Opting to take the overland route from Zagreb to Belgrade to Thessaloniki, we arrived in Belgrade (Beograd) late on a Saturday night (Click here for other options on how to get to Greece from Croatia). Because we wanted to go to Greece as quickly as possible, we hadn’t researched Serbia at all. The city immediately impressed us with its blend of old and new architecture. The hostel we found (Hostel40) was clean, modern, cheap, and courteously staffed. A beer festival with cheap beer was in full swing that weekend. The city also has a giant castle with nightclubs and an open-air theater. People were out and about everywhere, socializing in trendy bars next to colossal buildings. We are still kicking ourselves for leaving the next day. We really short-changed Serbia.
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All the Serbia pics we got in a few hours.
If Serbia was the city we had until then never dreamed of visiting, Macedonia is that loud, blaring alarm clock that wakes you cursing. In Belgrade, the bus station told us the next bus for Greece wasn’t leaving until the next day, while the train station told us it had a train leaving that morning for Macedonia, where we could then catch a bus to Greece. We opted to take the train. What we didn’t know was that the Soviet-era train would take four hours longer than what we researched and would arrive in Skopje, Macedonia after the last bus to Greece. The creaking, non-air conditioned train crawled across the Balkans for 12 loooonnng hours and didn’t have a food cart so we were tired, sweaty, and irritable. Luckily, we had a bit of groceries to blunt the hunger.
 20 minutes in |  9 hours, 20 minutes in |
Once you arrive in Skopje, a city devoid of architectural creativity, you are blitzed with taxi drivers. One latched on to us and waved away others. We just needed some breathing room to find out about the buses to Greece or some wi-fi to look up our other options. I discovered that the Belgrade bus station didn’t have information on all the buses going to Greece, and a tour company had a bus that left Belgrade that evening and would be passing through Skopje in an hour or two. Great! I just need to give them a call to schedule our evacuation. I asked a tour agency lady if I could use her phone.
“No.”
Fair enough. I’ll buy a SIM card.
Hmmm, maybe I don’t want to spend $10 on the SIM card to make one phone call.
I’ll ask the shopkeeper if I can use his cell phone. He points me to a landline phone. Awesome, what a champ! I call the Greek tour operator main office but they have no way of reaching the bus driver (no radio, no cell phone number??). Damn. Guess we will stay the night.
Well, I’ll buy a couple things from the shopkeeper to thank him for letting me use the phone. He rings me up: 27€. What? 27€? Ah, there must be a decimal point in there somewhere. Nope. I actually gagged in disbelief. After putting back the two juices and cookies, I ask him to ring me up again: 24€. Disbelief is quickly turning into shock with rage not far behind.
What do you mean 24€?
Calls from landlines are expensive. You should have used a cell phone.
Jackass. Thanks for not letting me know beforehand. Thanks for not suggesting I just buy the SIM card. Thanks for pointing me to the landline instead of letting me use your cell for a couple bucks.
After asking to see prices and arguing, there’s nothing left to do but pay. Lesson learned: Always ask for prices before you use any services or sit down in the restaurant.
I storm off to find Jenn who in the meantime has a flier for a hostel and has found a French couple willing to split the taxi to Greece (140€ total split 4-ways = about the same as if we each stayed in a hostel that night and bought a bus ticket the next day).
OK, let’s do Option B and leave this place.
The taxi man calls his taxi son-in-law to pick us up. Before we leave, Jenn goes with the taxi man to get some food. Since we had such short time in Macedonian, we didn’t exchange any money for Macedonian denars. No problem because the taxi man offered to buy the pastries. What a champ! Jenn chooses 2 pastries for 105 denar (1.70€). Oh wait, he’s not treating us. Fair enough. How much? All we have is a 20€ note. He takes it, gives Jenn the change, then shoos her into his son-in-law’s taxi. As we leave, Jenn counts 11€ change. He charged us five times what those tasteless, macaroni-filled pastries actually cost. Jackass!
We bring this up to his son-in-law. His response?
Not my problem. I didn’t scam you. What? I’m related to him? That’s different. He’s my father-in-law, not my father. No, I won’t give you the correct change and get the rest from him later. You should have told me before we left Skopje (we did). You should have exchanged for Macedonian denars anyway. More excuses, ad nauseum.
