Back-fire of a life-time, by Thomas George Stanley Denner. (Border crossing Greece to Macedonia)

It was a grey and overcast day as we approached the Macedonian border near the town of Florina. The drive from the previous night's camp site was fairly uneventful, as was the mostly flat, green agricultural land we were now passing through. Around 1:30, the Greek customs/immigration terminal emerged in the distance, and just behind that, a Macedonian flag. Exiting Greece was no problem whatsoever; a cursory glance through our passports and vehicle documents, before stamping us out of the country. This is the type crossing we've come to enjoy in Europe, quick and painless. This one however was about to come to a grinding halt.

We continued on through no-man's land to the Macedonian terminal. The official in the booth asked us for passports and vehicle documentation as per usual, which we obligingly handed over. He sifted through our passports checking names and faces, pausing a moment longer as he tried to reconcile my 16yr old passport photo with the now slightly more mature looking bearded face in front of him. Content with who we were, he then moved on to the vehicle documents, and here we ran into a problem. It is compulsory in Macedonia, as it is in most countries in this part of the world, to have vehicle insurance, usually documented by the infamous “green card”. Greece had allowed us to pass into their country with our original insurance documents from Malaysia, but after much debate the Macedonian officials made it clear that unless we had a green card, we would have to buy insurance from the border.

We had anticipated this might be a problem, and begrudgingly accepted we would just have to pay the 55 Euros to enter the country. There was a slight problem though: none of us had anticipated it enough to bring Euros. We had in fact all deliberately spent our remaining cash on gas, petrol and other assorted non perishables in preparation for the next few countries which were not on the Euro, so as not to have extra money just floating around. Of course they didn't take card so we asked the head official if there was a Bankomat anywhere in the vicinity. He replied that there was nothing on the Macedonian side, but possibly at the service station just before the border on the Greek side. Someone was going to have to run back across the border and get some money, and the logical choice was someone with an EU passport.

I walked back across no-man's land and through the Greek border, asking about the closest Bankomat on the way. The officials on the Greek side were pretty sure the closest one was actually in Florina, 18 km away, and sure enough, the service station attendant said the same thing. This changed things slightly, but the fact remained we still needed the money, so I would have to go to Florina. I considered going back across the border again to tell everyone what I was doing, but I realised it had already taken about 20 minutes just to get to here, and if I did it would mean crossing through Greek immigration a total of five times in one day, which might raise an eyebrow. Alternately, if I go now I'll probably be back in about 45 min-1 hour. A little longer than expected, but cash in hand, and problem solved.

I decided to go for it, and began to head up the road to Florina. The third car which passed me pulled over. It was an elderly Greek couple in a tired looking blue hatch-back. Neither of them spoke a word of English, but “Florina” they understood and beckoned me to take a seat in the back. I began thinking how well everything was going; five minutes and I've already got a lift. Then we turned off the main road to Florina, and I started to worry again. I said Florina again a few more times to the driver, and indicated to myself to ensure I was getting the point across. He seemed to understand well enough so I hoped it was just an alternate route. If it wasn't I was going to end up in a village somewhere far away from Florina or the border, and that would make things very very difficult.

The fact that I knew no Greek, and this couple knew no English was only a very mild dampener on conversation. The co-pilot in particular sat herself half swivelled in the passenger seat to face me, providing a continuous verbal stream, regardless of my mostly non-committal “sorry, I don't understand”answers. We did however manage to establish that I was Australian (which judging by the response was pretty exciting), and that they had some family in Melbourne. I also managed to establish that this couple (or rather this man) had been driving for about 12hours or so already. Not an unimpressive achievement for an 80something year old, if slightly worrying.

The “conversation” continued, as the car swerved from one side of the road to the other, using its entire width to try to avoid the potholes in one of Greece's less well maintained roads. We sped through farmland and country villages, until finally a great sense of relief washed over me. We had just passed a sign telling us we were entering Florina, and as we rounded the corner at top speed, the town appeared before us. The couple drove through the centre of town, and I asked them to stop and let me out. At this point they started asking me quite excitedly if I'd like to continue to Thessaloniki. I had to decline several times as politely as possible before I could exit the car. The disappointment printed on their faces made me feel guilty enough to momentarily consider getting back in the car, but common sense quickly gave me a slap in the back of the head. I thanked them for the lift, and waved them on their way. Conveniently I happened to be standing right next to a bankomat, so withdrew sufficient funds to cover the insurance. So far so good, now I just needed a lift back to the border, and we could be on our way.

