After hanging out with Echo, I had to get back on the road. A good first day back in the saddle.
#serbia #travel #cycling
All right we’re back on the riding videos for this trip from Budapest to Thessaloniki today we are starting in the town of V Serbia and we’re crossing the border of Kosovo and the border of Macedonia finishing off in the Macedonian town of Kum noo I am going to
Split this video up into two parts because it was a crazy crazy day it was a very long ride and there was a lot of stuff that went on so today is just going to be the V to the Kosovo border which was actually an ordeal um I didn’t
Initially intend to go to the Kosovo border I I did want to go to Kosovo but wasn’t really quite sure how I could make that all happen and eventually I just suffered through it till I got there um so day started out I got a little bit later of a start than I
Wanted so it’s already pretty hot day when I got going since i’ had been off the bike for you know six days or something like this I just wanted to make sure that my tires were the right pressure so my first stop was this little Bike Shop it was TSR Dragon
Something like that it must mean something different in Serbian it wasn’t a dragon themed store like I was expecting it to be but they gave me some air didn’t charge me owner and his wife talked with me for probably about 10 15 minutes super lovely people if you’re
Ever in the area and you need bikes go look them up um after that I went to the Serbian town of I’m probably going to get this name wrong bovat bovat either way it’ll be on the screen so I went to that town got a late breakfast early lunch and sort of tried
To plan out the route a little bit um vanan and bovat were actually really lovely little towns job bats had a nice uh Town Square and there was a place called The America corner so I went and checked that out and turns out it was
Just a a library or like a little I don’t know if school is the right word but like a tutoring center that you know helped teach kids in the area English and there was a bunch of America theme stuff there and as an American I had to
Stop talked with that guy for a while and you they were absolutely lovely too there’s a place right there called the America corner do I go in got to check it out at least a little bit right let’s go see what’s inside we got scholarships for Serbian
Citizens we got all the flags of the state capital Colorado boy woo oh yeah all the presidents it’s a a little bit dated huh it’s kind of cool no matter where you’re at you’re still a little bit close to home I’m sure that pisses a lot of serbians off
But what are you going to do I’d be pissed off if I was them too to be honest said if I ever came back that I should sit and hang out with him he wanted to get some coffee or a beer with
Me but I had a lot of places to go and a lot of things to do that day and I was already a couple hours behind schedule so put it off but from bjan oat I sort of planned out the easiest way to get to
Kosovo and while I was planning it out I also learned some pretty interesting history of the places that I went through um I’m probably going to make that its own video but yeah back in the the Yugoslav War days and a little bit after that some lot of crazy stuff that
Went on in this area of Serbia it’s I found it very interesting and I really got to see some of the remnants of it on the way to Kosovo from banov vat I went to a town called luchan which is right at the the base of where it really starts to get
Mountainous in this region okay so we are now in the village of luch I hope I’m pronouncing that right uh it’s kind of clear this is an Albanian town so yeah this was so when they started the you know the the fighting trying to gain independence for
Kosovo um it start Ed up in these mountains here which those really don’t look as bad as what was in Van so kind of thinking that I might try it I might try to get up there was doo do broel probably pronouncing that wrong forgive me so that’s where it started
Then it moved down here and then sort of migrated down to the the bigger city of bovat um forgive me in the comments so it started with like small village then a little town and then working their way to the bigger cities and it was pretty wild how they were you know they
Coordinated attacks on like security outposts all at the same time and let me see if I can get in here okay so the ucpnb the sounds different I don’t know what that little thing at the bottom is that was the Albanian gorilla Fighters and we’re we’re still here in Serbia and
Here’s a monument to them still freshly adorned of flowers so clearly there’s probably still some heavy ethnic tension in this region considering this still is Serbia and here is a monument to you know what albanians would consider Freedom Fighters but serbians would probably consider terrorists um it’s kind of it’s kind of
Bizarre that it’s that the Serbian government allows this I know it it would kind of be like having a Confederate Memorial in the United States somewhere which I’m sure we probably have but I think in the states it’s more like a historical monument and not really a celebration of the
Confederacy I’m sure there’s places where you can find them but I don’t think it’s in the middle of a park in a city I might be wrong but yeah I don’t know like I said I’m not trying to take sides I’m not against the albanians I’m not against the serban
Um I’ve had run-ins with both and I don’t really have anything bad to say about either of them it’s kind of sad that they’re fighting you know just drink a beer and get along but this is this is a American perspective where old for us you know is 1850
And these these rivalries these tensions have been going on since you know the 1300s so yeah we’ll see if I can figure out a way to get up to the other town and I’ll go from there there’s the the mosque CR moving up top yeah it’s definitely
Hot okay it the town was called de broin uh yeah I don’t know what I said earlier but apparently it’s 8 km up this road so I’ll get as far as I can if I just be I mean it’s 95° if I just get completely smoked I’ll
Just turn around we go try it out and been feeling pretty good and I I got to luch and I had you know quite a bit of energy considering the amount of Miles I’d already ridden it’s about 15 miles from luchan to V and I hadn’t been on the bike for
