trying to tour Tirana to Ulcinq

It's time to leave Albania. There are decent bus connections out of Tirana to all of the countries Albania shares a border with - except one. That one is the recently independent Montenegro, on the coast directly north. And that’s annoying because that is where I want to go next. The two nations are not on the best neighbourly terms, for reasons I have yet to fathom. However, from scattergun research, I believe it is possible to get across the border from the northern city of Shkodra.

Supposedly, I read, there are buses there that meet the “furgons” from Tirana. Every country around the eastern Med has its own word for minibus. Turks make do with “dolmus” while you need to take a “sherut” to get around in Israel. Here in Albania, its a "furgon". A furgon is simply a van with eight to ten seats that doesn’t set off for its destination until every seat is full. Because of this, a set arrival time is no furgon conclusion and I’m happy to take a proper coach to Shkodra which gets me in at 10am. I’m hoping then that somehow I will be able to find the bus to Ulcinq (the first town across the border in Montenegro).

This is easier said than done as Albania does not believe in bus stations, and you have to be aware of where people congregate which is often at makeshift shelters. The other problem I have is conflicting information. One source tells me there are supposedly two or three buses a day to Ulcinq though I read elsewhere there is only one, and that leaves at 9am, worryingly an hour before I am due to arrive. And I don’t really want to stay in Ulcinq itself as there is not much there, but I might have to if I get there late.

The following morning I set off from Tirana. Encouragingly the bus leaves on time at 8am. It is barely 80km between Albania’s two largest cities but the journey takes two hours on crowded and narrow two-lane roads. But it eventually arrives in the centre of Shkodra at 10am. I ask the driver where I might find a bus to Montenegro. He grunts and points in the direction of a large hotel on the other side of the busy square where we park.

But I am barely half way across the road when I’m accosted by a taxi driver who speaks English.
“Montenegro?” he said, “Ulcinq?”
Maybe, I replied hesitantly, clearly unnerved by his prescience.
“I take you there for 30 euro”. This is at least four or five times the price of the bus there.
I shake my head and say “No, I’ll take the bus”.
“Bus is gone,” he said. “9 o'clock”.
“But there must be another one later today?”
"No", he replied, "not till 9 tomorrow”.

I was not sure whether to believe him but his words did tally with the more pessimistic information I’d received the day before. And even if there was a second bus, it was likely not to being going until late afternoon. Then there is problem of actually proving there was a second bus with little or no customer information available. At least this guy could get me over the border quickly and I had a chance of getting on to one of the nicer Montenegrin places like Budva or Kotor tonight. So I tried haggling.
“20 euros,” I said.
“no, no, 30” he insisted.
So I started to walk on towards the hotel.
This has a reaction. “25 euros, lowest price”, he said. I think about this some more and finally accept the 25 euro fare. The advantages outweigh the expensive disadvantage and the uncertainty of the bus.

And so we set out for Montenegro. The first obstacle was the long single lane bridge over the river that leads north out of Shkodra. From here there were signposts telling the distance to all points north including Dubrovnik, Belgrade and even Vienna, some 1,200kms away. But never mind Vienna, it was proving difficult enough to get one kilometre out of town. The rule of this particularly road was whoever got to the halfway point of the bridge first had right of way. The loser had to reverse all the way back to the side he or she came from. It can become hairy when drivers on both side put the pedal down in that elusive race to get to the middle first. My driver failed on the first attempt and swore profusely in Albanian, but otherwise accepted the outcome as he reversed back muttering darkly all the while.

The second attempt was more promising and he easily made the middle ground first and even got two-thirds of the way across when confronted with the other driver. But hold on, the other driver and the driver behind her got out to remonstrate with my driver and after much shouting and gesticulating it seemed somehow they won. There was even more swearing and a shrug of the shoulders. “Ach, Albania!” he said to be me as he reversed back once more. I just smiled back. I didn’t understand why it was still his obligation to reverse until the two cars came across and one was towing the other. So normal reversing rules could not apply.

At the third attempt, my swearing Albanian made it over the river, sending another non-towing car reversing back to the opposite side. I was then surprised how quickly we made it to the border, it was only about 5 or 6kms away. At the border the driver unscrewed his Albanian taxi sign and had to cough up five euros to get into Montenegro. It cost me nothing with my EU passport.