I walked to the main road out of town heading to the Macedonian border, and started trying to hail cars. Initially I had quite a few people stop for me, but unfortunately they were all headed to a football match which also happened to be about a km down this road. I continued on, thinking it might be easier to get a lift once I was past the football stadium, but once I was out of the football traffic no one was stopping for me at all. After being picked up so quickly the first time, I really thought it wouldn't take me more than 20-30 minutes to get a lift, but it was getting on for an hour now. To make things worse I had no way of contacting any of my fellow travellers at the border, who were still under the impression that I was just popping over to the service station, and to top it off it was beginning to rain.

I continued walking for what was starting to seem like ages. Traffic was regularly passing, but still no one was stopping. It began to dawn on me that I might actually be walking the whole 18km back., and maybe this wasn't the fantastic idea that I had thought it was. I stopped at a garage in the middle of seemingly nowhere to see if there was anyone who could help in any way, shape or form, but the door was firmly locked, and there was no one there. Back to the road then.

I remember at some point being told the average walking speed of a person on flat ground is about 3km/h, so I started doing the maths in my head. It was going to take me about 6 hours to walk back, by which time the border will probably have closed, which meant that we will be stuck here tonight, which meant that this would be hands down the longest crossing so far, and I will be dealing with some some very unhappy travellers. Then coming toward me from the distance I noticed a car. Just a silhouette in the fading light at this distance,but by now an all too familiar shape. The box-like front profile perched on its wheelbase high above the road. Two square, slightly yellowing headlights, shining over a slightly lopsided front bumper, care of a scooter in Thailand. Finally the unmistakable roof box & spare tyre combination, perched like a tactical tiara over the roof of the vehicle. After two hours of waiting, Ben and Eils had finally given up and taken Trev to come and look for me, while Tom and Courtney were waiting in no-man's land, just in case I managed to make it back undetected.

After waiting for so long they'd finally gone and asked the border guards themselves and discovering that the closest bankomat was 18 km away, had decided to begin the rescue mission. As we headed back to the border I explained how it had gone so well, and then so wrong. We exited Greece (again), collected Tom and Courtney, bought the insurance and entered Macedonia. A ten minute border crossing had taken three hours, but we had finally made it through.  

Day 263 – A light bulb and a lot of snow. (Border crossing Albania to Kosovo)

We really didn’t want to leave our Tiranian hosts, but Christmas was fast approaching and we still had a fair bit of distance to cover (Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina and Serbia) before reaching our destination of Budapest eleven days later.

The road from Tirana to the Kosovan border was horrendously snowy, completely uncleared in places, and barely cleared in others. It was a very beautiful, but excruciatingly slow and tiring drive, and as it got dark we hoped that the border would be open past 5pm. We couldn’t believe it when a policeman waved us down at the bottom of a very narrow and steep stretch of road, frustrated beyond belief that police all over the world have the outrageous audacity to play their power games under such conditions. He began with the usual “documenti,” to which we handed over a passport or a driver’s licence or whichever document took our fancy (as they never seem to know what they’re actually asking for, it never matters what we give them as long as it’s something). He had a quick skim and started pointing at the front of the car. Ben and Denner got out to have a look and realised we’d actually been pulled over because one of our headlights was kaput. This seemed like a fair enough reason actually, considering Albania has adopted the 24 hour compulsory headlights rule, and it was dark by now anyway.

This policeman must have thought he’d struck jackpot – not only had he pulled the only Western tourists on this road, but they actually were breaking the law. Ben expertly fended off the proposals of paying him a “small fee” to make the “big fine” go away, by using the “thankyou so much for letting us know, you’re a good man, we’ll get it fixed right away, thankyou so much” method and off we went.

We actually did need to get it fixed straight away though as it would surely cause us more problems with every policeman we encountered, not to mention the fact that we were about to cross a border, and of course the whole issue of safety and what not. There was one more town before the border, but the roads were so difficult to manoeuvre on and it was approaching 7pm by now, so we tried the service stations on the main road first, but to no avail.