Jackass.
In a few short hours in Macedonia we were repeatedly ripped off, which didn’t give us a favorable impression of the country. We couldn’t have been happier to leave. Hopefully, Macedonians will eventually learn to treat tourists as people instead of walking targets.
If you ever end up in Macedonia, these are the taxi men (surname/firstname):
Taxi man: Jandrijeski Nove
Taxi son-in-law: Jovanov Goran
Avoid them.
And if you’re stuck in the Skopje train terminal, there was free wi-fi in the stairway between the train platform and the ground-level ticket offices. Use it to find a way out of that god-forsaken place.
If we had to do it again, we would spend more time in Serbia and then bus straight through to Greece. That or ferry to Italy then to Greece (How to get to Greece from Croatia).
After arriving in Thessaloniki around midnight with the French, the four of us free-camped in a park outside the train station. We breakfasted together then went our separate ways.
Click here for more photos
- RO
“No.”
Fair enough. I’ll buy a SIM card.
Hmmm, maybe I don’t want to spend $10 on the SIM card to make one phone call.
I’ll ask the shopkeeper if I can use his cell phone. He points me to a landline phone. Awesome, what a champ! I call the Greek tour operator main office but they have no way of reaching the bus driver (no radio, no cell phone number??). Damn. Guess we will stay the night.
Well, I’ll buy a couple things from the shopkeeper to thank him for letting me use the phone. He rings me up: 27€. What? 27€? Ah, there must be a decimal point in there somewhere. Nope. I actually gagged in disbelief. After putting back the two juices and cookies, I ask him to ring me up again: 24€. Disbelief is quickly turning into shock with rage not far behind.
What do you mean 24€?
Calls from landlines are expensive. You should have used a cell phone.
Jackass. Thanks for not letting me know beforehand. Thanks for not suggesting I just buy the SIM card. Thanks for pointing me to the landline instead of letting me use your cell for a couple bucks.
After asking to see prices and arguing, there’s nothing left to do but pay. Lesson learned: Always ask for prices before you use any services or sit down in the restaurant.
I storm off to find Jenn who in the meantime has a flier for a hostel and has found a French couple willing to split the taxi to Greece (140€ total split 4-ways = about the same as if we each stayed in a hostel that night and bought a bus ticket the next day).
OK, let’s do Option B and leave this place.
The taxi man calls his taxi son-in-law to pick us up. Before we leave, Jenn goes with the taxi man to get some food. Since we had such short time in Macedonian, we didn’t exchange any money for Macedonian denars. No problem because the taxi man offered to buy the pastries. What a champ! Jenn chooses 2 pastries for 105 denar (1.70€). Oh wait, he’s not treating us. Fair enough. How much? All we have is a 20€ note. He takes it, gives Jenn the change, then shoos her into his son-in-law’s taxi. As we leave, Jenn counts 11€ change. He charged us five times what those tasteless, macaroni-filled pastries actually cost. Jackass!
We bring this up to his son-in-law. His response?
Not my problem. I didn’t scam you. What? I’m related to him? That’s different. He’s my father-in-law, not my father. No, I won’t give you the correct change and get the rest from him later. You should have told me before we left Skopje (we did). You should have exchanged for Macedonian denars anyway. More excuses, ad nauseum.
Jackass.
In a few short hours in Macedonia we were repeatedly ripped off, which didn’t give us a favorable impression of the country. We couldn’t have been happier to leave. Hopefully, Macedonians will eventually learn to treat tourists as people instead of walking targets.
If you ever end up in Macedonia, these are the taxi men (surname/firstname):
Taxi man: Jandrijeski Nove
Taxi son-in-law: Jovanov Goran
Avoid them.
And if you’re stuck in the Skopje train terminal, there was free wi-fi in the stairway between the train platform and the ground-level ticket offices. Use it to find a way out of that god-forsaken place.
If we had to do it again, we would spend more time in Serbia and then bus straight through to Greece. That or ferry to Italy then to Greece (How to get to Greece from Croatia).
After arriving in Thessaloniki around midnight with the French, the four of us free-camped in a park outside the train station. We breakfasted together then went our separate ways.
Click here for more photos
- RO
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