave her culinary magic. Then, sightseeing. First stop: Kotor. Picture a storybook swallowed by mountains, then coughed up onto the Adriatic. Walled, winding, wonderfully ancient. Fun Fact: Kotor's fortifications, ribboning up the sheer mountain behind the town, date back to the 9th century and are longer than the Great Wall of China relative to the town size – climbing them feels like scaling history itself! Thronged by cruise shippers by day, it regains its mystical charm as dusk falls, making you wonder about the centuries of footsteps echoing on its stones.

We explored Ljuta further along the coast, drawn by promises of waterside restaurants (and delivered!). But my inner petrolhead (okay, cyclist who loves gradients and bends) craved the legendary Serpentine Road to Lovćen. Think 25 hairpin bends carved into a mountainside, each turn revealing a vista more breathtaking than the last. I drove with the gusto of a rally legend reborn, loving every lunge and swerve. Pookie? Less enthused. Let’s just say she discovered new depths of pallor and possibly invented new swear words in languages she didn’t know she knew. Another Fun Fact: This stunning road, built in the 1870s, is notoriously dangerous – earning grim nicknames over the years due to accidents. The views back over the Bay of Kotor and Porto Montenegro? Absolutely worth the… discomfort. For the driver, at least.

The €7 Logic Revealed & Pom’s Return:

About two weeks into our automotive adventure, the €7 price tag suddenly made horrifying sense. One of those cheerful dashboard lights, previously just part of the festive display, apparently meant: "Stop. Driving. Me. Now." It coughed, spluttered, and died. Dramatically. Thankfully, Montenegrin efficiency (and the country's conveniently small size) meant a mechanic arrived within 20 minutes. He poked the bewildering maze of wires connected to the battery, muttered something profound, and… we lived to drive another day! Just in time.

For the return of Pom! (You remember Pookie’s fabulously game sister from Sunny Sivota? Episode 024!). Naturally, we subjected her to the Kotor/Ljuta circuit and the Serpentine – wouldn’t want her to miss the full Montenegrin experience, nausea included! We also popped over the border into Croatia, showing her the awe-inspiring, walled majesty of Dubrovnik – King’s Landing herself!  Walk the walls and you’re literally treading the stones where Cersei Lannister took her walk of shame. Powerful stuff, even without dragons.

Halloween Hullabaloo & High Heels:

Pom stayed just long enough for Halloween. Now, normally, this involves elaborate costumes sourced from specialist shops. Montenegro? Not so much. Pookie, ever resourceful, went scary-chic. For me? She hatched a plot. Under duress (and possibly the influence of local rakija), I found myself squeezed into a dress and not-quite-sky-high heels. The pièce de résistance? A sign: “Turning Tricks into Treats – My Body is Yours for £5/hour – Now THAT’S scary!” Reader, I was terrifying. A vision in questionable fabric and sheer absurdity, paraded for comedic effect (though I did field some… interesting offers). The highlight? Meeting the Captain of the Black Pearl. First impressions? Mine involved tripping in heels. His? Probably sheer, unadulterated confusion. A fabulous, bizarre night.

Cocktails, Cold & Chef Celebrations:

November brought colder winds and reunions with Ed and Karen who you may recall we bumped (not literally of course) into in Greece and again in Bulgaria. We explored charming Perast, sophisticated PortoNovi, and historic Herceg Novi.

Then, an unexpected delight: The marina organised a mixology class with none other than Milan Josipovic, a former world-class cocktail champion!

Some friends joined Pookie and I to a cocktail masterclass at a swanky local venue. Our teacher first demonstrated and then invited people up to try. Of course Pookie went up!!!

Watching Pookie, a maestro of flavours, learn the alchemy of mixology from a master was brilliant. Milan showed Pookie some cocktail trade secrets and later she also shared with him some of her recipes for delicious cocktails. Milan was so impressed he invited us to Salon Prive where he is Executive Director for a mixology video – a touch of glam in the gathering winter.

However as time moved on the mercury plummeted, Pookie found the perfect escape pod: the 20th Anniversary Party for MasterChef UK! Off she flew to London, rubbing shoulders with culinary royalty like Thomas Frake and Kenny Tutt, no doubt sampling dishes that would make mere mortals weep with joy. Picture this: Pookie had barely escaped the existential dread of Podgorica Airport baggage reclaim when she was tackled by two energetic humans. Not thieves. Not paparazzi (though, MasterChef fame does occasionally warrant a side-eye in produce aisles). No, this was Jo and Steve Nuttall – parents to those viral football wunderkinds who make Messi look like he’s moving in slow-mo. Their approach? Less ‘hello’, more ‘premier league scouting report meets over-caffeinated golden retriever’. They’d recognized her from MasterChef, decided we looked like ‘boat people who needed local allies’. Only in Montenegro do you get adopted by football royalty because your wife can debone a sea bass. Good Times.

Family, Fenders & Fond Farewells:

Enter my daughter, Alicia. Clever girl realised Dad + Boat + Sunny(ish) Climes = Affordable Adventure! Hearing we were near Dubrovnik (and knowing her boyfriend Dan was a massive Game of Thrones fan), they pounced. By now, our valiant white €7 warrior had gasped its last. The hire company's solution? A woman pulled up, lifted her 5-year-old daughter and the car seat out of her own car, handed us the keys, and walked off into the sunset (well, the bus stop), child in tow. "Use this one," she declared, ignoring our offers of a lift. Only in Montenegro!

We played seasoned tour guides for them both and eventually managed to tear my daughter’s Game of Thrones-obsessed partner away from the base of the Jesuit Staircase - where he was meticulously re-enacting Cersei’s walk of atonement, much to the confusion of a tour group - to actually appreciate the real majesty of Dubrovnik. The city isn't just a filming location; it's a living museum of honey-colored limestone and history. We walked the mighty city walls, and from that breathtaking vantage point, the Adriatic Sea wasn't just a blue expanse - it was a sparkling moat guarding a kingdom of terracotta roofs and majestic, centuries-old buildings whose roofs were all uniformly replaced with identical tiles after the devastating 1991 siege, a testament to the city's resilient and unified spirit. Fun Fact: The city's iconic walls, which have never been breached by a hostile army, are so thick that in some places you could actually have a race on top of them - a fact Pookie’s future son-in-law immediately suggested we test, before being vetoed by everyone with a sense of self-preservation. It was a trip where fantasy and magnificent reality collided in the best way possible.

We revisited Kotor’s magic once more and by now were old hands at pointing out its grandeur, now twinkling with December Christmas lights. The weather, however, was decidedly less festive. We invested in colossal inflatable fenders – things that looked like they belonged on the QE2 – praying they’d buffer Sawasdeekat against the 100mph Bora winds known to scream down the valley into the marina.

Next Time on Sawasdeekat Adventures: We trade Montenegran Bora winds for Brussel sprouts! Join us for a chaotic Heath family Christmas in the UK…