The Balkan Peninsula - Graeme Robin. Travel

Karen and Compass, Phe and Me - On Roads Without Lines

The Balkan PeninsulaGraeme Robin ... Travel

Graeme Robin travels the world in his trusty old Fiat Tempra, and writes about his journeys. If you enjoy reading this, you should consider buying Graeme’s second book

‘Karen and Compass, Phe and Me - On Roads Without Lines - Book 2

Covering Graeme’s four month journey through:

ESTONIA AND THE BALTIC STATES, POLAND, UKRAINE, HUNGARY, ROMANIA, BULGARIA, TURKEY, GEORGIA, GREECE

- over 300 pages, with more than 600 colour photographs!

To buy BOOK 2, visit: http://www.perendale.com/browse/travel/robin

To purchase Graeme’s Book 2, visit: http://www.perendale.com/browse/travel/robin To purchase Graeme’s Book 2, visit: http://www.perendale.com/browse/travel/robin

About MeI was born in 1937, married Barbara in 1963, but lost her to a dreadful cancer 43 years later. I felt as if the world had stopped. Life was suddenly not as precious as it had been. I didn’t care that much.

But a change sort of evolved. I travelled to Europe. I bought an old car. Then a GPS. Then a compass. That made four of us – Karen (the robot voice on the GPS) and Compass (just that), Phe (for Fiat - a 1993 left-hand drive diesel sedan) and Me.

Suddenly it was not “I” but “We”. It was “Karen and Compass, Phe and Me”.

We started to drive around Scandinavia, Iceland, the Arctic Circle and into Russia all the time on minor roads, avoiding the major roads and highways as far as possible – in other words, “On Roads Without Lines”.

We were just wandering around on winding, single lane roads often unsealed, through small towns and villages, seeing the people at their normal everyday lives and work. Trying to get a feel for each country – trying to put a tag on it. I took a lot of photos and kept a daily journal. So a book evolved. Book 1.

Had this suddenly put meaning back into my life?

It felt good so instead of selling Phe at the end of the first four months I kept her for another four months of journeying this time behind what used to be called the “Iron Curtain” and another book evolved. Book 2.

It felt good so instead of selling Phe at the end of the second four months I kept her for another four months of journeying this time around Spain, Portugal and Morocco and another book evolved. Book 3.

It felt good so instead of selling Phe at the end of the third four months I kept her for another four months of journeying this time to Italy, the Middle East and the Balkan Peninsular and another book evolved. Book 4.

All have been marvellous experiences of discovery - so good that I would like it to continue for the rest of my life!

How long is this old bugger going to last!


The Balkans - Macedonia

Tuesday 2nd November

Welcome to Macedonia. The customs and border control took us five minutes max and then we were let loose into a new strange land.

“I don’t think I have ever been to Macedonia” - I reckon I heard that from the engine department – and certainly a

“Macedon. . . . . . How do you spell that, Macedonia – oh yes I do remember some of the major roads in Macedonia. I will help when ever I can, but don’t ask for anything difficult like a street address, please” - that from the box that Karen has been sleeping in since we left Turkey six weeks ago.

There were mountains to the left with snow on the top and there were mountains to the right with snow on the top. We were in a valley maybe 20kms wide and it is a beautiful sparkling day.

The first town we came to was Bitola and the first thing that struck me was the number of young fellows standing around – a Tuesday and one o’clock, maybe a lunch break but they have the look of men who have not struck a blow for some time! These are men in their twenties, early thirties.

At Bitola there is a junction of roads and I had to make a decision on going either straight ahead through the middle of the country to the capital Skopje or swing to the left (west) towards the town of Ohrid and a lake of the same name. We could then swing north to Skopje but closer to the Alba-nian border. Another persuader was that my Hostel Guide Book has a listing forthree youth hostels in Ohrid – so why not!

It’s green – the paddocks are green!

I don’t know where the height came from but a check with Karen showed that we were at 1000 metres on the road. I took this photo of the autumn tonings with the snow in the

background

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It must be apple picking time and did we see apples in Macedonia!.

What a pretty drive it was too. Through the hills, mountains in the background, autumn all round, orchards, some have been cleaned out and other still laden with apples, and villages all along this single lane road – very pretty! They are hand picking the apples into those orange onion bags and the bags left under the trees for the muscle to shift to tractor and trailer to semi trailer for the city markets I guess.

Ohrid was a lovely town still brimming with local tourists here for a few days at the lake. There were plenty of hotels and accommodation houses but there was no way in this wide wide world that I was going to find even one of the town’s youth hostels - I tried really hard but eventually gave up and got a bed and breakfast in a guest house for 1350 denar. Quite nice but I would have preferred a youth hostel just for a change.

Ohrid


Macedonia - And some wonderful scenery in the Mountains

THE BALKAN PENINSULA

Macedonia

Wednesday 3rd November

We spent the night at Ohrid beside the lake and this morning found the Tourist Information Office at the bus station. This is a new country and I need guidance on where we should go. The lady with alright English agreed that a drive south alongside Lake Ohrid through the fishing villages would be nice – so that’s what we did.

And it was! Just beautiful! But fishing villages – No!


There were a lot of villages, sure, but each one was full of holiday accommodation, hotels, apartments, and not a jetty or a boat to be seen. It was not the flashy “resort” style – just simple holiday letting for Macedonians wanting a week or two near the water. Lake Ohrid - on the border between Macedonia and Albania.

I have seen a number of these portable saw benches run by what sounds like a single cylinder engine – they putter along the road and the the bloke swaps the vee belt over and

instead of it driving the rear wheels it spins the circular saw at the front of the machine.


It’s a cloudy day today. It rained a little overnight but it is not threatening this morning so far – just high cloud that the sun is trying to pierce but doesn’t seem to be able to. Across the lake is Albania – we didn’t come back up to this lake while we were in Albania - tempted

but could not trust the road map!

This is a spot of beautiful scenery on the type of road that just can’t be beat! We are ON ROADS WITHOUT LINES!

A shame the weather is a bit on the dull side. We are right in the middle of a National park and I bet this place was teaming with people a month or six weeks ago. There are picnic spots, BBQ areas, spring water, playground for the kids – lovely, very nice. But today there is just one car (plus Phe). We are up at 1600 metres and the vegetation has stopped and there is snow laying beside the road – and the 1600 metres would be the summit of this road I think, and only a few more kms heading east, across the mountain range and there is a second lake – with a long name.

At the shores of this second lake we came across a cluster of derelict buildings – substantial buildings. It looks as though it may have been a resort or major holiday camp not that many years ago – but now it is deserted, neglected and rapidly becoming derelict. We drove slowly through it and then sur-prise, surprise, right down by the waters edge was another building and this one was occupied with three or four men at one table and the same number of women at a second. They looked as though they were staying at the place and were outside at picnic tables having their lunch.

It was all a part of the same complex. Quite strange.

From there on it was a fairly flat drive following the shores of the second lake for a way and then driving back to Ohrid.


Mostly orchards and in particular, apples – tonnes of them.

Yesterday, when I was searching for one of the three youth hostels listed as being in Ohrid, I got help from a travel agent lady who found out that one of them had been closed down but a second that went by the name of the “Hotel Ambassador” and was about 7 kms west of the town. Today, we have finished the loop south down past Lake Ohrid, then east over the mountains, north past the second lake and then west a wee way back to Ohrid, and it is still only around midday. So rather than staying in Ohrid for another night I decided to start on another “loop” - a bigger one this time – and head north as far as Kicevo and then east to maybe Prilep. On the way I will keep my eye open for the Hotel Ambassador.








It was there alright – exactly 7 kms west of Ohrid just as the travel agent lady had said and even though it looked very similar to many other 3 star hotels I have stayed in it still doubled as a youth hostel. Again, it was too early to stop for the day, but I did get talking to the friendly receptionist bloke (he had good English) who gave me some advice about Macedonia and where to go – which I promptly disregarded. He said we should return to Bitola, via Ohrid, and then drive up the centre of the country to Prilep. The road was too bad to go the way I had planned, through Kicevo – 4 x 4 only, he said.

But the sheila at the Tourist Info place at the bus station in Ohrid – yes the one with the fishing vil-lages - said the road would be fine. Conflicting views.

There was a third opinion. This one came from the road map which shows the winding 70 or 80 kms from Kicevo to Prilep as a “Regional Road” which is one step up from a “Local Modernised Road” and two steps up from a “Local Unmodernised Road”, so providing the map is more trustworthy than that of neighbouring Albania we could possibly enjoy a pleasant drive through the mountains. At worst – a U-turn.

Well the road was fine although it would have been nice after turning right just before Kicevo onto a road that had no signs, to have it confirmed that we were actually on the right road. We followed a river as it wound through the mountains though, and then a confirmation by way of a worn out sign, almost illegible that said “35kms to Prilip” and that was the difficult part over and done with – so the rest was a breeze. We came out of the town of Suvadol and after a few wiggles the road flattened with mountains to three sides. The blocks of land are small again no cottages on the land and tractors and trailers on the road, so people here are living in the villages and working the land from there.

There are quite a few dying sheds with wires and a sheet of plastic over the top. The stuff that is drying is new to me – it’s about 50-60mm long similar to a pepper but a real dried

brown colour. And there are lots of them.

It must be getting late as the birds are lined up for the night wing to wing on the power lines – I wonder if it keeps their feet warm? - and it is only a quarter to four. It is dull though. There is blue sky up ahead but we have not seen the sun all day.

And what about that really beaut photo that I didn’t get! A man with three donkeys, each tied on to the next, and each with a bundle of firewood. It would have been a nice photo especially with the snow capped mountains behind him. Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda!

There are heaps of taxi cabs in each of the towns we have visited but maybe not quite as many of those small van buses as in the Middle East countries.


It was a long drive today and we finished in the dark at the town of Negotino – way past Prilep - simply because there is a Hi hostel there and the last one had been way back in Italy. Two reasons, the camaraderie and the guests kitchen – and particularly the kitchen as a home cooked meal of steak and onions, potato and cauliflower with a dose of white sauce would go down very, very well. It took ages and ages to find the place – it was called the Hotel Page – and everyone I asked knew the name but in each case with no English, they could only point down the road and then to the left or right or whatever. This doesn’t seem to work very well without the third dimension of distance added to the mix. If they were able to tell me to turn left in 500 metres and right in 2 kms, I would have a chance, but without knowing how far before a turn, it meant I had to ask over and over again.