We quickly made it on another 15km to Ulcinq bus station where I thanked him and handed over the 25 euros we’d agreed. But he wanted more. “Border visa“ he said, darkly. “Five euro”. Ah, I didn’t look at the fine print of the contract, it seemed I would have to pay his visa and he would get his 30 euro after all. I wasn’t happy but he agreed to accept the balance out of my otherwise worthless collection of Albanian leks, which, given the testy relations between the two countries, probably would have been too difficult to exchange anyway. I gave him the money and sent back to his Shkodra bridge race. I was now at a real bus station, with real information and hopefully a real timetable that would see me end up in Budva or Kotor for the night.

Talking Tirana

Having established myself for the night at Pedro’s gracious accommodation, it was time to discover Tirana. The city lies in the shadow of Mount Djat and is a surprisingly neat and well laid out town with plenty of colourful architecture to admire. The capital of Albania is an oddball city, typically post-Communist and full of contradictions. Beggars line the streets next to a bevy of Mercedes (Albania’s most popular car, all smuggled across the border from Montenegro). A good meal and a beer can be had for $3 next door to a $US3000 a night hotel. Garish casinos are sited next to Stalinist government buildings that look like local versions of an Orwellian Ministry of Truth.

Outside the museum is a heroic mural that is supposedly a panoply of Albanian history. Ancients with shields and swords stand side by side with 20th century peasants and thinkers while farmhands with raised fists march forward towards independence or EU subsidies, depending on one’s imagination. In the centre of the painting, a white dressed woman holds aloft a rifle while her male companion waves the Albanian flag. It’s not hard to guess who wears the trousers in that revolutionary relationship.

Inside the museum, exhibits tell the story of Albania from Neolithic to modern times. It was always an important stomping ground on the way south or north through the Adriatic coast, though its many mountains made it mostly fiercely impenetrable. The Illyrians established a capital in the northern city of Shkodra and ruled until they were knocked off their perch by the Romans. Then known as the province of Epirus Nova, Albania remained in Roman hands for six centuries. It was inherited by the Byzantines and the Ottomans and remained an important but externally governed province until the 20th century. That was apart from the brief interlude in the 15th century when the “Dragon of Albania”, Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, successfully held off the Ottomans for 20 years. Skanderbeg is the nation’s greatest hero and his impressive statue dominates the square named for him in the centre of Tirana.

In 1912 Albania gained independence as the Ottoman Empire collapsed amid the Balkan wars. Its neighbours did not take kindly to this and a coalition of Christian forces from Montenegro, Serbia and Greece launched a war against the new entity. Albania was formally recognised as a nation after the second Balkan War a year later.

Founded in the 17th century, Tirana is a relatively young city by Albanian standards. It was not until 1920 that it became the capital. It wasn’t an easy time for the citizens of Tirana. For four years the city was pounded by the Serbian army and forces loyal to ousted Prime Minister Ahmet Zogu who was later to give himself royal delusions as King Zog I. Zog was a lucky, if hated, man. He survived no less than 55 assassination attempts including one time where he returned fire at his would-be killers. But having been supported by Mussolini, the Italians demanded more power and when Zog refused, Il Duce’s forces invaded and forced Zog into exile.

In World War II Mussolini used Albania as his launching pad to attack Greece. When that ended badly, the Germans took over in both countries. A local resistance organisation grew to defend Albania from the Italians and then Germany. Led by the French-educated Enver Hoxha, the resistance movement was extraordinarily successful and overthrew the German regime without Soviet support. Albania also protected its Jews and was the only country in Europe to have more Jews at the end of the war than it had at the beginning.

Hoxha had also supported the Yugoslav resistance and was helped into post-war power by a grateful Tito. He instituted his own form of Communism but Albania gradually became more isolated as Hoxha accused Yugoslavia of interference. He would lead the nation until his death in 1985. He became increasingly weird the older he got. He built 750,000 bunkers across the country in case of war. He banned beards. In 1978 his Code of Lekë made women property of their husbands stating: A woman is known as a sack, made to endure as long as she lives in her husband's house.

The fate of women and sacks remained precarious through the uncertain times of the late 1980s. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the country made cautious moves towards reform. The Communists were routed in elections. Albania, like many of its neighbours, is now dealing with life as a full tilt capitalist country. The currency is still the lek, though the euro is accepted in many places. Tirana remains a very cheap city though as it works out how to attract tourists, that will quickly change. For now Tirana, like Albania as a whole, is in transition. The old certainties are gone - though perhaps nothing was certain under the unstable Hoxha.

