Albania - Graeme Robin - Travel

Karen and Compass, Phe and Me - On Roads without Lines

Graeme Robin ...Travel in Albania

(This journey is available in full in BOOK 4, available soon)

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About me I was born in 1937, married Barbara in 1963, but lost her to a dreadful cancer 43 years later. I felt as if the world had stopped. Life was suddenly not as precious as it had been. I didn’t care much. But a change sort of evolved. I travelled to Europe. I bought an old car. Then a GPS. Then a compass. That made four of us – Karen (the robot voice on the GPS) and Compass (just that), Phe (for Fiat - a 1993 lefthand drive diesel sedan) and Me. Suddenly it was “we” and not “I”’. We started to drive around Scandinavia, Iceland the Arctic Circle and into Russia all the time avoiding the major roads and highways as far as possible – in other words, On Roads Without Lines. We were just wandering around on winding, single lane roads often unsealed, through small towns and villages, seeing the people at their normal everyday lives and work. Trying to get a feel for each country - to put a tag on it. I took a lot of photos and kept a daily journal. So a book evolved. Had this suddenly put meaning back into my life? It felt good so instead of selling Phe at the end of the first four months I kept her for another four months of journeying this time behind what used to be the “Iron Curtain” and another book evolved. It felt good so instead of selling Phe at the end of the second four months I kept her for another four months of journeying this time around Spain Portugal and Morocco and another book evolved. It felt good so instead of selling Phe at the end of the third four months I kept her for another four months of journeying this time to the Italy the Middle East and the Balkans and another book has evolved. All have been marvellous experiences of discovery - so good that I would like it to continue for the rest of my life! How long is this old bugger going to last!

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

We are a group of four. There is Phe (for Fiat) and Me of course, and also that delightful bird, Karen, the female Australian voice on the GPS who guides us through all the lanes and streets and roads and highways of the world - well not quite the whole world but certainly the maps of a big chunk of Europe are in her stupendous memory. Then there is Compass - just that, a compass - and his job is to fetch us out of trouble when Karen has a sleep, or the hot flushes or whatever. It’s a great foursome and we have been through some terrific places together - and been lost a lot of times too. Karen and Compass, Phe and Me. Right now we are half way through our 2010 journey heading for the Middle East but not by an easy route unfortunately. I thought there may have been a car ferry running from Tunis or from Sicily into Egypt but no such luck. Then there was the bright idea of driving around the Mediterranean through Libya which would be great - right to the border of Egypt. But I need to have a visa. While we were in Tunisia I found out that the Libyan Consulate at Sfax is the place to go, so I did, and after sitting and waiting for three hours, and after writing them a letter (it had to be in Arabicbut that’s another story) I was told to come back the following Monday! So we went and wandered around Tunisia for another 5 days and returned the following Monday. The wait was not quite as long this time - maybe two and a half hours - and then the bloke came out and told me I should come back on Wednesday week! Not even next Wednesday but Wednesday week! I was pissed off! Very pissed off!

Albania

Albania - One of the ‘Bad Lands’ not so long ago

How many times since then, have I thought about those bureaucrats at that Libyan consulate – the ones who just delight in rattling the chains of us poor would-be visitors to their country. I can just imagine when that bloke got home from work and his wife said “Have you had a good day dear?” and he would burst out with “Good day!, Good day!, I had a ripper! I told this old Aussie guy who had already waited a week for his visa that he will have to come back in ten days time. Well he banged the desk, and yelled at me and poor old Boris the security muscle almost pissed himself with pleasure at the sight of it. Then he stomped out and slammed the door so hard the consul himself came down to join in the fun! This is the best job in the world for me.” And the wife replied, “I hope he isn’t a friend of Colonel Gadaffi dear – they reckon he has one or two friends in Australia”. So we packed it in and drove back to the east coast of Italy and a ferry across the Adriatic to Albania. We will have a good look at Albania then exit for a quick, straight, long, drive across Greece and Turkey to Iran. I have been told that Iran is a pretty country that is well worth visiting. So that’s the plan at the moment.

From Italy to Albania Friday 10th September 2010 It’s a strange thing but there are three different ferries from three different companies all heading for Durres in Albania, leaving Bari in Italy around the same time and all arriving at the same time. The ferry I chose – simply because its was the first office inside the door of the terminal, had very few passengers – maybe nineteen other cars with Phe on the car deck – although it did disturb me when they tied Phe down. She has had a hell of a lot of rides on ferries and has never had to be tied down before. But this ferry is clean, and I have a cabin with two bunks – just like a youth hostel – so a couple of beers while I write this journal and off to bed straight after we left at eleven. It was close to eight the next morning when we sailed through Albanian customs. There were so few formalities, just hand over the passport and Phe’s papers and within two minutes we were out on the morning streets of the town. And isn’t it strange to think that this country with no visa requirement, no forms to fill in and such a quick simple entry procedure, only a very short time ago (1991) was a fully paid up member of the world’s communist regimes. Even today entry into the likes of Russia and Belarus, and the Ukraine are all very difficult and long-winded, yet this tiny nation has been able to shed all of those bureaucratic hangups and move into the open society of the world. Great.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

