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...on to the Ukraine, Poland, Germany & Home Friday 25th August We set off at 6 a.m. before the sun was up, saw a beautiful sunrise on the way to the port but could not stop to photograph it, we of course went through the inevitable police checkpoint, they started off examining the papers for every motorhome, then they must have looked at the line of motorhomes because after about four they waved the rest of us through. We had two attempts as a group to go to the port, first we went where the group leader lead us, and then we turned back and followed the sign the Luda had seen directing us to the port. Then it was a matter of waiting, and waiting, and waiting, occasionally we would fill in some paperwork, look at all the border control people walking about and then find it was our turn to go through the gate and no man's land. It was then a simple matter of taking the papers to an officer who gave us another piece of paper in return, driving to the next location where we had our passports stamped, and then we were free to board the ferry, after we waited in a sealed compound for about an hour, in the roasting heat, I think they want to make sure we were well done before were sent to the Ukraine. We sat in our vehicles during the 30 minute crossing, made the dangerous exit from the ferry, the ramp was designed in such a way that for the unwary they would remove most of the rear of the vehicle. We accomplished that safely and were then directed into our new home for the next three hours whilst again we filled in paperwork, they took meal breaks, but eventually we were through in mass and we drove out of the security area to a large parking area on the outside, where we camped for the night waiting for the five motorhomes they could not fit on the first sailing to arrive. Saturday We found three Internet cafes in all, the first one had a laptop that was working on an assignment and probably would be most of the evening, the second one would not connect laptops, and the third one, no problems! Except of course the tremendous heat in the room. This is the highest temperature that Yalta has had for at least 20 years. Sunday After lunch we piled on a bus which took us to a vineyard that specialised in desert wines, I had visited this vineyard about three years ago and they have streamlined the tour somewhat since then, the wines still tasted the same, but as it is state owned one would not expect a major change. While I found the wines still tasted exactly the same as they did three years ago and I still was not impressed, some of the Germans found them attractive so I reached the conclusion that I am not a great one for desert wines. Back home by bus, collected the computer and back to an Internet cafe (whilst we have them), after that dinner and then a taxi home. Monday That the usual touristy things with a Tartar influence in after we had lunch and the bus took us down “Khrushchev's Fright” I had a good sleep, waking just before we arrived back at camp. Then it was a simple matter of packing up and driving to Sevastopol …. the long way around the city, to get to the new campground, and thanks to Luda’s Russian we found it after the third asking for direction. We are right by the sea by a very popular (with the people from Sevastopol) sandy beach. Tuesday
29th August The first met up with our English friend who now owns three apartments in the city and is an agent for 37 other apartments that he rents out via the Internet, the spending less and less time now in England and is now splitting most of this time between Sevastopol and Thailand, he finds the weather delightful in the northern winter's. Whilst we are talking a storm came through with heavy rain and wind and made is glad we were inside and not considering a boat trip with the rest of the group. When we eventually went outside we found quite a large number of trees had either been blown over all lost substantial branches. We then telephoned Luda's favourite cousin who is a Captain in the Russian navy, based on Sevastopol, so we spent the rest of the day with him and his family and about 8 p.m. they took us back to the motorhome, had a good look at what we've been living in for the last few months and then we said farewell. Wednesday
30th August When we were about 20 kilometres out of Simferopol I received a phone call from Eugene, my guide from three years ago when he drove me all around the Ukraine, and asked me whether we would like him to guide us through Simferopol, he got a very positive answer to that question. So we stopped at the entrance to the city, and just as we stopped he arrived, with Sacha, a talented artist and photographer that I met on that trip, she loves travel and travelled on a couple of legs of the Ukraine tour, on this occasion she had just returned from the States visiting her mother and about seven of the various states. We had a nice reunion on the side of the road and then Eugene guided us through the city to a spot he remembered me taking a panorama photo at, and I remember the location once I arrived there, so I complimented him on his memory. He told me of the jobs he had done in recent times, and has travelled round the old Soviets and part of Europe with other photographers which made me realise that all of the successful photographing journeys I have done, photographing wise, has been with a driver -- guide or driver and guide. All the journeys I had done driving myself I have ended up with a dismal collection of photos so it is rather obvious that for myself I can either drive and take a few photos or be driven and get a marvellous collection of photographs. This is rather disappointing, but the facts speak for themselves. After this was an uneventful journey to Cherson, there were very many roadside vendors selling watermelons and the purple sweet onions that this particular area is known for. Our