Entering Shqipëria

My first test in Albania was the toilets. The overnight bus from Athens had crossed the border an hour ago and the driver decided to stop at a mountain inn for refreshments. Sixty minutes of heavily potholed roads had left me in need of bathroom and I dragged myself off the bus to find the facilities. It was freezing cold outside, a shock to the system after the warmth of Greece and the Middle East.

I found the toilets easily enough, the problem was the choice. There were two doors; one marked “burra” and one marked “gra”. But which was I – a burra or a gra? There was no symbol to go with the words that might have helped. Burra sounded a bit like boy or brother but I had no faith in such transliteration of the Albanian language.

I knew full well the trap the unwary fall into in Ireland when confronted with the anagrammatically upsetting “mná” (women) and the feminine sounding “fir” (men). So I stealthily opened the door marked “burra” and peered inside. The lights were off and there were no, ahem, distinguishing features inside. I hesitated further only to finally have blushes spared as a man from the bus behind me marched confidently through the “burra” door. Aha, I’m a burra, bro!

I certainly needed the toilet. We were still some hours away from Tirana. Albania may be a small country but the multitude of mountains and the poor quality of the roads make for slow travel. The six-lane (I initially typed this as six-land, clearly affected by travel) motorways that took us north from Athens are a distant dream, though dreaming was a rare commodity as I did not get much sleep in the 14 hour trip.

It had been a long day. This particular day actually started at 2.30am two countries and two days ago. My flight out of Tel Aviv was at 7am but I knew I needed to allow three hours to get through tight Israeli security. Wanting to save a cab fare, I walked 40 minutes to get the train to the airport; hence the 2.30am alarm start. I stayed the night in a Tel Aviv hostel and there wasn’t much sleep beforehand anyway as my mostly Israeli roommates were in a mood for conversation until midnight.

I got about two and half hours sleep and got up again. I had done the walk earlier so I knew where I was going but this time it was with wheelie luggage. Today was the day I regretted not going the backpack. The pain was forgotten at the train station and the search there was light by Israeli standards. A sleek train got me to Ben Gurion on time.

I got through the fine tooth comb checks of Israeli airport security with stoic and bleary-eyed indifference and reading before we finally boarded the flight. We landed in Athens two hours later where the immigration policeman barely glanced at my passport. He would never get a job at Ben Gurion.

In Athens I knew from previous experience where to seek out the Albanian bus lines. And so for €35, I was booked onto the bus to Tirana leaving at 6pm. I busied myself with a day of ancient Athenian antiquities before we finally got underway. I was the only non-Albanian on the bus. The other passengers quickly got through passport control at the border into Shqipëria (what the locals prefer to call Albania). I was held up with paperwork but was finally given a visa for the princely sum of €1 (it had been reduced from €10 at the start of 2008, presumably to encourage more tourism).

The bus finally got into Tirana at what I thought was 8am. Except, it turned out to be 7am. Only later did I find out we moved into Central European Time when we crossed the border. I wanted to stay at the recently opened Tirana Backpackers Hostel which had gotten some good reviews on the internet. I didn’t have a map of Tirana but I had an address “85 Rruga Elbasanit” (Rruga means street in Albanian) and the knowledge that it was reasonably central. So when the bus finally reached Tirana, I went up to the bus driver and said “Rruga Elbasanit?” in my most inquisitive voice. He made a grunty hand signal that amounted to “straight ahead, then veer left”.

I asked several more people along the way. All bar one kept me going in the same direction (the odd man out must have misheard me as he tried to send me back in the direction of the bus). I walked through Tirana’s main square, named for its 15th century nationalistic hero Skanderbeg (and whose statue prominently adorns the square) before finally veering left as promised. It didn’t help that Tirana didn’t seem to bother with signs for street names or street numbers. But I kept faith in the pointing and my constant questioning refrain of Rruga Elbasanit. I kept rolling those first two r's whether I was supposed to or not) and kept asking. Sure enough after about my tenth or 12th victim, I was in Rruga Elbasanit. Before too long I found the hostel at number 85. There I was greeted by a friendly bearded Swiss gentleman named Pedro who made me feel quite at home. I had a feeling I was going to like Tirana.

