Ben Welsher | Writings

Schkodrä/Dubrovnik - 28/08/2010 Today we have some moving to do. Our exit from Albania wasn't as rapid as I had originally envisioned though I am glad of it. We have found it to be a country quite unlike that imagined. Far from the gloomy, rubbled remains of a country where there was the iron fist of socialism sans velvet glove, it comes across a poor but honest place that will hopefully see an increase in tourism and prosperity in years to come (without losing its character). A cold shower whilst balancing over a toilet (the hazards of hosteling) was a bracing start to the day and once I had got over the minor trauma of waking with a tongue as black as coal it was time to bid farewell. We zigzagged up the coast between mountain to our right and sea our left. The first bus took us over the border to Ulcinj in Montenegro, our 4th country. Swift, unremarkable connections to Budva and then Herceg Novi followed and then the final leap into Croatia. The queue at the border was a great...

Tirana/Schkodra - 27/08/2010 A word of advice here, should an earplug dislodge itself during the night, do not pop it into your mouth and chew it like a tasty treat, it most certainly is not. Our bus north did not depart until the afternoon so with a few hours to waste we ate a leisurely breakfast of the local speciality byrek (a cheese filled triangular pastry) outside the mosque while the Muezzin warmed up. The Museum of National History provided a comprehensive if at times scattered record of Albania's past and its hero Skanderbeg's defiance of the Ottomans. Our green, German-engineered steed stood behind the train station in readiness for the journey to Schkodra. Whilst what sounded like one of Hitler's Nuremberg orations blared out of the buse's speakers we sped through Tirana's suburbs. One of the contrasts in these countries (imho) is that the people seem unburdened by strictured regulation. Onerous rules are not devised, unnecessary laws are not obeyed. The...