Macedonia - what a wonderful part of the world

Thursday 4th November

This town of Negotino is a pretty town, neat, clean and tidy – but we have left it now for a drive that will take us a little further south, then to the east and then swing north up through a big valley and the towns of Strumica and Stip, and then a loop back to the big smoke, Skopje – and they have a youth hostel there too for tonight! It’s a nice day but with a little early morning mist which I hope will disappear before too long.

It is nice to see a full flowing river after all of those dry creek beds we have crossed for the last couple on months.

This is in a very wide river valley, it’s the River Vadar, and the flats are intensively cultivated with grapes and peppers and dry corn still standing, and cabbages – cabbages by the truckload - and heaps of other things. It really does look like small plots of land owned separately by people in the villages I think. Not a large farm.

I gave an old bloke a hitch for about 10 kms or so. He had no English but that didn’t stop him from shouting at me for quite a while. Everyone knows that a person who cannot understand needs to be shouted at! But he must have been thinking about it because when he got out he gave me a perfect “Thank you” in English. And here I am, a guest in their country, and I have no idea how I should say “thank you” in Macedonian. But he knew the English version! Good on him!

How about some morning tea at Strumica. I was looking forward to it – sitting in the sun on a chair near the pavement with a long coffee and a beautiful light pastry. Do you think I could find such a shop – no way! I drove up and down, parked and walked, and there was just nowhere. This type of eating is just not part of the scene in Macedonia. I finished up with a coffee in a paper cup out of a Nescafe machine on the footpath and a bread roll sprinkled with icing sugar and a smear of chocolate inside.

Strumica looks to be a nice city or is it only because it is now a beautiful sunny morning with plenty of autumn colour around? It certainly looks nice.


This young family with mum, dad and three little kids, look to be happy enough and I guess it helps if you don’t have to shell out for fuel at the petrol station!

Stip is a nice town too. Once again, is it simply because it is such a pleasant day. It seems to be fresh and clean with a lot of people around, It has a stream running through the middle of the town but the main river is nearby.


I was going to say something like “the world is trying to fight air pollutions and some mind-less drip at the tip has put a match to the heap of old tyres!”


But that was not the case. It looks like a factory that (used to) make concrete pipes.

They are stripping grain with old small machines into bags and then tying them off. It looks like wheat but why at this time of year and why into chaff bags?

At first I thought it could not be wheat but a bit later it occurred to me that it may be seed wheat. Is there such a thing? It would certainly account for it going into chaff bags and not being collected in bulk. It’s the wrong time of year, the ground looks to be very wet and there are only small patches that have been sown. Maybe I will find out one day.

We are at Probistip and the country is still just gently rolling as it was almost all of the way to the Strumica. It is being intensively farmed with hardly a spot that is not producing something. They are harvesting, tilling and cultivating, and seeding new crops all along the way. So very busy. A lovely drive.


I like this country of Macedonia – it’s beaut. The roads are good and so are the drivers. They are courteous and considerate. The country has been hilly to mountainous all of the time and so very interesting – we go around a corner and there is something different to look at - over a hill, down over a bridge and a river.

Another thing that gets me are the old buses. They have been around for almost as long as I have, have done a trillion miles, often blowing heaps of blue smoke – many are dilapidated and decrepit. What they are like inside I can only imagine. Maybe I should have a ride one day. You have to wonder what happens to the changeover coaches used by the tour operators because they only have new stuff for the tourists and their old second hand coach would be a hit on some of these town-to-town runs.

After Probistip we were back into the mountains – not snow capped like the ones down south but mountains just the same. Really lovely driving. But then all good things have to come to an end when we hit the motorway that took us to Skopji only an hour away.

But all in all, another great day in this spectacularly colourful country.

In the end it was a dead loss anyway because the Hotel Page was no longer a youth hostel, doesn’t have a guests kitchen, and as for the camaraderie, I was the only guest that particular night so that stitched that right up. What a let down, all those extra miles for nothing. I could have stayed at any number of pubs on the way here.

Them’s the breaks!

Macedonia - The Capital Skopje and then over the Border to the North and - Bye, Bye to Macedonia.

Friday 5th November

Skopje is the large and modern capital of Macedonia and being big and bustling it took some time last evening to even find the centre of the city, leave alone a single youth hostel listed in my three year old Hostel guide book! It was impossible to park Phe so I did the next best - drove into a private parking lot of what may have been a government building. The security guy was right on my hammer straight away. But how lucky can you be when the bloke firstly, had excellent English, and secondly, knew ex-actly where the Hi Hostel was.








“Down this road and at the third set of lights turn left and it is 200, maybe 300 metres on the left” And he was spot on! Why didn’t I take the time to talk to him about his excellent English and quiz him about conditions in Macedonia and Skopje in particular - and was carpark security the best job he could get?

Another woulda, coulda, shoulda!

It was another disappointing Hi hostel though, with no guests kitchen, few other guests, no common meeting place, and unfriendly staff. And on top of all that, it was not at all cheap!

I have decided to head north out of Macedonia and into Kosovo this afternoon, but first we had to have a quick drive around the city for a look-see but in particular looking for the ‘Stone Bridge’. It has been featured on one of the tourist brochures of the Balkan Peninsular.

While I was filling Phe with diesel, I asked the attendant where the Stone Bridge was (even showed him a photo of it), and he said,

“Long way – maybe 10 kms – that way.”

I took him at his word and drove in the direction of the finger until we got to the river. Surely it’s not hard to find a bridge – we have found the river so the bridge has to be here somewhere.

We were ten kms from town and seemed to be getting absolutely nowhere very fast.

I showed a kid the picture but he didn’t know where it was.

A closer look at the road map showed that there were another two rivers that joined into the River Vardar at Skopje – and that certainly confused the search especially if it was 10 kms from the city. So I gave up!

Back to the city centre I was trying to find a spot to park Phe, and there it was – The Stone Bridge! Right slap bang in the middle of the CBD. Mind you I should have got this information from the Hi hostel people but they didn’t even have a map of the city and probably would have sent us a similar distance but in the opposite direction to the peanut at the petrol station.

Anyway. My photo doesn’t look anything like the one on the publicity shot for Skopje...............

because instead of a pretty flower bed, and a fairly clean skyline behind...........


. . . . . . . . . . . mine has the brand spanking new, partly built, make-believe ancient Roman forum in the background.


Skopje is the Capital of Macedonia and the home of around three quarters of a million people – No wonder I had trouble finding my way around it!

And not quite in the CBD but still busy!


They like their greens too!

Time to move on.

It was just after 12 and we were at the border and a bye, bye to Macedonia.

A Wonderful Country.

Kosovo - And the Beauty of the Mountains in the Southwest

Friday 5th November(cont)

It was just after midday and we were across the border out of Macedonia and into Kosovo. Another quick and trouble-free border crossing!


One of the first glimpses of the stunning Kosovo countryside.

The first stop after the border was a visit to a bank to change the rest of the Macedonian denar into the local currency. I made a proper fool of myself marching into the bank and asking the security guy which desk I had to go to to change the cash into local Kosovo currency. I couldn’t even call it by name because I didn’t have a clue what the Kosovo money was called.

He gave it a name though – “The Euro!”

It was just a small bank with the security bloke on the door and maybe three desks and about the same number of staff – no customers except me, so they were all going to be a part of the conver-sation in my foreign language. It took a moment for the penny to drop, but when it did I said I didn’t know that Kosovo was part of the European Union, and I think I understood them to say that it wasn’t but that using the Euro was a foot in the door – or words to that effect.

I was embarrassed at having publicly displayed my utter ignorance about their country. I was unsure that I had understood properly, especially when they said I would have to change my dinars for euros at the grocer over the road – and not here at the bank. Strange, but I did as I thought I had been told, and as it turned out there was no problem at all. The grocer handed over the euros and pocketed the dinars with no more hassle than if I had bought a carton of milk.

I was relieved to get back in the car to spend a minute or two working out my money sums, setting it up, sorting it out again, and then the security guy comes out of the bank and starts a chat, along the lines of, where do I come from and where have I been, and where am I going to go. That suited me just fine because I obviously had a lot to learn about his country.

He told me that 90% of Kosovo is Moslem and it is only up north close to the Serbian border that there are Christians and Orthodox.

“You should be careful up there” – and he screwed up his nose – and that “You should be very care-ful up there.” And then “It is dangerous – be very, very careful.”

He was a nice bloke and his English was okay – sort of. He spent some time looking at my map and thought we should head straight up the main drag to the capital Pristina but no further north and especially not to the northern city of Mitrovice

“They don’t like English speakers up there – very, very dangerous.”

He could not understand why on earth we would want to journey around to the left through Prizren and then Pec - “Just hills and mountains!” he said.

I listened to everything he had to say and then plotted a route to the left through the hills and the mountain and to Mitrovice in the north – just the opposite to his advice! He was a nice bloke though – he just didn’t think the same way as me.


So with what’s left of today we will go west (left) into the serious mountains and to the city of Prizren then tomorrow a longer drive north through Pec to Mitrovice and then back to the capital Pristina. Maybe we will move on to Serbia on Sunday. Well, it is a plan of some kind anyway and certainly not set in concrete.

The first town we came to had a street market – and there had been none of those since Syria – I didn’t even see any at all in Jordan.

It’s a beautiful day today. 21 or 22 degrees, calm, skies clear of cloud, but it is quite misty, in fact very misty and it could dampen the scenic value of the mountains, but that can’t be helped. The weather has certainly been on our side so far this trip.

This is where we are heading.

Every man I have seen so far has been in western dress and only the very occasional woman has been wearing a head covering – you wouldn’t know it was an Islamic country, except for the call to prayers coming loudly from each mosque in town. But then of course, we are in the land of Euro-peans and not Arabs, dopey! So why would I expect the men to wear Arabian dress! However, it is Islamic and it was surprising to find that liqueur was freely available from liqueur shops and supermar-kets.


The drive to Brazevica – half way to Prizren – was along a river valley and it was just marvellous.

There were the same hay stacks that we saw in Eastern Europe with the pole in the middle.


