---

'What the hell are you going to Kosovo for?' was a familiar question Michael and I received after telling people of our plans to visit this controversial country in the Balkans. Michael came up with the best answer to this query. “Because it's there.”

Kosovo hit the headlines in the 1990s for all the wrong reasons. Ethnic cleansing, NATO air strikes, Albanian refugees, and cries of war crimes against Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian President at the time, made the news worldwide. The region became synonymous with everything that was wrong in the Balkans. When the conflict ended, the UN installed peacekeepers to keep order but in 2008, Kosovo declared itself an independent nation and in doing so became the newest country in the world. Or did it? Serbia, of course, did not recognise the independence of Kosovo, and neither did Russia. As we travelled across the border from Macedonia, the issue was still unresolved.

According to the British Foreign Office website, Kosovo still had plenty of unexploded landmines about, and it advised us to avoid travelling off the beaten track. The website also told us to keep alert at all times, avoid any demonstrations, and to read the local media for any updates. Having said all that, it did mention that most visits to Kosovo were trouble free.

The bus journey from Skopje was uneventful. Our fellow passengers included some Kosovans, a man who had travelled from Istanbul, a woman who worked for the US government and a man carrying a car radiator as luggage. At the Macedonian border, the bus stopped and we handed our passports to a beautiful woman who wandered down the isles checking our faces matched the mugshots inside. When the passports were returned, I was disappointed to find mine hadn't been stamped. Mind you, it hadn't been stamped on the way into Macedonia either. We drove a few hundred metres through no man's land and then came to the Kosovan border. Military 4x4s sat parked just by the customs building, and once again our passports were taken, this time returning with a stamp. Whether it was coincidental or not, my stamp was placed over a previous one from Oman, a country that still did not recognise the country's independence. With a lurch we trundled into the Republic of Kosovo and then came to a juddering stop as the engine conked out. The border guards seemed to think it was funny, but we had the last laugh as a belch of cancerous smoke was left in our wake when we eventually carried on with our journey.

The border town was mainly made up of concrete factories together with their associated quarries. But this was not at all surprising considering the rebuilding going on to get the country back on track. At a little town further on, the man with the car radiator climbed out, and after he waved to the driver, we crawled off again, the bus becoming ever more sluggish. Our progress to Pristina was hindered even more by presence of a large lorry in front. The highway was only single lane and our bus did not possess the oomph to overtake the slower lorry ahead. I sat back and put on my iPod.

Kosovo appeared to be land of scrapyards. They were everywhere, crammed full of decrepit cars, but Kosovo was also lush and green, its countryside a patchwork of farms and hills. We reached the top of one such hill and then hit a stretch of highway sufficiently long enough for the driver to attempt an overtaking manoeuvre. Hitting full steam our driver gained momentum and pulled out into the other side. Slowly, we inched forward but unfortunately for us, the truck ahead turned out to be have a double trailer. I switched my iPod off as we crept forward to be parallel with the lorry. It was at this point that I saw another truck heading towards us from the opposite direction. Our driver put pedal to the metal to get past but our speed actually decreased! We had hit another dreaded incline! Thankfully, both lorry drivers quickly realised what was going to happen and both braked allowing us a precious second to slip in front. The bus settled down and we carried on with our journey.

Thirty kilometres from Pristina, the bus lurched to a sudden halt and the driver and conductor got out. After disappearing from sight for a few moments, they reappeared with a handful of tools which I knew wasn’t a good omen. A few passengers got off to have a cigarette and I went to buy a drink from a nearby shop. When I returned, the back compartment of the bus was open and some random bits of engine were lying on the ground. A fellow passenger went to speak with the driver and found out some bad news. “This bus is broken down,” he told me, relaying the news he had been given “It will not be repaired for a long time. But the driver says another bus will come soon.”

The man was correct because about ten minutes later the second bus pulled up and we all swapped vehicles. Soon we began a gentle descent into the outskirts of Pristina. The city was heavily in the grip of mass building work. Construction was going on everywhere, giving the whole place the look of a dirty overgrown building site. Divisions of JCBs were parked all over the place, and shops selling building materials were doing a roaring trade. Thirty minutes later we arrived in central Pristina, and as we pulled into the bus station, we could see some shiny new buildings. They stood out like flowers in a field of grey. Mind you, there must have been a job lot of shiny blue glass going spare, because most of these new buildings were covered in it.