And as we drive through the quiet mornings traffic of this port city of Durres, I find other things to like about Albania right from the kick-off. The sight of a bloke squatting on the footpath in front of a fine set of bathroom scales mounted on a clean sheet of white paper. He was hiring out his scales to anyone who wanted to know their weight. The driving is easy – it is quiet, it’s slow, they don’t jump in, so different to driving in Italy. How the Italians get on when they come over here with their cars I don’t know. I wonder if they go home with a different slant on the world of driving. Somehow I doubt it. There are two tasks that must be attended to. Find an ATM and get some local money and then buy a map. As it happens Karen is along for the ride in this country, as I have the feeling that she has only a few of the most basic major roads in her map memory, so a road map plus Compass will be essential. The ATM speaks English – which is one up on Tunisia where it only spoke Arabic or French – and as usual it gives a choice of amounts. Petrol prices were around the 130 leks as against 1.30 euro in Italy so it looks as though there may be 100 leks to the euro – so I pick the figure of 50,000 leks and it fills the wallet. I’m rich! The petrol stations are usually the place for maps but the first I tried had four blokes out on the concrete apron trying to work out what it was I wanted to buy. I showed them the map of Italy, and North Africa and said “Albania” but the penny just wouldn’t drop. It was still before nine but a travel agent was open and there was a spot to park Phe nearby so I asked him – he had great English – and he said the ‘bookshop’ across the road or a bigger one up at the end of the street. He said ‘bookshop’ but what he meant was a kiosk on the footpath which sold magazines, and smokes and all manner of other things through a small window in the front. It doesn’t matter - I got the map. I then went back to the travel agent and he gave me a couple of tips on where to go and as a result we are heading north to the mountains – to a town by the name of Shkoder. In fact we got a bit past there and have a small room at a small hotel at the small town of Koplik and tomorrow we can head into the hills from here. When I say a small room I mean a small room – barely bigger than the double bed. It had a corner cut out for an en-suite. This plumber was a very economical plumber because he was able to fit a toilet bowl, hand basin and a shower in the space normally allocated to a small shower. There are a number of things that stand out in Albania, so far, as being way out of the norm. There are a large number of buildings that are under construction, or rather, where construction has been abandoned temporarily or permanently, who knows. I took photos of eight in the space of three minutes slow driving. Some were dwellings, others small hotels maybe, but it looks as though there was just enough money for the concrete skeleton to be created but then the money ran out. Then to do with cars, there are heaps of petrol stations and car washes and I have never seen so many car wreckers yards in my life. And the Mercedes Benz is the most popular car. I counted fifty cars that passed us and more than half of them (twenty seven) were Mercs – that’s every other one - and many are late models too. Many small monuments – with flowers – on the side of the road. Road toll? From the rural aspect it doesn’t appear to be particularly prosperous. There is dried corn still standing in the paddocks and also stooks of corn where it has been cut at the base and then tied in a pyramid fashion in the paddock. I have noticed a number of women and especially the older women are dressed in traditional dress of white scarves dark tops and skirts. But the men are mostly in western style clothing – and it could be that I am the only one wearing shorts. There have not been a lot of motor scooters but on two occasions women on the pillion, younger women, were riding side-saddle. Or was it simply because they were in short skirts. This hotel looks to be run by Dad and two sons, one 17 maybe and the second around 13, and when I arrived it was a problem, not with the small room, that was just a matter of looking and paying the price, but rather in arranging to have a meal in their restaurant tonight, because between the three of them they had not one word of English. Even when I said the words ‘Albanian food’ all I got was blank looks, so obviously it is pronounced differently in their language. I fronted up at just before eight and dad was waiting for me and showed me to a table. There were small groups at three other tables but none of them were eating – just smoking and drinking coffee or water. I asked for, and got, a beer and then a bowl of salad, tomatoes, onions and lettuce, a plate with four lamb chops and a basket of sliced bread and a chunk of cheese. Plenty enough and everything was nice especially as I had no idea what to expect. Coffee at the end was a problem as I like coffee with a lot of hot milk and not the little espresso that removes the hairs from your chest. Everyone left in the restaurant was having a go at interpreting what I wanted and in the end it was only half right. No matter though, a full belly and an enjoyable evening.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

As well as dad and the two boys, there was an older fellow who tried a bit harder to master the English. He was a friendlier type with a bright smile,and tried hard to create a coffee that was to my liking. In the morning he was hanging around, in and out of my room, while I was getting ready to leave. I don’t think he was looking for money, in fact I am sure he wasn’t but in our very tortured conversation, fitted in between me brushing the gums and going to the toilet, he told me that the Albanian pronunciation for Albania is ‘Shiperiar’ which sounds nothing like Albania. I have been asking for an Albanian beer and getting nowhere, Maybe if I ask for a ‘Shiperiar’ beer the quizzical looks may disappear.

Albania - North into the mountains and then to the capital Tirane Saturday 11th September 2010 What a mess I made out of this day. We started off well before nine o’clock and didn’t finish until seven. We went over one strip of road four times and another twice! Maybe I should take more care! The idea was to head east from Koprik into the mountains to the town of Theth, but I didn’t know how far we would get because from down here at ant level these mountains look to be pretty damn big! It started well as there were road signs to direct us towards Theth, way up in the hills – well there were road signs for a start, but not far along a road without lines we came to a fork - and no sign! Compass reckoned the right fork was the one, so that’s the one we took.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

It was a quiet, narrow, Albanian country lane. We came across a fish monger selling his fish from the back of his truck outside a cafe – a cafe, what the hell is a cafe doing right out in the never never? But there were people (men) sitting at the tables and a few were buying a fish to take home – and good sized fish they were too. I was too embarrassed to take a photo as all the eyes were turned to Phe and Me as we drove past – well there was nothing else to look at. It’s turned out to be a nice morning after the rain of last night but the potholes are now filled with water so it’s best to avoid them altogether because there is no knowing how deep they are. They could be just a little splash or a really big banger – and Phe hates those! I had the feeing that we may be on the wrong road and stopped beside two middle aged blokes talking in front of a big Merc 4 x 4 and surprise, surprise, one of them had excellent English. I showed him the map he said “I am terribly sorry but you will have to go back seven kilometres to the intersection.” I thanked him and did the U-turn but as I came back past them he stopped me and said he would lead me to the turnoff. And he did. When it was time for us to part company he got out and pointed out the right road that we should take and I remarked on his good English and also that the Merc had GB plates – similar to Phe’s. “I live in London - just home for some holidays” he replied. No wonder I could understand him. We were driving along a river valley – it’s a dry river bed despite last night ‘s torrential downpour – and the road crosses the river a number of times, but there is no bridge only a few concrete pipes below what is essentially a ford, and when the snows melt I would imagine it would be quite a job getting across. The map shows some of the peaks at 2700 metres and others at 2200 metres and 2000 metres, so they will be snowcapped alright and the water will be streaming down these rivers in the spring We are heading up the valley towards Ducaj and then Boge when the road stopped being a road and became a rocky, stony track!