Stooks of corn stalks (I am sure the cob has been removed).

The paddocks have been ploughed by tiny little tractors in some cases, and the villages are lovely – good quality homes – with plenty of people around although I do reckon there does seem to be too many young men on the streets at 1:30 on a Friday. Is unemployment a sign of the times?

But then the valley stops and we are climbing to the tops. As we are getting higher the birch trees have dropped almost all of their leaves with only the woody trunks and branches filling the skyline but there are still a lot of colour on the other trees – really pretty. And the snowy peaks are still straight ahead of us. There was a summit on this road at 1500 metres and a ski village with modern lodges and hotels getting ready for the snow just a matter of a week or two away.

After the summit up there, we have come down to the narrow floor of the valley following the river and there have been villages all along the way – and nice looking also.

It’s probably been easy green pickings down by the river but there comes a time in every cows day when she has to wander off home - unattended - for the milking.


We are in Prizren just after two. This city is on the flat – more or less - but once again I am surprised just how many people there are out and about on the streets. Many a time we have driven through a village or a town and were pressed to spot one or two people on the streets - but not here in Kos-ovo – there are people everywhere, mostly walking, some just strolling and a few just sitting because it is nice and warm in the sun but chilly in the shade.

But so many people around.

Kosovo - Out of the Mountains then to the North and back to Pristina

Saturday 6th November

We set off in quite thick fog from Prizren at around nine o’clock and it didn’t really lift until half past ten or so, so the scenery was not particularly flash.

Why would you search as we did and then do battle to find a car park in down-town Sko-pje to see a stone bridge – Macedonian style - when this beauty jumped out of the fog at

us on the road to Pec. And this one is in Kosovo. What a ripper!


And another stone bridge. This one just up the road a wee way in the town of Djakovica – still on the road to Pec. I only saw the two bridges but maybe there are others scattered around the Kosovo (and old Yugoslavian) countryside. The two I saw were both the same design with the “wavy” cobblestone surface just wide enough for a couple of horse and

carts to pass one another. The “wave” would not be so good for today’s long and low cars though – no doubt why the two I saw had new modern bridges right beside them. Great to realise that the old stone bridge has been left intact for people like me to wander over and

wonder at.

Down-town Djakovica on a sunny, beautiful, calm, Saturday morning. So many people, just so many people out on the streets.


We picked up another hitcher who was going to Pec some 25 kms up the road but once again he was a hitcher with little or no English – how many do we have to pick up before the odds of an English speaker swing in our favour? But he did have French! A big help, I don’t think! He was very well dressed in a suit and tie and I did work out that he was a school teacher, but I could get no further than that. Wouldn’t it be great if the people of the world spoke the same language!

Pec is a reasonably sized city with some modern buildings and plenty of cars – but not enough to stop this bloke from carting his load of logs down the main street.

We had a late-morning break when I found a “sandwich bar” and a Phe-park nearby. I had a cup of coffee and a beaut toasted sandwich – not a pastry and inside the cafe, not at a table out in the warm sunshine, but at least I am getting a little closer.

Kosovo, like one of it’s neighbours - Albania – has one hell of a lot of one or two man car washing places and one hell of a lot of car wrecking yards.

The road divides at Pec. We can either turn to the right (east) for a straight run to the capital, Pristina, or continue straight ahead to Mitrovice in the north. I reckoned it was six of one and half a dozen of the other and when we got lost despite the best efforts of Compass we finished up on the road north to Mitrovice – that “dangerous place” according to the bank security guy back in the Islamic south – and so it made sense to go there and then back to Pristina for a sleep tonight and over the border and Serbia tomorrow.

The drive to Pec this morning was not much as there was fog for the early part, and we were driving in a valley, with mountains on the left - not high enough to be snow capped at the moment, but it won’t be long. There was nothing out to the right that I could see as it was a pretty flat countryside and a pretty boring drive for most of the way.


Similarly the 80 odd kms from Pec to Mitrovice was fairly flat but there was a bit of interest now and then with army patrol wagons parked at vantage spots overlooking some of the

towns we passed through.

The quality of houses seem to be good. Terracotta roofs and walls either concrete or brick that have been rendered – mostly two storied – or sometimes three - and spaced apart from one another.

The town of Mitrovice, up in the north, is large but it seemed to be just another city in my opinion. Sure, there is a police, or army, presence with checkpoints here and there but everything was pretty “laid back” and relaxed with no urgency or stress at all. Everyone appeared to be getting around and doing their everyday business as normal.

So much for that bank security guard’s talk about how “They don’t like English speakers up there – very, very dangerous”.

When we had first arrived in Kosovo - that was down south with the Moslem population - I tried three or four wrecking yards looking for a couple of replacement hub caps for Phe, and they really didn’t want to know. None of them were rude but they were getting pretty close to it.

Now here, up in the north, we were just on the outskirts of Mitrovice heading back south to Pristina, and we pulled into a wrecker – just one of so, so, many lined up along the road - and he was the nic-est, friendliest, bloke you could find on a day’s march. He poked around out the back until he found a couple of 14 inch hubcaps that (nearly) fitted okay but they were not what you would call, secure, so he was out with a length of fine wire and a couple of twists on each wheel which is sure to keep Phe attached to her new hubcaps. If they detach, I will certainly hear the din that’s for sure! Bit of a laugh really – shades of Morocco where they would fix anything with a piece of wire!

So I showed him another problem that had just popped up – a fuse had blown and the electric windows wouldn’t move, and the dashboard lights were out. No trouble – found which fuse and rum-maged through his bowl of old fuses for the right replacement and bingo! Fannies your Aunt!

I know that one swallow doesn’t make a summer, as they say, but I have to ask “is this the difference between folklore and reality?” The folklore down south said “They don’t like English speakers up there – very, very dangerous.” In my case the reality and the folklore did not coincide.

And is that one of the big problems in this world of ours?

Does it come back to the 30 second grab at the six o’clock news? The source of much folklore?


All day today we had been driving on the flat, from this morning at Prizren, up through Pec to Mitro-vice and now back to Pristina, but when we reached Pristina at around three, I decided to move on a bit closer to the Serbian border to the town of Gnjilane, but as soon as we turned east towards Ser-bia we were into the hills, not mountains, but hills. It was quite pretty with lakes and dams dotted here and there, bush clad hillsides although there was not a lot of autumn leaves left on the trees - only a few dried brown leaves hanging on until the last before joining their brethren on the ground.

They say there is a first time for everything. Well, this was a first.

When we arrived at Gnjilane- and it’s a big place, - I stopped at a supermarket to get a couple of beers and some stuff for tea, and I asked the check-out girl – she had no English at all - for a hotel. I gave the usual sign with both hands, palm to palm, to one cheek and the head cocked to one side. It’s never failed! She called to the packer bloke and between them they signalled that the hotel was im-mediately above the supermarket. I was delighted but it was strange that I hadn’t noticed a hotel sign. So I went outside and up the stairs and there was a department store type of shop, but no sign of a hotel. I was walking back down again when the girl and the bloke were climbing the stairs towards me. I must have looked perplexed because she took me by the arm and back into the store. She led me from spot to spot asking questions of the staff all of the way, until at last, wallah, we were there – at the pile of pillows for me to rest my head on!

I took her by the shoulders and gave her a big hug, because she had tried so hard but was so far off the pace. Even before I left, and there were three or four of them having a coffee in a coffee nook, I tried one more time by trying to draw a picture in the air of a big house with a roof and me sleeping inside, but no good, not one of them got anywhere close to the message – probably focused on the pillow thing.

Cash - Skinned or not-skinned, that is the Question!

Sunday 7th November

I had one big fright last night – to do with my bank accounts!

After leaving the “pillow chick” to her coffee we drove through the main part of Gnjilane and found a nice hotel for the night. The price was 40 euros for bed and breakfast and as I barely had that amount in my wallet, asked for directions to the nearest ATM for a top-up. But the ATM refused my visa card. There was a second bank up the road a bit so I walked to that but with the same result! No Likee! A third ATM just over the road also rejected the card but had the courtesy of printing out a slip to say that the account had a balance of only 30 euros.

“Not right!!!” I shouted at it. “There is $3000 in that account!”

A little concerned I was!

A quick walk back to Phe to get a second plastic card hidden away in the boot and used only for emergencies. Re-armed, I bypassed the first two and headed straight back to the third ATM and held my breath as it went through the motions – but no good and this time the slip of paper said this ac-count balance was only $10. It should be $900.

A good time to panic, but better instead, to sit on the park bench and collect my thoughts. Have my two bank accounts both been skinned out? One maybe, but two accounts and both on the same day – it doesn’t sound possible! One plastic card is kept in my wallet and the other one is kept in the boot. How long ago was it that they were together? Weeks at least!

My wallet, including all of the coins, has just over the 40 euros for tonight’s bed. So that’s covered. Phe has half a tank of fuel, but it will take days to get more money. And it was Saturday night.

I am in big trouble! Deep Shit!

Back to the hotel I connected Priscilla (the laptop) into the internet and dialled up my Bendigo Bank accounts to try and get some facts, but even that brought no joy because the bank’s internet access had been temporarily closed down for routine maintenance - due to re-open in three hours.

I was stymied! The last trick I had was to send off emails to my nephew in Cheltenham asking him to prepare to get his mighty white steed out of the stable and gallop to my rescue. Will it come to that – I guess I will have to wait until the bank reopens for business.

Well it did, three hours later, and when I opened my accounts everything was in perfect order, the correct amount was safely in each account and I guess the whole episode arose from the bank closing their internet banking down for those few hours.


Is there a moral to this story?

Well it really did have me on the edge of my seat, sitting there as I was, on the border of Kosovo and Serbia – way, way, out of my comfort zone - with cash for one night’s bed plus breakfast, maybe 350 kms of fuel in the tank and a couple of apples in the “kitchen”. I have heard the stories of people who have had their bank accounts emptied out, but it has never happened to me, or actually to anyone I know directly – (was it just the six o’clock news?)

I have always travelled with a visa DEBIT card for day to day transactions and only ever have a “comfortable” amount of money in that account – enough for a month or so’s travelling. The second account (once again covered by a debit card) is my “life savings” account – well it isn’t quite, but you get my drift. It is this account that I use to top-up the visa account and it is this card that is secreted away in the boot.

