More from Skopje

They have a pretty civilised way of making phone calls here. You go into the post-office and just pick up one of the phones and dial and there's a meter next to it which tells you how much it's costing, then you pay at the end. I took a photo of one of these phones then as we were going out the door a woman called us back. I suspected what was coming and if I'd been by myself would have just kept walking to see what lengths she'd go to to protect the secrecy of their phone system. Yes, she wanted me to delete the image. How stupid can you be! Of course I started carrying on and demanded they call the police. That would have been funny - the police turn up...
- What's the problem
- Arrest him, he took a photo of one of our public phones!
In the end I just deleted one of the several pics I'd taken. So of course I must now include a pic of the phone in my blog.




Nine o'clock at night and 28 degrees. I think that's the reason for all the outside drinking - the weather is perfect for it. Here and in Niš there is beer everywhere but no drunks. What's wrong with these people!

I'm now sitting outside at some cafe/bar in the suburbs. It's great. Would it have been the end of the world if in Hobart people could sit outside in Landsdowne Crescent or somewhere and enjoy a beer and a chat without all the licensing regulations?

Off to Skopje

Early start as we had an 8:10 bus.

Bloody oath these Nis buses are cramped. There's basically no leg-room at all. I don't know how I'd cope without an aisle seat.

It was already bad enough with the bus being full but at some stop half-way to Macedonia about thirty people got on the already full bus - so they all had to stand in the aisle. Unpleasant for them and also unpleasant for me.

The border was fun. I was asked by the border guard whether I had a visa. I thought I didn't need one. So off the bus it was for me. I had to go 200 metres to pay for my visa - it cost me 35 Euros plus a very bad swap. He made me swap his pen for mine. I wonder whether he'll be able to swap up to a car someday? (cf. www.oneredpaperclip.com)

Then back to pick up my passport with visa in it, then off to yet another window to have it stamped. Typical (ex)socialist efficiancy - no wonder they always claimed to have no unemployment.

I was expecting Macedonia to be all steep and hilly but it turns out to be all flat. How wrong can you be! Podgorica didn't look like a capital city and Skopje is just as un-capital-like. But it does have a nice big central square which is full of people in the evening.



A Macedonian girl whom we'd met at the IJK met up with us at the bus station and she showed us round town. It made a huge difference to the ease of getting around and knowing what to see. Another great advertisement for Esperanto.

Skopje has a castle of which only the walls and a bit of a turret remain.






This is the view from inside.



Well, there's almost nothing old left in Skopje. The whole city was destroyed in an earthquake in the early 60's. From the few pictures I've seen it was a beautiful city before. Slav quarter, Albanian quarter, Jewish quarter... it obviously makes for an interesting city, but alas it is no more. Now the main interest are the outside cafes everywhere. Architecturally there's almost nothing of interest at all.

Well, the Albanian quarter is full of small alley-ways that have the potential to be a tourist draw-card, just as they are in Sarajevo. This is not one of them!



But this is!



I suppose it's just a matter of time before the tourist hordes make it to Skopje too. As other cities get clogged with tourists people are always looking for somewhere new, fresh.


An old Turkish bath-house that's been converted into an artgallery. Also in the Albanian quarter which wasn't damaged so much by the earthquake.

Day in Niš

Went jogging. The quality of the air was a disappointment. I'm out from the centre but there are a fair few trucks on the road.

Decided to slowly walk to town. Purely by chance came across the Tower of Skulls.


It's enclosed inside something resembling a mini orthodox church. But the so-called tower itself is made up of skulls of lopped off Serbian heads after some battle.

I'd like to say 'Don't get too close, they bite, as I found out', but that would be too disrespectful.



Must have been pretty impressive in it's day. Especially as it was in the open air. Now it probably is an icon to Serbian victory over the Turks. No wonder there's all this animosity over here. Yes, it's good to have memorials but they do do just that - make it hard for people to forget and forgive past injustices. Well, in this case it's the Turks that built this one against themselves.

Checked out some cevapcici at a street-side cafe. Unlike the Croatian and Bosnian ones, the Serbian ones are huge.



Here's the waitress bringing me my beer.



Statue from the skull tower park. No doubt some leader in battle.