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

This is the time I decided to pull the pin. From the map, which I am starting to distrust, we must be at least 12-15kms from Theth. We are held back to doing around 13 kilometres per hour which means at least an hour to get to Theth and then according to the map, the road gets worse – is that possible? We would still be only half way back to the main town of Shkoder which we passed through yesterday. I must be getting old , because I don’t like a road beating us – and it has only happened once before and that was that big puddle in Georgia, but in this case I reckon the risk is far greater than the reward. So, split between the option of a U-turn and the hope that the road will become sealed just around the next corner, I struck it lucky with another English speaker. There were a couple of blokes standing and talking next to their car and I asked them about the road to Theth and the one with great English - and he was from New York - said to get to Theth you need a 4 x 4 – and a tough one at that! So a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse and a U-turn it is. It is an isolated area that we are driving through but there seems to be no shortage of people around. A bloke walking in the paddock near to the road, another two blokes talking next to a car, three old fellows in the fields up the hill a bit – talking. A couple of kids on the road, walking. The farmers are producing what they can to live on but around here for whatever reason honey seems to be the go because there have been maybe ten or fifteen different groups of bee hives being operated by the farmers (presumably) – maybe it’s one single apiarist spreading it around a bit. And a lot of pigs out in the open doing what pigs do. I would love to taste some bacon or pork from around here - I bet is tastes just like it used to do all of those years ago, - back in the good old days before they started breeding pigs in stalls and pumping them full of proteins and stuff! And in the same vein I wonder about the meat from the beef that is grown inside these barns, and wonder if it has a taint from that particular environment as compared with beef that is grazing out in the fresh air. The smell as we pass by a barn is all but overpowering and you have to wonder if it permeates into the meat someway or other.

I stopped at this ‘bar restaurant’ hoping for some breakfast – at eleven o’clock - asked for a coffee and went through the whole rigmarole of milk, and latte, and the actions of milking a m-o-o-o-o-o, and finished up getting a tiny cup of espresso and half a glass of cold milk. A good try but I would have preferred something a bit closer to the mark. It’s not working well this coffee thing. Maybe I should try for a cup of tea! Then I rubbed my belly and put three fingers and a thumb to my mouth and he eventually lifted the lid on one of the big pots simmering on his fire. I said “Soup?” and he said ‘no soup’ but I don’t think he meant it was not soup but rather that it won’t be ready for another two hours at one o’clock. He held two fingers up and looked at the clock on the wall. I didn’t get to look in the other two pots.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

So no soup. He showed me the seed he was using for the soup and I tasted one. It was bigger than wheat but smaller than a pea, and hard. When I was able to bite through it, it had a mellow taste but I am sure other things in the pot would have added more to the flavour. But I am not waiting around here until one o’clock to find out. I am losing confidence in this map. First of all the map showed the road that turned to nothing as being an important connecting road and now another road on the map that bypasses last night’s bed at Koplik, has disappeared from view. I can’t find it anywhere. Surely I am not that stupid that I can loose a road that has probably been here for centuries. I asked a shepherd for help but with no English I am not sure if I followed the advise he gave of not. Anyway we went up and back that same 5 km stretch four times and in the finish I had to give up and backtrack it to Koplik and from there to Shkoder - the same bumpy pot-holed, crowded road we travelled yesterday. By about three o’clock we had left Shkoder and after at least three enquiries, were on the road towards Puke. This is another ‘must see’ drive through the mountains around a long river that has been turned into three lakes with three dams that produce hydro-electricity. It’s a large system now and stretches right across the country into neighbouring Kosovo. One of the blokes I asked was pumping petrol at a petrol station and had such good English, I asked him how come. “I lived for 16 years in America” he said “but then they found out I had no papers and sent me home again”. Tough. I am pleased I did stop to ask him because otherwise we would have sailed right past the turnoff. There is a hydro power station in the distance and the little white umbrellas is where I stopped for a late (three o’clock) breakfast. There were plenty of people dining and groups sitting with coffee or water just chatting. I had lasagne which was a mistake I should have asked for a traditional Albanian dish, but English was too hard to come by, so in the finish settled for the only meal I recognised on the menu. It was a nice place down on the water – but I would a lot rather had some of that soup from the bloke up in the mountains though. It was a lovely drive high up in the mountains with the lake stretching out below, a good road that became pot holey in patches and hardly any cars around. Beaut. When we reached Korman there was another fork with no signs so I asked a bloke in the cafe nearby and his sad look said it all – ‘You must return to Gomsiqe and turn left to Puke from there. There is no other way – 42 kms”. My jaw dropped, my shoulders drooped, my face did all sorts of things but nothing was going to change the fact that I had made a big blue and we now have to drive pack the 42 kms – past the restaurant where we had lunch and start again. I had to believe him– because he had probably lived there at Korman all of his life and would know. There was no problem in interpretation as he spoke good English. So another U-turn it was. We were half way up the first hill when I realised Phe was almost out of fuel – the gauge was showing empty and the little red light was winking at me! There was a shepherd bloke and two ladies so I asked them by removing the fuel cap and pointing into the tank with my finger. The old bloke was a bit dense but both the ladies knew exactly what I wanted and shook their heads and fingers in unison and pointed in the 42 kms direction. A little further up the hill there was an intelligent looking bloke leading a cow and after the same rigmarole he pointed in the same direction.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

I am worried about the fuel problem but there have been other times when Phe’s gauge is not very accurate particularly when the tank is low, but this time the trip speedo is on 690 kms since we last filled up which makes it 730 by the time we get to the next petrol station. 750 to 800 kms is about tops and that is provided we started off with a tank full to the top – and the last fill wasn’t because the blokes pumping the fuel all want to round off to save having to find change. So it will be tight. I will coast down hills and take the uphill quietly. It took us an hour but we made it. I also spotted the big clear sign pointing to Puke just out of the town so there are no excuses – I stuffed up!

Into Albania Sunday 12th September 2010 It’s Sunday again, and I don’t know whether Albania is Catholic or Moslem or maybe Orthodox given it’s proximity to Greece and earlier association with Russia for all of those years. There are a number of mosques and I hear the call to prayers from time to time, but similarly there are Catholic churches and this morning as I was getting ready to leave a comfortable hotel in Puke, many family groups were walking up the hill past the hotel and I presume to a nine o’clock service. Mum, Dad and the kids all together is certainly not Islamic, that’s for sure - men yes, but not women and kids – so my guessing is that it was a Catholic church that they were going to. I found out that back in the days of Enver Hoxha who dictated this country through all manner of Communist regimes for nigh on fifty years, there was a determined effort to get rid of religion out of the country and many places of worship of all creeds were destroyed.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

