Ukraine and its silly policeman
Submitted by alvoakes on Sun, 13/07/2008 - 12:13pm. So we have made it Kiev, thus far the Ukraine has been pretty hard work. Our border crossing was fairly easy, took two hours to get through. Almost got into a bit of trouble after the border guard asked me to drive up to customs, i didnt see it and drove straight through at 40. Luckily no one seemed to notice so a quitly reversed back 50 m to where i was meant to be. We randomly met Team Ullan Batteredat the border and convoyed with them to a hostel in L'viv.
The Ukrainian roads are terrible, constant pot hole dodging and bumps, its a real rough ride in the Panda. There are chickens, cow, dogs and goats in the road though we'v managed to avoid them thus far. The Shogun is leading the way with animal kills with a bird and a hedgehog.
We made it to L'viv in good time with our three car convoy managed to yet agin get lost in a city as is becoming very common on this trip. After asking about 10 different people how to get to our hostel, one lady agreed to get into our car and direct us there.
Next day our convoy set out planning to reach Kiev by the evening and meet up with the Mongol Warriors on route. We where making good progress untill our panda started to play up and had to pull into a town to find a garage. It was a national holiday in Ukraine so none where open but we did find one man who tried to help but said he coudnt get the part we need till monday, that meant we'd have to stay in one of the worst towns i've ever seen for two days. We agreed to let the convoy go on to Kiev and wait till Monday to get a new fuel pump. Just as the convoy was pulling off, Tom's Dad found the problem over the phone and with a bit of help from the Hilux's spares we where back on the road to Kiev.
Adfter about an hour of driving we where flagged down by an angry policeman who claimed we where speeding, though I think he may have been lying. After some hand waving and shouting me and one of the warriors agreed to pay a 25 pound bribe. After this incedent our convoy speed dropped from about 60mph to maybe 30mph with no one wanting to take the lead as they only seem to pull in the front two cars.
We made it to Kiev at about 12pm, got lost again before stumbling upon a lake where we set up camp for the night.
Now we have a day of RandR while we wait for jay's flight home, we hope to be in Russia by Tuesday, The Ukraine is rubbish.
P.S. It appears our text updates aren't working but we'l keep trying to sure that problem.
Bye Bye
Al
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