July 6th Journal

I stayed in Sarajevo for only one night and based on my Lonely Planet decided to work my way to Macedonia and visit Orhid for the lake district. I travel by night with a bus full of locals that speak no english. The older women, have their hair covered and a stern face on and I assume they must be Muslim due to the constant minuets that scatter each village as we pass. The older women showing scorn and the younger women wide eyed with curiousity.

Counting back, we must have passed 8 borders but I admit I lost track at about 3:00AM. Although Sarajevo to Skopje is not so far, I found out that the bus takes the long route and rather than heading south they go east, north, west and then south, so much for efficiency.

Regardless at 1:30AM while leaving Bosnia, Passport Control made all the passengers disembark, recover their bags from underneath the bus and go through a bag search. OK, bag search is a little too generous. The stuck their hand in the bag and took it out.

I was not so lucky crossing the border of Serbia at 2:20 AM where Passport control took an interest to the "American" and request that she present herself. They requested that I recover all my bags and report to their office and literally unpack my bags "slowly, one item at a time". I was tired and accomodating with a bit of nerves hitting me as each item was inspected and reinspected. When the Passport Control pulled out my tampons and asked what they were, I almost burst out laughing as he inspected it over and over again without recongnition. His facial expression indicated understanding a few minutes later as he placed the individually wrapped tampon on the table and his energy depleted as he asked me to repack my bags.

I was thankful for his request because at the moment he placed the tampon on the table, I noticed the two bottles of Vodka, half empty laying at the far end the table. As I quickly stiffed all my belongings in my backpack with no organization, the kind face of my bus driver appeared. I rushed towards him with my belongings and as we picked up the pace to the bus I noticed it was 3:30AM and he just shook his head saying "Serbs are bad". I was comforted by the passengers attempting to ask if I was okay and the stern faced woman with a scarve wrapped around her head seemed to have softened as she handed me a piece of bread and cheese and her daughters handed me chips. I was glad to be back on the bus, till the next crossing.

At 6:30AM as we entered Macedonia, we were required to collect our luggage and again go through inspection. One of the passengers who had previously asked me if I was okay in broken English, said "don't give up" and I almost hugged him as he helped me buy a water and gave me encouragement to continue my journey.

As I disembarked the bus in Skopje, everyone including the old women waived goodbye as they continued on their path and I, on mine.