The funny thing about roads being chronically covered in snow and ice is that road rules seem to go out the window, and everyone’s priorities shift from driving in a straight line on the correct side of the road, stopping at lights, indicating for turns etc (although these rules are questionable in places anyway), and it just becomes a matter of staying on the road and not crashing into each other. It’s the same general effect as the hugely pot-holed, un-made roads of South East Asia and Central Asia. So we adapted to snow rules; avoided a car driving the wrong way up the off-ramp, skidded around a car parked in the middle of the single track road and bumped across piles of blackened snow to an auto shop where we spent the last of our Leke on a replacement light bulb.

Fortunately our auto shop attendant was very helpful and we were relieved when he informed us that the border is open 24/7. The border itself was refreshingly straight forward, taking a total of only 15 minutes. Albania didn’t even stop us, so Kosovo took care of the entire process. We were required to buy insurance which of course we were far from happy about. We tried showing them our own insurance documents, but unless it’s the European issued green card it’s not counted and we must purchase their own policy. It’s incredibly frustrating because we know that if anything were to happen that this insurance wouldn’t assist us in the slightest, but it’s their way of taking a sort of road tax/processing fee from us. We’ve come to have a sense of which battles are worth fighting though, and this wasn’t one of them, so we paid €30 for 15 days and off we went to Kosovo.

Day 263 – Flags, fake cafes and confused drivers. (Albania)

Our Couch Surfing situation in Tirana was excellent: Scott and Cortney, ex-pats from Canada and USA respectively, hosted us between them in their neighbouring apartments. Scott’s boyfriend Robert was a week into his three month stay, and Cortney’s German housemate Malwine had Ada to visit during our stay aswell, so all in all we had a wide selection of hosts, all of whom were fantastic.

As such, exploring Tirana was far more of a joy than it otherwise would have been, in fact we greatly enjoyed our time there. We were shocked by how evident the poverty was, even inside the city, which is surprisingly unusual. In most countries we’ve been through, even the horrifically poor ones, the cities haven’t represented that at all, certainly not the capital. Whether artificially as is the case in Central Asia, or naturally as is the case in China, residents of cities in most of the world at least appear to dwell well above the poverty line.

You can say a lot of things about Albanians, but you can’t say they’re not proud of their flag. The black two headed eagle on a vibrant red background was literally flying everywhere. A huge one looked over the main square, almost every building proudly housed at least one and each lamp post was adorned with red and black ribbons and a coat of arms. A lot of countries are very proud of their flag and love to fly it at every opportunity, but I would say Albania has one of the stronger cases of flag-itis.

As mentioned in the previous blog (Day 261 – A snow-coveredborder crossing, and an abundance of stolen vehicles) there are a lot of stolen foreign cars on the Albanian roads. Hand in hand with this, Albanians are also shocking drivers.  Cars were banned in Albania until twenty years ago, so not only do they have the same situation as a lot of poor countries where owning a car is such an important status symbol that families who can barely afford food will go into a lifetime of debt in order to own a car, but there’s the added idea of it being a modern novelty, a sign of freedom.

The roads in Albania were peculiar. Driving from Ohrid, Macedonia to Tirana we started on a very narrow, but surprisingly good quality mountain pass, which as we reached the flat became a brand new motorway. The road was unfinished, and seemed to have been left that way for some time, but bizarrely cars were still driving over it. Because there was no signage or road markings though, it was acceptable to drive on whichever part of the road took your fancy, regardless of your direction of travel. To add to the oddity of this haphazardly used brand new motorway, it was also unmade in places, just in random sections where the road hadn’t yet been surfaced when they decided to abandon the job. As we hit the outskirts of town, this road which wasn’t on any of our maps, came to an abrupt end at a large pile of rubbish – as in a landfill had just been dumped on top of the road. From there all the cars were crossing over the dual-carriage way to squeeze into an unmade side-street which happened to join up with a gap in the crash barrier. This was one of the most severe bottle necks that any of us have experienced, and this was our introduction to Tiranian driving.

