Middle-aged flash packers

Many questions came up today:

1.) why are there so many mercs, BMWs and other “luxury” cars in Albania?

2.) why do the people driving them look like farmers/ordinary people/thugs rather than rich business men?

3) how much do people earn in Albania- looks like a very poor country to me, yet most of the cars are worth minimum £50000.

4.) why are there so many car scrap yards in Albania?

5.) why are there so many police here? I saw more police in Albania than all the countries we have visited in total.

Something is rotten in the state of Albania methinks.

I read something recently that said Albania has some of the most feared criminal gangs in the world. The gangs supply huge amounts of drugs throughout Europe and you can bet they’re involved in people trafficking. Rumour has it that most of the cars Albanians drive are stolen from all over Europe and then re-registered in the capital, Tirana, so they cannot be traced.

Certainly, as we drove out of civilised Montenegro into Albania, the change in attitude was palpable.

. As soon as we drove through passport control, a beggar was pressed up to the window, holding out her hand for money. We passed people in a horse and cart, followed by a Mercedes SLK, and a BMW X5, followed by someone literally sitting on a tractor engine but no tractor, overtaken by a Range Rover. We also saw two Bentleys. And this has to be one of the poorest, if not the poorest country in Europe. 

The driving standard is awful. As we drove through one town, a lunatic on a motorbike overtook us, did a wheelie at 70 miles an hour right behind a car (BMW of course) then drove alongside it. I’m guessing the car caused offence somehow but absolute madness.

Trying to get through the capital city was a nightmare. There is no sense of order or thinking ahead. we could only get third party insurance for Albania. It’s a laughable concept that any of these clowns are insured so we would be stuffed if anyone hit us or we hit them. Very stressful indeed.

To make it worse, the speed limits in Albania are very low so what would normally be a 3 hour max journey took 7 hours! We did this with only one stop which was in Montenegro.

We heaved a sigh of relief when we crossed into Macedonia. Back to normality, a country where people drive old bangers and are nice to you. In fact, the people in Macedonia are exceptionally helpful and very cultured. I gather they have trouble with Albanians in their country – recently 8 policemen were killed in the Albanian area of Skopje. (Capital of Macedonia).

To relieve our stress, after dumping our bags at our apartment, we had a wander around Orhid. It’s an old town set on an enormous lake. Most of the buildings have been renovated in traditional style and there are many very pretty churches. 

We followed our landlady’s advice and ate at a lovely restaurant on the edge of the lake. Afterwards we walked back through the woods and saw fireflies darting in and out of the trees! They were amazing, like little fairies.

A note to Hannah – Hannah, you are truly a traveller and I salute you for braving Albania and seeing the good in it. As wimpy flashpackers, it’ll be a while before we are brave enough to explore this “Wild West” part of Europe any further.