Altered States

May 2025

Yeah, that's been me so much lately.

But not in a psychedelic or esoteric way.

Nah, it's just that I've changed countries so many times in the past few weeks I hardly know whether I'm Muhamat or Fatime.

After all, there's so many countries so close to where I am right now - Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Greece. Even Bulgaria isn't too far up the road.

And I happen to be in Kosovo, in Prizren, the second largest city in the country. Although you can't really call it a city. It's got a small touristed centre, and all of the tourists wandering around look Balkan to me - everyone has black hair - the men pretty much always very very short, and the women a bit more varied, but generally straight and long (and sometimes dyed).

Prizren is beautiful. It's officially designated in the Kosovan constitution as the historical capital of the country. There's loads of stunning ancient buildings, mosques, churches and old fortresses around the traps.

But more importantly the city was actually a key player in Kosovan history. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Serbia in the 13th and 14th Centuries, it changed hands between various feudal leaders after that, until the Ottomans finally took it in 1455.

The Ottomans ruled for over four hundred years, like they did elsewhere in the Balkans, but despite this Prizren still became an important political centre for the Albanian Renaissance in the late 19th Century.

It's so good to be here. It's warm, as I've temporarily descended from the higher hills, and spring has definitely sprung. The days are warm, the nights are cool, but it's no longer cold.

Temporarily at least.

My journeying this blog ...

I've been heading roughly north

Leaving Ohrid

All good things come to some sort of end, and saying goodbye to Eero and Joanna was yet another sad (but grateful) occasion.

I headed north on my bike, there was a parallel road heading alongside the main road, which was useful, because there was so much traffic, and, as usual, no shoulder whatsoever. It's the May Day long weekend, so everyone in the country's moving around.

Eventually I climbed, and the road narrowed and became totally forested. It was beautiful.

Above Centre: I've seen dozens of these snakes, all but a few of them have been mushed by car wheels

Below Centre: This little village is called Goodnight. There's a town in Australia of the same name actually.

Below Right: The road signs are now displaying Macedonian, Albanian, and sometimes English characters.

I tried to get food for camping at the town of Kičevo, and rode around looking for an open supermarket. But everything was closed, so I had to settle for fuel station junk food.

I continued to head north, as the rain started, and I began to climb. There was nowhere much to camp for ages, because the valley was full of farms and villages (and dogs).

But finally, late in the day, I found a little dirt road that wound off the main road, crossed a creek, and then led to a beautiful grassy spot.

Ahhh. The universe always delivers.

I had to wade the bike through the creek to get there, as it was rocky and slippery, but luckily everyone stayed upright.

I pitched my tent and started to cook and then suddenly there were noises from the forest right in front of me, and, to my great delight, a herd of deer galloped straight out of the forest.

Some had beautiful antlers, others not, and it happened so quickly that I didn't have time to take a pic.

Below: But this is the type of deer they were, the sika deer. There's also other types of deer in these forests, including the fallow deer and the red deer, all of which can grow to huge sizes.

It was so beautiful to witness these animals in the wild, it was a very special moment for me.

I was so exhausted, after a long day's cycling, and a long climb. After dinner I slept like a rock (star).

Tetovo

The next day I had a big climb in the morning, and sat for food at the top of the hill. There was a lovely old man up there who spoke with me in German. He was so amazed by my trip that he kept telling everyone that stopped at the bakery/café that I was Australian and had ridden my bike all the way from Indonesia. He seemed genuinely thrilled by the idea, it was kinda cute.

Below Left: The creek by the campsite had gone down in the morning, which was good.

Below Centre, Right: Up we go.

The peak was over 1200m, and the road down was pretty good, so I zipped down in no time.

Above, Left: Crumbling infrastructure. Literally.

Above Right: The main highway between Tetovo and the capital Skopje is called Mother Theresa Motorway, of all things. Mother Theresa, that great Catholic lover of the poor, was originally from Skopje.

Below: The beautiful and interesting town of Tetovo.

Below Right: Love the Cufi building (pronounced sufi).

I decided to ride through to Skopje, as I wanted to see if anyone had the bike part I still need, and, being the long weekend, I knew I had more chance if I was there when the bike shops opened on Saturday morning.

Eventually I made it to the city, and stopped in a café so I could get wifi, to call Joanna, because she'd been checking out hostels, and was due in Skopje the next day.

I was sitting outside at a table when Lasse, from the Netherlands, appeared, also on a touring bike. He'd seen my loaded bike, and asked if he could join me.

Lasse's a beautiful man, only 19, a Steiner kid, and on his first long cycle touring trip. He's actually a cyclist though, a speed cyclist, and is comfortable with riding 150km a day, even in hilly country. That's pretty hardcore.

We chatted for ages. It didn't take him long to say that he felt he needed to learn how to slow down, because he was travelling so fast that he was hardly seeing anything. Well, I could tell him a thing or two about taking it easy.

He knew about a good hostel, so I followed him there, we got dorm beds, and then wandered around town.

