We eat breakfast in the lounge, and everyone starts to get concerned over the latest developments in the East of Ukraine been shown on BBC news, I send a message to Cora, so she can put every bodies mind at ease, which she does, although I think she's getting slightly exasperated at our lack of faith! We make our way to a slightly delayed boarding, and soon the Airbus is being pushed along the apron, and we are finally on our way.
Until the captain announces that the aircraft has a faulty probe and this will need repairing. Nobody took much notice as to how long the repair took, so we have no idea what time we are due to land. The journey was pretty boring, but what we found in Kyiv certainly was not.
So, we decided that we would like to try and see the Chernobyl site again. This time we would go as a family, Patrick and Billy are to travel with us.
At the time the media was reporting on protests taking place on Independence Square, Kiev, but after a bit of research, we were happy that the demonstrations were localised to the Independence Square area and the Stadium and were on the whole peaceful. With the date agreed, we booked our flights.
That's when this happened:
This concerned us. It's not the sort of images you see in a holiday brochure. The following link is to the blog, from which I must credit the above photos: HERE Bizarrely it is this blogger's account of the protests that first started to give me confidence to travel. Also a thread I started on the Kiev forum of TripAdvisor: HERE Cora on the TripAdvisor forum was (and still is, we have kept in touch via private message) quite insistent that the rest of Kyiv was normal. It was months before we travelled, and like the London riots, I expected things to calm down. So we decided to book our accommodation later, and see if things did calm down.
And things did calm down, the Prime Minister resigned, the anti protest laws were annulled and the arrested protesters were released.
And then in mid February, in what initially appeared to be an attempt to disperse the protest, people got killed. Soon there were reports of snipers on the roof tops, picking out protesters. 88 people lost their lives over 48 hours.
The holiday and whether we made it became less important to me, but I needed to know more about the crisis and why people were losing their lives, seemingly at the hands of their own.
Things then moved very fast, the President Viktor Yanukovych disappeared, a interim President was appointed, Yanukovych appeared in Russia, and a date for an election was set. The mood seemed to change, the country was in mourning, yet the people were also celebrating a new freedom. And things started to calm down again, it began to look like we would have the experience of seeing a country in transitional change for the better.
Then in the final days of February troops wearing uniforms "a bit like" Russian ones started to appear in Crimea. Putin gets the Kremlin to approve the use of force in Ukraine. The almost Russian troops start to surround Ukrainian military bases all over Crimea. Then they start to take over the bases. Crimea declares a referendum. The referendum takes place, the results are heavily suspect, but unsurprisingly in the favour of Crimea joining Russia. Putin denies any involvement..
The G8 counties were quick to start calling themselves the G7 countries as they start to impose sanctions on Russia for the annexation of Crimea, and Russia was to all intents and purposes kicked out of the G8.
All through this, Kyiv remains calm. The Russian troops on the Eastern Ukraine border reduce in numbers. We start to plan the trip, it's now March and we go in April. Then the government buildings in the Eastern cities of Donetsh, Luhansk and Kharkiv were stormed by pro Russian protesters. The new Ukrainian government were quick to react, and it soon started to look like a small minority (possibly actual Russians) were trying to destabilise the East. But we still got our regular reports of the calm in Kyiv, so we are going in TWO days.
The first four months of 2014 have been complicated for Ukraine, my understanding is limited, there's much more behind it, Gas supplies (for Ukraine and Europe), a new Cold War, other former Soviet states wanting to join Russia and much more. But I wanted to give a bit of background to our trip, we have no worries about safety, I wouldn't be going if I did, I am sure however we will see things that are the result of the changing Ukrainian politics.
We had to check out of the hotel by mid-day, so decided to have a lazy breakfast and then head down to the spa for a hour. We'd then have a drive in the opposite direction and come round in a loop to Kiev, then spend the rest of the day there.
The spa was welcome, but once we left we really didn't see anything worthwhile to stop at on our drive, so we ended back in Kiev sooner than we though (despite getting lost again)
I parked on the same road, but this time closer to the Metro station and we walked under the subway to the Metro station Dnipro.