In yesterday’s schmozzle the thing that went wrong was that the Bendigo Bank closed for mainte-nance and access to my account was denied – and I didn’t know why.

But I will next time!

As it happened the “Gallant White Knight of Cheltenham” didn’t get to read any of my urgent, urgent, urgent emails until Monday evening – so what bloody help would he have been!

It will take a long while for him to live that one down!

Into Serbia from Kosovo - Then close and friendly with a Voyager

Sunday 7th November

We are leaving Kosovo for Serbia just a few kilometres away, on another beautiful morning – gee we are having a great run with the weather, no fog this morning, clear skies, still, and shirt sleeves. And things are looking up because the border crossing into Serbia was the easiest so far – just one bloke to look in the boot while another took my passport away and when it came back there was just a “have a lovely day” and we were through onto Serbian soil.

Phe said “You don’t need to ask!” and Karen thought she had the country mastered so long as we don’t move away from the toll roads or the motorways. Compass sat there saying nothing because he is never lost!

The country doesn’t look much different, then why should it, the same rolling bush clad hills with the last of the brown leaves clinging to the trees, a mountain stream right beside us, just a wisp of mist hanging around the valleys and the early morning soft sunlight – lovely, really lovely driving through this narrow Serbian valley.


At the first town we had the normal job of finding an ATM, for some Serbian dinar, and buying a road-map. There are a lot of people, mostly men, and some police also, but all just standing around with no particular alertness or anxiety that I could see – just a normal Sunday morning. But out in the country there was a lot of work going on. Contractors with diggers digging trenches for whatever with labour-ers and shovels to match, farmers ploughing paddocks and workers planting, could it be next years crop of potatoes? I am only guessing. The shops are mostly closed though being Sunday.

We are really flying blind because I know next to nothing about Serbia and the map I bought was not a good buy at all and I will have to try for another when there is a decent sized petrol station. I have given up looking for Tourist Information Centres and if we fall over one it will be a bonus.

We left Gnjilane in Kosovo this morning and took a road into Serbia towards the town of Vranje travelling north. There is little choice of roads for us to take as not far to the east is Bulgaria – and we have already visited that wonderful country - so there is not much we can do other than follow this main road north through Nis towards Belgrade and maybe a for a stop tonight.

But then the main road turned into a motorway and all the character of the country went out of the window – it became straight, flat and boring. If I wanted to drive on a motorway I could have done that back at home instead of coming to the other side of the globe. I am buggered if I know what to do from here other than drive on this motorway up to the next major town, Nis.

In front of us is a big Chrysler Voyager Turbo charged diesel with Serbian plates. How do I know this? Because we are travelling at 80 kms per hour along the motorway and he is just 5 metres from Phe’s nose - at the business end of a tow rope!!!

Yes, we are on tow!

It happened at the toll gates (I didn’t even know we were on a toll road) when I couldn’t help but notice that Phe had a dose of the hot flushes and was starting to boil! There was some steam com-ing from under the bonnet – poor old Phe! I had wanted to change all of those hoses this time last year but reneged on the deal because the total bill with all the other stuff was going to be too high. Another coulda, woulda, shoulda! And I knew I should have replaced them but good old “head in the sand” stuff, and a bit of “she’ll be right,” - but she won’t!

So after paying the toll, I pulled over to the side where there were 6 or 7 other cars stopped having a breather. As it happened I pulled up directly behind the Voyager and once I had popped the bonnet the driver – his name was Ivan - came to have a look and offered to help. He was a mechanic would you believe! Who said there were no tooth fairies!

There was a split in one of the hoses running from the radiator with the result that there was water everywhere except in the radiator where it should have been. Ivan had good English and after a chat, he said he had a grandfather living in Melbourne and friends in Perth. Of more immediate importance he said he had a workshop 25 kms up the road at Nis and could tow us there if I wanted.

I wanted!


It’s strange you know, he had pretty good English so with any luck I may get my tourist informa-tion from him too, and up until then I was despairing because this morning was a beaut run initially through the hills and then we got on tho this motorway and I don’t want to spend boring time in Serbia. We were flying blind and now we may be able to get some good oil – some good Tourist Information oil.

That was what I was thinking as were were sailing down the motorway. Just a new hose, a look at the map and we will be back on our way.

Not to be, because as soon as we had a good look at the problem it wasn’t just water that had escaped but there was a heap of oil as well all over the motor and the dip stick showed very little left in the sump. Moreover there was oil mixed in with the radiator water – and that’s a bad, bad sign, indicating a blown head gasket. He found a replacement hose in his heap of junk, and fitted it, but the head gasket will have to wait until tomorrow when the Fiat place is open. I hope they have one!

Ivan lives in the house behind his workshop, with his mother and father, wife and three children aged 15,12 and 9 – two girls and a boy. It was his mum and dad’s place but as he is an only child (at 39 years) he is the bread winner (and the boss) now. He organised me a place to stay for the night.

Would I like to try some of “My own special drink?”

“I sure would” was my reply, and out comes his Dad with a bottle of home-distilled plum brandy that was more than 60% proof. Just a small glass of course. While we were sitting there, outside, at a table with bench seats, the second daughter arrived with a plater of cheese.

“It’s cheese from sheep’s milk and matured for over a year – from our own sheep up in the moun-tains.”

It was great cheese – sharp and tasty just as I remember cheese used to taste like 50 years ago. Then a bowl of red peppers, a bowl of green peppers, and a plate of fresh bread. The red peppers had been through a mincer, cooked and preserved in glass jars, so were the consistency of mince meat, but the green peppers were still whole and had been pickled. I watched Ivan for guidance - and cut it with knife and fork but left the stalk. Spicy and nice. Then the eldest daughter brought a plate of cold lamb pieces

“This lamb was 25kgs.” I presume that was when it was still walking around on the farm up in the mountains a while back. He said they had 200 sheep and have three shepherds to look after them.

He really is a petrol head with a big Kawasaki 4 cylinder bike and also a baby “chopper” for the 9 year old son. He is president of the local motor bike club that has over 35 members.

I asked Ivan a bit about Serbia and especially the reported “ethnic violence” that gets reported pretty regularly, but without actually evading the question he gave me the impression that there was no such thing and if there was it was just a very small minority that were involved. However on the topic of the economy he accepted that there was a high degree of unemployment among Serbian men in particular but the same old story that those who really wanted to work have jobs and it is those that are half hearted about working that are suffering.

Around about six o’clock he drove me to the (sort of) hotel place he had booked me into a couple of kilometres out of town. I say “sort of ” because it seemed more like a rooming house although there was a bar and they served a good meal. Popular with the locals too.

I am a bit anxious about the prospects for tomorrow and really hope that I am not just a “cash cow” that has wandered into his yard ready to be milked. I am vulnerable, but I like the guy and trust his skills as a mechanic, but human nature has a tendency to turn greedy sometimes – so I had better be on the ball.

Serbia - Phe is being massaged by Ivan while I am in a hotel twiddling my thumbs

Monday 8th November

Ivan was at the hotel to pick me up at twelve, as he had promised, and wanted me to come back to see how far he had progressed with Phe. It took me a while to get around this one as at the start I thought he was going to give some terrible “terminal” news, but no, I was there to see with my own eyes just what had been done.

The head was off and had been machined flat. The pistons were okay he said, but he had put a new set of rings on all four. Just one of the four “hot plugs” needs replacing, there was a new head gasket, a new fuel filter and oil filter, a new timing belt, and the old shock absorbers were off and the new ones laying on the floor ready to be fitted. The two front wheels had new Michelins fitted although I forgot to ask if the wheels had been balanced.


This was his concert. A display seeking trust. The halfway mark, to show me that his work will be dinki-di. And it was a relief for me to know that all of the vitals were there, on the ground, and not coming by camel train from some far off city. But there was still a lot of hours to be put in before we were going to be back on the road – and of course I am going to need a bucket load of cash – I haven’t started to M-o-o-o-o just yet and I hope my trust in this fellow is well founded.

He is a strange guy in some ways, and maybe typical of the European male because with me and the other men that seem to be around all of the time, he is friendly and jovial – “a good mate” sort of bloke, but when I saw him with his father he was short and brusque and with his children he was shorter still almost to the point of anger, yelling words I couldn’t understand, and when I challenged him about it and said they need to get a hug and a smile now and then, he just smiled at me and said nothing. Somehow I think his kids would die of fright if he gave them a hug and a smile.

He is a big man with tattoos on both arms and he may be a pretty hard line Serb, because I quizzed him about the old Yugoslavia and the break-up into separate states and without getting much more than I already knew his view seemed to be that the Serbs could do no wrong, and had done nothing wrong. Even Slobodan Milosevic – the political leader who was found guilty of war crimes and died in prison around 2000 - was an innocent as far as Ivan was concerned and all the bad mouthing was just propaganda. But I ask myself, is his bias any different to the Moslem bank guard in Moldova who said “They don’t like English speakers up there – very, very dangerous.”

Back home, and in many other countries I suspect, a house is demolished with a huge excavator and taken to the tip as land fill. This building in Nis is being “disassembled” very carefully and all the like materials have been stacked on the ground. It suggests that they are going to be re-used.

We are running short of time now so there won’t be much of a glimpse of Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia on the way through but I am willing to bet in advance that on the individual level the people there will be just as happy and friendly as all of the others I have met on this journey – no matter what religion, race or creed.


Serbia - “On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again” - Good on ya Willie!

Tuesday 9th November

We left Ivan around about midday – the cost – M-o-o-o-o-o !!!!!

No, not really, but the bill was half as much again than I had expected, and I guess there was no way, anywhere, here in Europe, that I was going to get past the “Tourist sucker” rates. Even back home you can never be really sure you are not being “touched” and I consider he did a good and thorough job. I was especially thankful to him for getting me back to the workshop when all the broken bits and the new replacement parts were there lying around on the ground. At least that way I knew exactly what was replaced and what was not.

Phe’s smiling too. She is wearing her new Michelin shoes and the clunk has gone from the shockers amongst other things.

You couldn’t help but like this bloke, with his willingness to help, and then the hospitality, and not least the work ethic (I think) that has gone into Phe’s joints and heart beat. Sure, it was a lot of cash but then it has been the only major money spent on her health this trip of four months and 28,000 kms. That sort of travelling can’t possibly come for free with a girl as old as Phe!

