Journey Across the Border

At 1.30am we boarded the train in Cluj destined for Sucaeva, a town in Romania near the Ukrainian border. The aim was to reach Kiev by August 10 for the first day of the Ukrainian Cup orienteering event, which gave us one full day plus two nights for traveling. But it ended up being quite the adventure to get there...

The train we boarded was pretty old and smelly, and absolutly crowded. It was the type of train you can imagine being used in the second world war for more sinister things. There was no space at all in the carrage we boarded, and we were going to be on board the train for 8 hours, so we found another carrage that was really quiet, we got a whole compartment to ourselves, and the seats folded out into beds, great! but a bit strange no one else was sitting in there.

At about 2.30 the gaurds checked our tickets and told us we had to move, we only had second class tickets and this section was first class, which explained everything. After some confusion (the guard did not speak english) we finally managed to slip him some money and he allowed us to stay, phew! We pulled into what we presumed was Sucaeva at 9.30 am, and had to run round checking we were in the right place before the train disapeared. Luckily it was, and we went to the ticket office to buy another set of tickets to get us through to Kiev.

However, the ticket lady informed us that this was not possible, international train tickets must be bought 24 hours in advance, which would mean we would arrive one day late in Kiev and miss the first and maybe second day of the event. What then followed was a series of coincidental events aided by several very helpful Romanians. The ticket lady suggested the bus, and then actually walked us down the block to a minibus station and bought us tickets and put us on a minibus to the main bus station in Sucaeva where we ought to be able to buy bus tickets to Kiev.

The minibus was hugely crowded and it was very hot. When we got to the bus station it turned out no big buses went to Kiev at all! But a taxi driver told us we could get a taxi to the border (only 30km away), then a minibus to Chinook (which was somewhere in Ukraine we surmised) then a bus to Kiev...sounded good?We wandered around, and eventually found a taxi driver who said he would take us to the border.

We had driven along for about 20 minutes on the highway when he suddenly pulled over alongside a big van. "You get in here and they will take you to the border, they have kids, they are good" said the taxi driver...hmmm. Anyway, we were loaded in amongst the grandma and the kids, and off we headed again towards the border. Suddenly we dived off the main highway and headed along some dirt roads to a house. At the house the van was loaded with vast quantities of sacks of stuff. By now we were all feeling a bit concerned that we were about to be invloved in some illegal smuggling of something accross the border, or who knows what? We questioned the family (who spoke no english) and ascertained it was wool (we hoped!).

Eventually we arrived at the border to a massive car queue, and many intimidating guards. After about 2 hours we were inspected, our passports intensly examined, then stamped through, phew! And the family did some intense haggling with the guard about the goods, and then we were over the border!

We hooned along a big highway, then off down some more dirt roads to another house where we delivered all the mysterious goods. This time Ed and Chris lended a hand, much to the Romanian's delight. The family all piled back in and we drove through to Chinook. In Chinook we would not have got far at all if it wasn't for our new Romanian family friends. They took us to the bus station, bought tickets and literally put us on another completly overcrowded bus which hopefully went to Kiev!

It was extremly hot, and the ten hour bus trip was pretty full on. Luckily after about 4 hours of stifling heat there was a big thunder storm and it poured with rain and cooled down a bit. We stopped every 2 hours for a very brisk ten minutes, and it was a challenge to jump off the bus, locate the horrible smelly squat toilets, pee, pay money to grumpy lady and get back on the bus before it took off again.

Finally we got to Kiev at 11.30 at night, and spent half an hour haggling with taxi drivers, till we got one to call Iryna (the New Zealand Orienteering Ukranian contact) on his cell phone, and she gave him directions to our accomodation.

When we arrived on the street outside where we were supposedly staying the taxi driver called her again, and after 5 minutes tentativly waiting to see if we really had actually finally made it to Kiev, Ross appeared wearing a top with a big silver fern on it and bare feet, grinning at us, and we were pretty relieved!

We walked upstairs to the apartment while he explained that "this place is a mansion, man!" We slept very well that night, and in the morning it was up and off to the first day of the Ukraine Cup.