This is a good place to park, it is busy with the pleasure boats mooring right next to it, but I'm not sure I would like to use the subway under the road at night, it's the only place we saw in Kiev that looked like it could be a bad place to be after dark.
What a difference a day made, Kiev really did feel different to us. The Easter celebrations were on, the main street was closed, there was a party atmosphere AND we knew our way around a little. The previous day we had remarked how few shops there were. Coming out of the Metro today we found a amazing labyrinth of subterranean shops, and the further and deeper you went the more upmarket it got. It started with a series of stalls, then a supermarket and finally designer clothes shops in a full shopping mall about three or four floors below ground level.
We even found a great bar called Shato with fantastic traditional Ukrainian food and it's own brewery. It was busy, and afterwards we could see why. I'm going to say more in another post on Original Gravity at a later date.
The open spaces in Kiev are wonderful, onion domed cathedrals stand over squares with statues and fountains, the parks are full of little food stalls and pop up bars, I've never seen as many Segways, you seemed to be able to rent then in every park. We didn't get chance to cruise down the river, but that seems very popular, there's many boats to choose from.
We were glad we had made our peace with Kiev, we knew we were going to have to return to complete our Chernobyl trip and knowing there's more for us to see will help complete the trip next time.
Soon it was time to make our way back to the car and then the railway station. I had got the route plotted in Google Navigation on my phone, but shortly after setting off, we realised the route took us down the road that was closed. Unfortunately Google Navigation doesn't work very well without a data connection, it is fine unless you
make a wrong turn, then it struggles. But Carolyn did manage to get us round the closure and back on route so we arrived at the train station in good time.
I was really looking forward to seeing Kiev, the day before I had spotted what looked like a good spot to park, and a check on Google maps seemed to confirm it.
We parked with no problem, but when I got out of the car, a woman started to talk to me in staccato Ukrainian. I smiled, told her I didn't understand and she smiled back and said "English?" What ever was the problem had disappeared, I asked if we were okay parking here, which she confirmed. We then walked to the underpass together with her husband.
Except the underpass was under water. We had to find another route or wait for the tide to go. They led us in the opposite direction, all the time talking excitedly to us about Kiev.
The only available route took us straight through the middle of a building site, lots of people were doing the same, in the UK you would have needed steel toe caps, a hard hat and a risk assessment before you got anywhere near such a site like this. Carolyn's sandals lived up to their name, and filled with sand.
After making it through, they wished is "Bon chance" and we parted.
We took the funicular up the hill, and almost as soon as we emerged Carolyn
was covered in doves, we had unwittingly walked into a street hawkers trap. I looked at Carolyn as if to say "roll with it" and took a couple of photo's and next thing I had a bird of prey on my shoulder and my camera had been liberated. I could see Carolyn was nervous about it, but they may well have had my camera, but I had their bird, and I had a feeling the bird was worth more.
My camera returned and birds handed back we were asked to pay, "200 Hryven , for you and 200 for you", "No, it's too much" Carolyn says. "Okay, 100 and 100" Carolyn repeats "no" gives them 40 грн and we leave, with them looking bemused and talking angrily at one another. Later we realise that 40 грнis only £3.20 and feel just ever so slightly guilty.
Most of the day we spend wandering aimlessly around Kiev, we never seem to learn the lesson that one day is not enough to experience a new city, we made exactly the same mistake with Barcelona.
I was still desperate to fall in love with Kiev, Carolyn was beginning to hate it .
In desperation I suggested we tried using the Metro to the Hydropark on a island in the Dnipro river. There was also a bar I wanted to try on our way too.
How I wish we had got straight on the Metro from the start, it's simple to navigate, clean, very fast, and cheap. You buy plastic tokens which entitle you to one ride, no matter how far, or how many changes. They cost 2 грн which is about 20p. The trains are every three minutes, and this seems to mean people aren't rushing to catch the trains, and if one carriage is full they will wait for the next. It might well be different in rush hour, but it was very civilised every time we used it. We both commented how good it was, and that we couldn't think of a better subway system we'd used.