Today I intend continuing the journey from Puke to Kukes through the mountains and to try out the brand new dual lane carriage way that has cut a swath through the mountains south towards the capital Tirane. The first two hours were wonderful, as we drive around the mountains in country that seems to have two sides to it. On the one hand it seems remote, a wilderness, in these mountains, with hardly a car either way and yet down on the valley floor there are farmers and higher up on the mountain sides I could spot a farm here and there occasionally – but living would be hard out here We are up 900 metres so it will get cold later in the year. In fact yesterday I changed from shorts and sandals partly because of the weather but also as I was the only bloke in Albania (it seems) wearing shorts. The hillside are bush clad with some pine also and often just bare allowing rocks and rubble to fall down onto the road at regular intervals. I have just said all of that and a couple of curves later and was this gi-normous white factory style building sitting up on a little promontory of rock. In among the chestnut trees and some natural springs there were a few other buildings, some dilapidated, one destroyed by fire and some occupied and in good condition. I have absolutely no idea what this big building could have been built for or what it is used for today – it seemed so out of place, sitting up there in all of it’s glory out in the wilderness. Maybe a google will find it – Lajthize perhaps. I must say that the roads are not very good and road signs are only good when there is one. The villages most times don’t have signs either when you enter or exit. The locals know what it is called but us visitors are completely in the dark and have no idea at all so it becomes very difficult to find out your position on the map. Even a broken down, rust old sign with some of the letters missing can be of help and a damn sight more helpful than nothing at all. We went through the village of Shembury and over on the mountains on the far side of the valley there is another village and a number of outlying farm houses. But you would wonder how they survive in these remote areas. People wouldn’t work in a town nearby because there aren’t any, so they have to be self supporting in these villages – how can they do that? There looks to be some cleared farmland but I have not seen any sheep or goats or cows with shepherds this morning but that is not to say that they are not in barns or whatever over there. There is a little bit of colour coming into the bush now, just a few pinks and reds, an early autumn toning. Kukes is not a bad looking place sitting on the edge of the topmost dam in this system. Had a look around, found a nice restaurant and had a nice lunch. And cheap too. 600 lets for a beer , shiskebabs, some chips, salad and bread. Plenty enough for the whole day I reckon. Then onto the new motorway - and a 6km tunnel - linking Kukes back to the coast and to the capital, Tirane. I have come to the conclusion that the driving of Albanians is both courteous and cautious – a few ragbags, but only a few - but then we haven’t been to the big smoke yet. As we approach the city there are the same one-man butcher shops lining the road on either sides for a couple of kilometres. They have the carcases hanging up outside but whether they slaughter on the street as in Tunisia, I don’t know. And then there were furniture shops – dozens and dozens of them lining the road for 2 or 3 kms. They were just retailing their ranges, not producing it out the back – just straight retail furniture shops. Running down the main road into Tirane I spotted a nice looking hotel called the Hotel Union with three stars proudly highlighted beside the name. And it turned out to be a good honest three star hotel, clean, quiet, and neat. And only 2000 lets per night. I decided on two nights so as to have a bit of a spell tomorrow. The bonus was that the receptionist/barman bloke – well a kid really because he was only 16 – by the name of Edo could speak a little English and was quite keen to practise on someone. I didn’t mind one little bit. He looked at my map and noted where we had been and suggested a trip to the museum at Kruge would be a good thing to do tomorrow. Nice kid. Still goes to school and works here behind the bar seven days a week from two in the afternoon until ten o’clock in the evening. He gets paid 1500 lets per month or 50 lets per day. 1500 lets is about 10euro – for a month’s work! Not much. It will take a while before this kid is driving a Mercedes Benz!

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

Albania - The Skanderbeg Museum at Kruge and then the capital of Tirane Monday 13th September 2010 We made it to Kruge as Edo suggested but before we get into that and on the question of his daily pay of 50 lets, I stopped at a ice-cream street vendor bloke and bought a beaut banana ice-cream in a cone Not as big as the Italian one-euro job but a fair size anyway. I asked him how much and he said ‘10 lets’. I couldn’t believe it so I held out my hand with some coins in it and sure enough he took a 10 let coin. I don’t care whether you convert it into euro, US dollars, sterling or yen – 10 lets is very little. Ten cents in Australian money. When I was a kid 60 years ago we were able to buy a three penny ice-cream in a cone – and I thought they had been dead for at least 50 years. But not so. The three penny ice cream is still alive and kicking here in Albania. Back to the point though. This kid doing a barman’s job for 8 hours a day and seven days a week is getting paid 50 lets per day. Five ice-creams. He will not get into the Merc brigade on that wage! I wonder why it is called the Hotel Union? Today is supposed to be a rest day so we are having a late start and a quiet drive up to Kruge as Edo suggested, have a look at the museum and a lunch, then back to have another look around this capital city of Tirane this evening. The road to Kruge had not one signpost but because everyone I asked was most helpful, we managed to make the right turns every time. The town has a castle which is the location where the national hero of Albania – Skanderbeg – held off attack after attack from the Ottomans back in the middle 1400’s. Skanerbeg is to Albania what Ataturk is to Turkey. The museum was all to do with Skanderbeg and had enough English here and there for me to get the gist of the history. I generally avoid museums but this one was well worth the visit. The town itself was more of the same – many partly finished or abandoned new concrete buildings, narrow dusty streets, and plenty of village life. I stopped at a restaurant and had a beaut lunch of mushroom soup, and then a couple of meatballs with salad and chips – plus a beer. All very nice and less than 600 lets. Its a rest day so a good time for a few postcards at the table in the fresh air under an umbrella before returning to Tirane. I even managed to find a post office (with the help of a friendly policeman who yelled out to a bloke over the other side of the road to come over here and talk to this drip who can only speak English). At the post office they worked out the cards were going to Australia and charged me accordingly - and promised that they would arrive home before I do, (I made that bit up) Trirane seems to be an ‘open’ city with a small river (some may call it a drain, as it has concrete walls with grassy banks planted with shrubs) running through it, wide boulevards and the high rise apartment buildings are scatted around not crammed side by side, and not that high – mostly around ten stories. It’s probably not a very big city. Many of the intersections have traffic lights but the lights are not working. Same thing in Shkoder the other day. I think they have been switched off but I don’t know why. Drivers in this city must have learnt how to drive in Italy because here they are anything but careful and cautious – what’s the opposite, impatient and aggressive. It was nerve wracking but the mighty Phe got through unscathed. We drove past where the important buildings used to be and where the huge statue of Enver Hoxha used to be up until 1991 when to signal the end of communism in Albania angry crowd pulled it down and converted it into road fill. His place at the top of the boulevard has never been filled. I stopped in a park about half past six when the heat had gone out of the sun and we were left with a still, balmy pleasant evening. There were heaps of people – mostly elderly - with the women sitting and chatting in pairs or threes on the benches while the men played cards or dominoes and another game I had never seen before using a pair of dice and moving tokens from one tray to another. Just two playing this one but with a few locals as a gallery.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

