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Border Crossing, Greece
Tuesday, Aug 16, 2005

More Borders

David Murray
2007-02-21 19:38:56

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So, here we are in Korce, and the idea is to get to Greece. Now as we have lost our guidebook, basically, we are fucked. I have no idea of the name of the town that we are meant to be heading to. I asked a few taxi drivers and all they can say that it is called Doganna. I have heard of this but I know from my old LP that this is not the place that we should be heading for. Lucy ran down to the minibus station and they told her the same thing, but I found a coach that would take us all the way to Thessaloniki.

So we jumped on the coach, a coach load of Albanians that is, except for us and the one Frog that was there as well.

We drove.

We drove a little while longer, and then there it was. Doganna. Another name for Douane, which ýs the border.

So we waited as there were 5 buses in front of us.

After an hour, our turn came and we went through. The Albanians in one line, and us and the Frog in another. We were processed straight away.

Into no man's land, and now there were 7 buses in front of us. And the Greek Border Guards were doing sweet FA. They were not processing the Albanians. So we had to wait. We walked up to the gates, and nothing happened. However, if an Albanian moved, practically the firing squad came out !!!!!

The things started to happen, well the Greek way. They were processing people slowly. Once an hour a bus would be processed. At this rate, ıt would be around 9:00 at night we would get out turn. At 7:00 pm, we were sitting on the gutter, when this Greek guy starts yelling at me. I went over to him and saıd, "mate, I have no fucking idea what you are saying". He looked at me and said, "English", I said "No, Aussie". He told me that he had a cousin ın Melbourne and that I could sit back down.

At 8:00 pm, the bus in front was finished being processed, but our pussy bus driver would not drive forward. After half an hour, Lucy lost it, went up to the Border Guards and saıd process us. They looked at her passport and told her to walk as she was an EU citizen. She said she was on the bus, and they said that the bus was full of Albanians so we had to wait. Lucy did not accept this and argued some more. 15 minutes late, we moved on. Thıs had taken 9 hours of waiting in no man's land. We jumped out of the bus. Lucy was at the front and I was last. I watched them process the Albanians. They checked everything to make sure that they had proper papers. The guards then threw their passports at them. I was expecting this. I handed my passport to them. He looked at me. "British", he asked. "Obviously". , was my answer. "Welcome to Greece", he replied. He then handed me my passport to me as if I was royalty !!!!! The bags were searched but as Lucy and I are EU citizens, we did not need to open ours !!!!!

Off we drove. A dew K'a down the road, the border police stopped the bus and asked for everyones passport. Being EU citizens, I knew everything was going to be alright. He opened my passport, saw that I had a Pakastani visa and ordered me off the bus. 30 seconds later, Lucy followed. Our bags were removed and opened. I asked why and he said that they search any bag with an Islamic country visa stamp in their passport. There as only one way to put a stop to this. I pulled out my Ace card and asked him if he had any Aussie relations. As every Greek person does, the searching stopped and we regailed ın stories of our times ın Aus. We were now best friends. The Ouzo drinking would have gone on for hours, if not for the bus load of Albanians. One last shot and we were on our way. Quite happy now

We arrived in Thessaloniki at 04:00 Greek time. As there was a train going to Istanbul at 07:12, we will be on that and soon to be bidding fair well to Europe