We are heading up the toll road northwards from Nis but will get off at the first opportunity and drive directly towards Bosnia via the minor roads. That should be much more interesting. It means that we will miss Belgrade – so be it.

There was a pretty strong wind blowing all day yesterday so there are not a lot of leaves left up there now – I think the autumn’s almost done and gone. One of the things that is different in Serbia is that I have not seen as many taxis as I had in the other countries we have passed through, nor the little van buses. There are the regular big buses doing trips though. Another thing – and a lot more important to me at least - is that the petrol stations have great toilets, clean and well maintained. We have driven through a lot of countries since I have last been able to say that.

Ivan mentioned that with sheep, the wool is of little or no consequence and they are bred for the milk and the meat only. This explains why we have never come across a shorn sheep – it probably only loses it’s wool at the abattoir.

Bloody bad news now!!!!

We were about 2 hours up the road and I noticed the temperature gauge was creeping up! I popped the bonnet and there was water gushing out from around the same spot as it was on Sunday last!

Disappointment was not quite the first word that came into my mind.


I stopped at the next mechanic just down the road and the two blokes there seemed to know what they were about. They had a long discussion about what could be the cause and I tried to explain just what Ivan had done, but with us all speaking different languages it became a little strained. I had some help from one of their Serbian customers who joined us. He could speak English but knew little or nothing about the workings of car engines – and that was a drawback. They checked the oil level and the pressure on the hose when the engine was revved, blamed a pinched hose, then a faulty turbo booster but then swapped to blaming a cracked head any of which could be putting excessive pres-sure into the water system – thus blowing the hose. Again! And the water was dirty with oil. Again!

Finally they chopped the bad end off the hose and reattached it for me and agreed that the best thing would be to take Phe back to Ivan. But I must drive very carefully and very slowly.

“If you drive very carefully and very slowly you might make it!”

So I did. And we did.

Ivan was almost as sad as I was to see us back on his doorstep again But then while we were revving the engine in his workshop that dammed hose fractured again – so they were right!

Ivan, for his part, was very concerned and regretted not replacing the hoses with new ones and even though it was well after six in the evening, he got in his Voyager, drove off to wherever and came back with two new hoses. His off-sider in the meantime flushed out the water system with detergent to try and remove the last traces of oil from the radiator. Ivan was adamant that the head was not cracked and that the only problem was that the replacement hose he had fitted on Sunday was old and not up to the challenge. A number of times he said that word “sorry”

By eight we were ready to go again but I decided in favour of another night at the hotel and an early start in the morning.

Serbia - We’re “On the road again”, AGAIN! with or without Willie Nelson!

Wednesday 10th November

We started all over again at the crack of dawn and by half past eight had made up the two hours from yesterday and were outside the mechanic’s place – the bloke who suggested Phe had a crack in the head.


Ar first, I was tempted to drive on past but had second thoughts and I am pleased I did, because the two of them were delighted to see us back, checked out the work that Ivan had done and gave it the thumbs up. This was reassuring. But then they did have three bites at the cherry last night. First they reckoned it was a pinched hose. Then it was the turbo that was busted and lastly with all of that oil in the water, it must be a cracked head. I am backing Ivan even though now both he and I realise he should have changed the hoses for newies and he should have flushed out the water system better than he did. Maybe he handles the truth a little carelessly because he said he had washed the system out three times. I don’t believe he had washed it out once and the oil in the water last night was the same oil that got in there prior to last Sunday. That’s provided he is right and that there is nothing basically wrong with Phe’s heartbeat.

Coming along the toll road for the first 50kms this morning and the temperature gauge didn’t waver off the 80-90 degree mark – good news.

We were driving through snow country and in winter there would be snow on the ground all around Serbia, but today it is shirtsleeves with 21-22 degrees – just a beautiful late-autumn day and just twelve days off the official start of the European winter on 22nd November. Last night a sheet was too much for comfort. Incredible, but certainly marvellous for us in what we are doing.

Serbia is an odd country, though I haven’t been here long enough to really make a judgement have I. A couple of things. I was in the hotel at Nis for three nights, and sure, it was a small hotel but on the second morning I was sitting alone in the small reception area waiting for Ivan to pick me up, and the bloke who was the general rouse-about, saw me there and then came back with a cup of tea. That was nice of him – I hadn’t asked for it, I was just sitting there working on this journal and he must have thought it was a good idea. When I arrived the following night, unexpectedly, he spotted me in the restaurant, came over and shook my hand so very warmly it was as if we were long lost brothers. He had no English at all.

Ivan was a nice friendly fella too. Who else have I come in contact with? A number of people to tell me where to go. Everyone I have asked has been considerate and nice – many times the language beat us both but always with a smile.

In the hotel restaurant and bar, the locals (95% male) sat either three or four to a table, drank beer - sometimes a bit too much and got a bit raucous, but not bad, - and they had a meal as well. But they never ever smiled or made eye contact or any gesture to me at all. I think a lot of it has to do with the language problem – maybe they would be embarrassed perhaps, or maybe they were quite happy to do their own thing as they do every other night of the week. In the street the Serbs don’t seem to be demonstratively happy or welcoming, although the men shake hands a lot. They are severe looking blokes – not quite as severe as the Poles – but I guess they, as a country, have been through a lot particularly in recent times and it is now carved on their faces. But when I have been asking for directions they have always been friendly and pleasant, but often not particularly helpful because of the lack of English. There was one downer when three snotty-nosed teenage boys going home from school gave me shrugs and smirks when I asked for directions to an internet cafe, as if I was a bloody dodo – I could have given them a good swift kick in the arse because that is what they deserved. Another time it was exactly the opposite when I stopped in a town asking for directions from a group of three young men. They said “No” when I asked if they could speak English and were turning away when I showed them the name of the town on the map. One said “Ah, Trnovac” and then proceeded to point out directions. But he thought he had lost me – and he had - so he ran to stop a woman in a car who then told me in English which way to go. He went well out of his way to help. (Not that it helped very much, because I still got lost again).

It was another beautiful drive this morning up the river valley towards Uzice with hills on either side – hills, not mountains – and the road was just winding around between market garden plots of land cultivated by people who live in the towns and villages. However having said that there has been a lot of domestic buildings scattered over the countryside so not all of the farmers live in the villages as is the case in some places.

Had I not already seen my last monastery for this trip there would have been plenty of opportunities to see some more because there have been signs all along the valley directing to these ancient places.

The speed limit on the Serbian roads is 80km per hour, which is pretty slow, but drivers seem to be sticking to it with very few speedsters over the limit. Ivan told me last night that the fines for speeding are very hefty – he was talking something like 500 euros, which is a lot of money in anyone’s language. He also said that

“A lot of drugs come out of Kosovo - they get them from wherever they can and then distribute them throughout Europe.”

I wondered about the “folklore” thing again because the border entry into Serbia from Kosovo showed no urgency or severity - in fact it was the easiest and the most casual of any border crossing this trip for sure! So his remark doesn’t ring true.


A change in the weather as we got closer to the Boznian border. A change from an absolutely beauti-ful morning to overcast and a light drizzle – not much but just enough to make Phe dirty and put the wipers to work. The clouds looking forward towards Bosnia are heavy and threatening. I got lost again but this time it was a little bit easier because the spelling of the name of the town on the border that we are seeking is pronounced precisely as it is written in English – Mokra Gora, so asking for instruc-tions and following them was a breeze this time. Once we found Mokra Gora we were well on the way to Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Another arsehole! And another Good-guy! This time the arsehole was Serbian and had a job on the border on the way out of Serbia and the good-guy was Bosnian and had a job flogging Bosnian insur-ance to car owners entering Bosnia.

We have passed over plenty of borders in the last four months and I just should not have been caught out again – but I was!

Like me, you will probably realise that there are two fences to every border – one out of the exiting country and one into the entering country. Between the two fences is what is often called “no-mans land”, and it’s a place where you are in neither country. You are in no-mans land.

In this case we were exiting Serbia – no problem there just straight through much the same as when we entered the country four days ago. We drove through the no-mans land but when we got to the Bosnian fence there was a hiccup because they wanted 30 euros for car insurance before we were allowed to proceed into their country. I didn’t have 30 euros. In fact I had no euros at all There was no ATM at the border, no money exchange, and they would not take a plastic card. I was told to go back to a Serbian village just 7 kms away where I would be able to get some euros.

So like a good little tourist I did as I was told but hit the snag when the Serbian arsehole would not let me back into his country without Serbian car insurance. It mattered little to him that we had been in his country for the past four days, or that we got into Serbia originally without being asked to buy insurance, or that no one had asked to see our insurance card on the way out of his country when we left through this very same border post just ten minutes ago.

“You must have an insurance card to enter Serbia through this border post.” He was adamant! (Well I think that was what he said because it was all in Serbian – no English.)

“Alright I will buy one” I said.

“Not here!” was his retort. “Go back to Bosnia and buy it there”. That’s as far as his peanut brain would go. I repeatedly told him that I could not get into Bosnia without some euros.

It was getting more and more heated as his face became redder and I envisaged the prospect of Karen and Compass, Phe and Me spending the rest of our lives in that one kilometre of no-man’s land between the two fences, unable to move either way. It was not a lot of help with me yelling at him in English and him yelling at me in Serbian.

I hope he rots in hell!

So back we went to the Bosnian fence where they again refused to allow us to enter Bosnia without the insurance. So I needed to cut a deal with the insurance guy. His name was Yakoff and he was the “Good-guy”. He had a smattering of English – about the only one who did have at either of the two borders. At first, when I asked what I could do, he answered “I don’t know,” but after a while he must have tossed it around in his mind and decided to write out the insurance policy, pass it to the guard bloke, get the passport stamped and then sat with me in Phe as we drove the 23 km’s into town.

He didn’t have to do that. He could have just shut his eyes and his ears like all of the others and told me to go and get stuffed. But no. He found the only good practical solution and did what was right.

It was a long slow winding drive to Visegrad, the first town with an ATM in Bosnia and I expected to just get some cash, top up with some diesel and then drive Yakoff back to the border but once I had given him the 30 euros insurance money – plus a bit extra for getting me out of trouble – he shook my hand, waved goodbye and took off with some friends. A nice young bloke who certainly got me out of a pickle.