There were two or three blokes cooking corn cobs over some coals in little braziers and selling them one by one, wrapped in the leaf from the cob. A woman had a little machine for popping corn and selling bags of popcorn to anyone who was tempted. Its good on one hand and sad on the other. Its good from the community point of view, people know each other and get along with each other and obviously enjoy each other’s company – they are smiling and contented - but this park is sad place. It’s got a concrete skate board area for the kids but the kids are not using it because its too tame, too gentle, it hasn’t got enough risk to it, so it’s not being used. Then there is a fountain, nice design, with seats around the outside for people to sit and watch and listen to the water playing, but it isn’t. There is no water squirting up out of those nozzles and I get the feeling that this fountain has not played for a long time. For whatever reason. And the grass is long. These old folk deserve better than this. They have had a rugged lifetime with so much of it in food queues at the best and in interrogation cells at the worst, and now in the twilight of their lives a little payback would not be asking that much, surely. All this shows to me a lack of municipal will. I don’t have the courage to stand up and shout out “does anyone speak English?” but I want to, because there would be so much to learn from these people, about their lives now and their lives in the past. What a shame we speak so many different languages in our world. Then a sour note. There are four of five big dumpers on the side of the park – full to overflowing and stinking they are, and there is a kid – maybe twenty – going through them tipping open the plastic bags looking for what. Food? Something he could sell? As sure as hell he isn’t looking for his watch!

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

Albania - South from Tirane, then the mountains again and Berat Tuesday 14th September 2010 We are leaving Tirane this morning heading due south to the town of Elbasan where we will turn right and go for the coast. Karen has the basics and reckons it’s an hour and a half to Elbasan and the traffic is slow in the winding hills so we probably wont be there much before twelve. As we get on the outskirts of Tirane there are pockets of nice looking housing estates .It’s strange, we are barely half an hour out of the city and the cautious and considerate drivers are back again travelling on the winding roads through the hills at a quiet pace that suits me just fine. Then the hills become mountains and the scenery spectacular. Its a lovely drive with the sun peeping through – not hot and not cold, maybe 20 degrees at half past eleven.

The top was about 800 metres and it would have been a magnificent view from up here on top of these mountains if it wasn’t for the mist which was so dense I could barely distinguish the mountains from the sky. Back in Tirana I was wondering if it was the dust because the dust in that city was something terrible, thick on the side of the road and blown up into the air with every passing vehicle especially a truck or a bus. But no dust out here just this foggy mist. I don’t know where it comes from. There are two ladies in traditional dress picking what looked like flowers - and this was up near the 800 metre mark. I don’t know what they were picking but when I waved to the lady nearest the road and she waved back, I noticed her hands were black from the harvesting work she was doing. So maybe it isn’t mist at all but just good old fashioned industrial pollution – we are looking at the city of Elbasan. Down in the city I have never ever come across pollution as bad as this. The air is thick. I would hate to bring kids up in this environment. Found a Tourist Info office in Elbasan, One bloke had some English and seemed to be well informed. He confirmed that we should follow the coast down south and then suggested a way north again rather than go into Greece. Thoughts for the future. I left there but didn’t think to ask about what the Elbasan factories were producing to cause all of this pollution. Stupid! They showed me where their private toilet was, which was nice of them, but unfortunately it was the dreaded squat – so I gave that a miss – but the ladies was just next door and was vacant so I thought I would use that instead, but it was a squat too. I just cannot handle the squat, so I will have to hold on! This looks to be a nice looking town despite the air. School is back after the summer break so there are kids everywhere. It’s around one thirty and I guess they work the same system as the other states around this part of Europe with a morning and an afternoon shift at school with the changeover after midday. I just can’t believe where the money comes from. There is a bloke in front of me with the latest, biggest, BMW convertible – that would have cost an arm and a leg. And all of the Mercs. Just because they are so common in Albania doesn’t reduce their cost one iota so it beats me that there are so many apparently wealthy people in what has to be regarded as a poor country. 1:30: This is country living as compared with city living. Here it is subsistence living with a block of land sufficient to provide you and your family with day to day everything. Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

A dirty river coming from a dirty city put two and two together and assume the river is polluted by the same people who pollute the air. But those words ‘journalistic bias’ comes into play because I passed over a number of rivers and streams today and they were all about the same colour so probably it has nothing to do with the polluter after all. After we left Elbasan, we crossed the river with the dirty water onto one of the yellow ‘minor’ roads on the map towards Lushnje in order to cut off a corner and more importantly get onto the minor roads through the villages, but we didn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding because not one road sign did we sees – not one! There would be a fork that was not shown on my map and it was Compass who made the decision, left or right. No good, too haphazard. Maybe with a proper roadmap it would have been okay but the first time I got the feeling we were wrong I asked a couple of young blokes and they agreed with loud shouts of laughter. ‘No No’ they said and pointed back the way we had just come. Then another fork and another guess and another ask. And so it went on until I pulled the pin and drove back over the dirty river onto the road that was red on the map. Then about 16 kms north of Lushnje we somehow picked up a motorway, and I gave up trying because the combination of a poor map, few road signs, and not even town names that would allow me to relate to the map every once in a while, would have helped. However, just in time, I rechecked our map and someone had put a ring around Berat as a place to go. I think it may have been the Tourist Info bloke way back at Shkoder, so maybe we should find a bed there for tonight. - and just in time because the turnoff to Berat had just come up. A good move because the weather was closing in with some rain and lightning around to make things a little more interesting. The rain is no problem for Phe with her brand new original genuine Tempra wiper blades – but it was a hell of a problem to me because when the potholes are full of water it is hard to see them and impossible to judge just how deep they are. So slow driving. And Phe’s clean face lasted for all of 48 hours – isn’t it always the way? I found a hotel close to the centre of Berat. It was a little dearer than the one at Tirane and not as good, but okay for the one night. Once I had organised myself we took a drive up the (long, steep) hill to the castle sitting at the top. Inside the castle walls is a small church – Orthodox again – and inside the church is a museum dedicated to paintings recovered from the church. They are all religious icons of some importance especially to the history of Albania. It was interesting , but as you may imagine, not really riveting without the right language to follow the progress of the icons. But in another vein I have mentioned a number of times the point about municipal will – and mostly the lack of it – but this town of Berat has to be exactly the opposite. It’s a tourist town and it has been decked out to present the best possible face to the visitor.

