Tag 1- we have bigger feet than we think - Part II

Munich > Rosenheim > Chiemsee > Salzburg > Bratislava > Martin > Ukraine border > Ushgorod > L'viv


Two really cool dudes took us with them from Bratislava. One of them was speaking a little german. he was funny as hell...
"und wohii gehst ihr" 
- "we're going to china"  
- "CHINA? OH GOOOOT"
The little guy was always talking about girls ... the other one didn't speak at all.

They left us at a gas station in the middle of nowhere.. in a city named Martin in Slowakia. It was eleven o clock in the night. Sebastian and I thought we will never get out of there. We put on some music... by the way... if you ever go on a trip like this, buy some speakers for your Ipod... it's really awesome to listen to music while you hitchhike. Time flies faster. yeah...

so we were in the middle of the night at a man-forgotten horror gas station when all of a sudden some guy stops the car in front of us. The weird part was .. that he came from the other direction.. he wasn't going in the direction we were.
"where are you going?"
- "We want to go to Poprad"
- "you're going to Ukraine aren't you?"
- "yes"
- Well come in then.. i'll take you guys there"
I have to admit it was pretty suspicious at the beginning. Too much kindness without reason usually means something bad. We took a break in the middle of nowhere and stopped at a house in the woods.
I was thinking ... "oh fuck! this is it... he'll cut you into pieces and feed you to his monster pet" ...
We ate something like Kaesespaetzle. It was typical Slowakian. it tasted awesome.

The guy that took us with him was a pretty smart person. he had university and could speak english very good. He talked with us about a lot of things.
He took us a very long way... and fast....... really really fast.
I'm not used to people being this nice and helpful. But he showed us that they exist.
His name was a bit hard to remember ... Rano .. Raino ... Reno. we called him Ronaldo afterwards.
Ronaldo ... big thanks to you man. Look for us when you come to China... We wish you all the best!

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Ukraine border

We had to jump in a car to cross the border. They took our passports. every passport was ok.. except mine.
The police woman looked at me and said: "One time?"       .... i didn't know what the hell that means but i said yes.
So she told me to get out of the car and wait in that space between Slowakia and Ukraine (it's called no-man's land). It took a while. that moment i was thinking "the're gonna send me back... they're gonna reject my passport" The woman came after 20 minutes with a smile on her face. She said romanian passports require a deeper checking ... especially if you look like a Guantanamo prisoner in your passport.

5 o'clock in the morning... we're walking on the streets of Ukraine. Tired but pretty excited that we came this far.

Ukraine reminds me of Romania a bit.

We took a bus to L'viv and here we are today. The bus took us 200-300 Kilometers ........ in 7 hours :)))))
We saw a lot of ukraine's countryside. Beautiful. We went through the mountains. Villages .. farms.. cows.. nice old people whe are eager to talk to you even if you don't understand them.
We arrived after 7 hours in L'viv and went straight to the train station. There wasn't any train to Dnepopetrvsk. We went back to the Autobus station ..they call it AutoVoxal ... and tried to see if they had any bus that went to east Ukraine that day. No luck.
We went to the train station again. The bus number 18 took us there. it was a long way.. the bus was full of people. Outside was hot and the windows were closed and stuck. We met an ukrainian guy in the bus that lives in munich. He was 16-17 years old..i think he wanted to be a gangster.

Those buses man... if you ever go to Ukraine riding a bus is a real experience. They look like cardboard boxes on wheels.

 

People pay 20 cents to ride the bus as long as they wish. They have to pay the ticket at the bus driver. The ones who are in the back and can't reach the bus driver.. they pass the money from hand to hand. They get change back .. also from hand to hand. I've never seen anything like it.

We bought the ticket to Dnepopetrovsk for the next day at half past 5 PM.

Then we went to a hostel. I don't know if you know those cars named LADA. They're old sovjet cars.. really old. we took one taxi (a Lada) and he took us to a Hostel. He was driving like in the rally. we were expecting that every moment, the poor car would just break in a thousand parts on the road.
The hostel was a nice confortable place. they usually are. if you ever go on a trip.. never go to a hotel. book a hostel. it's much more interesting.
After 30 hours of activity.. we smelled like real men :))
Thank you Hostel for the shower.

We went out for a bit in L'viv in the evening.
I have never seen so many pretty girls in one place in my life. The night life here must be awesome.

Next stop - Dnepopetrovsk (east Ukraine) tomorow at 11:35. We're going to meet a friend of Sebastian there.

Cheers

Bobby

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Song of the Post

Some ukrainian Song from the top charts