After being an hour late in starting, probably caused by the fact that it was pissing down with rain all afternoon, the bus got underway and was a long trip. I got literally the last seat on the bus but was fortunate in the fact that it was against the window which meant leaning over to get some sleep was that little bit easier – sleeping on buses is something I am proud to say is becoming much easier than it used to be all that time ago when I started. Sleeping on and off for a few hours saw the time fly by and before I knew it we were at the border between Hungary and Ukraine
(Not “the Ukraine” – it pisses off the locals).
This was probably one of the worst things about my fucking long 22 hour bus ride into Ukraine. We, the bus and everyone on it, were stuck waiting at the border for an eternity – 3-4 hours is the guess that I would make for them to check all of the passports/visas etc. I have to say that having the British passport in this situation was an understated bonus. If I was on the Aussie passport I would have needed a visa to get in but with the EU passport it wasn’t needed and I unlike at least 4 other people on our bus, got through the border with no problems at all.
Had to give a slight snicker at the people who got turned away at 5 in the morning in the middle of nowhere on the border, but it freed up enough seats for the woman next to me to move so I could have the pair of seats to myself and that made getting some sleep so much easier.
The wonder of Ukrainian roads is something to marvel at.... or not.
They made getting sleep while we were on the move a challenge to say it lightly.
The entire day was a combination of broken sleep and looking at the very poor rural areas that we were passing through.
Ended up getting to Kiev around 7 pm and then got a taxi to the hostel.
I was in Kiev, Ukraine after all this time.
And to think, I had no intention of going even as east as Krakow, Poland when I started all of this travel.
No comments:
Post a Comment