There are floodlights for some of the buildings at night, they close the main boulevard off to traffic at seven for the locals and visitors to stroll in the warm, balmy, evening air. Its a lovely town and displays this municipal will that has gone out of it’s way to develop a town – just lovely. Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

At around eleven when I was packing up for bed, there were streets sweepers, male and female cleaning up the litter and rubbish to make it spic and span for the morning. I know that most of the cities and towns have an army of people doing the same thing every night but in Berat it took on a special significance given the town’s other qualities.

Albania - The south, the mountains and the sea, then over the border into Greece Wednesday 15th September Today we will have to run back over our tracks for a short distance to pick up another yellow road towards Fier where I would like to visit Apollonia, just 10km the other side, and then we will continue south picking up the coast around Vlore and maybe a bed at Himare. The first police road block of the morning – the bloke pulls me up and then doesn’t know what to say, so signs me to turn my lights on! He can’t speak English but I got the message and did as I was told, salute, and move on. I have noticed that drivers in the country areas have their lights on but not so in the city. A good idea and I must do my part. Once we leave the red road and turn left onto the yellow one towards Fier we are running through some wonderful country and villages and are really in the nitty gritty of Albania. It’s a great drive this morning sunny day with not a cloud and no wind - it’s going to be warm I think - but dust on the road everywhere and every large truck has a billowing stream following it. It’s a road without lines, uneven and wobbly and with a few potholes. But it is carrying a fair bit of traffic. There are cars and motorbikes, the small van-buses – lots of them - some semi-trailers and a lot of trucks carrying gravel and sand – quarry material. These trucks are uncovered and I guess that is where all of the bloody dust is coming from. Its strange that I haven’t noticed any taxis – the little yellow minis that were so prolific in Tunisia. We drove straight through the city of Fier for another 10 kms to the ‘Ancient City of Apollonia.’ where I wandered around for an hour or so. There were half a dozen cars and a small tour bus of 15 people but that was all – a big site all but deserted. I loved the small chapel where I watched as a candle for B burnt to the base. It was quiet and I was alone with our candle and my memories of our life together. I don’t really know if my memories are as sharp as they were – I hope they are! There are a lot of small one-man businesses in Albania, a mechanic, welders making ornate steel gates, lots of people selling produce on the side of the road, cafes with coffee, water, beer and soft-drink in the fridge (but no food other than a bag of chips) and they have tables and chairs, a number of stonemasons or maybe a stage earlier than the stonemason as these blokes are breaking down huge blocks of marble and granite into slabs one inch thick and polished on one face. Barbers, butchers, internet shops, and then there is that word “Lavazho”. It is the car-wash and for 300 lets the kid – and that’s what they often are, just young fellas - will spend the best part of an hour vacuuming and cleaning inside and washing outside. They do a good job and it is very good value. Phe had a good going over back in Tirane and it’s now a matter of ‘Who’s a pretty girl now?’ Maybe these young blokes are working for a wage like Edo of 50 lets a day but if it is their own business they could do well in this dusty environment. The car-wash bloke has to buy a high pressure system – mostly K’A’rcher – and a vacuum cleaner and I guess he need access to electricity and water. So rent would be a factor. Many times they are just out in the open but many have quite a nice looking canvas shelter with sign writing and all. Sometimes it is attached to a petrol station. It is a way many young men are getting an income. And with all of this dust there is no shortage of work. Then, don’t forget the car wreckers – there are a zillion of them and I have spotted a couple of very late model Mercs being driven away from the yards late in the evening at knock off time. Maybe because we are getting a bit further south, but today is the first day I have seen olive groves since we arrived in Albania. And the trees are planted close together as in Greece and Crete, not with miles of space in between that I found so strange in Tunisia. And some grapes too which are being picked at the moment - the black ones anyway. At Vlore I found the taxis alright – heaps of late model Mercs (what else?) - all lined up in a row at a taxi rank waiting for customers coming to them – not out on the road trolling like the little fellas squirting around all over the place in Tunisia.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

We are on the flat from Vlore to Orikum but from Orikum we start to climb the mountains – and is this a climb and a half. And what a difference there is all of a sudden! The air is clean, there is no dust, there are few cars on the road and hardly a truck, and it’s a good road. We are surrounded with pine trees and bush. There are still villages way up at the the top (1000 metres above sea level) and all along the way there are people out selling things like honey and grapes.

I have mentioned the Mediterranean mist on a number of occasions when it was so very difficult to make out the horizon, but in this instance the scenery has been badly marred in the foreground with litter. We are 1000 metres above sea level so it didn’t just get here by accident, it didn’t blow up from the city – it has been dumped here. Bloody disgusting. This is a magical view – stunning – a couple of cows behind the camera with their bells ringing which just seemed to add to the quiet, and the solitude, just all so perfectly still and peaceful. Six km before Himare there is a rubbish tip – which I guess is the towns rubbish tip, and just opposite the tip there are these humpies with people living there and it is like another rubbish tip. No matter what your standards this would have to be something less than a perfect way of living. Exactly the opposite was the small Himare hotel with our bed for the night. For 2000 lets there was a balcony and doors that opened onto the Mediterranean Sea. It was a warm night and it was great hearing the gentle lapping of the small waves as they turned over on to the beach.

Thursday 16th September We left Himare around nine thirty and back into the mountains, and the road is going to wind it’s way along the coast by the look of it – a beautiful drive. We weren’t very far from Himare when we came across this funny little thing that reminds me of the submarine pens in Normandy. And I wonder if it was another of Enver Hoxha’s little tricks. It looks to be solid concrete tunnel for (smallish) boats to go in. And it looks as if it is still in use today. I wonder what it was built for. I have never worn sun glasses but today the glare is so bad that it is difficult to see without squinting. It must be the mistiest day, with the sun beaming out of a clear sky, no wind and warm bordering on hot but it is difficult to clearly see even the closest mountains. There are some pretty magical scenery around here with the sea and the olives, a few houses and a few hotels.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

