Tirana New Bazaar - Albania Market Hunt Vlog 🇦🇱

Hi, where are you from? Bangladesh. Bangladesh? Yeah. I don't know if this is a lychee or not. Today I am in Tirana, the capital city of Albania. And today I'm going to try to go to this market called Pazar Iri. Which is like an open market with fresh produce and stuff. That's supposedly been around for like 100 years or 200 years. So let's check it out. So this place is really easy to find. You just go to the main square in Tirana and walk like 500 meters. That dumpster smells bad. And then it should be right there. I've kind of been in there once before. But everything was closing and it was kind of empty. Today it's 3.30pm right now. So hopefully that should give me enough time to see more stuff than last time. There it is. You can see the starting of the market. And I know this is it because there are glass walls everywhere here. Okay. I can smell the meat already. And this is I guess more of the meat stuff. A lot of shops seem to be already closed. The lights are turning on and off. So I guess this is where they keep the fish. I'm guessing because it's all ice. Oh there is more fish actually. So this is all raw fish. And they just put ice on it to make it stay fresh I guess. Now on to the less smelly stuff. There you go. So like I said this has got like a greenhouse vibe to it. That's pretty cool. Hello. What is this? One kilo. One kilo is 600 lek. Okay. Almonds? Okay so they have nuts here. 600. I don't know if I'm buying it. Thank you. This is cool. This is actually delicious. It's okay. But it's like 600 lek. So it's like 5 dollars for one kilo. Definitely won't be needing one kilo of this. I see they have some cracked ones over here. Okay. Thank you. Okay this I think... One more food. Hi. Where are you from? Bangladesh. Bangladesh? Yeah. Tobacco? Tobacco? I'm looking at it. Do you smoke? No I can't smoke. Okay Bangladeshi. So one thing a lot of Americans, a lot of other countries don't know. Is that a lot of people like to roll their own cigarettes. Instead of like smoking cigarettes straight out of a pack. So usually you can find like small bags of tobacco you know. And small filters and papers and everything to roll it. And in this place. I'm not encouraging smoking by the way. And in this place they have like these huge bags. Massive bags. Like 500 bags of tobacco. And then like I think if you're smoking a lot. This is the efficient way to do it. You just get like a lot of tobacco. You even have pipes and stuff. Look at that. No tobacco? No, not for now. Take for your friends. Maybe later. No, thank you. Bangladesh? Bangladesh. So a lot of these things are empty. I think I actually came too late. Because I think during the day there's just more stuff. Hello. Just like just markets. It's just like fanny packs and stuff. No, I don't need a glasses right now. I'm just looking. Okay. Battery. AA. How much is this? 200 lakhs. 200 lakhs? Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So I just got some batteries. Because I need them for my keyboard and mouse. Before I forget about it. Oops, sorry. Let's see what else is there. Really bizarre. I think most of the fruits and vegetables are actually gone for today. But there are a lot of like Albanian flags, I think. Oh, this is just like carpets and stuff. Let's have a better look. Okay. These are definitely like carpets that are unique to this region, I want to say. I never saw anything like this in Germany, let's say. This is like a popular item for tourists for sure to get on their travels. I know because I was traveling with a friend from Germany who got a carpet like this. And the cool part about this is this is not meant for tourists. This is just how the local people sell stuff. Let's see what else is actually open. Okay, there's some bananas. I do like bananas. Hi. Can I get bananas? How much? 200? How much? 400, okay. So it's 400, not 200. I'll give you... Oh, okay. Oh, it's 240, okay. Okay, so I got six fat bananas for 240 Leks, which is basically $2. One fascinating thing that I found out when I first came to Albania is that this whole country didn't have bananas because it was like run by a crazy isolationist guy who stopped imports of things. So a lot of people in this country hadn't seen a banana until like the 90s. And then it was like a luxury item. Not so much luxury now because you can like actually, you know, get it for $2. This is so cool. Look at all the glass. Look at the glass roof. This is so cool. Okay, so this is more smoking stuff. Let's see what else is there. More carpets. More fresh fruits. I usually like oranges, but I don't think I'm going to have time to eat too much fruits because I'm leaving Albania in two days max. That's when my Airbnb expires and I need to get to another city. What is this? Hello. What is this? Tea, okay. So they have like tea here. That's like straight up plants. I've never seen that before. Tobacco. More tobacco. There's a lot of tobacco here. And now we're talking. So now we see a lot more produce. So these are olives. And if you don't know, this region is kind of known for its olives. The Mediterranean olives and stuff. Greece, Albania. So I'm guessing this is really good. I don't usually eat a lot of olives though, so I'm not going to get any. But surely I can try one. Let's see. Hi. Is it 300 for a kilogram? Is it 300 per kilogram or what is it? Can I try one? Let's try one. Tastes like a fresh olive. I don't know why people just eat this without anything. That's how my friends do. It's great to me when it's served with something else, but not by itself. There's also all these like magnets. See that woman? That is Mother Teresa, Nobel Peace Prize winner. Very famous here because she is of Albanian descent. Very famous where I'm from in Bangladesh because I think she spent most of her life in West Bengal, a region of India that speaks my language. This is a good person to promote if you're promoting the country of Albania. I like it. They also have a lot of like cute little plates. I guess this is more for tourists too. It's like lots of cups and plates. Very, very Southern Balkan, Middle Eastern vibes going on here. And then there's water. And I guess there's like these necklaces with eyes. If you're a hippie, this is where you want to come to buy like necklaces with eyes. Something I just noticed is that like right next to this new bazaar or old bazaar, whatever this is called, is a mosque with the classic Ottoman minaret. And next to it are like all these nice restaurants, I think. I doubt this is like a cheap place to eat out. Now you have a lot more different kind of nuts. Even more olives and peppers. So this is really cool to I think Westerners because you don't just get fresh produce like this. In most Western countries, it just comes like packaged and wrapped from somewhere else. But if you're like me from like Bangladesh or some like Asian country, this is probably the norm for how you buy stuff. Even more nuts. These are lychees. I don't know if this is a lychee or not. Let me try it out. I think this is a lychee. Is this lychee? Okay. This is lychee stuff. So this, when I buy it in Bangladesh, would come with a seed and stuff. But in this case, it just comes like without the seed. I don't even know people sold it like that. Nice though. I love lychee. There's some big-ass watermelons, pineapples. You name it, they have it. All kinds of fruits. Hello. There's flowers too. Last but not least, there's also some pottery, which is pretty freaking cool. So this, I think, is the more touristy part. This is probably for tourists. I don't see a lot of Albanians coming here, locals, and buying clay pots from this market. Correct me if I'm wrong. There's some like little piggy banks for kids too. Look at this piggy bank. I used to have that stuff in Bangladesh when I was a kid. Last but not least, there is a lot of rakia, or rakhi. So even if you've been to the Balkans for like two days, no matter what country it is, anything between Slovenia and Turkey, I want to say, you probably know that people live by the rakhi and die by the rakhi over here. Rakhi is like the most important drink. I know a lot of friends whose grandparents make their own rakhi, and it's like a gift. And usually, you know rakhi is good, is if it comes in a plastic bottle. That means it's like homemade. So if you see, over there, the very end. Let me try to get closer. At the very end, see those plastic bottles? That's what the good rakhi is supposed to be like. Alright, I think that is going to be it for this video. If you like this video, feel free to like it. If you want to see more videos like this, feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel, or follow my Facebook page. And if you want real-time travel updates, follow me there. And if you want real-time travel updates, feel free to follow me on Instagram, I'll catch you guys on the next video, from probably in Albania, because I'm going to go make like a burek vlog really quick.