Skopje was packed full of tourists, as it's a holiday weekend.

Below Centre: This puppeteer was rocking out to James Brown with his puppet, whom he'd named Joe Cool. He was great. We chatted afterwards, and the first thing he said to me was "are you famous?" I said no, only in my own head, and he said he was sure he'd seen me playing music somewhere.

But I seriously doubt it.

Below Right: Unfortunately there's casinos all over the Balkans.

The next morning I hit the bike shops, trying to get the chain ring I needed. No luck anywhere. I basically need one because my middle cog is pretty damaged and worn, and my chain keeps jumping out of gear, so I have to rely on the first or last gears completely at the front.

It's annoying, but I'll just have to put with it until I get to a bigger city.

It's not ideal.

Below Left: My hostel's in the old town, near the bazaar. It's a great spot.

Below Centre: Alexander the Great towering over everyone.

Below Right: Spinach pie for brekky.

Above Centre: There's a few bike lanes in the city centre.

Below: Skopje's incredibly statue-esque. There's statues absolutely everywhere in the centre of the old town. I bet there's more statue heads per head than in any city I've ever seen.

Many massive new grand buildings have been constructed, mostly in a neoclassical style. It all seems a bit much really, it feels a bit like overkill.

Bridge after bridge is lined with statues (almost exclusively of men), squares are packed with plinths and busts and grand statues of all the great people (men) from here.

I mean, it's beautiful, but it just feels artificial, because they're all pretty new.

The old town became more and more packed with tourists as the day progressed.

In the afternoon I met with Joanna, from Krakow. It was so great to see her again, after the beautiful time we'd already spent together in Ohrid. We spent the whole afternoon and evening hanging out, before she needed to head on a bus to the airport at midnight.

We get along so well, it's a really beautiful connection we have going on, and we were both really happy to spend time together.

We walked for ages, checking out interesting brutalist architecture in Skopje, which she loves (me too), and then we strolled along the river for hours, before having a late dinner, and finally walking to her bus.

We talked the whole time, about everything. She's an incredibly open and honest person, always ready to admit her vulnerabilities and fears, which is something I could definitely do more of.

We talked the whole time, about everything. She's an incredibly open and honest person, always ready to admit her vulnerabilities and fears, which is something I could definitely do more of.

We were both sad to say goodbye, because we were really moved by each other. She's a beautiful, soft and sensitive soul, and we both wished we could have had more time together.

Well, maybe that'll happen another time, who knows.

But I feel so grateful to have spent that really amazing time with her.

Ferizaj

And so, on I rode.

My mission for the day was to ride towards Kosovo.

It took a bit of time to get out of the capital, and by the time I got going there was a lot of traffic on the road.

It was nice to get back out into the forest, and I had a bit of climbing to do, which is basically par-for-the-course when you're in the Balkans. There's hills and ranges everywhere.

Top Left: My road heading off into the distance. The slope looks gentle enough until you start trying to pedal a heavy load up it.

Above Left: Bigger road signs in these parts often include places in a multitude of countries.

Below Left: Tunnels and bikes don't mix. Not when there's no lights, no shoulder, and the cars buses and trucks race through at a million miles an hour. It's very dangerous actually.

My strategy is to get on the footpath (if there is one), and get my flashing red lights out so drivers can clearly see I exist. These days I wear a high viz vest with reflecto bits too, which I found in the freebie pile in a hostel somewhere. I'm sure it helps.

But even with all that, it's no fun being in a tunnel on a bike, especially if it's long. The sound is deafening and, depending how much space I have, the going is generally very slow. Sometimes the footpath is so narrow I literally have to stop every time a truck comes behind me, and lean on the side wall so the speeding juggernaut doesn't clip one of my panniers.

So eventually I got to the border, and the crossing from North Macedonia into Kosovo was pretty smooth. They generally are in the Balkans, if you have an EU passport (I have a Polish one), and also if you're on a bike you can always skip the queues.

Top Right: Happy New Year! This two-headed eagle is the main symbol on the Albanian flag. The symbol's been used to represent Albanian independence for a few centuries. For some reason the eagle symbol is big in the Balkans - you see it everywhere, in all the countries around here. Ethnic Albanians make up 92% of the Kosovan population.

Above Left: Furra means oven in Albanian - so it's basically wood-fired pizza.

Above Centre: War memorial, expressing a censored version of what soldiers scream when they're forced to go and fight and have to kill other people just like them.

No, not really - the UÇK stands for Ushtria Çlirimtare E Kosovës, the Kosovan Liberation Army, who were a separatist militia composed of ethnic Albanians, who fought for Kosovan independence from Yugoslavia and then Serbia, and who originally wanted all Albanians in the Balkans unified into one country, a Greater Albania.

Below Left: Electioneering is happening in Kosovo at the moment.

Below Centre: What I would like to do to cars after they pass me ridiculously closely at high speed.