 It’s hard to make a definitive verdict of who are the worst drivers we’ve come across, but Albanians would definitely be up there. Laotians were shocking, but that was more a result of how lazy they were, not bothering themselves with tasks such as looking in one’s mirror or checking the road before pulling out. Tehran is probably the most insane traffic we’ve been in, but the drivers all seemed very competent – just cocky and reckless. They were squeezing through gaps smaller than their vehicles and manoeuvring around obstacles as if it’s an every day event – which it is. Phnom Penh in Cambodia was another city which was very intense to drive in. This was a mixture of the typical South East Asian lack of spatial awareness, high population density and shocking roads.

Tirana is quite a small city and there aren’t a lot of spectacular sites to visit. We planned on looking for a Ukrainian embassy whilst wandering around town, but of course no address or directions matched up, so Ben went into a bank to see if they had any idea. The staff couldn’t help in the slightest, but a young Albanian man sitting down presumably discussing finances with a couple who were presumably his parents, stood up and addressed Ben in a broad Northern English accent,

“Oi mate, Ukrainian embassy ay?”

“Yes, yes I am looking for the Ukrainian embassy.”

He turned back to his parents and spoke animatedly in Albanian with them for a couple of minutes before ushering Ben outside.

“You wan’ a taxi, aw ya walkin’? Right, ya go down the stree’ yeah? Turn righ’ at the end?...” and gave us fantastically specific directions to the embassy complex, which we got to and discovered didn’t contain anything to do with Ukraine.

We wondered whether this was an Albanian man who’s been living in England for years, and was just home for a family visit. Or more cynically, is he one of these infamous car runners?

When we stopped for lunch in a small town on our way to Tirana the day we arrived, we found that the majority of “cafes” in fact only sold drinks. This was something we were frustrated to experience again in Tirana, and didn’t really find an explanation for. Is there some financial or cultural reason for this phenomenon? Or is it simply that they start off with good intentions, print menus and install signs, and then realise that it’s much easier just to sell soft drinks and tea than run a kitchen?

Day 289 – Threatening to spontaneously combust. (Romania)

When people ask how the car’s held up having driven close to 50,000 km, across 31 countries (upto and including Romania), battling with horrendous roads and extreme weather conditions, we like to brag about how well we’re doing. Up until some point in the Balkans we would answer with,

“We’ve had a couple of flats – as expected, but other than that we’ve had to repair a window from a break-in, a broken lock from a break-in, the mechanism for our electric window for the boot is gradually deteriorating but still working, and the barrel for the ignition jammed whilst in Kazakhstan, but we got it fixed easily. Nothing major.” (Blog Day 131 - Trevor’s Revenge)

As we hit South Eastern Europe though, winter suddenly set in and with the roads becoming constantly icy and snowy we began considering the option of replacing our tyres with winter tyres. It is a legal requirement in most European countries for 2WDs to have winter tyres on during winter but with 4WD it’s not against the law for us to continue driving on our regular tyres. Our main concern though was that it would be much safer, not to mention easier, if we had the proper tyres. We were a little loathe to ditch our current tyres though because they were still in reasonable condition and were certainly fine for non-snow driving. When we had Trevor serviced in Belgrade, Serbia, we enquired about winter tyres, but were quoted about €150 per tyre and that mechanic didn’t even have any. We would stop intermittently at tyre yards we came across and check out options in supermarkets and such like, but couldn’t find any that would fit our specifications.

As time progressed and the weather got milder in Central Europe we leaned away from the idea of purchasing winter tyres, considering we’d already completed a fair whack of snow driving and for the most part (except perhaps for Romania, Ukraine and Moldova) now would at least have the option of good roads. The tyres had suddenly started looking much barer by now though, especially in a couple of places, and around New Year though we did start discussing the option of just getting new summer tyres (much cheaper than winter tyres). Every day we could notice the particular points which were waring through quicker and the tread seemed to be disappearing in front of our eyes. Our search for new tyres became more serious.

We left Prague on January 4^th, and got to Budapest on January 5^th to pick up Ben’s forgotten shoes and mail from our families which hadn’t quite made it in time for Christmas. Planning to camp somewhere on our way to Romania, we stopped at a Lidl on the outskirts of Budapest to pick up some groceries for dinner, and when we returned to the car realised that it was on a disturbing angle and sure enough – we had a flat.

