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July 17-18, 2008

Istanbul to Skopje

(Matt)

Mostly recovered from the sickness caused by the rotten fish sandwich, we walked out into Istanbul with our large packs and made our way to the bus station. We squeezed onto on a light-rail trolley through Sultanahmet and then walked to the subway and rode on to the bus station, the Otogar. We climbed onto a bus headed for Kosovo (via Bulgaria and Macedonia) with the most leg room that we've seen since Uruguay. The bus was not only comfortable and spacious, but we were served coffee and water. Sweet.

Matt and a double hot dog with mayo, ketchup, and fries at the bus station
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Most of the passengers on the bus were from Kosovo and headed home from Turkey after doing business, having a vacation and shopping, or studying at a university. One university student from Kosovo studied architecture in Istanbul, having 70% of his classes in Turkish and 30% of his classes in English. He also spoke Albanian, his first language, and Serbian.

One thing we immediately noticed about the bus heading into the Balkans....the on-board smoking. The strangest thing about the smoking on our bus, which incidentally had no windows that opened, was that the two principal offenders were the bus driver and his attendant. They smoked a lot, as do most persons we have seen in Macedonia and Albania. I know when I worked with the Serbs at the Tribunal in the Hague, the smoking was at a level that I have rarely encountered in my life. It was really indescribable.

Dinner on the bus
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The bus started its journey through Turkish Thrace with its picturesque flowing wheat fields and beautiful sunflowers following the sun. When we finally reached the border with Bulgaria and Turkey and were waiting for our passports to be stamped, we saw a gorgeous sunset...and a large number of new Mercedes and BMWs heading into and out of Turkey. These are very popular cars in Turkey, Macedonia and Albania.

We finally made it into Bulgaria as darkness settled on the land. Of the 16 hours that we were on the bus this night, I slept between 10 and 11 minutes. It was misery....and it was the second overnight bus in several days, which compounds the symptoms of an overnight bus. This was mainly because in the middle of the night the bus was thoroughly inspected and all of our bags pulled off of the bus and searched three times, once on either side of the Bulgarian-Macedonian border and then again at a random Macedonian checkpoint 15 minutes from Skopje, the capital and our final destination.

All that was on the menu
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The extra levels of scrutiny given to this bus headed to Kosovo was clear. I felt for the students that had to go through this every time they had a semester break.

(Amber)

Definitely most notable things about the bus ride were the smoke, the intense checkpoints, and the fact that we had no money or food. Matt dug around and managed to get us some chips and ham flavored crackers. Yum.

We'll never learn. In a show of the kind of generosity we would soon find in the Western Balkans though, the girl in front of us gave us gum. It's the small things that count....especially when all you've had is ham flavored crackers.

Old Town Skopje
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Skopje, Macedonia

(Matt)

By way of background, the name of Macedonia is controversial to Greece, and I hope I don't get jumped in Greece for having used a Macedonia patch covering a hole in my backpack. A couple days before we arrived in Macedonia, Greece had prevented Macedonia's admittance to NATO based upon the name dispute. Greece believes that the country of Macedonia, which is landlocked, has designs on part of its territory, the large province of Macedonia in Greece. There are plenty of websites dedicated to this dispute and its history, if you are interested.

Old Town Skopje
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We spoke with a cab driver in Prilep that had great English skills that immediately responded to my inquiry about the situation with, "Change the name!! Who cares?! It is hurting the country. Just change the stupid name!" I asked if Macedonia had tried to reassure Greece during the recent mediation that Macedonia made no claim to the Greek province, and he said, "Of course. They don't care. They want us to change the name. So let's just change the name!"