About 5 or 6 days so you know I was really feeling good and I was like you know it’s it’s really not that far to the border you know I know it’s going to be quite a climb but you I’m feeling good I’m feeling like I can tackle this climb
I think it’ll be okay and that’s what I decided to do I started the ride through luchin and I got to where the climb sort of started and at first it seemed all right and then it got real steep really really fast and I was not even a mile outside
Of luchene before I had to start walking the bike up the hill it was insanely Steep and this was probably the hardest climb I think I may have ever done on a bike and it’s evidenced by the fact that I really didn’t climb a whole lot of it and I
Pretty much walked from luchin to the border of Koso so here’s another one of The Monuments to those UC PMB Fighters I’m guessing that they’re as spread out as they are because this is probably where these guys were killed um that’s the only thing that makes sense cuz all these guys died on
September 19th 20 or 2000 and that kind of makes sense why they’re kind of spread out and these guys all have the same date that’s just my hypothesis so the Albanian flag these Albanian and gentlemen so we’re almost to do Doris in and the coost of O
Border this was I bit off way more than I could chew but by the time I was completely smoked I was already too far I’m dying okay so let’s just go to the coast of our board take pictures of signs and get to Macedonia after about 2 hours of walking
Uphill the six miles from luchan to the cost ofo border I was finally there and the Border was unremarkable um there was two guards there super nice um they looked at my passport and one of the the things that I thought was really odd is since Serbia doesn’t recognize
Kosovo as its own country they recognize it as part of Serbia the license plates from Kosovo when they come from Kosovo into Serbia they put tape over the little country code thing that are on the European license plates and I thought that was interesting so that’s pretty much all
That they did there um it it was just too you know older gentlemen and yeah they they had like pistols on their hip that’s not uncommon but you you hear all these reports about oh the Kosovo border is so militarized still and I didn’t see none of that it
Was just two nice old guys just hanging out playing cards waiting for people to come through and then I had crossed the border into Kosovo went took a picture at the sign did all that and from where I was I was kind of at the Apex of this this hilly
Area and there was a town in Koso quite a ways down it was like 2 miles but it was pure downhill which would have been nice I could have easily just gone downhill went through Kosovo and into Macedonia but like I said with the status of Serbia and Kosovo if I was to
Leave Kosovo leave Serbia through Kosovo and then leave from Kosovo into Macedonia I technically wouldn’t have left Serbia in the eyes of the Serbian government so that would have created problems for me if I ever go back to Serbia which I honestly intend to I I had a really lovely time there
Um so I’m sitting at the Apex took my you know your your standard photos at the the country sign and everything and then I just you know it’s 1: p.m. already and I still had about 40 miles to go to get to Macedonia and get to a hotel over
There across the coast of O border so I don’t know if this is going to count as a proper visit to Koso but I’ve had it with hills it’s a really big downhill to get there but since Serbia doesn’t recognize Kosovo fors to go down that hill and leave Kosovo through the Macedonia
Border well I technically would not have left Serbia I wouldn’t have a exit stamp from the Serbian government which could create a lot of problems also uh there’s a restaurant down here about 2 miles uh but yeah look at this downhill it’s significant downhill and then it’s some more
Uphill well it’s already won something I think I’ve done such a detour that I have I don’t know probably uh still like 25 26 miles to get to to uh Kum noo so I am not going to push it any further I crossed the border I stood here the Serbian guys
Looked at my passport and I’m going to count this as having visited kosa these border guards are going to be like what the is this guy doing literally just crossed 5 minutes ago and came right back so let’s get to Macedonia enough messing around let’s go take a picture sign do you need
Passport so I opted out of going down the hill getting some food or something in a little restaurant in a CO ofo town and then climbing back up the hill probably walking again and I just proceeded to go out of that area when I crossed the border again the
Guy was really confused he was like um he just came through here like two minutes ago and so I just typed on Google translate it’s like yeah I just wanted to take a picture by the sign and he was like okay and he offered me some water and stuff like that super nice
Guys nothing bad to say about him um I did see a gang of kids not really like a gang gang but a bunch of kids in the in the town of dooen and you know they they waved at me and I had a US dollar in my backpack so
I gave one of them a US dollar didn’t speak at all didn’t use any Google translate I think they only spoke Albanian and I don’t speak Albanian they didn’t speak English so that was a cool little thing to see and it was it was actually a really nice town and
Surprisingly there was a lot of luxury vehicles in this town town and all the houses looked really nice so make of that what you will after all of that I got back on the road from doen out back to luchin you know there was a there was a
Bit of a climb going out of D brosen but then after that climb I just flew down that super steep road coming that I came up I think took me close to 2 hours to get up and under 20 minutes to get down I absolutely flew down that road
And it was a ton of fun um so one of the worst desense I’ve ever had but one of the best one of the worst ascents I’ve ever had but one of the best descents I’ve ever had after that I was back in luchin and got some food got some water
Refueled recharged a little bit went back to ranov Vats and began the ride again where I initially started heading towards Macedonia so I’m going to cover that in the next video but yeah it was a it was a really eventful day I met a lot of really cool people and honestly aside
From the six mile walk I had a really good time so thanks for watching and I will catch you guys in the next one