Bush at home in the Balkans

After running the gauntlet of protests in Germany and Poland, US President George W Bush is enjoying a better reception on his two day to the Balkans. Bush is now in Bulgaria, on the second leg of his Balkans tour after his astonishingly successful eight hour visit to Albania. In Sofia, the greeting was more low key, but is also expected to be cordial as Bulgaria is now a member of NATO, hosts several US military installations and has agreed to extend its small Iraqi deployment through to the end of 2008. The only cloud on the horizon is the US decision not to deploy its missile defence shield in the country.

On Monday, Bush will have a day of talks with Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov and Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev. The country’s government hopes to change Bush’s mind about excluding southern Europe from the defence shield. The country is also worried by the clash between Bush and Russian President Putin over the shield. Bulgaria can see both sides of the quarrel as a former loyal ally of the Soviet Union and now an emerging EU democracy and may have a role to play in placating their Slavic big brother.

But however cordial the welcome in Bulgaria, it will be unlikely to match the extraordinary scenes of presidential adulation in Albania. George Bush may have record-low approval rating at home, but in Tirana he could do no wrong. His short visit was the first ever by a US president to this mostly Muslim country. Bush was greeted by Prime Minister Ali Berisha who described him as the "greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times".

Bush was greeted like a conquering hero when he went for a walkabout on the streets of the capital Tirana. People clamoured to get close to him and clapped and cheered, many wearing cardboard Uncle Sam hats and carrying signs saying Albania welcomes President Bush. Officials matched the warmth of the country’s people by awarding Bush the Order of the Flag medal, putting his image on a postage stamp and renaming a street in front of the parliament in his honour.

Bush responded in kind by signalling he was running out of patience with Russia’s stalling on the independence of Kosovo. The mostly-Albanian populated former province of Serbia has been run under the auspices of the UN and NATO since the war in 1999 but Russia rejected calls for its full independence at the G8 summit in Germany last week. Bush played to his Albanian audience by saying "Sooner rather than later you've got to say `Enough's enough - Kosovo is independent.”

Like Bulgaria, Albania has troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has tripled its troop numbers in Afghanistan to 140, and has about 120 troops in Iraq. Albania hopes the visit will help the country’s bid to join NATO and the EU. Government spokesman Grid Roy said it was the primary goal of the government and 94 percent of Albanians support integration into the international organisations. The country with its population of 3.5 million remains desperately poor and subject to mass emigration.

Albania emerged as a national identity out of the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century local intellectuals standardized the Albanian language which was a unique mixture of Latin, Greek, and Slavic dialects, in process creating a literary style for educational use. Albania gained local autonomy in 1911 and used the Balkan Wars of the following two years to gain full independence. But it came at a cost, the Kosovo province was ceded to Serbia.

After World War I, the newly created Kingdom of Yugoslavia backed Albanian chieftain Ahmed Bey Zogu believing him to be a pliable tool of Belgrade. But Zogu had his own ambitions become Prime Minister in 1924 and turning himself into King Zog in 1928. Zog looked to Italy for support and over the next 15 years Albania would become a pawn of Mussolini’s Fascist empire. The Italian military overthrew him in 1939 and ruled the country directly until defeated in 1944.

Internal resistance against the Italians and Nazis was formed a communist insurgency led by Enver Hoxha. Hoxha got crucial British support in 1944 to take control of the newly independent Albania. He installed a Marxist government and ruthlessly suppressed all opposition. For the next 40 years he pursued an increasingly isolationist policy with first Stalin and then Mao, as his only distant ally. Hoxha died in 1985 and the country underwent significant upheaval as Communism fell apart in Eastern Europe at the end of the decade.

In 1990 Albania reorganised itself into a multiparty democracy. The EU was quick to support its process of institutional, political and economic reform. Since then, the country has set a path towards a market-based economy. Initially the country went backwards with much economic hardship as government run enterprises stalled. The entire industrial sector collapsed shortly after Albania emerged from communism, triggering an exodus of 300,000 people to Italy and Greece. In 1997, the country descended into anarchy following the collapse of fraudulent pyramid investment schemes

In 2000, at Summit Zagreb the country joined the rest of the Western Balkan nations in signing a crucial stabilisation and association process agreement with the EU. The EU reaffirmed its commitment at the 2003 Thessaloniki Summit to the integration into the Union of the countries of the Western Balkans. Albania’s growing westernisation is also underscored by its desire to join NATO. While meeting Bush, Prime Minister Berisha said the country would increase its defence budget by 2 per cent. A beaming Bush will gladly accede, if only for the chance to repeat an increasingly rare positive photo opportunity.