We arrived at Singapore and had a fantastic meal of dumplings, bau buns and other things at a simple restaurant in the airport. Gosh it was wonderful! We saw what I think is supposed to be the world's largest indoor waterfall. (It's hard to understand the scale in this photo.)
We didn't get a lot of sleep at the sparkly new hotel near the airport that night. Why did we not realise earlier that a hotel near the airport would have planes flying overhead all night?
We learned the next day that our next flight was running late. This was a concern as we only had a short time in Istanbul airport to switch to our flight to Skopje, our final destination. The girl at check-in said that we had a good chance of making it though and she checked our bags all the way through to Skopje.
As soon as we landed in Istanbul we almost ran out the door, along with many other people who were trying to make their connecting flights. There was a bit of confusion about where to go but, once we worked it out, we hoofed it. We raced through Istanbul airport like Olympic athletes - ok so like a couple of old farts who needed to catch a plane. We kept following signs but realised that we had landed in section F and needed to get to section A. The new airport at Istanbul is huge. Finally we found our gate at the very end of a looooong passageway. A few people were still hanging around and the bus still sat outside the gate waiting to take people to the plane. We had made it! Somewhat puffed and with sweat trickling down my face, I triumphantly handed our boarding passes to the staff member. She scanned them, looked me and said, "Sorry. The plane is full."
It took me a moment to comprehend what she had just said. How can it matter if the plane is full? We had boarding passes. It turns out that when they knew we were going to be late, they sold off our seats.
Unbelievable.
We spent the next three hours queueing up getting things organised. As both flights were with Turkish Airlines, they re-booked us onto the same flight the next day. It was while we were in one of the queues that I began to realise that we had nothing to complain about. One Turkish woman had two little girls with her and one was so tired she wouldn't stop crying. They had missed their connection to New York and they had another connection after that. Another three ladies from Niger were told that the next flight to Niger was two days away.
Turkish Airlines put us all up in hotels. The only problem was that our bags had been placed in an area to go on the new flight. If we wanted them we would have to wait an hour or two. We didn't want to wait.
We eventually boarded a bus with about 20 other people in the same situation although none seemed to be going to Skopje. Incredibly, it took more than anhour to get to the hotel. By the time we all got checked in it was about 10pm. Some people had flights early the next morning and were told the bus would pick them up at midnight! There doesn't seem to have been a lot of logic used in the decision to bring them to a hotel.
We had got talking to people on the bus and it all became a bit of an adventure. Nobody had woken up that morning thinking they would be staying in Istanbul that night yet most people were in surprisingly good spirits about it all. Only one woman got angry. I looked at her and saw that wild, staring-eyed look of someone who hadn't had much sleep and figured that her behaviour was probably understandable.
We met an Austrian couple who were on their way to Niger to film a documentary. There were people from Germany, Norway, Turkey and lots of other places. There was an American Indian guy and a family of Italians. It was such a curious collection of people all thrown together.
The small hotel was surprisingly good and we finally fell into bed 23 hours after we had got up. My computer, which was still reading Australian time, said 2 minutes to 6am when we turned the lights out. The room was wonderfully quiet and we slept like logs for about 5 hours.
We had a wonderful breakfast - the taste of a local capsicum dip brought memories of the Istanbul Spice Market flooding back. We realised we were too far out from the interesting old quarter of Istanbul to spend any time there so we headed to the nearby coast for some "raki b". John loves this Turkish specialty of fish and raki (a local drink that's a lot like ouzo). We were directed to a large shopping mall - not something we usually like to visit in a country with such a rich culture as Turkey has, but there weren't many options nearby. John had his raki balik fix and I got delicious dips. We also found a bakery selling baklava. I'm never going to get skinny in a country like this!
We enjoyed our brief interlude in Istanbul. We had forgotten how wonderfully hospitable the Turks are.
We were taken back to the airport by bus later that afternoon. A message popped up on John's phone - our flight had been delayed again. Arrgghh! Happily, it wasn't by too much and we finally made it onto the plane. There were quite a few Aussie accents around us as there are many Macedonians living in Australia.
We landed and were very relieved when our bags appeared. We hadn't seen them for a couple of days and we were looking forward to wearing clean clothes. It was dark by now and we stepped out of the airport into the night air and were hit by two things:
1. The air smelled like hay. I can't say I've ever smelled that at an airport before.
2. It was 31 degrees at 9.30pm. Yikes!
Three days after we left home we fell into our beds at our destination and, for the first time since we left home, we got 7 or 8 hours sleep. Bliss!
For a capital city, Skopje is small but interesting. Red double-decker buses trundle along the wide roads and the traffic isn't too crazy. Tourists gravitate around the central square where huge statues, erected by a previous Prime Minister in a frenzy of patriotic construction, dominate the low skyline. Alexander the Great was born in Macedonia and a giant statue of him takes prime position in the centre of the square.
Giant wooden ships constructed in the river continue the oversized statue theme and serve as unique hotels. Thankfully, the old town on the other side of the river wasn't targeted for super-sized odes to the past - the cobblestoned laneways and tiled-roofed houses from the Ottoman era were already genuine examples of past glories. The appeal wasn't strong though as every shop had modern glass frontages and either sold tourist souvenirs or over-the-top wedding gowns which made for a strange mix. I thought this old town would have been wonderful but I felt it had completely lost its authenticity.
This umbrella-topped laneway at least looked attractive.
Beyond the old quarter, up a small hill, is the fortress. There are only a few crenellated walls to walk around but the views over the city were good. The Macedonian flag is pretty cool!
In unfortunate timing for us, a heatwave has hit Europe. On our first day it hit 37 degrees and is expected to remain around that level for days to come. Coming from a Ballarat winter, this would take some adjusting to.
We ate a couple of meals on the main square under a very impressive wrought-iron awning. It looked like it was straight out of the 40's.
We bought a bike for John and spent the afternoons in our room avoiding the worst of the heat. We watched the Tiges beat the Weagles (Australian football teams) and got things organised. Skopje was a good, laid-back place to do this.
Tomorrow we pick up our hire car and begin our Balkan road trip. The adventure begins!
Heather and John
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