Pristina had a heavy police presence. They patrolled the streets in vans or 4x4s. EU peacekeepers were in attendance too, German, Italian and Greek troops were only some of the soldiers we saw. A military helicopter flew overhead as we checked into the Pristina Grand Hotel, a place that had evidently seen better days.

Beautiful and beguiling are not words that would ever describe Pristina. Dusty, chaotic, and rather ugly would perhaps be a more fitting description. Pavements were cracked, roads potholed, concrete buildings charmless, and there were plenty of beggars. Some of these beggars were small children, curled up on the ground wailing as loudly as they could to attract attention. Despite all this, Pristina did have a certain something; it was just hard to find it amongst the disorder.

We stopped in one of the many bars that lined Boulevardi Nena Tereze, named after the famous nun. In fact her statue was located not far from where we sat enjoying the local beer, Birra Peja. Lots of men wearing suits wandered by, as did gorgeous girls wearing the most skin tight jeans known to man. The beer, I noticed, began its life in 1971, making it as old as me. Twenty minutes later we were off, quickly arriving at a statue of a man we had already seen in Tirana and Skopje.

“This Skanderbeg bloke gets around a bit,” said Michael as we circled the great man sat on his mighty steed. We’d already seen one in Tirana and in Skopje. “Maybe there's a job lot of them going about in the Balkans because I'm sure I saw one in Belgrade as well.”

Just past the long pedestrian walkway we came to a white metal fence lined with A4 photos of Kosovans missing since the conflict in 1999. Known as the Photos of the Missing, One photo showed a young man called Jahe Kamer Rukolli who was born in 1981. The young face that stared back at me looked full of hope. Today, if he was still alive, Jahe would be 28.

Kosovo had its fair share of Mosques. On the bus journey into the city we had seen quite a lot of them in the countryside. Most had silver domes, but others appeared to be missing their minarets. The American woman sat opposite Michael explained something about them. “During the crisis,” she told him, “the Serbs used the minarets for target practice. And because so many of the domes were damaged too, they decided to make the new ones from metal.” In contrast, the mosques of central Pristina all seemed to have their original parts intact.

The Carshi Mosque was actually Pristina's oldest building, dating from the 15th century, and just along from it was the Clock Tower, which unfortunately was under reconstruction. “What the hell is that thing?” Michael said, pointing to a concrete structure that seemed to jut out from the ground like an upside down dart. Before I could reply, he was off, forging a path through the traffic until we were face to face with the Monument of Brotherhood and Unity. Constructed during the time of Yugoslavia, the towering dart was actually three separate towers which joined near the top. Named so because it symbolised the unity of the three peoples of Kosovo, namely the Albanians, Turks and Serbs, the base of the monument was surrounded with barbed wire, perhaps to stop the locals from adding even more graffiti to the lower columns.

After a wander through the Bazaar, which was a hotbed of fruit, vegetables and endless cigarettes, we found a side street for something to eat. Just behind it was a strange billboard which attracted my attention. On it, a family was depicted wearing clothes that would've graced a C&A store in the early 90's. Dad was wearing jeans and a grey pullover, Mum sported short hair and a long frumpish blouse. One of the children was wearing jeans turned up at the ankle and the toddler, held in Dad's arms, was wearing a waistcoat. And the caption above it all? England Fashion! “Hey Michael,” I said. “We've got to go to this shop! We can finally become fashionable.”

I read something in a local English language newspaper. The article was about the latest country to recognise Kosovo's independence. “How many countries do you think recognises Kosovo's independence?” I asked Michael. I could see him thinking for a moment before guessing at twenty. “Wrong!” I crowed. “It’s sixty, and according to this, Bahrain is the latest.”

The USA was one of the first countries to recognise Kosovo as an independent nation, and to show their gratitude, they named a whole street after the then current president, Bill Clinton. His boulevard was a long stretch of road lined with shops and apartment blocks. Cars chugged their way along and people waited at bus stops like they did everywhere else in the city. After a fairly long walk we came to the massive face of Bill Clinton staring out across Pristina, It was placed high up on the side of a tower block above an advertisement for a brand of tea.

