Bagel Belly Blog

Albania

So I survived my trip to Albania, and I'm back in Amsterdam again. While I wait for iPhoto and flickrexport to do their thing, I'll post my thoughts.

First of all, as usual, I loved Tirana. No real surprise there - I've yet to travel to a new city that I actively disliked. Throw in some sunshine, and as far as I'm concerned you have a winning recipe. I'd like to publicly thank the wonderful folks at OSS Watch, who passed on my name to the UNDP, since none of them were able to make it.

The workshops seemed to go ok, and I had a fair amount of time in the afternoons and evenings to explore the city. I must have walked quite a few miles during the days I was there, and I think I saw pretty much all of the city centre. It's a huge city and quite spread out.

The UNDP's office was based in the Sky Tower, an eighteen storey tower block with a convenient terrace on top, from which I took many photos. It was just a few streets away from my hotel, which made for a very pleasant walk in the mornings and afternoons. Hotel Broadway itself was excellent, I'd have no hesitation recommending it to anyone else heading to Tirana. Spacious clean rooms, and friendly staff.

Most of the people I saw in Tirana were smiling, happy, and friendly. This, despite the fact that it's one of the poorest countries I've ever been to, second only to Ethiopia (oh, 43places is great by the way - you can see an updated map of where I've been, that's somewhat slicker than the world66 version used in that travel meme). The difference even between Serbia and Albania was stark - Albania is still struggling with some basic infrastructure issues whilst Serbia seems to mostly have those covered. For example, just counting the number of backup electricity generators you can see in each country gives you a feel for how well things are(n't) going.

So it's ironic that people in Albania seemed happier than in Serbia. Maybe it was the warmer climate (I certainly felt happier there). That's not to say the Serbians were miserable - they weren't, they were incredibly hospitable - just that Albanian life seemed more relaxed.

Tirana was a city with several faces. Early morning, it felt brisk and snappy as people hurried to their jobs. By mid-afternoon, it was coffee time, with everyone sitting back relaxing. After dark, the city totally changed appearance with neon everywhere and throngs of people walking up and down the streets, talking and laughing.

There was of course an ugly side to the city as well. The less fortunate live in extremes of poverty far worse than in so called developed countries. It was a common sight to see young children sorting through garbage bins looking for cardboard boxes that would make convenient houses. Or the romany gypsies living on the edge of the city in single-room houses built from whatever other people had thrown away. I'm sure many people have written far more eloquently about this than I can, so I'll say no more.

To summarise, Albania is a fascinating place full of wonderful people, and well worth a visit. I've uploaded an Albania set of pictures to flickr which hopefully give a feel for the place.