The first stop was a thriving market, even at this later hour. Carolyn bought some perfume, after some searching we couldn't find the bar and not wanting it to be too late for the Hidropark we headed back on the Metro and towards the river.
The Hydropark has to be unique. It is like a very run down themepark, with beaches, bars, restaurants, barbecues and outside ballroom dancing (with music continuously played over a tannoy). It had just started to get busy for the night when we arrived, and appeared to be popular, people were getting drunk and riding the attractions already.
There's something here for everybody. Pensioners dance, children play on the rides, adults play table tennis. There's fairground stalls, monuments celebrating the fall of communism. There is a live act on in every bar (of which there are many). It's impossible not to love it, even if only for its other worldly-ness.
We were tired however and didn't want to risk barbecued food the day
before we travelled back to Romania, but we would have loved to spend more time here. Tired and hungry we set back off into Kiev on the Metro.
All day I wanted to find and eat Chicken Kiev in Kiev, but we had failed. Restaurants here, and in Romania don't display menus outside, so it's hard to find something specific without constantly going inside, finding a waiter and checking the menu. But on the way back we spotted a Chicken restaurant, surely it was worth one last try? And it paid off, two Chicken Kiev later and we finished the day on a high.
This entry is heavy with family history and emotion. I make no apology but am aware of the diversity of our readership and so feel I should offer an explanation of the change of tone. This entry is still a travel log but also contains comment on a personal, spiritual, journey.
In the opening entry of the blog we introduced you to 2 very important people. Our baby son Tyler who died, during pregnancy, 3 months before the trip and our cousin Andrew who died in 2010 aged 23. Both have a part in the story of how this whole trip came about and both are very firmly in our hearts and very prominently in our minds every step (and train, plane, metro and infuriating Ukrainian junction) of the way. In a kinder alternative universe I would not be taking this trip but would be at home growing my son inside me, the idea of taking the trip seemed disloyal to him. That is until Auntie Fiona heard about it and shared with us that it had always been Andrews goal to visit Ukraine and in particular Chernobyl and that we could honour his memory as part of our trip. And so the trip became something more meaningful and right. For me, to honour Auntie Fiona’s wishes is also to fulfil Tyler's legacy and therefore to honour him too. If that doesn't add together and you want to understand more my blog Courageandhope.co.uk should explain.
But back to the journey. As you will know from earlier entries we had hoped to take a tour to Pryp'yat' within the Chernobyl exclusion zone, here we had hoped to leave a laminated card showing Andrew's picture and a short explanation of his wishes and link to his Facebook page. We were thwarted in this when all tours were cancelled in honour of the anniversary of the disaster and due to Orthodox Easter which fell at the time of our trip.
It came as no surprise to me that Kevin did not intend to allow this to get in the way of wishes he shared with cousin to get as close to the site as possible. And so we set off in our hire car early on the Ukrainian equivalent of Good Friday.
Our hire car is basic but modern and reliable and the air-con is good. The route looks straightforward as long as we can negotiate Kiev city and emerge on the correct road at the other side. After a tour of the area surrounding our hotel we are on our way.
This is our first full day in Ukraine and as we travel toward and then through Kiev we notice differences again in this new country. There is a lot more commercialism than we saw in Romania with advertising hoardings regularly spaced down the highway touting regular stuff such as mobile phones, jewellery and restaurants. Police speed traps are profusive, every kilometre or two, a cop with a speedgun. In Kiev construction is everywhere, there appears to be some considerable investment in infrastructure, we see a bridge, railway and roads under construction ; we resolve to learn more about the Ukrainian economy, there just isn't enough time to see and learn (and then write) everything in one trip!
As we leave the city behind we see beautiful rural Ukraine and it is closer to what we have seen in Romania. Villages grown around agriculture, roadside vendors selling veg, many roadside shops selling colourful plastic flowers, cranes/storks (we haven't fully established which) nesting on lamp posts, horse and carts, motorbike and sidecars.