Denner removed the offending tyre for inspection and discovered that it had not in fact punctured in one spot, but had just worn so thin on one side that there were at least three places where air was leaking from the rubber. Realising that this was beyond repair Denner took the spare off the roof, which is the one that was first punctured at the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos (Blog Day 79 – Car Incidents) and because of the location of the hole was unable to be fixed permanently. Seeing it’s been out of use for the majority of the trip though, it’s still in great condition other than the puncture. He patched it up with our temporary repair kit (basically a flexible stick of rubber which is pushed through the puncture with a heavy duty needle, literally blocking the puncture) and we continued on our way.

We realised that the tyre was slowly leaking as soon as we started driving, but after about ten minutes we heard the dreaded crash of metal rim against road as the stick of rubber popped completely out. This time we didn’t have the luxury of being in the well-lit and empty Lidl carpark, but were instead on the side of a dark residential suburban road.

Realising that we now desperately needed at least one new tyre, though in reality we really needed two replaced, and ideally all four, we thought about our options, and much to our horror realised that it wasn’t just 9pm, it was 9pm on Saturday. Nothing would be open the following day.

Denner patched the tyre again using an extra long stick of rubber, hoping it would stay jammed in more successfully this time. After over two hours of working on this tyre situation, we tensely and carefully looked for a camping spot, cautiously avoiding any unnecessary off-road driving, expecting the tyre to burst at any moment. Joyfully though we found a place to camp (one of our worst spots yet in some sort of tree plantation, a few metres off a busy thoroughfare between villages, on very lumpy ground) without our very fragile tyre bursting again.

We considered back-tracking to Budapest in the morning, thinking that in a major capital we’d be more likely to find somewhere open on a Sunday, but made the decision to take our chances and push on, knowing that it was still unlikely we’d even find anywhere in Budapest anyway. So we hobbled on towards Romania, our front right tyre completely bald on both edges (the original one we were concerned about), the back left threatening to spontaneously combust at any moment (the spare which was originally punctured in Laos, now precariously patched), and the spare completely useless with not a bit of tread left, metal poking through the rubber, and at least three individual punctures.

As everyone seems to want to be a business owner but can’t be bothered learning how to become a mechanic or something else, there are umpteen tyre shops dotted in districts along every road. We stopped at every single one, dozens in total, but much to our frustration no amount of rattling gates, pressing buzzers, calling out, or provoking dog barking, alerted anyone’s attention to us. Every metre travelled was an achievement, and at the same time a metre closer to the potential pop that would render us unable to drive on. Relieved to have made it to the Romanian border, we decided to stay the night in the border town of Oradea.

Despite the fact that the following day happened to be the 12^th Day of Christmas and therefore a minor public holiday, we found the usual array of tyre shops, all of which were open. Weighing up the options available we ended up with two new winter tyres on our front wheels, the two heavily-worn-but-not-disastrous ones at the back, the completely bald one on the roof as a spare, and we hummed and hawed about whether to keep the reasonably un-worn but punctured beyond permanent repair one as an extra spare. We decided against it though, and €210 and an hour and a half later we were on our merry way to Transylvania.

 

Day 261 – A snow-covered border crossing, and an abundance of stolen vehicles. (Border crossing Macedonia to Albania)

Leaving Ohrid we didn’t have far to drive to our next destination which was Tirana, the capital of Albania. We had two Couch Surfing hosts lined up for Tirana in neighbouring apartments; neither of them had space for all of us but between them we could all fit. Apparently addresses and road names are a relatively new concept in Tirana, and street numbers are essentially unheard-of, so being the intelligent beings that they are, Scott and Cortney arranged for us to meet them at 4.15pm at a hotel near their homes, one that we’d be able to find directions for on the internet, or ask people for once we got there. Even though we only had 150 km and until 4.15pm to do it, we had a feeling it might be a long drive, so left promptly in the morning (relatively – we’re not very good morning people).

It was a beautiful day, the sun shining in the sky almost as if to say “ha see, the flag’s not misleading or ironic at all”. It was still bitterly cold though and the sunlight shimmered on the snow and ice which covered the town. On the way to the border we noticed that most of the houses and buildings we passed were flying the black double-headed eagle mounted on a red background that is the Albanian flag.