I should keep a handful of international currency to cover situations like this.

Before setting off next time I must checkout this green card business. I have a green card for Phe but it only insures us in some of the EU countries, and even Greece is excluded, but by the way Yakoff was speaking I may be able to get one to cover us in the remainder and save all of this hassle.

Bosnia and Herzegovina


Ducks, twilight, mist and the Drina River at Visegrad – what a beauty! The European winter is only 12 days away.

The Drina River forms much of the border between Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, flowing north and the waters eventually join with the Danube near Belgrade.

I am looking at this town, Visegrad, this river, The Drina, and the bridge in the distance, through the eyes of a tourist, a visitor from the other side of the world, a person only

remotely aware of the atrocities that took place in this town and on this river and from that bridge as recently as 1992 when countless Bosniak civilians, men, women and children were killed in what is now called “genocide”. Maybe it is fitting for us to view the scene on a

sombre evening such as this.


What a bloody magnificent drive this is coming out of Visegrad following the Drina upstream through the gorges and the mountains towards Sarajevo The river is dirty – almost mud - but the mountains tower over it all. This afternoon the weather had closed in with heavy cloud, just a light drizzle and plenty of mist hanging around the gorges and the water. There is still a little autumn colour, but not much.


This is truly beautiful. Our road is on the north side of the river and of course I can’t see down the cliff at what is below us, but on the far side there are a few small houses – maybe fishing shacks – although some are in areas where the bush has been cleared and made way for a little farmland. Then there is a village or two with a bridge giving access across the river – so it is populated to a degree. It was such a great drive I turned around and did it again, that’s how good it was. It was getting dark so photos were a big ask but hopefully there will be a few that will paint the picture of the Drina squeez-ing through the gorges on it’s way to join with the Danube and flow through Romania, and then ultimately into the Black Sea.

Then the Drina left us to the towering mountains – absolutely magnificent scenery, but it was dark and all I could see was those great mountain peaks almost hanging over the road.

We drove the last few kilometres in the dark through misty rain to Sarajevo and after a few hiccups found a quiet, dry bed for the night.

Bosnia & Herzegovina - and then through Croatia

Thursday 11th November


This is down-town Sarajevo early in the morning – and there are not very many early starters are there! Last night in the drizzle, Phe was battling down this one-way street that was crowded with pe-destrians and vehicles. Just one “Phe park” – not likely! In desperation I parked illegally and got abused by a local when he couldn’t get his car out. It was only for a couple of minutes too. Actually it was the second lot of abuse within half an hour – the first being for driving the wrong way up a one-way street! It’s just not fair! Don’t tourists have any rights in this town?

We had an early 5:30 start away from Sarajevo heading north across Bosnia and Herzegovina to-wards Croatia and then maybe straight through Croatia for a bed somewhere in Slovenia by the end of the day. I don’t want to fall back onto the motorways or toll-roads just yet as maybe we can make it to France by Saturday and still see a little of the country on the way through. I have arranged to meet my French friends in the little youth hostel at Cassis in the south of France about 30 kms east of Marseilles and I said we would be there next Saturday in the afternoon.

Today is Thursday the 11th November and the plane to Oz is from Heathrow on Sunday the 21st November. So there is not a lot of time left. I am reckoning on having Saturday and Sunday with my friends at Cassis, Monday and Tuesday for the drive up through France for a channel crossing on Wednesday. That would give me Thursday and Friday with my nephew, Roger, in Cheltenham. Saturday will be bye-bye-day to Phe, Karen and Compass all rugged up in a barn near Basingstoke and Sunday up, up and away. All of this detailed planning makes me dizzy!

The last hour of driving last night after the gorges and through the mountains and then through the hills was not pleasant. It was dark of course, and was raining lightly all of the way, the road was winding and there was a reasonable amount of traffic.

Even driving in down-town Sarajevo, a new city for me, in the dark, and in the rain, with their one way streets that all seemed to be going the same way, and not so much looking for hotel signs because there were plenty of those, but for a place to park Phe while I made the enquiry. Tough going – but if I am not prepared for a patch of ‘tough’ every now and then, I should have stayed at home.

The first couple of hotels or motels were way out of my price league but eventually there was a hos-tel with a dormitory of eight beds and seven of them unoccupied, plus a place for Phe to be parked within 100 metres. Beaut. And best of all was a small lounge area for a beer and to bring this journal up-to-date again. Just right!

Sarajevo doesn’t appear to be a very big town, and the town itself is down on the flat, but with low hills surrounding it. There looks to be lots of houses set up in the hills overlooking the town – a very pleasant way of living I think. The centre seems to have a lot of pedestrian malls, some old buildings and some modern new buildings. I reckon Sarajevo would be a nice place to live.


Yesterday we came through some drizzle in the afternoon – but no more than drizzle. But then there was the Bosna river just out of Sarajevo and it was all but in flood – a real banker! It was running at a thousand knots and very muddy. Typical of a river in flood.

What happens to the tons of litter that is left beside the road, or in the parks, or thrown from cars – all of that litter - what happens to it? This is what happens to it. A decent down-

pour of rain and it is flushed down the storm water drain, into the river and out to sea.

I don’t want to harp on this litter thing – I seem to have been talking about it for months – but the photo does not do justice to the magnitude of the problem. The camera has just not picked up the scale! I reckon that every metre in any direction on the surface of the raging river there was an article of litter, be it a bottle, a carton, a plastic bag, and that was only the stuff that was floating on the sur-face. Heaven knows what was below the surface. The rubbish was just flowing past me in an endless train, probably has been for days and will keep on going for as long as the river stays in flood. It will all finish up in the Adriatic Sea or the Mediterranean and just how those seas can possibly cope with the tonnes and tonnes of filth that we feed into them just beats me! You look at the Mediterranean and the water is clear and blue. The Black Sea also. Nature is marvellous isn’t it but I really don’t think we deserve what we have.

My much maligned “six o’clock news” could come in real handy right now – just a 30 second film of this river in flood, and in particular it’s cargo, could do a lot to heighten awareness amongst the gen-eral population - and it is they (us) who are to blame!

Please don’t call me a “Greenie”! - but I do care.


In the north of Bosnia we turned left towards Banja Luka and the area is not anywhere near as mountainous – it’s far from being flat as there are hills around, all bush clad, but there are a lot of set-tlements and a lot of agriculture. Unlike Serbia there seem to be many more hotels around. Last night in Sarajevo there were heaps, (and some that I called on were full) and today just driving through the towns there were a lot of hotel signs. Back in Serbia it was difficult to find a hotel.

I wonder if this is another dose of Ivan’s plum brandy? - or the Bosnian equivalent. The blokes look as if they can hardly wait!

CROATIA

It’s now half past one. Ten minutes ago we were in Bosnia & Herzegovina and now we are in Croatia – so the border crossings are getting simpler? I hope! I can’t win though because there was no men-tion of Croatian car insurance so the fist full of euros that I went out of my way to raise, were not required.

I have heard people talk of Croatia in glowing terms but have never been anywhere near it before. And not now either because we are heading straight across the narrow “neck” towards the city of Karlovac and then into Slovenia. I think too, that most of the Croatian attraction is along the Adriatic coast line where there are more than a thousand islands dotting its length.

Just around the corner from the border into Croatia, I took a photo of a couple of pretty houses and they turned out to be the start of a village - and it looks like every house in the village is a farm house. They have a tractor or other implement in the back yard or a block of land beside the house with corn or whatever growing. Then away from the village on the flat land there are separate blocks maybe 15 metres by 150 metres that would be worked by each family. Typical of all of the Balkan states, subsistence living of a sort. Much the same as Ivan the mechanic. He and his family had a farm with their sheep, so his family produced their own cheese and meat, their own plum brandy, peppers and bread. This little village goes on for 2 or 3 kms because the houses are pretty well spread apart from one another.

I don’t think I mentioned that I am back into shirt sleeves after yesterdays cold and wet weather.

Time is likely to be a problem, but when Karen, yes the much-loved Karen, told us to turn right off a road that had a single white line onto a road that had no lines at all, I was a bit dubious, but our road map was not all that flash and I trusted that Karen knew a better way to get to Karlovac – after all she only has maps of the major roads in her Croatian memory.


First of all we came across these two Croatians, who didn’t say a lot and who didn’t really look to be cut out for the Plaza de Toros in Madrid either. I tried one or two “Oleh’s” out of the window and they didn’t even blink. I was tempted to get out and give them a pat but

had second thoughts - even I could see that they were all there - “Intact” I mean!

Then Karen led us down this beautiful road . . . . . . . . .


. . . . . . . . .but once it turned into a track it was time to pull the pin and head back to the intersection and to the road that had the white line.

If this is Croatia I sure as hell will be back! A wonderful few hours it was, even without the adventure fueled by our fearless leader - Karen.


Italy - On a Motorway right across the North as far as Turin

Friday 12th November

Up at four, shave, shower, packed up and away at a quarter to five driving into the misty Slovenian dawn – still a couple of hours away.

Last night I had trouble with the road signs coming up to the border between Croatia and Slovenia and what should have been an easy crossing from Karlovac - according to the road map – turned into a 40km trek up the motorway almost to Zagreb before the first exit to Slovenia. It was dark by the time we propped at the first hotel we came to in this new country.

This morning there was little point in taking the ‘scenic’ route on minor roads because there is not a lot of scenery to be seen when it is still dark, so it was the toll-way again for a couple of hours and by dawn we were right across the country and out of the other side of Slovenia and into Italy.

“What was Slovenia like? I have heard it is a beautiful country.”

How the hell would I know – we arrived in the dark and left in the dark! We have been right across the country and haven’t seen a thing. I did see the toll gates though and it was cheap because the toll gates were open, the barriers were up, we just drove straight through, the same at the other end and so it was a free ride – why, I don’t know and I didn’t chase around to find out. What is the saying - “never look a gift horse in the mouth!”

But both Slovenia and Croatia are definitely on the list for next time. Another good thing is that we have finished with border crossings. Slovenia is a member of the European Union so it’s euros and no border checks from now until we get to the channel ferry.

