Day 80: A third-world country in Europe? - Berat, Albania

(Him: Charlie)

Albania is by far the most surprising country we have visited – I never expected how primitive and under-developed this country this. Unlike some of its neighbouring countries, Albania experienced virtually no armed conflicts since the WWII, so it came to a total surprise when a third-world country presented before me when I crossed the border from Montenegro.

(Tangled power lines in a residential neighbourhood in Tirana)

Albania doesn’t feel like Europe at all. It actually reminds me of Venezuela or Bolivia, for their poor roads, close to non-existent waste management (littering and garbage burning is literally everywhere), and ubiquitous half finished or half crumpled buildings.

“Winding mountain roads + bumpy roads full of pot holes = puking passengers”

Another problem we experienced in Albania is the annoyingly unorganized public transportation. The public transportation is so inadequate that it left a big gap for furgons (private vans) to shrive. The problem with these furgon is that they don’t have a fixed schedule and only leave until a van is filled up!!! Very annoying if you want to get to somewhere in a hurry – you might as well hitch-hike!

So looking back in the history of Albania, I attempted to find out the reason for such a poor state (In fact, Albania has consistently been the poorest country in Europe). While there may be many reasons that contributed to the present situation, I believe the biggest culprit was Albanian’s dictator Enver Hoxha. He is one of the worst, most selfish and coward leader, I’ve ever seen. Throughout his dictatorship regime, Hoxha switched the country’s alliance with different countries in response to his selfish needs and fear for losing power and control. Towards to the end of his ruling, he drove the country to extreme poverty in the name of “self-sufficiency”. As a result, the country had become so poor that, despite the long waited democracy arrived in the early 90s, hundreds of thousands of Albanians fled the country to Italy and Greece for a better life.

OK, despite the negative aspects of Albania, this country is well worth visiting – after all, it’s ranked the best destination to visit by Lonely Planet for 2011. Sandwiched between Croatia and Montenegro on the north and Greece on the south, embracing the crystal clear Ionian Sea and Adriatic Sea, Albania is amazingly beautiful. Here are some of the highlights.

Blue-Eye Spring - the source of an entire river. Fresh and cold water up to 10 m3/s gushes from deep below ground (more than 50 m deep) to form a river. It's an amazing phenomenon, but an even better place to cool down in the middle of the Balkan heat!

Butrint historic sites, and spectacular coastal landscape in southern Albania, close to the border with Greece.

Berat - a city with a thousand windows - a legacy from the Ottoman era.

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Something very peculiar about Albania – this poor country has many many luxury cars on the road – Mercedes mostly, BMW, Range Rover, etc. It’s not difficult to figure out where they came from since some of them still bear the original licence plate, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, etc. No wonder people joke about an Albania advertisement: “Come to Albania… your car is already here”.