Arnavutluk Rozafa Kalesinden Ezan

Enver Hocanın altında onca yıl din yasaklanmasına rağmen, o yasaklayıcı zihniyete inat ezan Shkoder semalarında eskiden olduğu gibi yankılanıyor.


An old Ottoman mosque (Lead Mosque- Kurşunlu Camii) in Shkoder as seen from Rozafa Castle. The minaret has been exploded due to lightning struck.

View of Rozafa Castle as seen from airplane right after Podgorica airport

Gas Price Comparison between Albania, Montenegro, Turkey and US in September 2012

With a price tag of 4.92 TL per liter (roughly 2.16 euro) , Turkey became the most expensive country in the world in terms of gas prices. As I was traveling at the time, I had the chance to compare the prices in other countries such as Montenegro, Albania and the US. As you can see in the below snapshots, one liter of gas was 1.54 euros in Budva, Montenegro and it was 199 Lekes (~1.42 euros) in Albania. Meanwhile it was just 3.90 US$ per gallon (~1.03 $/liter which is around 0.78 euros per liter) in Portland, Oregon, USA.Deinitely, Americans enjoy the best price on gas and Turks getting hit the most. It will be good if we can have a chance to compare these prices in the future.

From Budva, Montenegro in Euros	Somewhere close to Tirana in Albanian Lekes
From Istanbul, Turkey

Daily Internet Package by Telenor in Montenegro

Most cell phone companies in US force potential customers to buy a monthly plan for talk, text (SMS) and web services with certain amount of minutes or text or data. But in most cases, customers end up paying more than they actually use. A substantial amount of the minutes, texts and data remain unclaimed and this counts as a net profit to the provider. The prepaid plans are way more expensive (per minute) and lack satisfactory services for data. I have always thought why we cannot have simply plans where we just pay for what we use (as can easily be found in Europe). This is still a big dream in US. Anyways, I want to comment on a very customer-friendly plan I used and liked during my recent trip to Montenegro. There, I have used a plan which is geared mainly towards the tourists that stay for a short term in the country. Instead of paying for the huge roaming charges, for 5 euros, you can buy this plan and have 1GB of internet in a very satisfactory performance for a week. There is no talk on the plan but as you can use the Skype services you can virtually call anywhere in the world for a very cheap data plan fee. The plan is by Telenor and I definitely recommend everyone to have it once in Montenegro. I also wish that our service providers can also think such similar services for those who just want to pay for what they use.

Also in the neighboring country Albania, a voice and data plan of 400 leke (approximately 4 US dolllars) from Vodafone allows you to talk and use the internet with pretty good performance. Actually this is a better deal than the above, but considering the wealth of both countries, the price in Montenegro is understandable. Bor both plans, you should ask for the specific VPN data. Also for the Vodafone in Albania, have the shop you buy from call the calling center to open the line for data transfer in case English speaking personnel is not available in the calling center.

How to get from Ohrid to Tirana by public transportation?

When I decided to have a short Balkan trip, I decided to start from Skopje and move onwards to Tetovo and Ohrid. Once Ohrid is completed, I planned to go to Tirana, Albania and keep going to Montenegro over Shkoder. As I was searching the internet for various possibilities to travel between Ohrid to Tirana, I could not find satisfactory information. Apparently, there was no direct bus connection between these two cities and suggestions were mainly on taking taxis to the border and then catch a bus or another taxi to Elbasan. So, once I reached Ohrid, I didn't know how to get to Tirana the next day. Thus, I decided to prepare this post to help people searching for this information as well as increase content on Albania in the internet domain. (Note that all these info is based on data from October 2012 and check for updates where necessary.)

Well, for the best information, I asked locals once I get to Ohrid. The main suggestion is to take the mini-buses to Struga on the north shores of Ohrid lake and then catch a inter-city bus coming from Skopje outbound to Tirana in the main bus station in Struga. I was told that if I may miss the mid-noon buses then I might have to wait for 5-6 pm buses leading to late arrival to Tirana.Note that there is no direct bus line originating from Struga going to Albania. All the buses I have seen were coming from elsewhere, such as Skopje, Kumanovo and even Istanbul.

This is an "insider's" view from the mini-bus between Ohrid to Struga. It takes approximately 15 minutes to get to Struga from the main boulevard of Ohrid. It is very easy to spot the minibus if you just wait near the road. Even private cars stop and ask whether you need a ride or not.

 

Once in Struga, you should get off the minibus around the following tiny church St.Petka (yellow marker in the below map). Actually, in the below photo, you can see a similar minibus coming to the bus station and people waiting for the minibus. If you keep in the minibus, its route gets farther from the main intercity bus station. Once out, keep walking toward the city and turn right and keep going. Check the map below for further details:

The front side of the bus station looks like as shown below. It is very small bus station and mainly the buses comes, picks up passengers and leaves. Note that the bus station is squeezed between industrial shops. So, while getting there, it feels like there cannot be a bus station but believe me there is one.

Inside the bus station, I have seen this bus going to Istanbul over Bulgaria. I believe if there wasn't a need for a transit visa from Bulgaria to get to Macedonia, many people from Turkey would take this bus trip. It is very cheap compared to flight tickets and you get to see different cities along the way. 

 

This is the bus stop for Istanbul. Note the way they write Istanbul: Istambul. I cannot say this is a typo as some countries including Spain write Istanbul the same way as below.

The other perons of the bus station

Finally our bus arrived from Skopje. It stopped for a very short duration. After picking up the passengers it hit the road. The next destination is the Albanian border.

We are at the Albanian border. It took approximately half an hour to clear from both countries. First the Macedonian side collects the passports and they stamp out. Then, Albanian border police gets the passport and stamp in. As passengers, we did not interact with the border police at all. The bus driver took care of everything. Unfortunately, stamps were barely visible due to almost no ink on the stamps.

This is the inside view from our bus to Tirana. There was this nice old man who kept the cigarette in his mouth until he get off while waiting for the customs for the passport or IDs. He was calm and definitely cool.