Grand Finale Albania- Berat & Shkodra

So Albania is pretty crazy. One girl I met who's traveled all over the world for like 30 years or more, said it was like the wild west. And I thought she was overstating it. She said, "You don't realise it when you are there but then you leave and you realise how crazy it was." Well, she was right. I got to Montenegro, and couldn't believe how nice it was. With garbage trucks, and bus stations and honest fares.

On my ride from Berat to Tirana in Albania, I counted 51 bunkers. And that was just when I happened to be looking out the window. It was about a 3 hr ride. (I've read that there are 700,000 bunkers in Albania.) One bus ride, the girl next to me threw up six times in a bag. The roads and the poor quality of the buses are the cause... There's trash everywhere, and most things are half constructed. Looking at the quality of the work, I think it will be 10 years or more before the construction will be finished. That said, there are beautiful places, and it is very interesting. But I think it may be a country for the intrepid traveler, not your every day wanderer. That is just my opinion.


I am backtracking to the art in the Modern Art Museum of Tirana. I quite enjoyed the place... it was my favorite stop in Tirana. They had a lot of old commie art and interesting stories on the wall, and I was the only person inside. About 4 floors of art. Delightful.








Berat, an old Ottoman town south of Tirana.





Berat from above.

Castle on the hill. I was hand gesture talking with that sweet old man.


Entering the castle courtyard.

An old aquifer.






The pedestrian bridge to my hostel.

Albanian countryside.


The ghetto hotel I stayed in in Shkodra. For $10 a night.


I hand washed a few items that were really smelly and the sink started to fall out of the wall, but I pushed it back in and everything was A-OK!

Old men in the park. Shkodra.




I am scared of the dentist anyway, but this looks particularly sinister.

The hotel from the outside, and the front is where the cabbie feed tourist giant lies about there being no buses to Montenegro, and then try to sell you a taxi ride for 100 Euros.


Some really skinny people here.


And some really short people also.


In this square they played hideous music intermixed with singing prayers from the nearby mosque. I thought I was not going to sleep but I put in ear plugs and woke up the next morning. One must be a hardy sleeper if you are going to travel.

The view from the hotel window.

The hotel hall. Yes that is a sort of hole in the ceiling.

On the way to Montenegro, two buses could not fit on the road, so one had to back up quite a ways.

Albania: The capitol Tirana- a city under construction.

Waiting for the bus to take me to Albania. Struga, Macedonia.

A bit hot, but happy. I met a woman who had lived 14 years in Texas while waiting. She was back to help with her aging parents. It was a nice surprise.

The bus was very clean, and there were two drivers who switched off when we stopped. I think there was only one near accident. The roads are a bit sketch but not bad.

Fresh chickens, fresh dead chickens! Who wants one? (Not me!)

The street where my hostel was just off from.


There is a water container on the building- these are all over.

Actually this is also where I took the picture of the chickens earlier. I love the grey skies.

Maybe this is what happens to the chickens that don't sell!

Everything is half constructed, and looking at their methods, I think it will be about ten years before this area is completed.

But there are some nice walking areas. Even trendy parts of town.

The canal. A lot of bottles were floating through.

A park. Anyone need a rug?

No one pays attention to the streetlights. There are some traffic cops at particularly bad intersections, but mostly it is like crossing the road in Saigon or China--- find a native and cross with them. The Albanians are very sweet at helping and will make sure you get across safely.

Commie-era pyramid which you can climb and sort of slide down. (See the kids on top?) Both times I went it started raining, so I didn't get to go up.

We were trying to get to a bazaar, and ended up following locals through a short cut, which appeared to be a garbage dump. Saw lots of interesting things. Nothing I wanted to take home.

Albania went bunker crazy back in the 1960s so these are everywhere.

Two Wisconsin brothers who wished they could have slept in the bunker instead of our hostel.

I wanted the shirt on the lower right.

Have to give bipartisan representation since I posted the Bill Clinton sign.

It is hard to tell what their architectural plan is in this town.

The Museum of Art. It was amazing. 200Lek ($2) and I was the only one there. Will post photos later of the art.

Hidden in the back by the garbage were statues of Lenin and Stalin.

And some commie worker statues also. Much like the art inside.

Happy tourist. I mean traveler. Or whatever I am. Pilgrim. Homeless, jobless wanderer.

I went to the University here, and into the art dept, where music wafted through the art-adorned halls.

This means for sale. That's my umbrella in the reflection. It rains every day here in the afternoon but it cools the place off, so it's a good thing.