My plans for the summer: Central Asia!

[worldwidemike]

Wow, your trip sounds amazing...Samarkand! Talk about exotic places from history...

I know if I went to Iran, I'd definitely be checking out some of the ruins of Ancient Persia. Unfortunately, I haven't read up on it much, since I haven't planned a trip there, yet. Is there much left of the ancient ruins of Persepolis? Good ol' Alexander the Great and his boyos burnt it down, but I imagine there's something left...

As for my trip to Albania, I finally finished reading the Bradt guide. MAN! Lots and lots to see. I'm looking at leaving sometime around April 12th, hopefully flying to Tirana via Rome. We'll see how the loads look around that time. I could always fly into Bari or something and take the ferry over.

So, what do I want to see there? Well, these sounded pretty darn cool:
• Lake ferry along Lake Komani
• Ancient ruins at Butrint
• Gjirokastra -- a UNESCO "museum city" with castle brooding atop it
• Berati -- supposedly one of the most attractive hilltop cities in Albania
• and lots more than I will have time for in my measley one week

Any suggestions, ajb?

[freespiritz]

Sounds like an awesome trip! SO many places I wish I could go to...especially Turkey! I wish I could've visited Kashgar, Urumqi and Xian while I was in China!

Beijing was alright...rather touristy, but the Great Wall was definitely worth it - I visited the Simatai section, which was pretty amazing and I hear is the most spectacular (although not the biggest/widest). In northern China that I went to, I enjoyed Inner Mongolia the most (we zipped through Qinghai and Ningxia) - from the deserts to the grasslands! :D

Shanghai was a very modern, fun city...I loved walking around the Bund by night. But really, my best experiences in China were out of the cities (and away from the accompanying pollution, ick!) and way out in the mountains and valleys and middle of nowhere. Try for some of those if you can, unless you're a city traveler. If you want a little break from the overly internationally-flavored cities, take a side-trip from Shanghai to Nanjing, Suzhou (famed for gardens!) or Hangzhou. Huangshan (Yellow Mountains) are also quite spectacular, and all these places are easily accessible from Shanghai.

[ajb3000]

I have been told by a friend whose been in China for the past month that I should skip Beijing and Shanghai, and instead go to the Yunnan province. From his description it sounds pretty good, but i'd feel a bit silly going to China and not seeing the two main cities or the wall. Plus I expect I'll really want to spend time with other backpackers after being off-the-beaten-path for so long.

I'll probably wait and see how I feel when I get there, but does anyone here have any input on the subject?

WWM, there is indeed lots to see and do and I felt like I rushed it in 10 days. Berat (Berati) as mentioned before is definitely recommended. Gjirokastra and Butrint sound interesting but I didn't make it to either, they are quite a way from Tirana as well, you're looking at about 8 hours to Gjirokastra by bus and a further 4 to Saranda in order to get to Butrint. They were making huge improvements to the roads while I was there though so it may not be quite as long now but you can find out when you get there .

I'm really keen to go back and explore the north of the country at some point, but for your first trip the south definitely has more to offer. All the towns are really small so you'll probably find you'll get to a town, spend a few hours looking round and then feel like leaving in the late afternoon for the next town, and with extremely frequent shared taxis (and very easy hitching opportunities), that's easy to do.

Try and see some of the coastline if you can (but not at durres or vlora), it's just stunning.

[freespiritz]

You have to see the great wall!

But otherwise, I felt like Beijing wasn't that great. I visited the temple of heaven and the Forbidden City, but they aren't that interesting unless you're into the history, I feel.

Yunnan, however, is beautiful. Dali and Lijiang were kind of super-touristy, but quaint in a way too. Getting out to see the rice terraces and wetlands was gorgeous.

[worldwidemike]

Thanks for the tips. Did you hear much about the ferry on Lake Komani? The Bradt travel guide raves about it, saying it is one of the great boat rides in the world...right up there with the fjords in Norway, etc.

My friend that I'm going with met an Albanian guy who recommended Vlora, Saranda and Gjirokastra. So, I'm thinking we'll probably end up in the south, like you suggest...

worldwidemike

[ajb3000]

I've actually never heard of Lake Komani, but having just googled it... damn! It is in the north though so not easy to fit in with your other plans.