For such an old city there don't seem to be many interesting old buildings around. Here's one of the few. Perhaps Nis was always pretty small and the buildings were never here?



Check this out ... a mix of old and new ...



The Nis outside drinking street is about the longest I've ever seen. Certainly several hundred metres.



Down by the river there are more drinking spots.



I discovered that it's possible to get up onto the walls of the castle. Well how else would you be able to pour boiling oil onto the attacking hordes?

Here's a photo looking back to the city across the bridge. I hope I kept the camera still enough.



And the obligatory statue in the main square.



Never did find out who the bloke on the horse is or how many Turks he killed or how long the Turks tortured him before cutting off his head for a souvenir. Certainly though it's a popular meeting spot as there seemed to be quite a few girls nearby waiting for their late boyfriends.

It's now 10:30 in the evening and the number of people on the street is phenomenal.



Don't these people have a home to go to? Have all tv transmissions been cancelled? And where are they going? There's no end to the stream of people. Or are they just walking from one end of the street and back again? Now I'm going to have to hang around here tonight to find out when the crowd starts to thin out.

Stopped off for a pljeskavica on the way home. Pick your style of meat and choose what you want over the top. All in some pita bread. Looks like a huge flat hamburger but with a big choice of toppings.

With it being about one in the morning I was starting to regret my decision to walk back to the hotel - especially in view of the types of films they were showing on the bus - but even on a Monday night there were always enough people around most of the time that it mostly felt pretty safe. But I wouldn't try it in Hobart!

Sarajevo to Niš

On bus from Sarajevo to Niš. Not the most comfortable. Seems to be standard that you pay for the luggage separately when you put your suitcase into the luggage compartment.

Less than an hour out of Sarajevo and we stopped at Pale where I was surprised to see just about all signs in Serbian Cyrillic which was basically not to be seen anywhere in Sarajevo. I asked the woman next to me whether we were in Serbia already and she told me we were not in Serbia but some other region, with Serbia in the name. Must be some sort of buffer zone where the locals would be happy to be part of Serbia. Probably something worked out to bring an end to the war.

I might as well include the photo that I took from my seat on the bus. Perhaps it will give some feel for the mood of the trip.



Scenery on the way to Niš was nothing short of breath-taking. High steep mountains covered in green trees. Just when I was thinking that the slopes are so thickly wooded and steep that it must be pretty difficult to climb these slopes - we turned a corner and half-way up one of these slopes was a picturesque house standing in a clearing - glorious!

Stopped for 20 minutes at some small village. Just to reinforce the stereo-typical image of Australian travellers being everywhere, here's a pic of me with the two fellows who were sitting behind me on the bus.



Note the proliferation of Australian t-shirts - and yes, all three of us had an Australian accent. It's not the bus that's proof I was there but the Australians I found.

Here are my Esperanto travelling companions - a Russian and a Macedonian.



I seem to know half the bus. More than I'd ever know on any bus to Sandy Bay... but then again I'm not likely to run into any of my Mercedes/BMW/Audi driving friends on any bus in Hobart.

Finally turned up in Niš. The worst part of the ten hour bus trip were the three back to back American movies they showed and the last hour when about ten people got on the already full bus. It became suffocating and a bit claustrophobic. As for the movies, I must have been subjected to about 2 rapes, about 15 murders, 25 maimings, one torture and 12 beatings. Yes, an extremely harrowing experience. The Serbs must be hardening their children in readiness for another war. Or perhaps they've been watching these movies for a long time and are partly responsible for the atrocities that were committed.

Niš is a bit run-down but there is a huge pedestrian mall that is one long outside drinking area from one end to the other.

Unlike Florence which was all tourists and no-one could afford to enjoy themselves,


and Sarajevo which was mainly a touristy downtown area and mostly male in the drinkeries, Niš is bubbling with life at night. And again, no drunks.


Sort of what might happen in Hobart if people were given the chance. All in all a rather refreshing scene.

Misc from the last day of the IJK

On the last day I discovered the 2 litre bottles of local beer.



Here I am trying it for the first time. Not bad for a beer out of a plastic bottle.

Discovered the spot where Gavril the anarchist assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and his wife.