The aim today is to make it to Turin right across to the western side of northern Italy which will leave a comfortable 6 or 7 hour drive on to Cassis tomorrow. I have stayed in the Turin youth hostel before and if we get there in the early afternoon there will be time for a load of washing, and maybe find a Fiat mechanic to have a look at the bad squeak in Phe’s front suspension – the one that was not on Ivan’s list. What better place for such a search than in Turin - the home town of Fiat.

All of these hours on the motorway and it’s boring, and I have said that before often enough, but there is just something about motorway driving. You are not part of the countryside you are part of the motorway, you are part of the vehicles you are going to overtake or that are going to overtake you, or taking care to get out of the way, or whatever else is happening, but no way are you part of the countryside.

You really have to make a conscious effort to actually look at the world outside of the motorway itself. Especially on this one – it’s a toll road – where we are all fenced in so that you can only get in through the toll gates and you can only get out through the toll gates. The metal barricade between the two directions is so high and secure it is impossible to see anything at all of the oncoming traffic. Even the barricades to the right side restrict the view a lot. It’s almost like driving in a tunnel, not quite, - at least they haven’t blocked the sky out yet.

It reminds me of the slot cars our kids used to play with. Karen and Compass, Phe and Me are just buzzing along with no control of our own direction – the front wheel is in a slot and we can only go where that slot wants to take us. Not nice. Not nice at all. I think if I had to travel on the motorways I wouldn’t travel at all.

But I shouldn’t be knocking the motorways because they are a wonderful, fast, safe and efficient, way of getting from point A to point B and are an essential ingredient in any country’s transport network with trucks and the likes of me (today) when we want to go a long distance in a short time


So we did our long all-day stint on the toll road, got a bed at the Turin Youth Hostel, got to do a load of washing and even located a Fiat mechanic just walking distance from the hostel. He found the problem okay, a worn ball joint on the left “wishbone”, but cannot replace it before Monday - which is out of the question.

So it’s off to France in the morning. I am looking forward to the drive over the Alps. Wonder if we will be driving through snow again like we did at this time a couple of years ago?

The Alps between Italy and France - Absolutely magnificent at this time of year.

Saturday 13th November

The great thing about the youth hostels is the camaraderie. I have said before often enough, and last night was a good example. There were two blokes in the room with me, one was Hungarian and the other was from Brazil – Fernandos. He had excellent English and was following the cheap flights around this part of the world just for a short stint away from work for a couple of weeks. The Hun-garian had very little English and was in Turin just for the weekend to see his favourite football team – a Milan team – play a match tomorrow. It was great to be able to chat and compare notes with fellow travellers. Age is never a barrier in this sort of conversation.

This morning I was up early and we were away before a quarter to seven. These are the times when Karen is just fan-bloody-tastic – to get us out of town. Turin is a large city and for Compass and I to battle our way out would have taken an hour and who knows how many questions and enquiries, but with Karen on the job with her “in 200 metres turn left onto . . . . . .street” we were clear of Turin just after seven. Terrific.

I couldn’t believe this. It was 7:30 on a foggy Saturday morning and there must be 50 or more lines hanging in this little pond – poor fish!

On reflection I suppose it is a fish farm, but not like the fish farms at home where dads take their kids for a Saturday afternoon’s fun with the rods and then a barbecue of fresh fish and a beer at the picnic tables up at the top of the hill. No, these were all men – no kids - early morning, foggy, not at all warm and I guess there were a few fish to be had. Not really a sport is it? Is it just a cheaper way for the Italian dads to put fish on the table for supper?

Having travelled the whole length of Italy it is good to get back to the north again and try to remem-ber what it was like when we were here in August – three months ago. I think I was very scathing about the litter and the driving but maybe more so when we were further down in the south of the country. Well, up here in the north the litter is not bad at all and as for the driving, they are still pretty aggressive but nothing too bad. The tooting is not a problem either. So the difference between north and south is quite marked, but I had better check what I said back then.


Not many photos of Italy this day so far as the heavy fog has been with us as it was most of yester-day. From Turin we have headed south to the city of Cuneo and then to the west towards the Italian/French border – up in the mountains. Actually I had not realised we were climbing (in the fog and all) but suddenly there was some snow on the ground and a check with Karen showed that we were at 1000 metres above sea level – I can’t see the hill tops because of the fog.

Suddenly we were out of the fog and the sun was shining from a clear blue sky behind the snow capped peaks right beside us. There is snow in the valleys below the road and with the

wisps of mist here and there it is beautiful – really beautiful!

Now at ten o’clock heaps of photos just after me saying there were been none to be had in Italy this time.


At a little town called Argentira just before the Italian/French border 1700 metres above sea level, like a number of small Italian towns, there are lights at each end of the main street because the street is too narrow for cars to pass so they make it a one way with traffic lights at each end of the street. There are very few people around right now but I guess in a week or three this place and the whole area will be buzzing with people up for the snow.

This is ski resort territory with 5 star accommodation galore – but it’s not exclusively 5 star!

What a job it is to select the photos to place in this blog – there are just so many.


I can see the vapour trails of 5 planes up there, each with at least 200 people on board – that’s 1000 people. I wonder if any of them have any idea in the world what they are missing being 10,000 metres away form this beautiful piece of the planet? This is simply wonderful country.

Over the border and into France – not that you would known it! Phe seems to get up close and friendly to this type of territory every year around this time - well for the last four years

anyway.

We are still in the Alps on a road called D900, It’s winding around an icy stream beside us, a few cars on the road, autumn leaves still up in the trees a lot of yellow and orange and brown plus the green from the pines of course. And then this!

Then out of the Alps into rolling hills with pasture and vine and lavender in row after row.

There has hardly been a time all day when I haven’t looked up at the blue sky and not seen at least two or three jets making a jet stream. It must be a very busy place up there. I am only looking through the windscreen and right now there are four of them. Marseilles is to our left and Paris is way up to our right but there are planes going all over the place. Quite incredible. You normally think of it as be-ing “an aeroplane” - you don’t think of there being thousands of aeroplanes up in the sky do you!


We arrived at the youth hostel at Cassis just before five. It was here at this hostel that I met my now good friends Bernard and Marie three years ago.

This one has to be really unique in the world of youth hostels.

It is something like 4 kms along a rough track from the main road between Cassis and Marseilles, has only rain water – so no showers – and own generated electricity – so it’s lights out at eleven o’clock in the evening. It has a few dormitories with 8 or ten bunk beds, and a common room and kitchen where you could not help but come into contact with the other guests. Mostly the guests are well past their ‘youth’ but fit and healthy French men and women here to either climb the rocks or walk the many trails that wander along the Mediterranean coast line. My friends were here to climb the limestone rocks and cliff walls of the area just as many other French men and women do.

This is the Hi Youth Hostel just out of Cassis in the south of France. Quiet, Remote. Friendly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And there is a view of the Mediterannean Sea too! It comes for free!


France - from the South to the North

Sunday 14th to Wednesday 17th November

We struck out from the south of France heading north for a channel crossing tomorrow or the next day. It is foul weather, drizzle then heavy rain . We started off on secondary roads but then switched to the motorway (toll) as there seemed little point in battling along when the scenery was invisible. Karen has been set to take us to Reims but I doubt we will get that far today so one of the towns short of Reims will be quite okay.

The plan is quite simple. I want to try for a replacement triangle wishbone thing for Phe and I know it will not take long to replace – in hours – but the problem will be actually getting the part to the mechanic. In my theory if we stopped somewhere around three o’clock it will give the mechanic time to order the part for delivery and fitting tomorrow, so we could be away by the afternoon. If need be we could loose another night but I would like to be in England on Wednesday night or at the worst Thursday lunchtime.

A prick of the day. The tolls so far in France have clocked up 24 euros and we are not half way up the country – a lot dearer than Italy and that was bad enough! Then I got dudded by a bad pump at the bowser - Phe couldn’t possibly take the 42 litres the bowser said!

Looking for and finding the Fiat place in Dijon was a problem because they are not in Phe’s memory – but Renault is and the bloke there could not have been more helpful. He even got in a car and led me to the Fiat dealership just down the road, But the Fiat people were pathetic. Yes they can get the part but it will take three days! Get stuffed!

“Phe, was that you who said - ‘Calm down Robbie!’ “

On to the town of Troyes where I found a nice, small mechanic workshop where the boss man spoke an understandable English. He spent time with me and then on the phone trying to source the part but was unable to. I have kept a note of his address and could come back here next year if we can. There was a hostel in Troyes so that is where we bedded down for the night.

It was a nice hostel too. I met and got talking to a Canadian by the name of Taylor. I asked him what he was doing in Troyes and he answered “Waiting.” A strange answer but an even stranger story. Taylor had been in France for a week or ten days working on some project to do with rivers sponsored by his University in Canada where he is doing his Masters degree. His wife and two small children were due to join him in France yesterday for an 8 day holiday. They didn’t make it and are still in Montreal waiting for the next cheap flight in two days time. Why? Because some busy body no-it-all arm chair traveller had told Taylor’s wife that she should take a photo copy of her passport so that if her actual passport was lost or stolen it would be a lot easier to get a replacement if she had a photocopy of the original.

So she did just that in their home town some miles away from Montreal.

But unfortunately she left the original passport in the photocopier and didn’t discover her error until she was in Montreal. She had friends retrieve the passport and put it on a bus for Montreal but her planned flight had long gone by the time the bus arrived. The fare was forfeited.

As a family they have little money and by necessity have to travel on the low cost budget airlines. This meant she and the kids had been stuck in Montreal for three days waiting for the next cheap flight. At the cost of another $C750. What a sad story.

Taylor said that his wife just couldn’t stop crying.

On another note this same man told me something I never new and have never considered to be possible. The mighty River Seine has it’s source just a little north west of Dijon. Nothing remarkable about that! Except that the land around Dijon is as flat as a tack! We were there yesterday. There are no mountains, no snowfields, so where does the water come from?

Out of the ground, through the very porous bed rock – I think he said it was chalk – to create one of the great rivers of the world. It reminded me of the reverse where, in Morocco, the rivers run-ning south out of the Atlas mountains head into the Sahara – and disappear! They disappear into the Sahara desert! The case of the Seine is exactly the reverse. It comes up out of the ground! Interesting. Taylor is into rivers and the way rivers of the world change their course over the longer term – cen-turies that is.

