Lithuania to Volgograd (the story so far...)

We left Ray & Janina in Lithuania after a great couple of days stay in their home and set off to get to our next major stop off point in Russia. The route took us through Poland where we stayed at the greatest truckers Motel (if you can call it that!) with a, as ordered, ice-cold shower for the morning! Poland was over before we knew it to be honest and we eventually reached the 1st of our tough borders, Ukraine. Although in order to visit Ukraine you don't need a visa it was the start of our 'out of our depth' feelings as they started to bark Ukrainirussia language at us (as you can tell we don't entirely know to this day what it was). After about 1.5 hours we produced our passports to an angry looking border guard in a little hut who, once realising we couldn't speak Ukrainirussia and found out we were English became even grumpier. I then went to the hole next door and passed over our documents in a folder (a device it seems doesn't exist in the East of Europe as everyone who touches it laughs), the guard flicked through also quite anrilly and then saw our pictures in uniform and asked if we were 'Policia'....we said yes and before you can saw "Neil caught a fish and Luke didn't" we were through the border in no time!

Whilst driving on the mad roads of Ukraine we felt like extras in the Borat film with people riding horse-drawn carts on the motorway stacked full of hay, awesome! We then encountered our Police bretheren who took great delight in telling us that we drove through a no entry.....on a motorway! Then asked if i'd like a ticket, i said "no" and he asked for my driving licence and documents, again the photo saved the day and he said, "you Policia" we said yes, had a chuckle and thought all was fine then like the money-grabbing people they are asked for a 'present'...we tried to fob him off with a years supply of Yorkies but this was to no avail and after he rubbed his fingers together he walked away with some of our hard-earned Euro's smiling....only after shaking our hands, git!

Well we we're one down in the Police encounters and felt quite down after being blackmailed but then we were stopped again for 'apparently' speeding when the Sergeant carrying the gun was facing the other way, on the opposite side of the motorway, best speed gun in the world obviously! The scores were about to be levelled though as i cunningly flicked past our Police photo he saw and when we said we were officers all of a sudden we weren't speeding and we were free to drive off, one all on the Police encounters and we were feeling on a little high.

We eventually arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine (although it's called Knib there), where we found a hotel just after midnight, 40 yards down from a strip bar, some would say lucky....Luke said it was destiny! We were shattered from the drive and slept for England, we were ahead of schedule at this point so stayed the following day also and did some sight-seeing in the city park and gardens watching open-air chess and card games on little permanent tables in the sun!

The next day we shall call "black thursday"...setting off to get tothe border of Russia seemed 'only a couple of hours' according to Luke (similar to my not to previous guestimation from Stockholm to Helsinki!). 14 hours later we couldn't find the border town and seemed like we were well and truly lost...like in all times of need we just headed down a straight road south and eventually after a long drive found the Ukraine-Russia border at 05:30 the following morning. Again rude Ukrainians and then a cheeky Russian border guard later (and a few dollars lighter after he oh so 'kindly' offered to fill out our forms....then rub his fingers half-way through, nice trick wise guy Russian!), 2.5 hours later after speaking to lots of people through tiny little windows and the most dodgy hand-make but considered 'essential' insurance for Russia we somehow made it in! With no Russian road map we soon discovered it was a huge place where the sight of a credit card is almost laughable, here cash talks and we had none, whoops! Anyway we found a place that let us buy things including a map and food (word of warning to all you wannabe sandwich makers out there...salami may go off but bread goes stale!). With map in hand we set off towards Volgograd, doing sleep shifts by now due to our exhaustion we finally got here to discover it was big! We only had an English spelling of the hotel name and address as i forgot the map at home, again whoops. Driving around randomly in a place the size of Maidstone/Canterbury with straight roads, we somehow saw our hotel, hallejujah!!! So here we are now in Volgograd, it's hot, it's humid and the Russian equivalent to.....Margate....woohoo, it's like from home to home!

Plan is to eat at some point then stay one more night before heading doen to the Kazakhstan border to cross on the 7th....internet in Kazakhstan may be lacking so hope everyone is well and see you all soon when we get back.

Luke & Neil.