Somehow I didn't feel inspired to ham it up and act like an anarchist wearing a cape and throwing a bomb with a burning fuse.

I wonged in on some guided tour of the city that had just reached this spot. So I picked up quite a bit of extra info. Plus I had access to a few other tourists to take this photo for me. It's actually quite sobering to stand on that spot and consider what happened there. Though I had thought that everyone was lining the route where royalty was passing but it turns out that there had already been a few assassination attempts that day and the Archduke was off to visit the wounded and the driver took a wrong turn and Gavril just happened to be there at the right time.

Checked out the local park in the centre of the city.



Nothing spectacular. The grass could do with a bit of a trim. There was a fair bit of coupling going on and there were a few blokes with those spinning things on string between two sticks. Someone asked them what the point of it is... something I've sometimes wondered myself.

A game of chess in front of some huge sculpture.



I wonder whether the sculpture inspired them at all? I doubt it. I think that huge sculptures amongst pretty impersonal housing is not a good combination.

Snap of the number 3 tram.



This tram which went from the congress venue to the old town was free for all congress attendees. Considering the low cost of the congress and the high cost of the tram tickets, I don't think it would be too difficult to make a profit out of it all by riding the tram heaps. I think if anyone tried to ride for nothing the chance of getting caught would be about 50-50. I've never seen so many ticket-inspectors. Someone pointed out to me that it might actually be the high rate of ticket-inspection that has created such a high ticket price.

I had to include a pic of these two.



I chatted with them most days. I'm not sure whether the others were under instructions not to talk to anyone not wearing the official I am an Esperanitist sign around their neck but if they were these two certainly disobeyed orders. I'm sure we'll run into them again in Australia or Korea or France or somewhere.

Not sure that everyone's ready for this pic but it's a typical Bosnian toilet.



A porcelained hole in the ground. Probably removes the temptation to take a book or two with you to the bog. You wouldn't want to get too engrossed in your book and forget where you were and relax and fall backwards - engrossed indeed!!

Saturday at the IJK

Now trying to juggle my money so I don't get stuck with a heap of Bosnian money. It's bloody annoying as they take Euros at the constant exchange rate of 2 to 1 which would make things very convenient - provided one had the forethought to leave oneself with some Euros. Well I've get a 100 Euro note but if I use that I'll get the change in Bosnian Marka which will defeat the purpose of the exercise.

Even made it into the evening concert and the so-called international evening. My Bosnian teacher is apparently a famous Esperanto singer - I had no idea. Weird to see him up on the stage.

The international evening was a bit of an open-mike sort of event. The Japanese did the usual thing with kimonos and samisen. A couple of sketches went on for a bit too long. I suppose James and I are going to have to learn Waltzing Matilda and I Still Call Australia Home... or maybe Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport (if I can find a wobble board in Vietnam) for the next IJK.

Friday at the IJK

The sun's back out.

Good day to wander down to the railway/bus station to find out about buses to Macedonia. Always a bit of a pain in the neck after the efficiency of Germany. Who know's what confusing info I'll get.

Well, the info turned out to be pretty straight-forward. Bus goes twice a week, Fridays and Tuesdays.

I'm not sure whether I should be surprised at the large number of smokers here at the IJK or expect it. Just part of the scene perhaps.

Language festival today. Esperantists from different countries and languages set up tables outside and presented their country and their language. Quite interesting but I'm a bit against these watered down presentations of languages. The Esperanto community probably sees this as a big affirmation of cultural diversity, but I see it more as similar to what happens in Australia - the diversity is supported but few learn any foreign language. Well, in retrospect there's probably more of the language presented here than in some school curricula in Australia. So perhaps I shouldn't be so harsh. It's still interesting and generates a huge amount of interest. In fact I think that a similar thing in Australia would also generate a lot of interest but in Australia this sort of event seems to be confined to food festivals.

Here's Finland's contribution to the language festival.

A flag and a Finnish beer. Maybe we can present something similar for Australia next year in Vietnam.

I'm not sure whether this was France or the Netherlands. In any case, both of them had one one of those funny bikes that you lie back on to ride.



