Back to Vietnam! The joys of transit

Who would have thought, back in 2019, that it would be almost three years before international travel was possible again? Even in December 2021 when we started planning this trip, the international borders were still closed and people shook their heads when I mentioned wanting to revisit Vietnam.

Me on a plane
Back on a plane!

But I had some long service leave that had to be used, frequent flyer points burning a hole in my pocket, and moths flying out of my passport, so I thought why not book (with generous cancellation policies, natch) and see what happened.

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Last stop: Istanbul

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Being a poser at Gulseren’s shop in the Grand Bazaar

I love Istanbul and I’d planned to have a couple of days of R&R and shopping to round out the holiday. It turned out that the bazaars (and costumiers!) were closed for most of the time we were there due to the Eid holidays. Happily there were still some shops open, and the rest all opened on Thursday so I had a window of opportunity.

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Sofia and the night train to Istanbul

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In the pink in Sofia

Me’n’C were booked into the bus to Sofia early the next morning, thanks to the assistance of A, who kindly organised our tickets for us. We hopped into a taxi and arrived at the bus station nice and early, and tried to decipher our Cyrillic tickets.

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North Macedonia continued – Bitola and Skopje

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Apple orchard

On the way to Bitola we stopped off at a family-run apple orchard called Spirit of Prespa, which also makes fruit liquors. The family were very welcoming, providing us with fresh juice, cakes and some of their potent fruit liquor, made from steeping rakija in sugar and berries for a month and then aging it. Drinks before lunchtime? Why not!

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On the road in North Macedonia

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Relaxing at the historical village (pic by Cat)

Our border crossing from Kosovo was at a tiny little border stop, where there was only us and two girls on foot waiting to be processed. Unlike the other borders we’d passed, we didn’t have to queue, but we also had to get out of the van and be processed individually rather than having our passports processed without more than a glance inside the van to see that we were the correct number of people.

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Albania and Kosovo

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At Rozafa Castle (photo by Cat)

I think we possibly only drove through Albania to get to Kosovo because of the newish motorway through there. We only had one proper stop, at Rozafa Castle (a crumbling fortress) and lunch in the nearby town of Shkoder.

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Montenegro – Kotor

The border crossing took a while, but soon enough we were wending our way towards Kotor, our base while in Montenegro. The landscape as we were driving was even more dramatic than Croatia, with steep mountains surrounding the river.

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Split and Dubrovnik

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Inside the Palace with the sea of other tourists

I arrived in Split at about 9pm, and met my airbnb host with the help of the guide and bus driver from the transfer company. I was staying at The Happy Jackdaw, a cute little airbnb flat just near the port and the palace, which conveniently had a kitchen and washing machine.

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Croatia – Zagreb and Plitvice Lakes

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Single Sleeper

The sleeper train was pretty comfortable, especially as I’d booked a single sleeper to myself. Since it was close to midnight when I finally clambered on board, I went to sleep pretty quickly, despite the rocking of the train.

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Frankfurt & Badenheim

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Me and R overlooking the Rhine

Although I’ve been in Germany twice before, I’ve never visited Frankfurt or my cousins who live near there. However, this seems to be the trip for family connections.

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