camping location was the car park of the hotel I stayed
at in my '03 tour. Thursday
31 August Uneventful drive through to Odessa and again through the computer translation from German to English we drove a little further to find the car park, but we did eventually, but had to manoeuvre through the extensive roadworks twice. Again our decision to fill up with water before we left was a sound one as water was not available on this site. On our way driving into the city we passed a line of trucks all with trailers attached loaded to the brim with wheat, the line stretched on almost forever, but in actual fact it was only six kilometres, now that is one hell of a lot of trucks with trailers attached. I assume they were waiting to deliver the wheat to some sort of storage unit or flour mill and we saw more trucks arriving all of the time, yes evidently they do farming on a really big scale here. Looking at the line of trucks and how long some of them had obviously been there we guessed that would take about seven days for somebody at the back of the line to have their turn to dispose of their load. Friday
1 September Then we had a two-hour lunch break and back into a smaller bus, with a smaller group, and we went to one of the many catacombs scattered all around Odessa, during the German occupation we were told that there were over 2000 resistance fighters using all these catacombs as operating bases and living quarters. The guide that was looking after these catacombs spoke Russian So Luda understood the story of the various parts of the catacombs, which of course she translated to me, these catacombs had a constant temperature winter and summer of 7 to 8° and humidity of 94%, the humidity was not obvious today although the temperature was. On our way to the catacombs, on the edge of the city, we passed somebody who had just been killed on the street, they were lying underneath a blanket, and we saw a lot of blood what was possibly brains leading up to the blanket and the body. There was a car parked in the centre the road close to the body and two policeman sort of directing the traffic around this tragedy, which only happened a few minutes before we arrived. The only other time, and all my travels, I've seen a body on the road like this, was in Rajasthan on a very hilly road, on the centre of a tight bend, and on this occasion the traffic was just driving all around it with no police there at all, so perhaps life has slightly more value here in the Ukraine than in Rajasthan! We passed twice, a smaller line of trucks and trailers loaded with wheat today in a different location in yesterday, and on the second occasion they did not appear to have moved, so being a wheat truck driver obviously has a lot of waiting! Saturday
2 September It was a motorway all away, travelling across the plains of the Ukraine, with extensive farming as far as the eye could see, some of the fields went to the horizon has viewed from the road. We saw a large number of American farm machinery in the form of tractors and combine harvesters. As expected we passed all of the motorhomes very simply and went at our speed until about 30 kilometres outside Keiv when at a petrol filling station some caught up to us and we latched onto the end of them and followed them to the camping ground. The “Roadbook” is written in German and at the beginning of the tour I put it through a computer translation program which translated into very bad English which was no problem until one needed to find a camping ground that sometimes the bad English was a major problem. The camping ground was an old camping ground from the Soviets, and during that time it was very busy because people could afford the prices that were asked for camping, however since Perestroika the prices have risen far beyond the People's wages so now only the rich or foreign tourists stay in this ground. It is a 15 minute walk from a bus which will take you to the Metro, I note outside the camp ground there was a bus stop which are looking at its condition had not been used since Perestroika. (incidentally Perestroika means in Russian “a new start” and refers to the time basically, when the Berlin Wall came down) Luda's parents live in Keiv, and one of Luda's daughters came through from Rostov to spend the three days with her grandparents and to meet Luda and I. For the next three days there was a lot of chatter in Russian which for some reason was as hard for me to understand as all the German chatter I've experienced on this tour, however I was kept in touch with events in English from time to time. Sunday
3 September We had to dinner and one of the restaurants in the main street, his menu was in Ukrainian and English, most of the clientele seemed to be foreigners and the prices were quite reasonable by Western standards. Monday
4 September Tuesday
5 September Looking at some other photographs in 1950 the castle was somewhat of a ruin with no roof and I received two reasons why this had happened, one the castle was destroyed in 1920 during the Revolution, and the second which is more likely looking at the activity that had occurred in the castle after this date is that the roof was destroyed during the Second World War and perhaps they were being politically sensitive when they credited it to the Revolution. It is one very obvious good thing that happened during the Soviet times was that castle is like this were totally renovated and brought back to new condition, something that would be totally impossible in our capitalist society. The castle was placed in the hands of the Ukraine Museum society, or something like that, and it now contained old paintings, statues, icons and many other valuable items are usually found in a Museum, it was very interesting to look at and would have been more interesting had we understood German. Wednesday