The border crossing itself was a simple affair which took only 25 minutes in total, and was our first of many snow covered border crossings. We were whizzed through Macedonia’s checks, nothing more than a quick glance and stamp in our passports. Most of the 25 minutes at the border was spent driving through the completely uncleared, snow-covered, substantially sized no man’s land. We expected to have a few problems entering Albania; nothing major, just some rude or arrogant guards, a hefty compulsory insurance payment and maybe some frustrating questions about our car documents and passports. What we were faced with instead though was a lovely old man I would have been happy to have as my grandfather (no offense Grandpa) who checked and stamped our passports, had a quick look at our Carnet and registration documents, and smilingly wished us well on our travels. We were quite surprised not to be asked about insurance since our research told us that it was compulsory at the border, so we’re not sure whether it was something that has been abolished, or if this kind old man had decided to spare us, or perhaps he was just confused by our papers and couldn’t be bothered.

Entering Albania we were struck by the beauty of the landscape. Macedonia was very pretty, but this was exceptional. We wound our way down the side of a mountain, a huge lake sparkling in the sun and reflecting the blue sky, dissecting the jagged and snow-capped mountain ranges on either side. The road was surprisingly well made and exceptionally well cleared, but only wide enough for one car. Considering the recklessness of Albanian drivers this seemed like a bit of a hazard on such a windy road with so many blind corners.

Immediately we were struck, though not surprised considering the reputation of Albanians, at how many foreign cars were on the road. Perhaps the small, dull town where we stopped for lunch was a particularly popular tourist destination for European holiday-makers (predominantly British, German, Italian and Greek), or the part of me that likes to keep an open mind and give everyone the benefit of the doubt suggests that there’s even a chance that Albania is legitimately importing a plethora of vehicles from all over Europe. The fact that almost all of these cars had at least one of the following: one or more picked locks, a smashed window, torn registration/vignette stickers from the windscreen, scratched licence plates and/or missing licence plates, led us to the assumption that the reputation Albanians have across Europe for stealing cars is well formed and undoubtedly based on truth.

We can’t help but wonder how car theft is viewed by the average Albanian. Obviously the vast majority of residents won’t have anything to do with the business, but is it something that is widely known about and accepted? Are Albanians so used to seeing foreign cars that they don’t even notice the picked locks and torn registration stickers like we do? Do they actually believe that they have been imported legally and legitimately? Is driving a foreign car some sort of status symbol? Or is it frowned upon by those who realise it’s stolen?

Even though we suppose that they’re not in the habit of stealing cars from inside Albania, we’re guessing they don’t get a whole lot of foreign cars that have actually been driven there by their rightful owners, so we were instinctively on the look-out for Trevor. We were careful to park in view of the hamburger joint we ate lunch at, and on arrival in Tirana we were dead set on parking securely. There weren’t many options and it was a great pain to our kind hosts, but we found a car rental shop with a bit of extra land which we were able to pay some guy to park in.

The sheer number of foreign cars on the road in Tirana was even more confronting than it had been in the countryside, and now there was a wider range of nationalities too. On top of the British, German, Italian and Greek cars we mostly saw in the countryside, we now came across Swiss, Austrian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech, Norwegian, Swedish, Irish, French and Spanish, amongst others. There were even licence plates from Massachusetts, Virginia, Ontario, Pennsylvania, and a yellow Hummer from California. Scott told us about an area in the city where he’d spotted an unusual density of foreign cars with “for sale” signs, which he supposed to be the place where one goes to buy a stolen overseas vehicle. So if anyone from Europe’s looking for a missing car, we can give you directions for where you should go to look for it.

The fact that all these cars are let through the Albanian borders isn’t surprising, but it makes us quite irate that so many stolen cars are let through other borders. They don’t even make it difficult; the thieves don’t need to produce fake paperwork or come up with a story or anything. When a beat up Albanian van towing a 3 year old BMW with German licence plates, a smashed window and a ripped registration sticker is driving East across a border, why is the driver not asked for registration, ownership, insurance or in fact any sort of documentation when crossing a controlled border? There’s no way to get to Albania from the EU without crossing at least three or four controlled borders, all of which we are stopped and questioned and possibly searched at, yet if we were towing an obviously stolen car we wouldn’t even be questioned. I also struggle to fathom why they’re not stopped by police on the roads before reaching Albania. Why do the German, Austrian, Swiss, Italian and British police not stop these people while they still can? Importing stolen vehicles across a dozen countries is more straight forward than driving through as a tourist, so no wonder the problem’s becoming ever more prevalent.