Another hour and we are running out of villages. The scenery changes to forest, mile after mile of cooling evergreens. We start to look for clues that we are approaching the 30k exclusion zone enforced around the Chernobyl plant and village in the aftermath of 26th April 1986. An abandoned farm? Stern looking warning signs? Roads becoming increasingly empty of traffic.
We spot a pleasant picnic area and pull over to assess our position. I am not willing to discuss here my personal spiritual beliefs and the following is therefore offered in the most secular sense: it is here that I feel that I am no longer adventuring with just my husband, from this moment Andrew's spirit is very much with us. I can feel the 2 boys excitedly enjoying their adventure together. The GPS tells us we are 42k from Chernobyl village, a photo opportunity! We are 12k from The Zone.
We return to the car and continue following the predetermined route. We get closer and closer, Chernobyl village is now less than 30k away; this gives us a wobble, are we somehow skirting the border of the zone? Have we slipped through and if so is it wise to continue? Or have got it completely wrong and are actually in completely the wrong place?
Then we see a radiation warning sign, then 2 monuments either side of the road....and then! There it is. The barrier of a checkpoint across the road about 300m ahead.
We are not sure whether Ukrainians are acquainted with the concept of dark tourism, we do know that they are protective of their borders and that the language barrier will certainly hinder attempts to clear up any misunderstanding. So a brief stop, hastily snapped photograph and a prompt u-turn mark the pinnacle of our adventure.
We came to leave the memorial card for Andrew in Chernobyl so that he could, in spirit, make the journey he had wished for. Kevin knows just the place. We drive back about 1km to the monuments erected on the road. One is a beautiful, edgy structure constructed from dark stone. There is life here, trees grow, we see a beautiful brightly coloured lizard and ants scurry, but it is silent and still. Its perfect. It is isolated but we hope that someone will pass by and notice our small memorial to our friend who wanted to come here in life and now has been able to make the trip and share our adventure.
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.
Oh my God. I have never felt so foreign. Today we are leaving Suceava to head to Kiev in the Ukraine.
The train is at 1pm and we are anxious not to get caught up in anything which may cause any delays. We have had a better night's sleep thanks to earplugs and less dog conversations. Breakfast is a very intimate affair in keeping with the personal feel of Pensiune Rhapsodia. After breakfast a bit of divide and conquer; Kev goes for cash while I finish packing (there's a theme emerging!). By 10am we have 3 hours to kill. We decide to try a walk, the temperature and humidity are suffocating, our phones say its 20 degrees but it feels much hotter. We approach the edge of a Roma area, identifiable by its rough built shacks and dark skinned children who never fail to melt my heart. There is a boy of about 10 swinging a light chain, it appears to be in a playful rather than threatening manner but we decide to take a cautious line and accept this as our cue to head back to the pensiune, its too hot for walking anyway.
Eventually it time to head to the station, we still arrive over an hour early. The station is bustling and there's a holiday feeling in the air as people carry Easter gifts and children show off new bicycles which are excitedly ridden up and down the platform without reprimand from parent or guard, parents here seem less over protective and children subsequently enjoy more freedom, another echo from British childhood of earlier decades.
We find a seat inside as its cooler. A motherly, stout Romanian lady in traditional flowing skirt and headscarf asks us a question which, helped by alot of gesture and words from randomly thrown in European languages, we discover is an enquiry about our destination. Now she has discovered we are tourists she takes us under her wing. She talks to us in long streams of Romanian, and we are amazed at how much meaning filters through. Her only English words are "I love you", and a loving character she is indeed. She tells us about an English musical she once enjoyed at the cinema (or maybe it was Bollywood?) Then she gives us a detailed warning about thieves while we are travelling who will, given a chance, take our mobiles, our clothes and beg for money for their children then watch where we keep our wallets to come back and steal them when we are a asleep. All this when our only shared words are I love you, thank-you, with pleasure, and goodbye (the latter 3 in Romanian). When its time to go she double kisses us in the Romanian greeting reserved for valued friends, and it feels right, I feel like I just received some Romanian mothering.
