🇩🇰cycling Denmark to China🇨🇳: Albania
Welcome to Albania
The people of Albania
The people of Albania are friendly, hospital and are what makes the country so amazing to cycle through. But many are also poor and some might try to cheat you for a little extra cash. I don't believe it's something you can blame them for if you look it from their perspective;
A "rich" danish guy (at least compared to them) is a good target to earn a little extra. Their average salary is from 200 - 300 euro a month but yet stuff like electronics costs the same as rest of Europe. So if they want to buy a phone, they will have to save up for a long time. So merely a few euro extra can mean a lot for some of the people.
Often you can catch them in the act of scamming you but sometimes I let them do it if it's merely a few euro. A subtle way of thanking them for their company. They are truly warm people who makes you feel welcome and many times there's no money aspect involved in this. Also the country is incredibly cheap, where a melon can cost 10-20 cents.
The Nature
The landscape in Albania is very much a like the rest of the Balkans state. Inland you will find mountains, fields, small villages and abandoned houses. While on the coast you will notice a increasing tourism from nearby countries and of course the beautiful sunsets and view of the sea.
The story and the present
Albania Is a country that have already come far. The country have been closed and ruled by dictatorships merely 25 years ago. Also communism was the dominant ideology. You can see many signs that the country was ruled this way. From hundreds of bunkers across the country, old island military bases now opened for tourism not long ago. But since dictatorship were brought down the country have already been through a lot of development and are still developing fast to this day. My own believe is that in 10 to 15 years it will look a lot like Croatia, after all its not long time ago Croatia were not that much different from Albania in their own development.
Remember this is my own perspective of the country and you might see it differently!
It was awesome experience to cycle through Albania and very soon I will hit my original milestone, Greece! The country i have been looking so much forward to see! Have a awesome weekend and see you again soon!
-Holm
As always @holm great post. I love hearing about all the people you meet and the pictures are always first class. This is definitely an adventure of a lifetime.
Thanks a lot! It really puts a lot of perspective on how I start to see the world. Much deeper than this post but maybe I will try to share it in some way later on my journey :)
Amazing post! Love your dedication! Keep up the good work!
Thanks a lot!! Appreciate it! :)
lovely pictures
This looks fantastic!
nice country noone knows about.. thanks bro
Appreciate it mate!
That sunset over the sea picture is incredible! Just out of interest how did you catch them trying to scam you?
1 euro = 130 Albanian leke. So sometimes they grap the chance when you pay in euro to give you less back. Stuff like this where they hope you don't know much. Our first restaurant visit we figured out later that day my German friend payed 20 euro too much because we didn't know the currency there, haha.
Haha SHIT that's a lot! Maybe you should pay in leke if you can to avoid that happening? I've had similar things happen to me on my travels and usually I don't bother complaining either
Haha we quickly figured it all out within a day so it's fine!
Finally a country that i don't know! :D well at least that good as Croatia and Montenegro. But still Albania is one of the countries where you can find some of the biggest gaps between rich and poor. But usually the poor are million times friendlier. And the Albanians are known on the entire Balkan region as the best fruit sellers since a lot of Albanian population is scattered across Balkan countries. And most/many of them are opening different service shops like bakeries, fruit stands, icecream stands, etc.
That is very true! And they surely do live up to their reputation the Albanian people!
Hello @holm. Thank you for sharing your photos.
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The photos are taken of me and my German companion that I shared the pictures with, have not been shared with anyone else but between me and him so everything should be alright :)