Then we arrived at the town of Sarande and does it have some development happening! High-rise apartments or hotels going up all over the place. And it must be all on a rock base because they seem to just get into it with one of those giant pile-driving type jack hammers to expose the rock then fill the hole up with concrete and start building one floor on stilts then a second on stilts and third on stilts and so on. I wonder if it has to do with the Italian Island of Corfu being just a short ferry trip away? Then another of those encounters of the interesting and rewarding kind. I was not sure if we were on the right road out of town to a place called Delvine - not one sign did I see - so I pulled up and showed a guy the map and asked for Delvine. He told me straight ahead but in 2km take the left fork – all with sign language. Then another fellow walked past and was eating what looked like a sausage roll with tomato sauce, so I quickly parked Phe out of harms way and went and asked him where he got the roll from. He said ‘come’ and walked me down to a shop 100 metres away and I bought two beaut sausage rolls – real sausage in real pastry and still quite warm. Then I realised the bloke had okay English so I asked him about all of the new buildings going up and he said it was for the summer tourists. Must be a heap of summer tourists to fill all of these extra rooms. The buildings here, just out of town, were for distributors of “sweet corn – for the brewery and other things.” I am not sure what this meant but took him to mean that the corn grown by the farmers is shipped to towns and distributed from there. That’s just what he said but I have trouble making sense of it. It would have been great to ask a heap more penetrating question like ‘What is you name” but he was on his way back to work from a lunch break so we parted. Just after Delvine when the sealed road turned to rubbish I sad “O Oh!” and Phe said “We are not going to give up today Robbie!” “Okay,” I said “I will do my best.”

We only passed 4 or 5 cars over those thirty odd kms and they were all going very slow like we were because the potholes were frequent and ferocious, but the road never got to the point of being like the first day up north trying to make it to Theth, so I was able to hang in there and not disappoint my best mate north of the equator. Actually we came to a junction and I found that there had been two ways to come and we had chosen the difficult one. The other would have been a straightforward drive on a good road. Anyway – them’s the breaks, but we did it and we feel better for it, don’t we Phe! It was just a short drive to the city of Gjirokaster where I had intended to spend the night but when we got there I saw that enormous castle up on the hill with a wall right around it and decided I didn’t really want to see the inside of another castle wall with it’s meandering streets with trinket sellers and icon sellers and the like, so I did a bit of thinking about how best to handle the next stage of this journey of ours. I think we have seen about as much as we are going to see of Albania and it’s about time we departed. Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

From the map of Europe (a reliable one) it showed the closest border crossing is into Greece and that is only a matter of an hours drive back south. We are half way through our four months and the primary target is still the Middle East so lets get cracking and get there. We can get into Greece tonight and then maybe one or two more nights before Turkey. The only thing I have to do is to change the remaining Albanian Lets for Euros but leaving a little for a top up of cheap Albanian diesel before the border. Guess what. Just down the road we were stopped again by the police and this time he waggled my loose seat belt – I should have it on. No mention of the headlights that were off! A smile, a salute and we are off again. When we got to the border it was the quickest crossing ever. On the Albanian side I barely needed to stop the car and almost the same on the entry to Greece. Maybe 10 minutes from start to finish.

Albania - My impressions of Albania after seven nights I liked Albania. It was regarded as one of the “Bad Lands” of the world for so many years but there was nothing bad about it that I could see. It’s a small country – about ten million people and from north to south it would be about five hundred kilometres and only about half that in width. Most of it is mountains and only a patch around the middle that is fairly flat and a couple of broad valleys in the south which are okay for agriculture. It was dictated by Enver Huxla as a hard line communist state with secret police,food queues, and no luxuries such as push bikes for fifty years up until 1991 when communism was finally brushed aside. His brand of communism was the strict version. He followed the Mao Tse-tung brand in China, then he fell out with China and got into bed with the hard line Russian Stalinism for many years. After the fall of Russian communism, he was left with only two allies in the world Cuba, and North Korea. At one point in time he got an atheist bee in his bonnet and tried to turn Albania into an Atheist state and on the way destroyed many of the countries mosques and churches. In 1991 crowds of people hauled down his monument in the capital,Tirane, and turned it into road fill. The Albanians themselves are a very friendly lot, very helpful, polite and the men don’t spit – I liked them. I don’t think they are quite as demonstrative in their friendship as, say, the Tunisians. Here I have given away saying ‘Gday’ and have settled for a nod. Most times I get a nod back. Those who had English had good English but most Albanians I met had no English at all, but they were quite willing to try to understand what it was I was trying to say with sign language – I was never shrugged off, not once. When I first arrived I saw half a dozen things that were spectacularly different to other countries. They were heaps of partly built buildings either in progress or abandoned. Then so many Mercedes. I reckoned that every second car was a Mercedes and many were late models too. And dangerous roads? I combined two things and concluded that the roads were dangerous. The first was the number of monuments on the side of the road, often with bright flowers, obviously dedicated to young men who had presumably lost their lives in a traffic accident. I combined this with the extraordinary number of car wrecker yards with old hulks all over the place. There were just so many car wrecking yards throughout the country. So clearly the roads were fatally dangerous. Wrong! The roads are not dangerous, not at all. Well there is a definite danger of busting a shocker or a spring because they are pretty rough in a lot of places, but dangerous to body and soul – no! Sure there are a lot of monuments but these are permanent marble monuments as you would find in a cemetery and so they will last forever. Some of them dated back to a death in 1997 or 2000 which is a long time ago so just because there were a lot of them does not really prove that the roads are dangerous but rather that people have lost their lives on the roads but over a long period of time. About the car wreckers, almost all of the cars in these places had had all of the mechanics removed – radiator, motor, gearbox and transmission – so that all that was left was the chassis and the body minus a few doors here and there. I reckon there is no scrap metal industry that crushes the car body down to 40 cms thick and then loads 40 or more bodies onto a semi for melting down for scrap steel. So therefore the piles of car wrecks are building up day by day and a casual visitor would come to the same conclusion that I did – and it was the wrong one.