I feel foreign again when neither the guards on the train, nor our cabin mates , respond to either English or my hastily accrued Romanian. The guard recruits the nearest under 25 year old who obliges. Full respect to the multi lingual Eastern European youth. We are allocated 2 beds in a cabin together, we were previously told mixed gender cabins were not allowed so this is a bonus but I hope the 2 Bulgarian males already resident don't mind, I can't ask them as there are no young people around!
The only thing I can compare the cabin to in appearance is a prison cell with its 4 bunks in very close proximity. Our companions, being here before us have of course claimed the bottom bunks so we are opposite each other in the top. At first the "other-ness" of it along with the recent breakdown in trans- national communication stresses me out a bit; but the Bulgarians are welcoming in the few words and gestures we manage to exchange, the guard brings us clean bedding and their is air-con. This may be one of the most basic nights sleep I have ever had but I am safe and warm (or rather cool) , a reminder of what's actually important.
So now we are out of the city on the 7 hour, 320km train journey from Cluj to Suçeava. Despite our fears and many a cautionary tale from inhabitants of Cluj the train is not unpleasant. The carriages are arranged into compartments of the type we are used to seeing in period dramas of early 20th century England with two rows of 4 seats facing inward. The 8 seats are full as we begin our journey, with a cross section of society represented. Ourselves (declaring ourselves as tourists when our first words are an apology for our lack of the native language), a very friendly well dressed Romanian lady and her teenage daughter who offer to converse with us in Spanish (another apology!) and later to share their snacks with us, a lady in more traditional dress and her little girl (probably Roma), the obligatory cheerful (drunk) chatty man with an aroma of alcohol who, on discovering we are Western European, wants to regail us with details of his 2 years in the South of France (my French is better than my Romanian or Spanish but I decide to keep this detail to myself (giving a blank face beyond ça-va bien) and a young Romanian student who's mistake is to reveal she has a little English and henceforth becomes chatty man's reluctant translator.
The carriage is hot, the air conditioning we were hoping for, was either broken or none existent. But once the train left the station, the breeze from the window made the journey comfortable.
Most of our fellow travellers are taking shorter journeys and after a few stations we can settle to enjoying the frumos (that's beautiful, my Romanaste is coming on) view as we climb into the mountains.
The sky is blue with fluffy clouds, the air is full of bright sunshine. The trees are in blossom and the air smells pure. My previous experience of mountains comes largely from the Lake District where they are clustered together withing a few miles and rise at relatively uniform inclines, forming, in the main, into small tarns or steep giants. Here is different, the mountain area rolls for miles and miles, there are mounds and hills, slopes, undulations, terraces, flat parts which have been farmed, populated with clusters of homes, claimed for industry or grown into copses of fir trees. It reminds me of the eclectic mix of architecture in Cluj but on the grander, more majestic scale of nature.
Our decision to travel by train is vindicated as it lives up to my hope that we will see rural Romania in its glory and beauty. I have seen haystacks, I have seen horse and carts, I have even seen a haystack on a horse and cart. Guards come put of their station to stand in acknowledgement even when our train is simply passing through. A group of people appear to have pooled labour to turn over a neighbours plot of land ready for spring planting.
We arrive in Suçeava , having left the security of our Romanian hosts behind, feeling privileged once again to be taking this journey.
As we take our seats, I have a feeling of dread, the carriage is hot, and a loud drunk Romanian man wants most of the space in the seat next to me. He is shouting and waving, this is going to be a long journey.
Soon after we leave the station the carriage starts to cool down, but the drunk is now having a heated argument in Romanian with another passenger and gesturing to us. We've only left twenty minutes and it looks like all the stories we'd heard about the train were true.
Then suddenly he leaves, gesturing to us as he goes. The lady who he was arguing with explains in broken English that he has left because "He has had enough of us" Quite what we'd done, I've no idea.