6 September When we arrived there were already a lot of motorhomes at our L’viv camping site which appears to be a hotel or motels based at the racecourse, we are camped on the edge of the track and just along a little bit is a the group of French motorhomes touring through the Ukraine. This certainly a lot of groups from different countries doing Russia and the Ukraine this year, I wonder if there are any from England? Today we went in on a bus tour to see L’viv, again (of course) it was a German-speaking guide and a bus went round and round the city, down some roads which looked like bicycle tracks, this is a large 40 seater bus, but he always seem to have at least one millimetre to spare at every corner. I finally reached the end of my patience being guided by a German-speaking guide, and I think I have done rather well lasting 38 days. We had a good look at the cathedral for the Greek Catholic church in the Ukraine, this is a church that combined the beliefs of the Polish Catholic and the Ukraine Orthodox and formed what became known as the Greek Catholic, is only found in the Ukraine and only in the West Ukraine, it's Bishop is in this city, and from what I can gather neither the Orthodox nor the Catholic hierarchy recognise this hybrid. Thursday
7 September Wherever we go, in the old Soviets, we see a tremendous number of new churches being built, old churches being restored, and a total resurgence of the religious faith back into the agnostic Soviet thinking. I finally found a Internet cafe where I could plug my laptop in and get online, clear my Ukrainian e-mail of 1400 spam letters, and get out nine letters I've been waiting to send out. After this we found a restaurant for lunch, and just as we were were about to step inside, I saw two Mormon boys walking past so I shouted out an English greeting which stopped them in their tracks, and we chatted away for about 10 minutes about life in the Ukraine, and how their two-month learning of the Ukrainian language coped them for their work. Luda noticed that their name tags were written in Russian and not Ukrainian so I wonder a little about their eighth week language school. The Ukraine is certainly getting caught up on the religious front after the long drought, you quite often see large orthodox crosses in the fields which indicates those fields had been blessed by the priest, I'm not sure to what effect. After this we found a restaurant for lunch, and just as we were were about to step inside, I saw two Mormon boys walking past so I shouted out an English greeting which stopped them in their tracks, and we chatted away for about 10 minutes about life in the Ukraine, and how their two-month learning of the Ukrainian language coped them for their work. Luda noticed that their name tags were written in Russian and not Ukrainian so I wonder a little about their eighth week language school. The Ukraine is certainly getting caught up on the religious front after the long drought, you quite often see large orthodox crosses in the fields which indicates those fields had been blessed by the priest, I'm not sure to what effect.
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After this we found a restaurant for lunch, and just as we were were about to step inside, I saw two Mormon boys walking past so I shouted out an English greeting which stopped them in their tracks, and we chatted away for about 10 minutes about life in the Ukraine, and how their two-month learning of the Ukrainian language coped them for their work. Luda noticed that their name tags were written in Russian and not Ukrainian so I wonder a little about their eighth week language school. The Ukraine is certainly getting caught up on the religious front after the long drought, you quite often see large orthodox crosses in the fields which indicates those fields had been blessed by the priest, I'm not sure to what effect. Eventually it was over, and Luda and I chose to go on the first bus, leaving the other half of the group to wait for the second bus, which evidently never arrived and they finally convinced a tired bus driver who had been driving for 20 hours to extend his shift by 30 minutes to get them back to the campsite, we found all this out the following day and sought of breathed a sigh of relief that it was not us. Saturday
9 September It was then a Drive of about another 200 kilometres to the campsite in Krakow and about 60 kilometres out the early start finally caught up with me, and the beauty of the motorhome is that you can have a snooze for an hour and then get on your way. We were naturally the last ones there, and we arrived just as they were ordering extra large pizzas, they did not know they were extra large until they arrived, in Poland they measure the pizzas by the radius and not the diameter, which makes a substantial difference, consequently there was a lot left over, and some dutifully carried the leftovers to the motorhome for future eating, goodness knows what that would have tasted like. Sunday
10 September The walking tour was very extensive, that covered only a fraction of what there is to see in this very interesting city. This was my second visit and I saw many things that I missed on the first, and it made me realise just how much more there is to see, so it looks like I have added another city to the monstrous list of cities I have yet to visit. The walking tour took us to Wawel Cathedral, my second visit, and the decorations, carvings, and the sheer immense size of the building with a lot of the decorations being the last resting place for various Kings, Queens, and Bishops all crafted in extremely expensive silver or marble were wonderful to look at but would give an accountant an ongoing nightmare. We hurried through lunch with the thought would be in plenty of time to catch the English tour through the salt city at Wieliczka, (this is where, apparently, the wealth of Krakow, in the “Old days” originated) we were successful in being there on time, but there was no tour today as the President of Poland was having his tour, I impressed upon the girl that he was my cousin and would not mind me joining him that she was totally unimpressed! The