Day 260 – A misleading flag and a rotten tree. (Macedonia)

Having rescued Denner from Greece and finally crossing the border into Macedonia, the first thing that we noticed was how misleading their flag is. As we drove through the border town with a grey sky above us, spots of rain falling intermittently from the sky and puddles scattered along the ground, we found the vibrant yellow sun on a bright red background that is their flag, to be a tad ironic.

Because of the time limit of aiming for Budapest for Christmas that was starting to encroach on our plans (now 16 days to cover Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and get to  Hungary), we decided to skip the supposedly non-eventful capital of Skopje and visit Ohrid instead. Set on Lake Ohrid which is 288 m deep and the deepest lake in the Balkans, Ohrid is a beautiful old town and a popular holiday destination, especially in summer, for mainly Macedonians and Albanians. We looked into going skiing while we were there, but with only 80cm of snow, the season wasn’t yet open – an amusing concept coming from Australia where the snow season opens and closes on fixed dates regardless of snow fall, and 80cm is considered to be a very luxurious covering.

It was raining heavily when we arrived, but over night it snowed, and here began our encounter with snow that lasted for most of the Balkans. Covered in a layer of white, even with a thick fog encompassing everything bar the few metres in front of us, the town looked extra magical. We noticed that even the piles of rubble appeared stunning under a thick layer of fresh powder. At the top of the old town, set on a hill as is usually the case, was the fort which because of the weather we were the only visitors at, and was eerily quiet. From the Church of Sveti Pantelejmon which was only a little way down from the fort, we saw the lake through a gap in the fog. Wasps of steam rose from the surface and evaporated into the fog producing an incredibly surreal picture, one that Denner aptly donned “smoke on the water”.

On our way through the old town which unlike most old towns is predominantly residential and barely built into accommodation, restaurants and shops at all, we passed the ancient theatre. Much smaller and less impressive than many of the ones we’ve seen recently, such as the ones at Efes and Hierapolis, we couldn’t help but note how incredible the view from the stands was. Built on the side of the hill, the stands face out towards the lake and the distant mountains, the town surrounding it on all other sides. At this point we recalled that having a spectacular view from the stands is something that most of the ancient stadiums and theatres had in common. It’s a shame that by becoming accustomed to shelter and temperature control this is something that we miss out on these days.

We’d heard about an 800 – 900 tree known as the Plane Tree, which at various points in its life had housed a cafe and a barber shop, amongst other things. All day we’d been asking anyone we passed if they could tell us where it was, but we were met with blank stares and confused expressions. We persisted though, sure that the tree was in Ohrid and adamant that we wanted to see it, and eventually we met someone who gave us directions. Located in the centre of the new town, we finished exploring the streets of the old town before heading down to check out the famous tree. As we rounded the corner and the tree came into sight, we each paused and looked quizzically at each other. Was this really the Plane Tree? A sign mounted to the side of it told us that it was, but we found it hard to believe. We were expecting a grand tree, metres wide and stretching into the sky, perhaps an entrance to the trunk, and probably some sort of cafe/gift shop beside it. What we were instead standing in front of was a tree that may have been one or two metres wide if it was whole, but other than a thin strip of bark on either side, the entire structure was held up by black plastic supports. A few rotted braches lay in the mud where they had fallen off the dead tree, and besides a damp bench there wasn’t anywhere to sit – certainly not any sort of cafe. As the main attraction that had sold us on visiting Ohrid instead of any of the other options, this was humorously disappointing.

Day 256 - Squatting in Thessalonika. (Greece)

Day 256  - Squatting in Thessalonika.

The border crossing between Bulgaria and Greece was a breeze – our first EU to EU crossing. We weren’t even stopped at the Bulgarian side, so we continued to Greece where we were asked for our passports and car documents. A Chinese couple on a business trip from their home in Germany stopped us for a chat whilst we waited for Immigration to look through and decide that we were suitable to enter their country. Our passports were stamped both out of Bulgaria and into Greece in the same office.

