Day Nine. Kiev Central Station.

We leave our train at Kiev, I want to take a photo of it before it leaves, but as I set off up the platform I realise that the train is bigger, much bigger. When we left Suceava it had four coaches, now looking up and down there were at least 30! The train stretched out of sight around the gentle curve of the platform, my guess was it must be at least 1km long! I give up on walking to the front and took a photo from there.

Earlier I had asked the thin vodka guy about reserving our beds for the return journey, and he told us to do it today before we left the station. We arrived just after 9am, and I had booked the hire car for 11am, to allow time for such things. As we leave the platform the grand scale of Kiev station hits us, there's almost 100 ticket booths all numbered and countless shops selling everything from food, coffee and gifts to mobile phones and computers. And it's very busy, trains are arriving all the time, people are everywhere. The bustle is how I'd imagine Delhi to be. It even made Luton airport seem quiet.

We choose a ticket booth and wait in queue. When we get to the front the lady writes 7-8 on a bit of paper and sends us away. We are at window 79 and the lowest numbers we can see are in the 50's. Before we look for booth 7 we go outside to make sure our hire car wasn't waiting for us.

Once we were sure our car wasn't there we go back inside and over the tracks, here we find a older more ornate hall, with just a couple of booths. One had INFORMATION above it in English. We get to the front of the queue, the lady speaks no English but writes 7-8 on a bit of paper and points to a big door with Hall 3 above it and says "tourist"

Once inside Hall 3 we see windows 7 and 8 to our right. We queue at window 7 which has "international" above it. The lady looks at the tickets then sends us to the next window. Here the lady speaks English and we explain what we need to do. She understands, but sends us back to window number 7. From then on the transaction went quite smoothly.

Our next problem is that we have noticed the station is double fronted, one entrance on either side of the tracks, and we don't know which side the car will arrive. I try phoning both numbers on my confirmation, but get no answer.

Hoping that the girl who speaks English might be able to advise us, I go over to her booth. There's no one there so I go straight to the window. I ask her, she smiles, types on her keyboard and replies "I give no information here, you go to information kiosk" I thank her, and walk away saying "computer says no" under my breath. Knowing that the information kiosk lady speaks no English and would send me back to this booth, I decide to cut my losses.

Back outside, we try to spot our car, we are approached by "taxi" drivers every 15 seconds. One of them is more insistent than the others and says "I speak English" I ask him what we need to know, he says that he will take us to the address on the booking form. I try to tell him that it's no good as there is no body at the office. He doesn't understand, but from somewhere produces a Asian girl of about 12 whose English is fantastic. She explains this to the taxi driver, but he still insists that he takes us to the office. We thank them and decide to split up, I'll take the far tracks, and Carolyn will wait here.

A few minutes later, a man approaches saying "Paperwork, you show me" I give him the print out expecting him to take me to the car. "I can take you here" He says. I ask if that is for the hire car and he clearly doesn't understand, he's just another taxi driver. He is again insistent that he takes me to the address, and like magic the Asian girl appears. After much discussion she tells me that the driver says that the car won't come to this door, and I should wait at the other side.

Walking back through to meet Carolyn, my phone rings, and I am relieved to hear a Russian accent, it's the driver from the hire company and he is on his way.

We are relieved, our first taste of the Ukraine was difficult. It was hard to find commonalities between the languages, and the because of the different alphabet, even using the translation software on our phones is difficult.

Half a hour later a beaming guy climbs out of a small Chevy waving a bit of paper with my name on. "I'm sorry, the traffic in Kiev is really bad today"

All we have to do now is drive and navigate, through the traffic a local has struggled with.