Some were more successful at it than others. The bloke with the hat and beard next to the bike also did a great job representing France on guitar.

Japan created a lot of interest of course with girls clad in kimonos. Here I am having a samisen lesson.



The samisen player also had a foldup or inflatable keyboard. That also generated quite a bit of interest.



Korea's exhibit was a woman in hanbok and my friend here who was press-ganged into writing up a quick display of the alphabet.

All in all, the language display afternoon was one of the events of the IJK which generated the most interest. And it was all a lot of fun too. Congrats to the organisers.

Thursday at the IJK

Wandered high into the suburbs surrounding Sarajevo.



The views of the hills and valleys that make up Sarajevo were magnificent. But the reality of those picturesque red-tiled houses is that when you're amongst them you see that just about all of them need a fair bit of renovation.

And everywhere there are these big, ugly yellow boxes on the front wall of most of the houses. Probably gas metres. A terrible eyesore.

After a bit of a listen around the café in the evening it seems there's quite a bit of non Esperanto being spoken. A table of Germans speaking German, a Catalan speaking table, French heard at another table, and Korean at mine.

Food and Drink in Sarajevo

Wandered into a bar in Sarajevo where the beer is less than one dollar and a huge shot of grappa is less than 50 cents. No wonder it seemed to be populated by drunks.

Followed that by finding another similar bar but this one had an accordionist in one corner and sitting opposite him was a bloke singing.


They played and sang for about three hours non-stop with the whole pub joining in at times. The style of singing was that strange muslim style that sounds similar to the call from the mosques several times a day. Quite remarkable.

Here are a few of my drinking mates.


There was no menu but the woman running the place went out the back and cooked me a couple of dishes.


I started with what I think were stuffed onions and followed that with an omelette.


Great presentation too.
Two beers, two shots and the two meals - about 14 dollars. Pretty good value I think.

Wednesday at the IJK

Here's a view of the student dorms where most of the Esperantists are staying. At least all the rooms have toilet and shower - unlike in Tasmania where the bathroom is in the corridor. On the other hand, in Hobart they are all single rooms whereas the room I saw here was for two and I must say, if you weren't close friends when you arrived you probably would be when you finished school.




Today was set aside for excursions at the IJK.

Spent some time in an internet café. I was rather alarmed to see some very young boy (probably not 10 years old) playing a computer game next to me.

At one stage he received a message sorry, you can't do a drive-by shooting - for that you have to have at least an automatic weapon.

Next time I looked over he was wielding a chain saw and there were body parts and blood everywhere.

Tuesday at the IJK

Decided to go into town. Wandered past the congress venue to see what was going on and ran into a German woman who was also heading into town so we went in together. Pretty handy for me as she knew which bus to take and had some idea of the things to look out for.


Here I am tentatively leaning into the street to have my photo taken. This is the pose I adopted after the first time I ventured into the street a tram very nearly ran up my arse. Unfortunately my photographer didn't recognise the good photo opportunity. The minaret nearly sticking out of my head is just one of a huge number in Sarajevo.


The old town is pretty small with the inevitable proliferation of souvenir shops. But then again even in Hobart we have the same thing in Salamanca which is pretty much for tourists. After all who says to himself Ah, I've got some time to spare today, I think I'll go and buy myself a Huon Pine letter opener? We accept that but are a bit more intolerant when we find something similar overseas.


We'd just started walking uphill to check out the suburbs when the call to prayer started from the minaret. Luckily I happened to have a skull-cap in my back-pack so I simply gave into the urge to prostrate myself - not sure in which direction Mecca was though.

We wandered into the suburbs. It really is amazing how many mosques there are here. Some just a few blocks apart. I suppose when it's this hilly you can't expect everyone to treck into town to pray.

Concert by a famous Esperanto singer at 8:30. I was intending not to go as I felt it over the top to not sign up for the IJK and then still go to the concert.

Well, it turned out the concert was in an outside venue where I usually sit and drink, so I really had no choice but to listen.

The singer, JoMo is French I think and is one of the most well-known Esperanto singers. I'm not convinced that as a singer he's that remarkable, but he certainly belts out a good rhythm with his guitar and above all his repetoire is chosen extremely well. His repetoire seems to contain all the catchy songs from all over the world. He certainly had everyone dancing and joining in. I hope they pay him plenty because he deserves it.

