Skopje, Macedonia

Took the bus from Prishtina to Skopje for about 5 hours for about 5Euros only. Had to change buses halfway before getting into the immigration.

Couldn't resist to take a shot with the mountains from Albania whilst changing buses ! 

Arrived in Skopje and just one word that describes this place,

Monuments ! 

Hahaha. I'm not kidding man. There's pretty much monuments everywhere here and most of them are new, roughly since 2013. You wouldn't even wanna stop for every monument just to take picture of each one of them cause there's just too many !

The city center looks so beautiful riight ? Wait, lemme show you more parts of it 

Don't be fooled guys. Here's when the reality kicks in. Just a step out of the center,

And you'll realise how bad the economy is off the country. Beggars were on every street. Even when I was eating in a restaurant, a kid was knocking from the window outside asking for money. Like whoaa. And when I asked around, most of them would say "It's the Albanian Muslims. They're very poor here in Macedonia" . I even saw a kid pushing his other sick friend on a wheelchair. Hmm. Couldn't take a lot of pictures out of the center since it was advisable not to hold anything in your hand due to pick pockets etc. 

Anyways, came here with a couple I met from the hostel I stayed in Prishtina. 

Agata from Poland

And her soulmate, Kledi from Albania

It was definitely easier to travel with them since Kledi could speak the mother tongue here just with a different dialect. They've been travelling around Europe together meeting random people along the trip that they always invite to tag along especially if they're solo travellers like myself ! They thought I was 17 though. Haha. 

Walk a little bit outside of the center and you will come across alleys selling random stuff from Silver to Turkish rugs ! There's also lots of pubs and cafes for you to chill and try out some Macedonian Coffee. Apparently according to Agata, it tastes pretty much like Turkish & Serbian Coffee.

Agata and Kledi's staying over a night here but I had to take an overnight bus back to Serbia and catch my flight the next morning from Belgrade. Took a bus at about 8.30 PM and arrived in Belgrade at about 4 AM. The 8 hours bus ride was definitely the last thing I was pumped up for throughout this trip. Haha. Was called at the immigration though, between Macedonia and Serbia as they asked, 'What are you doing from Serbia to Kosovo to Macedonia and back to Serbia'. Luckily that was just it. I've heard of really bad cases about people getting stuck at the immigration around this area, and they were held for bout 5-6 hours. Danggg. 

One of the most epic part of the trips I gotta say was when I took a cab to the bus station. The cab driver was quite an elderly man so English was definitely not his niche. I just said 'BUS' in hoping that the most simple way to give him the message that I wanna go to the bus station would be a success. Apparently not. He gave me a pen and paper and I thought, 'Even if I write out BUS he wouldn't still get me'. So, I drew a bus instead and he was like, 'Ooooh ,bush !' HAHA. It didn't matter to me how he pronounced it but all I wanted was just to get to the bus station so never doubt the power of a pen and paper ! And your skills in drawing although I felt like I drew really badly. Hahaha.

Oh ! Btw, they use Macedonian Denar here so you would have to change currency. And before you leave Macedonia, make sure you change back your Macedonian Currency as most parts of the world would not change to their currency, not even Serbia. 

Note that Macedonia is not really a safe country as compared to other European or Balkan countries cause the population of the poor here is relatively higher. So, be aware of the things you have and your surroundings. Make sure cab drivers aren't gonna cheat you by charging you extra !