This has been going on for a while. In 1994, when the U.S. formally recognized the "Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia," Greece declared an economic embargo against Macedonia and closed the port in Thessaloniki, in the Greek province of Macedonia. In 1995, the embargo was lifted after Macedonia agreed to change its flag and enter into discussions about the name. Thirteen years later, there is no resolution to the name dispute, though the Macedonian cab driver assured me that Macedonia had no ability militarily to invade Greece but that they should just change the name anyway. Here are some additional facts about Macedonia from Wikipedia:

Taking a break
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The Republic of Macedonia, often referred to as Macedonia, is a landlocked country on the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Serbia and Kosovo to the north, Albania to the west, Greece to the south, and Bulgaria to the east....The Republic of Macedonia forms approximately 35.8% of the land and 40.9% of the population of the wider geographical region of Macedonia, as it was defined in the late 19th century. The capital is Skopje, with 506,926 inhabitants according to a 2004 census, and there are a number of smaller cities, notably Bitola, Kumanovo, Prilep, Tetovo, Ohrid, Veles, Štip, Kočani, Gostivar and Strumica. It has more than 50 natural and artificial lakes and sixteen mountains higher than 2,000 meters (6,550 ft).The country is a member of the UN and the Council of Europe and a member of La Francophonie, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Since December 2005 it is also a candidate for joining the European Union and has applied for NATO membership.

Some kids who asked us to take their photo
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Once we got to Skopje we immediately had to start struggling against our illiteracy, as everything was written in Cyrillic. After being in Arabic-speaking countries and trying to get around there, we think Cyrillic is much easier to decipher than Arabic, but it is still very difficult to navigate with our maps that are in Latin script. The Cyrillic alphabet is also used officially by Russia, Belarus, Serbia, and Ukraine. So we will be seeing it again.

After some very friendly shop owners helped us, we found a hostel and went sightseeing on no sleep. We walked up to a restaurant in the center of town, and the waiter came to our table with no menu, which is standard in this part of the world, even if they actually have menus. We asked him, "You have menu?" in our caveman English that we use with wait staff everywhere. He responded, "No menu. We only have sausages." So we ordered sausages, called kepabci , and they came out with tomatoes, cucumbers, a grilled green peppers, and onions, similar to Turkey's kepab plates but more basic. Skopje is not set up for tourists at all really.

There are not many restaurants, and most of them that do exist serve only kofte-like sausages or pizza. Don't get me wrong, there are MANY places to drink coffee and cheap beer under an umbrella on a patio, and those places look like they would have food, but they usually don't. Restaurants are few and far between. So are the hotels.

We liked Skopje, but it is hard to describe why. It would not be on most list of great capital cities of the world. There are very few women covered in the Muslim tradition, though there are some. The women, in general, are dressed....well....scantily, and after being in conservative country and after conservative country for most of the trip, it's good for us to see women able to dress as they please, even if that is almost not at all. Plus, I can hold Amber's hand in public again, even kiss her cheek, and she can finally work on that farmer's tan without offending anyone. The tank tops are back.

Skopje is cool in that it has a large pedestrian area in Old and New Town, divided by the Vardar River. Old Town has some historic sights, including the largest Turkish bath in the Balkans, the Church of Sveti Spas, the Mustafa Pasa Mosque, which is being restored right now with the help of the Turkish government, and the Tvrdina Kale (the city fort).

We enjoyed walking around the local market and the winding Old Town streets with local shops and pubs, but compared to Ohrid and even tiny Prilep, it didn't seem like the center of a city of 600,000 people. The amount of people out and about was very sparse for a capital city.

There were certainly clear signs of economic hardship throughout Skopje. We saw the first beggars in a long time. Skopje didn't seem all that populated, even compared to Tirana, the capital of Albania, which has a similar population size at 800,000. We only saw about 2-3 other backpackers in our time in Skopje. The bus station was clean and easy to navigate, and we easily hoped a bus to Prilep.

(Amber)

Skopje was peaceful and had a great (and really authentic) old town area, but it will likely never top most people's travel itinerary. It's a sleepy little town that's still clearly coming back from the economic hardship and war that's plagued this area. That being said, we had a perfectly pleasant time walking around and had a fantastic cup of coffee and chocolate bread thing by the bus station.

Much like Turkey, backgammon is huge....but coffee drinking has replaced tea drinking as the favorite male past-time. I could tell after a couple of days in Skopje that we would love Macedonia and that it would be unlike any other place we've been. Even without being able to read or speak, we are able to get around thanks to the kindness of locals who are thrilled, though perplexed, to have us in their country.

For Skopje photos, click here: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AatmbZk0ZtFISo