In other cities, the Palace of Youth and Sport would not even warrant a mention in a guide book, but with sights so few and far between, we headed for this most prime of Pristina's landmarks. Built in 1977 it was Yugoslavian architecture at its very best. The abnormality, featuring concrete jutting out at strange angles, was home to a shopping centre, a cinema and a sports hall. “And that man there,” Michael told me, gesturing to a huge photo of a bearded gentleman holding a gun, “is Adem Jashari, the UCK commander who was killed by the Serbian Police. They also killed most of his family and he's a local hero to Kosovans.”

The rear of the building was popular for young couples, who sat kissing on the numerous benches, or else stood against the walls that hid them from view. At the front of building there were seven large yellow letters made from steel, spelling out the word NEWBORN, signifying Kosovo's independence. Graffiti covered every inch of the letters, but this wasn't your average vandalism, no, this graffiti was produced by thousands of people celebrating the country’s independence, even politicians had signed their names.

Mayonnaise does not sound like the sort of substance that would become my nemesis, but it did nonetheless. And it became a worthy foe, coming close to victory on one notable occasion. Though I can't pinpoint the time when my aversion to the satanic mixture of oil and eggs that masqueraded itself as a sandwich dressing manifested itself, in Kosovo, whatever food I got, mayonnaise wasn't far behind. In one cafe, I foolishly ordered a hot dog, thinking it would be just a bun with a frankfurter. But I was hopelessly wrong; the round bread bun with a bit of Balkan sausage was drenched in the stuff. There was no way in the world I could even take a bite it and so I made Michael eat half of it once he'd finished his own. Still hungry, we found another cafe and I made ordered another hot dog, this time without mayonnaise.

“Without mayonnaise,” answered the waiter and so I sat back to wait, licking my chops in anticipation of the meal ahead. The level of mayonnaise saturation on this new hot dog was worse than the last. Gooey white stuff oozed from the edge of the bread and made a smacking sound as tried to prize it open. I cursed the mayonnaise to Michael, damned the inventor of the stuff to drown in a vat of his own creation.

“Just tell them you ordered it without Mayonnaise,” Michael suggested. “It's their mistake, not yours. And besides you must be starving.” but I shook my head. I was downtrodden, beaten by a white and creamy foe. But then as Michael quite rightly pointed out, I was hungry and so I told a passing waiter that I had ordered my hot dog without mayonnaise.

“Without mayonnaise,” said the new waiter as he collected by uneaten mayonnaise dog, and remarkably, ten minutes later a new hot dog arrived, this time free of the evil substance.

With the distant sound of thunder on the horizon, Michael and I made a mad dash to our final sight for the day. But along the way we took a shortcut through a field filled with the sounds of crickets. They even overshadowed the never ending traffic of central Pristina. In the middle of this wasteland we came across two quite extraordinary sights. The first was the National Library, looking like no other library I'd ever seen. It looked like a megalomaniac's idea of a nuclear bunker, the black exterior covered in some of armoured protection. Nearby was the abandoned Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a concrete shell of a church. The Serbs had begun construction in 1995, just before the hostilities broke out and then building stopped. During the conflict, Ethnic Albanians living in Pristina saw the cathedral as a focal point of the Serb domination and began to vandalise the unfinished cathedral. The UN eventually stepped in and surrounded it with barbed wire, which remains to this day.

Up a steep road lay our final sight, the National Martyr's Monument. After the lung-collapsing trek up to it, I was in need of Martyrdom myself, wheezing and coughing like an asthmatic. The monument was a structure to commemorate a group of partisans who had died during the Second World War. Like most other Yugoslav monuments, graffiti adorned the concrete edifice, but from the top, a fairly good view of the city below could be seen. Just behind it was Ibrahim Rugova's Grave.

Rugova was the chain smoking, cravat wearing former President of Kosovo. Diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 61, he spent his final five days furiously puffing way on one cigarette after the other. His passing caused great scenes of mourning among his loyal subjects, and people lined the streets as his funeral car swept past. Rugova was the man credited with bringing all the different parties involved in the Kosovoan crisis together, and it was down to him, say his proud citizens, that paved the way for an independent nation.