In order to get to Budapest in time for Christmas, on the day that we left Bulgaria we had seven countries to do in 18 days (Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina and Serbia). As a result we unfortunately didn’t have much time for each individually and would only get the chance to see a snippet of each place. It is so frustrating to miss so much, but the nature of travelling is that you actually can’t do everything you want. We could have spent less time in Central Asia or Iran and left more for this part of the world, but then we would have missed so much there. So we made our way to Thessalonika in the Northern part of Greece where we had a Couch Surfer to host us.

The great thing about using Couch Surfing is that you get the opportunity to meet people who can show you places and things that a tourist couldn’t possibly find for themselves. Our first evening in Thessalonika was a prime example of this. Our neuro-scientist host didn’t come with us, but gave us directions to a gay and lesbian movie night at a bar in a squat near his house. We arrived at the spot on the map that he had marked and found ourselves at the end of an alleyway, looking at a high wall covered in anxty graffiti topped with barbed wire and void of any sign of life. He had warned us that the entrance may be hard to find and we might have to circle the block a couple of times to find our way in. We discovered a gate at a corner, surrounded with posters and fliers demonstrating the anarchist movement, so making the assumption that this was what we were looking for, we entered the complex from there.

It’s not often that we feel over dressed or fancy, but this was certainly one of them. Through a dark and overgrown garden there was the “bar” where we were greeted by a very well spoken young man in a ripped tracksuit who politely asked us if we’d been here before and whether we’d like to watch an independent German movie. No, we hadn’t been here before and no thankyou, we’d skip the movie in German (we can’t speak German). Well in that case he proposed that we find ourselves something to drink while he switched the movie on, and then if we like he can show us around.

Passing a group of died-hair, pierced young girls who sat at the bar, we helped ourselves to beer from the fridge and were welcome to any of the bits and pieces of spirits and juice lying around. A till lay open on the counter and no one watched while we tried to figure out what was a reasonable price to pay. We sat at a table next to a dusty motorbike helmet and a ripped poster listing events at a film festival and waited for our well spoken, track suited tour guide to fetch us.

The complex was originally a factory up until the 1960s/70s when it became the site of regular protests, as was the fashion at the time (and still is in Greece). After that it fell into abandonment until around 2001 when it was turned into a squat housing 20-30 people at any one time. During this period it was a centre for Thessalonika’s underground, hosting regular music concerts, art exhibitions and other such community events. Now no one lives in it, but it still functions as a kind of illegal community activist centre, with a cafe/bar, a makeshift cinema, a library, BMX and skate-boarding parks and an information centre. Due to neglect by its inhabitants the buildings have fallen largely into disrepair again though and a lot of the events that used to be hosted can’t happen anymore. They are hoping to house people again in the future and return to functioning as a squat, but the Ministry of Culture has recently been given the complex by the government who wants to repair and develop it into something they see to be productive.  Fortunately for the current users of the “squat” though the government doesn’t have the funds to support their plans so are unable to forcefully reclaim it.

Our tour took us through the information centre which was in a sort of foyer to the main building, furnished by makeshift wooden tables on which a wide selection of political propaganda was haphazardly displayed. Various bits of paper were strewn on the ground, torn and muddy from being walked all over. Next to an old-fashioned stove in a corner of the space a doorway led to the library, the walls of which were lined with sparsely filled bookshelves. We were shown through a painted doorway, past a broken shopping trolley and a pile of dusty mattresses to a skate park, which was in use at the time. A vast dark space was ahead, nothing but pillars and a few beer cans in view, until a flight of stairs which took us past an entire burnt out floor (every squat has at least one) to the rooftop. On the way upstairs our guide opened a door to show us a room, but promptly closed it again before we could see inside, explaining that this was a private room, currently being used by BMXers, so we weren’t able to look in at the moment. The stairwell itself was an explosion of political art, every part of the walls making a point, whether in words or in pictures, or often both. The rooftop we were taken to was the concert venue of 10 years ago, now nothing but a dingy concrete space with rubble piled up in the corners. The vantage point from here was exceptional though and we realised just how huge the complex was. We could see the building that was used for housing and the rows and rows of factory floor that has now been left to completely disintegrate.