Sunday 25th September 1983
We awoke to the sound of my alarm clock at 07:00 hrs. and discovered that the time had gone back an hour (end of Summer Time in the Europe/Belgrade Time Zone) and thus it was only 06:00 hrs. and an hour before breakfast was served. We chatted with the Japanese lad and two Dutch cyclists who had been touring Romania, Hungary and Jugoslavia, starting from Milan in Italy. These two blond jokers had done quite a bit of travelling and one who had been to Afghanistan said that we would be able to get an Iranian visa at Ankara in Turkey.
We shared our extra jam and bread with the Japanese boy to supplement the meagre hostel breakfast of dry bread, meat and local cheese washed down with tea and Coca Cola. We packed our bikes to the good-hearted joking of the Dutch “Sting” (lead singer of rock band The Police) look-alike and set off for Greece.
The sun was warm and the road was good and our spirits soared above us. I dreamed of future trips by motorbike and the world was our oyster. I also feel we’d had our fill of Jugoslavia and were pleased to be moving on to fresh pastures. A GB lorry hooted us and we waved and cheered merrily. It is always a morale boosting sight to see a British vehicle.
An ominous pool of black oil lay under George’s machine this morning but both bikes started first kick. After 50 miles we stopped for a cuppa at a deserted motel, basking in the privacy and the sun. We moved on and hit the border after 100 miles (from Skopje) where we were waved across in a trice, stopping only for a couple of coffees and a money change.
We continued on our road of our own which ran parallel to the autobahn with it’s toll booths. Hardly a soul was on the road and we roared along ecstatically across a vast arid plain, so dry that it was on fire in places! It seemed to be hotter on this side of the border, and the people friendlier – the old boys waved instead of scowling. We followed the line of telegraph poles which stretched into the distance, interrupted only by wide town streets through squat square buildings with alien script signs on the commercial buildings. We gained Thessaloniki through a hail of flying insects and looked with horror on it’s vast extent – we had to find the Youth Hostel in that! Luckily a taxi driver took us under his wing and said “follow me”, and we gained the place without much further ado.
The reception was closed so we waited in the restaurant next door. Feasting on an extravagant meal we watched the procession of text book rucksack bearing Eurorail “travellers” trooping into the hostel. We were stitched up for 750 Drachma and again we vowed to avoid restaurants in the future. Earlier as we left Jugoslavia we almost came a cropper in a 900 metre pitch dark tunnel. I couldn’t see a dicky bird and slewed to a halt against the wall as two massive juggernauts whistled passed in the opposite direction.
As we left Jugoslavia we had a final encounter with “the people” in the form of several jeering kids lobbing stones at us from a bridge across the road. Other people at the hostel related similar tales of how Jugoslavian people had pissed them off. We now tarry in the Youth Hostel reception, a black mood upon us. Good to see the Jap’s motorbike parked outside.
We queued with the wretches and booked in before fleeing into the night for some peace. We walked along the sea front, after passing a cinema without about 40 posters up, but nothing to indicate what was actually showing. We returned to the hostel but the bar was shut so we went out for a take-away beer in the square by the Thessaloniki International Fair where lights blazed and a metallic voice beckoned to the sound of the German national anthem. We had a philosophical chat and turned in for the night.
Bike reading 15,912 miles.
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