The carriage feels more comfortable now, and I feel I can leave Carolyn safely and view Romania crawling past through the open window.
Cluj slides into the distance, abandoned industrial sites start to give way to ramshackle small holdings, farmers working fields by hand, some ploughing by horse and a few with tired looking tractors.
As we travel further, the buildings get further apart and the train starts to climb the mountain railway. We see storks nesting on the top of pylons. The mix of old and new, doesn't seem to change however, a grand house stands next to a shack with broken cars in between.
Occasionally the train slows the and we stop at a station, which normally don't have a platform, just a kerb between the tracks. Other times it slows to cross a weak bridge, the churning river can be seen between the rails.
It is impossible to try to describe the mountains and do them justice, lush and green, with spruce trees covering the tops. The occasional snow topped giant in the distance, which feels bizarre in this heat. You can smell the fresh air entering the cabin, the regular lumber yards impart the smell of freshly cut pine.
Eventually we crest the mountains and start to descend towards Suçeava, the mountain air is replaced by the smell of hot metal as the train struggles to hold back the weight of it's load.
The drunk from earlier returns, he is somewhat more sober, and starts to tell us in a mix of French, English, Romanian and mime; How hard he has to work, showing us his scars and calloused hands, and how much he loves his wife and two and half year old son.
A man comes down the train, looks into our compartment and says something in Romanian, and the drunk (Roy) gives him short shrift and gestures to us no. The man leaves carrying a flask. We'd been warned not to accept coffee off anybody while on the train, because we would likely end up drugged and robbed. I've a feeling Roy has done us a favour.
Another man enters, this time silently. He empties a bag onto a empty chair, there's a noisy toy which he demonstrates, a nail kit, tools, torches and a massager, which he demonstrates to each of us in turn. He leaves taking his bag, but leaving his stuff. Each item has a price tag. Roy explains that the man is deaf. Shortly he returns and Carolyn purchases the manicure set for 10leu. Roy gives him a couple of Leu, and the deaf man refuses, but Roy insists. I think that we might have got Roy all wrong.
Through the window the reverse of our departure from Cluj is happening and the lush vegetation starts to be a replaced by dry ploughed fields and then broken factories. The land is much flatter, the fields larger and the tractors are newer.
The guard comes to see us, he is wearing a woollen suit and cap, it matches the ones the station guards wear when they stand to attention as the train passes, even if it doesn't stop. He told us that the next station is Suçeava and the train will wait ten minutes. We thanked him and remarked how hot he must have been in the 30° heat.
We leave the train, and almost immediately a heavily tanned man approaches. "Taxi!" he shouts. We show him our reservation confirmation "I know it" he says. "how much?" l ask in English with my best Romanian accent, and he pulls out a big roll of notes from his pocket, he pulls out a ten and a five, and we say "Da". He leads us to a dirty Passat with a broken windscreen, our bags go in the boot, we climb in the back, forgetting that we are in Romania and reach for the seat belts, only to find they have been removed, as usual.
As we leave the car park he stops to talk to a friend, I get the feeling he is asking for directions. It's 5 minutes driving before he pulls up to a taxi rank, and this time I'm sure he's asking for directions. The taxi drivers oblige, but all the time look at us with slightly worried faces. "colleagua" our driver says as we pull away. 100m down a rutted dirt road is our pension, it looks out of place in this area, like finding a mansion on a council estate. We push the button on the security gate and enter for our first night in Suçeava.
Below you will find a video of the journey, each bit of film is from a different stage, you can see the scenery change. The whole six hour journey is compressed into 20 minutes. The total journey was 318km, top speed 99.1km/h, average speed 50km/h, total time 6h:21m, and time stationary 29mins
So we ate a meal in Klausen Burger last night with six Romanian friends. The food was great, the conversation was fun, and interesting. The beer was good, perhaps a little too good, as my hangover proves this morning.
After the meal Alin and Lidia took us on a tour of Cluj, we drove to the top of the mountains on both sides of the valley and looked down on the city at night. We then went onto a Cuban bar (Havanna) and drank tea. The whole night was fantastic and we were made to feel very special.