All in all one of the highlights of the IJK. I'd definitely pay just for the concert.

Esperanto Youth Congress

Strange vibe here.

Lots of people with no shoes or strange hair-styles or both.

Apparently when we turned up the solemn opening ceremony was going on.



Small group sitting on the ground boiling themselves some tea. They seemed to have one giant bowl which they were handing around. I can't work out whether this is some big hippie get-together or what it is.

Certainly a shocking venue. Old Marxist venue with no grass to be seen. Just a couple of benches outside and the asphalt to sit on. Though they do have a cafe that serves beer and has outside seating. Unlike what I'd heard it certainly is a youth congress so I'm not sure how I'll fit in.

I was rather sad to see some fellow from Bangladesh get turned away. It seemed he was short money and the fellow signing him in decided he couldn't help. I think there are too many professional Esperantists at these events. Professional Esperantists that don't seem to go out of their way to make newcomers feel comfortable.

I tried to sign up for one day but instead they gave me a free pass for one day and said if I liked it I could sign up for the rest tomorrow. Ironic after what happened to the Bangladeshi. Well, he couldn't speak Esperanto... Don't know whether that was the difference. Plus it was a girl that gave me the pass - they are always kinder than blokes.

I thus took the opportunity to go the Bosnian language course and the lecture on Braille given by a blind Esperanto professor. Both were in a classroom much, much too small.

Caught the last 15 minutes of the aligatorejo. That's where you wear a post-it-note - or in my case, several - with your languages other than Esperanto and your native tongue and you wander around the room practising them. Bloody good practice it is too.

Spent the late evening till two in the morning at a table with Esperantists from Israel, Korea, Spain, Croatia and an extremely good looking Finnish girl.





When you see all the activity it really is remarkable that it's all in Esperanto.

I suspect that most of the days unfold in a similar fashion. Lectures or talks in the morning, lunch, more lectures or activities, dinner, then a lot sitting around drinking, chatting, then disco till three in the morning.

Montenegro

New country for me... New country for all of us I suppose.

We arrived at Bar at about 2:30 in the afternoon. A very long trip indeed. The Albanians are probably actually Kosovans. They slept absolutely everywhere.
In every corner and corridor of the ship they just set up camp.

Getting off we had the same problem with the inability to queue. An incredibly tight squeeze down the stairs with everyone trying to get down at once.

The classic was when there were two stairways to take, one three metres further on and it was a struggle for the ship's personel to explain that one side was going to have to go an extra 3 metres and to have everyone going down the same stairway would be madness.

It turned out we'd already gone through immigration in Italy. I suppose that stops the problem of someone getting on and eventually being not wanted by either side and being stuck on the ship forever a la Orson Welles in Ferry to Macao.

We caught a taxi to Podgorica, the capital of Monte Negro. Next bus out was at half past ten in the evening so we had about five hours in which to see the city.

The view from the bridge in the middle of town. Looks ok but actually it probably is flattering. The town wasn't really this lush or impressive.


Admittedly it was a Sunday but it really did look dead. But then again it's only been a capital city for a few months. But still, it looks pretty poor.

Here's the proof that I was here. Me outside the Podgorica post office.






A fancy toilet for such a quite capital. In fact this public toilet is probably the most modern looking building in town. I think though that the tacky WC on the glass detracts from it a bit. I would have taken a photo of it during the day but I had no idea that these glass pyramids were public toilets.

I had intended to spend a night there but was not that displeased to have to leave after only a few hours.

The bus to Sarajevo was a bit of a torture trip. The bus was smaller than the ones you normally see make international trips and the seating was incredibly cramped.

I don't know how, but I did manage to drop off to sleep only to be woken up at the border crossing. One of the Koreans had a bit of trouble leaving Monte Negro and even more trouble getting into Bosnia. They took him to an office where he had to do some kind of test of Korean, to prove that he was actually Korean and not Chinese with a false passport.

The road from the border was horrendous. If another bus was coming the other way someone would have to back up till they found a spot to pass.

We finally made it but what a long trip!