Soviet Satellites

Its been awhile since my last post because "real" china doesn't like blogs so much but now I am in Hong Kong for a few days I shall make hay when the sun shines (read: its raining outside)

Leaving Romania meant that Martina and I went our separate ways . She caught the train to Istanbul and that evening I caught the night train to Chisinau, Moldova . If the strange looks at my passport were anything to go by not many British passports make their way out to Moldova .

I thought that I was the only one with a English tongue on the train but it turned the girl in the next compartment spoke English . She had traveled through Western Europe and she was heading to Moscow to see her boyfriend and was very helpful when it came to filling out the Cyrillic only boarder forms.

After a few hours sleep on the basic but functional sleeper train we rolled in into Chisinau . Chisinau was in stark contrast to Romania. Chisinau looked tired and tacky and was all about making money with a number of late model Merc's and BMW's rolling around amongst the poor old Lada's . With some exploring and you can a number of nice museums,bars and cafes as well as the excellent park next to the Arcul de Triumf were young and old come out and plug in their laptops or ipods to the powerpoints that line the park benches , having said that I found little reason to stay longer

That evening I was on a train to Kiev only this time I was surprised to find that there were 3 Frenchmen in the cabin next to me . I had the cabin to myself for a couple of hours before a Russian man came in with a taste for Moldovan Brandy . He didn't speak a word of English and I couldn't speak a word of Russian but it made for a interesting journey . He was a truck driver from the far north of Russia and had videos on his phone of him and his buddy's driving through the frozen north and getting stuck, pointing to the place on the map in the LP showing where their were getting stuck .

A couple of brandy's later we arrived in Kiev and I set off to find my host using the less than helpful metro system. After walking around lost for a hour I found the my hosts apartment in amongst a forest of soviet apartment blocks . My hosts Nessia and Yuri were a young couple who had just given birth to a baby girl . They were into travel and photography and had made books with their photos taken from their adventures all over Europe and it was nice hanging out exchanging travel stories 

Kiev had character which I couldn't find in my (very) short visit to Chisinau .The people while still outwardly cold but the city had charm . At the train station I befriended a Egyptian who was trying to buy a ticket to Levi and wasn't having much luck finding the right booth .He and I were marched around until eventually we found a booth that would sell us a ticket .

He was a engineer from Cairo who had been working in Kiev and Levi for the last 6 months and was going to fly home from Leiv. We went of to explore the city and made our way to the Chernobyl museum which turned out to be shut so we headed for a excellent hill top flea market with fur hats,commie propaganda,old Russian cameras and a strange fascination with Hugh Laurrie. We spent the rest of the day walking around centre with its churches,monuments and parks until it was time for him to make us way back to the train station and set off for Leiv and I set off to my hosts to say my goodbyes and set off for Moscow

I wasn't looking forward to the boarder crossing. I hadn't met a foreigner with a good word to say the Russian or Ukrainian boarder police and days before Lucas (who I will be travelling through Russia with) sent me a mail saying that his experience on the bus from Finland was less than ideal . I sat down on the train without saying a word expecting normal service to resume and little or no English to be spoken but to my amazement it turned out that almost everyone in my section of the Pleazcart spoke English to a extent .

The guys in my compartment had just come back from a tour of Chernobyl and the young girl who sat next to me was heading to Moscow to see her boyfriend. We crossed the boarder just after midnight without any fuss. The Ukrainians came aboard and checked the passport and gave the customary cold stare and half a hour later the Russians did the same thing but from the other end of the carriage while making sure I was still within their sights . The process maybe took a hour and a half but didn't involve getting off the train or walking blind folded into a gulag so if you want to get into Russia easily  take the train !!!!!!!