We have seen very little of France this time around as yesterday it was raining most of the day and today it is the fog – thick fog – thick enough to restrict our speed. And it was with us almost all of the day right up to the last hour running into Boulogne.


It is now Wednesday and, boy, is it cold this morning. The chemist shop is showing the temperature at 5 degrees, and I reckon that would be on the high side, especially with that lazy cold breeze that can’t be bothered going around you – just cuts right through!

Why are we leaving Boulogne heading for Calais? I had the choice yesterday afternoon of going to Boulogne or Calais or Dunkirk to catch a ferry for England, and decided on Boulogne - even though it was the furtherest - because the youth hostel is nice and the people there had been very friendly and very helpful when we had stayed there before. But guess what? The sign on the door had them closed for the next two weeks as from yesterday. Bugger. So it’s down to the three star Hotel De La Paege and a 60 euro room for the night.

Blow number two was when I opened the internet to get the ferry timetable and discovered that the ferry from Boulogne to Dover stopped operating in September indefinitely. A double bugger!

So it’s going to be a 1 pm ferry from Calais to Dover tomorrow.

A Closing Question for today - and a New Start Tomorrow

This journey has come to a close now, and I would like to spend a few moments talking about the broader things of life as it affects me and the journeys I have been taking on. Many people will think it is strange that I have these three companions that are all inanimate but are treated by me as if they were real and alive, and all four of us very close friends.

I have said before that it is comforting for me to listen to Karen as she tells me where to go and what to do and I often marvel at the wonderful “realness” in her voice and diction – how do they make her sound so human? Her voice is so realistic it is as if she were sitting just there in the passenger’s seat right next to me. So it is not hard to consider her a close friend and companion during the hours we spend together.

Compass is a different kettle of fish. I am pleased I created him male. I imagine him as being a dour but extremely intelligent gent – you know, one of those men who speak so very seldom that when they do express an opinion you listen carefully, take notice, and never doubt the accuracy of their words. That’s Compass. Quiet. Knowledgeable. And ever so reliable.

Phe is the love of my life. I don’t think anyone could quite understand just how and why I have become so attached to this old rust bucket. I am not an overly sentimental bloke and certainly never over a car before, never ever!

But Phe and I have been together for more than four months of each of the last four years and have travelled 130,000 kms together – just she and I, alone, the two of us, through mountains and deserts, huge cities and tiny villages, through snow and the heat, rain and hail, night and day. We have driven in major mainstream cities like Warsaw, Vienna, Madrid, Stockholm, Bucharest, Istanbul, Prague, Rome, Athens, Madrid, Kiev, and Helsinki, as well as some exotic places like Casablanca, Damascus, Jerusalem, Reykjavik, Bethlehem and Tunis.

We have driven in the Red Square right past the Kremlin in Moscow.

We have driven down the Champs-Elysees in Paris

We have driven on the Hans Christian Andersen Strasse in Copenhagen

How could I not love this little French/Italian bird! I even tell her to shut her eyes when we are in a wreckers yard looking for spare parts.

These have been my three constant companions for each of our journeys


But there has been a fifth person. That invisible presence that was spoken of in the synopsis to this manuscript – Barbara, my best mate, my love, my companion and my wife for 43 years. During the living years, like most married people I expect, we were careless with the time we spent together. We did not treat it as precious as we should have. We expected it to go on unchanged forever. Never for one minute did either of us consider the loss of the other. Well I certainly didn’t anyway! And when her death divided us, it was a mighty blow and one I had never ever considered or prepared for. In fact neither of us were prepared, and I don’t know why that was. Of course it was something that we knew was inevitable down the track – but way down the track – and would be dealt with then, not today because I have other things to do today and other things to think about. And when her tumour had been textbook defined, it was too late to talk about death and the consequences of separation because all of the emphasis was on the positives of recovery. It was hard enough to stay positive dur-ing those short five months of her illness and the last thing we needed was forward planning for a life apart.

I am writing this on the 19th of the month – the date of her death more than four years ago, and I want to explore with you a few exceptional things that have happened during my travels with Karen, Compass and Phe – some will say coincidences, some will say fate, some will no doubt say bullshit.

I don’t know, but perhaps there has been a fifth presence with us on our journeys. The half a dozen instances I am now going to describe are instances of fact! No embellishment, no omissions, just as it happened.

In Serbia.

The most recent was when Phe blew a radiator hose in Serbia. Where did it burst but right at a toll gate at the end of a motorway which was fortunate enough, but when we limped to the side of the road, we pulled up directly behind a Voyager driven by a mechanic – a mechanic with both an understandable English and a tow rope. The hose could have burst at any-time but could hardly have chosen a more convenient spot.

In Madrid:

The most potent, was the incident in Madrid. I just had to go to the bullfight at the Plaza de Toros in down-town Madrid, but while I was at the bullfight, Phe had been broken into and along with every-thing else of value, the GPS (Karen) had been stolen. I was with the police until after midnight before it was time to go home. But where was “home”? The “home” address was in Karen’s memory and nowhere else, such was my complete and absolute reliance on the GPS and Karen. I had a room key and a vague idea the hotel was called Hotel 35 or something like that. Madrid is a big city. It was pitch black. I had no street map of the city – and no GPS!

To this day, I cannot believe the way it had panned out. I had needed to find a new bed because the hostel we had been in for three nights was full as were all the others in Madrid on that particular Sat-urday night. It was simply extraordinary that I picked Sesena out of an old directory, almost at random, without knowing if it was to the north, south, east, or west of the city – just that it was not very far out from the city itself. We drove out to the hotel by a round-a-bout touristing route in the afternoon to check in and leave off some belongings. All this meant very little, until midnight when I was told that the Police Station I was in was on the A40 route – and so was my bed and belongings at Sesena – just a little way off the A40 route. Almost a straight drive. How could that have happened? A city the size of Madrid and I had picked a hotel in a straight line from the suburban police station near to where Phe had been violated!

In Portugal:

Phe again. She needed a new battery and after it was fitted, I was walking back to the car after having settled the bill when I noticed water dripping from the radiator. The mechanic pressure tested the radiator to prove that it was a goner and needed to be replaced. But how about this Phe – she is go-ing to spring a leak in her radiator but waits patiently until we are right inside a mechanics workshop before letting go. That is like a wonderful two-year-old being toilet trained for the first time.

In Portugal again:

I was in my hostel room when my door was rattled – I don’t know what time it was, but it was certainly late. I reckon it was that dippy bird who I had got talking to in the dining room. But last night had been the first time I had ever locked my door – it is always unlocked, and sometimes even with the key hanging from the keyhole outside. But last night I locked it. Why? Is B looking after me still? Do I really believe this? There was the Motel 35 in Madrid? All the close shaves we have had? And now this.

In Morocco:


In Morocco we travelled on a lot of remote, very remote roads and I remember one in particular when we barely saw a person or another vehicle all day. The following day we had picked up a hitcher for the short ride into town and when I had dropped him off I stopped on the side of the street – it’s was drizzling with a light rain – to study the map to work out where we could go that afternoon when a woman tapped on my driver’s window and pointed to the ground. At first I thought she wanted something, a lift, or money, or to sell something, but no she was pointing to the ground and when I followed her finger there was a stream of oil running across the wet road – and it was coming from Phe! This was bad! It was a small town, and it was a Sunday. The temperature gauge was still okay and there was still a little oil on the bottom of the dipstick but not much. I did a U-turn and would you believe it, there was a tiny auto workshop that was open and the bloke was working in it. A high pressure oil hose had ruptured but not up in the back of beyond where we were yesterday but right outside a mechanics workshop in a small town on a Sunday.

In France:

I did not have a good address for the youth hostel in Cassis and did not realise it was actually quite a long way from the town itself. I must have asked six or more people ranging from garage attendants to taxi drivers to a chemist and with no French in my brain to speak of, I had to rely on showing them the listing in my youth hostel directory. No good. Nobody had any idea where it was. I gave up and before leaving the town to try for a bed in nearby Marseilles, I stopped at a phone shop to find some-one who could make my phone work. The lady couldn’t fix the phone but knew where the hostel was – exactly! Had I not tried the phone shop I would not have got to the youth hostel at Cassis and would never have met my now good friends, Mary and Bernard.

I don’t want to be flippant and just throw some trivial words up into the air, but I guess that the true believers, be they Christian, or Hindu, or Moslem, or Jewish, or Buddhist, or whatever, will say that the instances I have recounted are a clear indication that there is a life after death and that Barb has been watching out for us. How else to explain the events other than as a series of coincidences.

But I am not a true believer. Nor am I a disbeliever. And I don’t really believe in coincidences.

But we shouldn’t overlook the negatives either, like the time I fell down the stone steps in Poland and tore the ligaments in my right shoulder, or the negative of Phe being busted open in Madrid when I could quite easily have parked her in a secure parking building right next to the Plaza de Toros. The true believers may say that had Barb not been looking out for us, I may have broken my neck in Po-land rather than just hurting a shoulder and in Madrid Phe had only been broken into and not stolen, driven over a cliff and destroyed!

So where does this all leave me?

Well, maybe there is a God, and maybe there isn’t and the truth will eventually become crystal clear – but not in this life, not for me at least. The events I have just recounted are the main ones that I can remember readily and they all add up to something special. I really, really, do hope that Barb is around there somewhere, travelling with us and doing her bit when she can.

Or am I just a child with a security blanket and a thumb in his mouth!


Our 2010 journey started in July but I only began recounting it as a blog from early September when we arrived in Albania. My idea now is to go back to the start – July – and tell about our experiences getting to Italy followed by the three weeks driving down Italy and Sicily, then a ferry across the Medi-terranean to Tunisia for a while.

So please join me for the touchdown at Heathrow this time tomorrow.

Graeme's BOOK 2 'Karen and Compass, Phe and Me - On Roads Without Lines - Book 2'

is available to buy both in print and online

BOOK 2 covers Graeme’s four month journey through:

Estonia and the Baltic States

Poland

Ukraine

Hungary

Romania

Bulgaria

Turkey

Georgia

Greece


http://www.perendale.com/browse/travel/robin/

The Balkan Peninsula - Graeme Robin. Travel

Documents

Transcript of The Balkan Peninsula - Graeme Robin. Travel