The Grand Hotel, our place of stay, was an ugly concrete block, topped with a pathetic neon sign that only illuminated some of the letters at night. While a violent thunderstorm raged outside, Michael and I had no option but to sit in the lobby bar where I took the opportunity to watch our fellow guests. Most of them looked business like, all suited up and sat at laptops. Others looked more casual, but I guessed that they were either journalists or photographers, judging by the bulky leather bags they carried. Dark haired men wearing leather jackets wandered around in pairs, and these type of men could be seen everywhere in Pristina, coming out of shops, sitting in cafes and getting off buses. Leather jackets, in fact, seemed to the be the favoured fashion accessory for the local men. As I sat watching a pair of leather-jacketed men wander past, a large party of beautiful girls arrived. Each and every one of them was dressed to the nines, and some could hardly walk in their heels. Some wore dresses so clingy that they had to totter about almost robot like. There were young men in attendance too, and I got up to ask a Spanish journalist, who seemed have been propping up the bar for a while, what was happening.

“It is a graduation ceremony,” the man told me. “They are meeting here and then will be going for a meal and then a party.” After sitting back down, I told Michael that I didn't think we'd be invited to the party and so, with the storm easing, we headed outside for something to eat, eventually settling for a small establishment specialising in grasshopper pizzas. We passed on those and plumped for some pasta with mushrooms.

The next morning was our final day of our Balkan Odyssey. It was raining and windy, reminding us very much of the weather back in the UK. My hat, which had previously been used as a sun stopper, was now being utilised as a rain shield, and with the weather putting us off walking around, we decided to visit a couple of museums.

The first one was the Ethnographic Museum and because of the downpour, we ended up having the museum to ourselves. We were shown around by a young woman who took us to a room filled with mannequins dressed in old clothes. “These are traditional costumes of women in Western Kosovo,” she informed us. “And this next room was for men only.” The museum was basically an old house and despite the best efforts of the guide, I soon became bored. Thankfully, Michael seemed to like it and so we wandered across to another building and saw some swords and a gnarled branch that looked like a snake.

The Kosovo Museum was a larger and grander affair, housed in a yellow villa that was used by the Yugoslav army until 1975. It was only five minutes away from where we had been. Upstairs was another collection of pots, small weapons and the prized Goddess on a Throne statue, which was 6000 years old according to the information written near it. One caption caught Michael's eye and he pointed it out to me. It mentioned a group of barbarians called the Bastards. According to the placard, the Bastards liked fighting, but after a great battle, the Bastards were sent packing. Downstairs was a gallery of photos, and as began perusing them, a man in his late thirties approached us.

He turned out to be a photography tutor to deaf teenagers. The kids in question were all hanging around the periphery of the large room, digital cameras at the ready. “I am so proud of the children,” he told us. “They have worked so hard for this exhibition.” He pointed to a photo of the lower half of a woman's leg. She was walking a small white dog. “Please look closely here,” he told us. “Notice where the focus is. It is on the paw of the lower leg. And also notice the symmetry of the cobblestones where the line of the woman's leg meets them.”

As we looked at other photos, the man gave a commentary about each, while in the background his students circled like paparazzi, snapping off photos left right and centre. It was slightly off putting to be honest, but we accepted the attention with good grace, and I made sure I posed thoughtfully at some photos, my hand resting on my chin in the most intellectual pose I cold muster.

By mid afternoon, our trip to Pristina, and the Balkans was over. We headed back to the airport to catch our flights back to the UK, negotiating the building site that masqueraded itself as the airport road. As we inched through the log jam of traffic, I looked back on the previous five days with great fondness. Tirana had been friendly and colorful. We had negotiated hairpin bends in the mountains en route to Macedonia. We had visited monasteries overlooking the beautiful Lake Ohrid and had diced with death climbing a clock tower in Skopje. We had broken down in Kosovo, and had been photographed by school children in Pristina. And when we went through airport security at Pristina's small international airport, and I got questioned about why I had been in Kosovo, I simply told the truth. “I've been here as a tourist.” The man looked at me for a while before asking if I though I’d ever return.

I smiled and told him I didn't know. “But I've enjoyed it here. And I think more people will eventually start coming.” The man passed my passport and bid me farewell. It was time to fly back to the UK.

Strengths:
-Cheap (except for the Grand Hotel room prices!)
-Friendly people
-It feels very safe
-You know you're somewhere where history is still being made

Weaknesses:
-Not a pretty city by any stretch of the imagination
-Potholes and cracked pavements
-Not many sights as such
-The airport road is a total building site
-Mayonnaise

---