Eventually I made it to the town of Ferizaj, and stopped at a cheap family guest house for the night. It was really nice exploring the town at dusk on a Sunday eve, loads of people were out and about, it was such a nice vibe, and I coffee-ed and shopped and made it back after dark, as usual.

Above Right: The ex-PM of the UK, Tony Blair, is revered in Kosovo, because he was instrumental in persuading NATO to bomb Serbia and force them to the negotiating table during the Kosovan War in the 90s. Incredibly, many new baby boys were actually named Tonibler in honour of him. All these Toniblers are now in their mid-twenties. I hope I meet one. I'll introduce myself as Goffhitlem.

The ex-PM of the UK, Tony Blair, is revered in Kosovo, because he was instrumental in persuading NATO to bomb Serbia and force them to the negotiating table during the Kosovan War in the 90s. Incredibly, many new baby boys were actually named Tonibler in honour of him. All these Toniblers are now in their mid-twenties. I hope I meet one. I'll introduce myself as Goffhitlem.

I talked about the Kosovan War in a previous blog, but basically it was all about Serbia's wish to incorporate Kosovo into a Greater Serbia after the breakup of Yugoslavia - or at least have Kosovo under its control. The land which is currently known as Kosovo once had a large Serb minority, especially in the north, and this was a major reason for the conflict.

Serbian or Serbian-controlled forces led to the displacement of between 1.2 and 1.4m Albanian Kosovan during the Kosovan War, but nearly one million returned after the conflict. The war also led to the displacement of about 200,000 Serbs, both during and after the war, few of which have returned.

Conflicts between Serbs and Albanians in northern Kosovo still continue to this day.

The UN has a military force in Kosovo to help manage these problems, called KFOR - I saw many of their army-fatigued vehicles, especially around the border regions (but no pics, as they're sensitive about that).

Below: Most cities in the Balkans know that bicycles exist. Many have some sort of cycle track along the main thoroughfares, which is awesome. The only thing is, many car drivers here seem to see cycle paths as simply extra parking or even driving space, and the paths are often bumpy, with loads of curbs to climb up and down.

Better than nothing though.

I think.

To Prizren

After chatting for ages with the owner of the little family guest house where I stayed overnight, I finally got myself together and headed off late in the morning. Of course he gave me coffees and bottles of water, he was such a sweet guy, who'd lived and worked in Germany a few decades ago, and was super happy to speak in German for a change.

And so was I.

I was out of town in no time, and then passed through a few very small settlements on the way to Prizren, the second largest town in the country. It didn't take long for me to start climbing.

Below: Passing through the large-ish town of Suharekë

Eventually I rolled into Prizren, and stayed in the old town, in a small hostel.

The town is an absolute gem.

Below Right: These beautiful Byzantine buildings were built in the 1500s, and the complex included a mosque, a hammam (public bath), elementary and high schools (medrese), a mausoleum and a library.

Below: We'll all end up like this one day, I guess.

Below Centre: My street

Below Right: The pretty Prizren River runs right through the town, and there's a few squares and cafés around to hang out in. It's nice.

Below Right: I saw a fortress way up on the hill, and decided to go up there. I don't know exactly what drives me to do such things after I've been climbing hills all day, but I guess it's an affliction, some kind of altitude sickness.

The hill was steep.

But it was definitely worth the climb.

Prizren Fortress has been around for a long time, even before the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Justinian controlled these parts, and reconstructed it. The Byzantines were usurped by the Serbian Kingdom in 1291, and then it fell into the hands of feudal lords off and on, sometimes with the support of the Ottomans, who themselves took direct control of it in 1450, and controlled the city until the early 1900s.

Below Centre: I accidentally disturbed two motorbikes making love.

Below Right: I'm definitely not getting my first tatt here.

Above Left: Pickles are big in the Balkans. Well, the pickles are small, but they're big, if you know what I mean. Everyone seems to make them, and supermarket shelves are full of them.

Above Centre: I finally sat and rested my skin'n'bones.

Above Right: I had my first iced coffee since forever.

Below Right: Gaming store

Above Left: Yeah, I'm glad I'm not a sentient toilet bowl.

Above Centre: It sure is lately, for me anyway.

Above Right: Zero out of four.

Albania Beckons (Again)

It won't be long and I'll be out of Kosovo, and heading into northern Albania.

So many countries, so little time.

Nah, only joking. I have loads of time.

I did visit Tirana, the Albanian capital, a couple of months back, but that's pretty much all I've seen of the country, except for some highways, from the window of a bus.

People who've been to the Albanian countryside on the back roads tell me there's some stunning places around, and I'm super keen to check them out.

I've gotta say that I've discovered that the Balkans are another one of those hidden gems of the world.

Well, hidden from pretty much everyone besides Europeans, who can fly or drive here pretty quickly.

There's so many amazing places in the region, stunning landscapes, all packed into a relatively small area that's occupied by a whole bunch of tiny countries.

But the dark cloud of a tragic recent history also hangs above the place.

I've only just scratched the surface of this region.

And I'm positively itching for more❤️

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