They say you learn through your mistakes, and according to this trip, we are at university (of which there are 7 in Cluj!). Hands up who knew that Easter is celebrated on a different date in Eastern Europe. We certainly didn't, although I did find it strange to see Easter displays in the shops!
This applies to the Ukraine, and guess what, the dates we are there is Easter. Experiencing a festival in a different culture is certainly a good thing, but when I learnt this last night, I was worried.
When we got back to our hotel in the early hours, I went straight to the tablet and did a search on Booking.com The first hotel in the list £1000 for three nights. I panicked. Game over, we couldn't afford those prices! Especially worrying, was this price was for a Holiday Inn, Booking.com said "It is busy in Kiev on those dates, prices might be higher than usual" Too right.
Changing the criteria, I found a few hotels about 20 miles from Kiev at around £200. Still more than we were used to paying on this trip, but at least affordable.
One hotel I found on Expedia seemed to stand out, it's name was "boutique Hotel Seasons Spa", there wasn't any photo's, reviews, and very little description, but the name stood out. I Googled it, set in the forest, full spa facilities, two pools, and beautiful rooms. It seems everyone wants to be in the centre of Kiev, and not the countryside.
But how would we get there? Would there be public transport? Would it run on the holiday? We decided to sleep on it.
Waking up with the idea of hiring a car, I set to Google yet again. £100 for the four days, giving us a chance to explore the area, it looked like a good idea. So i set to booking the hotel, first try, ended with an error, unable to confirm the booking. Maybe the card details were wrong, 2nd time, same error. Okay, I'll try another card, same error. Right I'll refresh the site, same error. Now I'm panicking again. Maybe, it's because I'm on the mobile version of Expedia, error, but this time it says the hotel has increased the prices, would I like to book at the new prices. My heart sinks, here we go, I knew it was too good to be true. I click on the link, it's gone up by 10p! I click confirm and the booking goes through!
I have now booked the car, although I am still waiting for confirmation of this, hope that's a bit smoother than the hotel!
All the while I keep receiving e-mails from tour operators in Kiev saying nyet to the tours in Chernobyl, knowing about the public holidays, it's making more sense why!
Edit: email just received confirming the car hire is secured, phew.
It's only a week to go before we leave for Cluj-Napoca in the heart of Transylvania. We are going for two weeks, and haven't prepared at all, no packing, only three nights accommodation booked, in fact the only things we really have prepared are our air tickets and passports.
This is unlike us, normally everything is carefully planned and thought through. We managed to get in this position through a series of protracted twists of fate.
The day after we booked our flights Carolyn found out she was pregnant, we have suffered too many miss carriages in the past to risk a trip away from home, so we made the decision to cancel them. Except we couldn't under Wizzair's terms and conditions. So the tickets sat in our inbox.
It wasn't for a few weeks when remembered the tickets. And something to focus on other than baby loss seemed like a really great idea.
Plan A was to hire a car and take a grand tour of Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Ukraine. However the car hire company let us down, with only a couple of weeks to go.
Out of all the countries on our route, the Ukraine was the one I was most interested in, and I suggested a train journey to Carolyn. She agreed and a bit of googling found a night train to Kiev.
Further googling revealed tours of The Zone of Alienation were possible, this is the area around the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Carolyn was a bit harder to convince on this one, but eventually she agreed.
Her decision was patrially influenced by Fiona, my aunt. Her son, Andrew died at 23 years old, and it was his ambition to travel to Chernobyl. Fiona asked if we made it could we take something of Andrews with us. You can see his story on this Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewsJourney
If you ever travel from Romania to Ukraine or Russia, forget about booking tickets on the internet. We discovered that it COULD be done, with great difficulty, but it is also far more expensive. Also don't expect to be able to book over the phone. After a very, very long phone conversation with a employee of the train company DDB, who operate a train on the the route, they still couldn't tell us how much their own train would cost!
So the decision to wing it was made for us, and the unplanned holiday is soon to begin.