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

The country is a – well I was going to say a poor country, but if you look at the number of Mercs you couldn’t possibly accept that it is a poor country. There is obviously wealth around. I saw very few beggars, a couple of tramps, but most people seemed to be happy and contented and okay, but how can you accept that when Edo, the young barman, gets 50 lets a day and you can buy an ice-cream for 10 lets. I was in the country for 7 nights and at the outset I got 50,000 lets from the ATM or Bankomat. On the last day I still had 15,000 lets left over so the week in Albania cost me a total of 35,000 lets all up – the equivalent of 240 euros, or $A350 and I lived as I always have lived neither better nor poorer. The hotels were mostly three star and excellent for what I wanted. I ate meals at restaurants, bought petrol as I normally would. So it was a cheap country to journey through – but I wouldn’t like to live on 50 lets a day, that’s for sure. Alcohol is freely available with beers from northern Europe as well as the local Albanian beer. Locals were drinking beer but not to excess – not at all. I never saw even one instance where a fellow had over indulged. - not even a sniff of it. The cafe life was exactly the same as it has been in southern Europe and in Tunisia where the men are out in the cafes in the evenings, after dinner, talking, playing cards and drinking coffee or water. Occasionally a beer. In the city the parks seem to be popular venues for the same thing. All of the hotels I stayed in were small hotels and I was, in almost every case, the only guest or maybe one of two or three. They all had chairs and tables outside on the street and every evening the tables were occupied by the locals, so the money was coming from that source rather than from the guests. It is hard to work out where people’s income comes from because I saw very few big industries, the sort that would employ hundreds or thousands of workers except of course the police force - there are a lot of policemen - the small mini van-bus drivers, it must rank high as an industry employing people, and most of the rest seem to be small businesses, whether a vehicle mechanic, or fixing bikes, or making steel gates, or a cabinet maker – all small businesses. They each have their three metre wide ‘shop-fronts’ facing the street with a roller shutter door rather than a glass window. When they are open the shutter is up and you can see inside to decide if it is a grocer, or a monumental mason, or a mechanic, etc and when the shutter is down they are closed and you have no idea because there is no sign outside. And the ‘lavauge’ – the car wash - a lot of people there. The car wash I had assumed were individuals owner/operators but it could well be that the one bloke owns the whole million of them and pays a pittance to the kids who do the work. I don’t know, but there are a heap of the ‘lavauge’.

Greece - A quick drive across the north, from Albania to Turkey Friday 17th September We propped at a small hotel in the Greek town of Konitsa last night. There was no restaurant anywhere nearby and I had decided I had had plenty enough to eat lately and just one cold beer would be just right for this evening – and nothing else. Well I had the cold beer out of their fridge and then the young lady hostess brought me three little pastries warm from the oven. “I cooked them myself,” she said proudly, and the pride wasn’t misplaced because they were terrific – simply an envelope of light pastry with a roll of ham inside. Greeks can be nice and friendly too! What a beautiful morning, and a different morning as well because there is dew on the car and a nip in the air but the sky is blue, the air is still, and its a great morning for taking a drive across the top of Greece – in the mountains. We are not touristing now and I am not going to be sidetracked by any tempting sights or attractions – we are focused on a direct line through the north of Greece and across the middle of Turkey to Iran, which is a beautiful country I am told. I don’t have a visa but one of the internet visa info sites said that visas can be obtained at the border, so I am hoping that this is true because it will be a long trip for nothing if we are turned away. Karen is on the job again with her maps that are limited to only major roads and that will suit us fine. Just for once, free-ways an toll-roads are well and truly on the agenda. We came across a clean river flowing on the Greek side of the same mountains that catch water for the Albanian rivers. Strange how the water on this side is clear but on the other side is putrid. We had been on the winding road through the mountains for a couple of hours and I had one of those beautiful, beautiful morning breaks, sitting in the warm sun at a roadside cafe with the best cup of coffee - long, hot, and with milk – that I have had in weeks and a pastry triangle, still warm, filled with cheese. Just the tops. The boss lady was one of those ‘severe’ schoolmarm types but she was warm and friendly when I told her how wonderful it was. (I go over the top sometimes – but I love it when you get a positive response such as today.) I think that is what I like most about travelling like this, independently, with Phe on roads that take you to unexpected places. It’s a small town, where everyone knows everyone and just for that fifteen minutes or so I am part of that small town. Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

Very soon after that we were on the motorway doing 110 kms per hour for hour after hour By midday we were still on the divided roads but well out of the mountains and on the flat. Flat agricultural land with crops, orchards and market gardens - pretty intensive farming. This has been a long but very easy drive and I kept putting off our stop for the night until the last town before Turkey and then it was “what the heck – we may as well spend the two hours at the border tonight rather than in the morning”, so we kept on going. We cleared the border in not much more that half an hour and that included buying insurance for Phe to cover her while we are in Turkey. It’s the only country I have come across so far that makes it compulsory to have vehicle insurance. A good thing too. I have Phe covered with an AXA policy in Britain but only for the EU so she needs to drive very carefully when we are outside the EU – and that’s often enough. What a difference a country makes though. We had been on the Greek roads for more than nine hours and did not see one Greek policeman! Up in the mountains the air is clean but misty. In the city it is just laden with dust – and that’s every city - and I think it comes from the construction of all the buildings in concrete. Concrete is a product from a quarry and the product from the quarry is carted to the cement works or wherever in trucks without covers and as a result there is dust. It sits on the road until the next truck comes along to pick up and carry forward billowing clouds for it to settle everywhere and on everything until the next truck comes along. The roads are a dusty colour because that’s what they are, asphalt covered with dust. As a population they must not be aware of it, having lived with it continuously for years although I did see a few shopkeepers or stall holders sprinkle water on the road outside to lessen the load - but it’s pretty futile. A stronger municipal will would be needed to reduce this problem and from what I have seen I doubt there would ever be such a municipal will without an outside influence such as, say, a push into international tourism. The way it is at the moment I don’t think the international tourist would wear a problem of this magnitude. The scenery in Albania is stunning. We started in the north, went right up to the border with Montenegro and then into the mountains towards the town of Theth but got beaten by the bad road and had to do a U-turn, but it was just marvellous driving around these small towns and villages and looking at the village life as best we could in just a snapshot. Then a bit further south we branched off again to go inland to the east and around the lakes. The mountains provided super, super scenery. I think our journey through Albania was stunted by not having a good road map as the one I bought on the first day was out of date and inaccurate so I couldn’t rely on it. I couldn’t find my way by reading the map. We would be at a fork in the road but there was no fork on the map. The map would show the road in red as a good secondary road but then on the ground it became a 13 km per hour track that eventually became impossible for poor old Phe – and Phe’s tough! There were road signs on the major roads but seldom if any on the secondary roads. A good road map would have made the world of difference to our journey, and may have allowed us to go places we didn’t go to because of the first experience of having to turn back. I liked our journey in Albania. The people I came across were always friendly and helpful and the scenery was wonderful. And all of that friendly dust too – all over us like a rash!

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com

Graeme's BOOK 2 'Karen and Compass, Phe and Me - On Roads without Lines - Book 2' is available to buy both in print and online BOOK 2 includes Graeme’s full journey through: Estonia and the Baltic States Poland Ukraine Hungary Romania Bulgaria Turkey and Georgia and Greece To buy BOOK 2, visit: http://www.perendale.com/browse/travel/robin/