Thursday 2nd September

 

2/09/04 Day 61. (A day of delays)

Twas a relaxing and chilled out morning, having decided that Skopje was not going to take more than 3 hours. Therefore 'the 10:30 bus would be just dandy'. Heather deemed it necessary to wake me from my peaceful slumber - and drag me away from my disturbing dreams of impregnating Phoebe and Sandra Bullock throwing my penknife to me - and then bluntly refused to return yesterday's favour and bring me breakfast in bed'. So after another feast of yogurts, fresh fruit, toast, jam, and milk, we dallied around packing ourselves up and then headed for the bus via an internet shop.

Things started badly on the bus and got progressively worse. The only great point that can be said is our backs fitted in to the seats butthe overhead luggage space saving us (the Balkan-baggage-fee - we had to fight. Then we realised they had given us seat numbers, so we ended up with no leg room and in the sun. Next followed a crazy shouting match between driver and 4 youths trying to get on the bus. One got on, while the others stood in angry disbelief on the pavement. The bus pulled away, stopped, let them on (with mud more shouting), and we were on our way. My great hypothesis for this otherwise inexplicable Macedonian madness is that they could not afford the extra 10 Denar that tickets bought at stations cost and the driver required to let them on at the station as you have to buy tickets from the ticket office. So by pulling 10 metres around the corner they could load their bags on, get on themselves and pay the 'en route' fare. And we wonder why Macedonia lags behind the rest of Europe...

The journey itself was bearable if a bit hot at times, and punctuated by shouting sessions at every stop. The scenery was a several step down from Albania, which is being a bit unfair, because it was still pretty grand - Much more 'European' mountains compared the first half of the route, with much denser vegetation (pansies, generally) and roads that followed, slightly more conveniently, the valleys rather than the ridges! There were still the peasant farmers with their donkeys - but they tended to stay off the roads, and the cities, although with the same 'human feel as Albanian ones', had a public service & system to cope with the modernised ways of life (impaired by surrounding counties, making them cleaner and healthier and more efficient.

Our first impressions of Skopje were not great. Just as the bus reached optimal toasty temperature we reached a mile long traffic jam caused by a vital bit of road being closed to allow a group of protesters to stand out side an important looking building.Unfortunately no driver seemed to know this, so there was a lot of U-bends, a lot of honking, and a small number of very stressed policemen trying not to get run over. My respect for the Macedonian law rose dramatically when a female policeman, standing in a swirling mess of insane traffic, stood her ground in front of a particularly insane bus driver, put both hands up infront of her, and screamed at the driver until he gave up his futile attempt to jump the 'lights'.

We rolled into the bus station a mere hour is late, and proceeded to do the old 'dawn in a record breaking 20 minutes! Unfortunately, I don't think the Turkish bazaar was where we thought it was. So we missed that, and there wasn't much else? a few pedestrian streets, the old cafe.. The walk to the train station was through a largely smelly and noisy new town, although a later toilet quiet revealed a nice cafe/restaurant trail riverside boulevard. The station easily rates as our worse so far; a dark, empty, filthy hole - not the place, normally, you want to wait 3 hours for a 2 hour late train!

We did manage a cheap meal, wholesome if not wholly trustworthy, from a menu-less eat station cafe thing where the only other clients were the owners themselves.

And eventually the train arrived - a surprising 4 carriages considering it started in Lyub and did every Balkan Z capital (bar Sarajevo & Tirana, and we got a compartment with 4 young Macedonians who, if all goes to plan, will leave us Z with our own compartment at at the greek border.

Now seems a good time to add a forgotten comment concerning Albanian telegraph poles. Our first encounter was a row of not particularly straight shots, all leaning at an insane angle by the side of the road. It was jokingly commented that the Albanians use these to support their wires, but we were rather shocked to see that this actually was the case in furthar south! And in Macedonia I spotted someoneclimbing one of their (more conventional) poles with steel straps etc.

Montenegrin Memories.

Landscape: Sartastic gorges. A Croatian adriatic but better - more imposing cliffs and less desolate anythings better than Serbia's plains. Juicy leafy trees. Still no sand. Logged to the top of hills

Tourism: maybe they'd just all gone home but generally quieter than Croatia. Cheap accommodation. Balkanic tourism only, it would seem. charged us to walk up hills and sit on beaches

People: Friendly and helpful, despite lack of vocab.

Food: Pancakes! And you get to put your own salad in your burgers! Still rice portions Mix of Italian and fish. Beer cheap, mainly Nik to no opinion

Public transport: bus stations without cash machines, hours for toilets at stations, repetitive music at stations on buses. Charged for big bags.

Old towns: YES

coming after because + comprehension took a long time and also whose belongance we heard thereof

Serbian shortlist

Belgrade: dirty, smelly & nothing to put nothing to do - to keep/fantastic chocolate cake - which was Italian

Landscape: flat and boring (what we saw at last)

People: beggars or not descript chain-smokers

Tourism: What?

Tourist office: take some serious lessons from the Bosnians!

Food: no idea - we had a kitchen! But the supermarket was dirt cheap! Fab fresh market - Broccoli! No courgettes!

This is Macedonia - I've gone mad.

Food (ideas): MEAT - and shed-loads of it. Not a vegetable in the entire country.Albanian?

Landscape: wow

Tourism: Makes Serbia look like Prague

Public Transport: makes money for the marquess

roads: needs the money the marquees get.

People: loud, but very helpful. I really liked them.

Food: weren't there long enough to eat.

Macedonian moments

Landscape: mountainous - I've seen better. Slightly less dramatic than Albania - it's all about the lake really

People: Very really nice - we like the people. - taxi driver who didn't charge, use-gay who was v helpful, family who offered us brandy and Uni applicant who poisoned us

Food: (see Serbian section - obviously). Beer - foul, not worth the sop

Transport: - - - - - - - - - - - lake

Tourism: Ohrid only, & Balkans! only, but greatness2/09/04 - Day 61. Cont.

(Side note: the carriage design is due to our desire to reflect the mediterranean switch of our travelling and not because there was a rubbish selection in the shop).

So, in the end, our plans didn't go our way -> we did have the carriage to ourselves and it was nice and clean and comfy; we bedded down for the night and were soon asleep. A little later the conductor came to bury on our clear and shout "two" and "Athens" at us. Presumeably train lines don't work after midnight in Greece and we (including a lot of confused and weary travellers) were herded into a luxury coach, which would have been nice, had there been more leg room, had it not been the middle of the night, and had we not stopped every hour for coffee, when all we wanted to do was sleep. The journey was slow and painful and meant we missed our acropyas sunrise...