Unless dirty industrial towns with nothing to see or do apart from a single palm tree lined avenue are your thing, skip Vlora. Although you should pass through it in order to take the coastal road to Saranda; it has some magnificant views, although can be a little scary at times.

So, i'd recommend:

Days 1-2 in Tirana
Day 3 in Berat
Day 4 travelling to Saranda via Vlora
Day 5 in Saranda/Butrint
Day 6 in Gjirokastra
Day 7 travelling back to Tirana

Leave for the next place early each morning, buses/taxis start running at about 5am.

As previously mentioned, shared taxis are very frequent and very cheap, they leave when full (or when they driver gets bored and decides to leave anyway), but that usually doesn't take very long. Also, there's practically no overnight travel opportunities due to the poor state of the roads, so you'll have to factor journey times during the day into your plans. The one exception being on possibly the worst road in the country; to Kosovo.

[worldwidemike]

Thanks! I've been gone so long from Tpunk this thread slid to the second page. Okay, I'll note the "pan" on Vlora...good info. So far, plans are still on for the trip, though the loads to Europe on USAirways' flights are getting more full. Coming home looks fine, thank goodness. So, I may have to pry open the wallet a bit more and fly over on a different carrier.

The only convenient flights I could find to Tirana were via Rome on Alitalia. I saw Austrian Airlines goes there, but my airline doesn't fly to Vienna. Any other ones you know of...? I didn't see any Lufthansa, KLM nor British Airways...

Oh, and let me know when you want to go back and explore the north of the country, ajb. I might want to tag along...

worldwidemike

[ajb3000]

www.belleair.it are a budget airline with flights to Tirana from many cities in Italy. They're the only budget airline operating in Albania if I remember correctly so give them a look.

I'm really excited for you going there, you'll have a great time. I'll definitely let you know when I get a chance to go back.

[ajb3000]

A quick update on my progress:

I STILL don't have an Iranian visa over 3 months after applying, still trying and hoping but it's not looking very promising, I am therefore (reluctantly) starting to consider my backup plan of going through the Caucuses instead.

I managed to get my Uzbekistan visa last week, and will be sending off for the Kyrgyzstan visa tomorrow, which should be very straight forward to get.

I'll write a detailed account of the visa process for each country once I've obtained them all.

[worldwidemike]

Good luck...hope the visas come through! Can't wait to hear about this trip.

worldwidemike

[ajb3000]

Things may be back on track for going through Iran now, the travel agent whose trying to organise my visa is fairly confident I will be granted a visa within the next 2 weeks!

While this is fantastic news, time is really running out in regards to the Turkmenistan visa. It's a transit visa that I can only apply for after I have visas for both neighbouring countries, so that's Uzbekistan which I have sorted, and either Iran or Azerbaijan. The problem is, the Turkmen visa can take up to 3 weeks to organise, and I leave the UK in just 5 weeks time! Therefore, if I wait 2 weeks and the Iranian visa doesn't materialise, I'm out of time to get the Azeri and Turkmen visas before I leave...

I'm so excited about the prospect of going to Iran though that I'm going to wait it out and hope everything comes together in the end.

All this excitement is making it VERY difficult to study for the 6 exams I have in the next 2 weeks!

BTW. Mike, I read your travelogue on Albania, looks like you had a great time and managed to fit a lot in! I got screwed with the whole Fushe-Kruja thing, when trying to get back from Kruja to Tirana a furgon driver claimed to be going to Tirana and charged us for the fare to Tirana, but then dropped us off in Fushe-Kruja and told us to take another one, at further cost. Having said that I only lost a couple of dollars so can't really complain. Of course when I paid $10 for a can of pepsi in Tirana was cause for complaint.

[worldwidemike]

Ahhh...the whole "old lek" vs. "new lek" thing...! I was lucky. Our exchange rate was really, really easy to remember. So, it took only half a second to realize what someone was charging. The weirdest thing of all is that they quote the price to you in old lek, most of the times (which is about 10 times more expensive than it should be). I would just give them what it should be in new lek and no one ever argued.

Anyway, enough about Albania...IRAN! That is awesome, and I can understand why you're finding it hard to do your schoolwork. I hope everything comes through on the transit visa, and all. This is going to be a hell of an adventure...

worldwidemike

[Esterina]

ajb, I'm moving your thread to the Asia forum, and slightly changed the title. Too much infos in here for a general discussion... And no tpunk had posted about central asia yet.