tour Is Over.... No we would not go on another non-English-speaking guided tour, in fact I'm not sure either of us are necessarily guided tour type people, but we did enjoy this tour and it got us right across Russia, almost, and we saw a lot of the countryside we would not otherwise seen, because to do it by ourselves when I probably would have wanted two the three times the amount of time for the tour and I'm not sure that would have been practical. We did see several people wandering around Russia and the Ukraine by themselves in motorhome's so it is happening even if facilities are extremely primitive. We will probably do a small saute into Russia sometime in the next three years travelling from St. Petersburg around the Golden Ring, on then up to Murmansk and out through the top of Finland and probably down through Norway. The
Roads It's a different story the minute you go all the main road into a village, there are you are liable to find some of the largest potholes you've ever seen in your life, or alternatively 70% of the road is sand so if you stop in the wrong part you won't be moving, and with most of the roads in the villages if you go in and fine weather and it rains whilst you're in there you will be there until the roads dry out. Yes it is very definitely four-wheel-drive scenario once you're off the main roads. Our Motorhome was 6.2 metres and was small enough, and possibly light enough, to cope with the village roads although I did bend the automatic steps right out of alignment twice and had to get them back into working alignment with a large crowbar. Breakdowns Accidents The
Drivers
The roads in Poland, on this stretch of the road anyhow, are certainly up to European standards, because we're able to cruise at 110 K. P. H. most of the distance, certainly a change on the roads we've experienced over the last 40 days. Poland are certainly getting its infrastructure up to European standards, it's a pity such a large number of the young workforce have gone to the UK and other places to experience the higher wages that those countries provide, I certainly think it's a country worth investing in either in property or business because with the casual look it certainly looks good. We got to the small camp ground reasonably easy, and for 45 Zlotych for the night we were able to park anywhere we liked on a piece of ground that looked like it had heavy trucks over it some months ago with all the bumps and ridges, but we were able to get the motorhome reasonably level and that was all that counted. There are certainly a lot of churches in this country, even what appeared to be small villages have three very large churches, I'm not sure what the size of their congregations would be. Monday
10 September Now “big mistake”, with all the signs to Warsaw pointing the opposite direction and totally ignoreing the GPS that was trying to direct us back through one of the cities we had just come through because I consider it to be backtracking, later when we hit the main motorway I see we could have travelled the whole distance and over a 100 kph instead by following the signs we went through English countryside roads (not lanes) with one village starting as the other village finished. Almost every village have at least one church and by this time Luda was becoming very selective as to what she would photograph. Needless to say with the sort of roads our average speed was half (at least) of what I would have been on the motorway so we had to stop Monday evening and we chose a truck parking area beside a motel, all very new and quite reasonable for the night .(No money) Tuesday
11 September We stayed here three nights and managed to get all of our washing done, found the bus and the tram combination to get into the centre of the city, found the bus that took us to the old town of Warsaw where we finally we found an information office, and finally found that we could have had a tour around the city but by that stage we felt we had seen enough. It's unlikely we will return to Warsaw except perhaps to pass through, a totally different situation to Krakow where we would go back tomorrow, but tomorrow we have to go on to Gdansk. Friday
15 September Saturday
16 September Sunday
17 September Monday
18 September Tuesday
19 September Wednesday
19 September Friday
22 September After checking the luggage through, opening one of the suitcases so they could see the wire for my computer, and the small GPS unit we then had to go off to gate one to go through the personal security check. Now it did not matter if you were flying first-class or at the back of the bus you all got in the one line that was 200 to 300 metres long and slowly shuffle your way forward until it was your turn, which happened after about 90 minutes, at that point if you had any liquid or cream of any sort that went into the junk bin and Luda lost some cosmetics not realising just how broad context the word liquid covered. Then off to the departure gate and we arrived just as they were doing the last boarding call. So we sat on the plane expecting a departure “on time”, but we sat there for about two hours whilst they were obviously waiting for people still in the security line before we finally departed leaving the last few behind, this of course created a further delay whilst their luggage was being removed from the plane. It was obviously a successful flight and on arrival joined hundreds that were lining up to be fingerprinted and photographed before they entered the “land of the free”! Then on to the rental car company in the hotel for a good night's rest before heading off the next day to Las Vegas. On the way to Las Vegas, we saw a large RV sales yard so we stopped and saw just how the Americans roughed it when they were camping. We finally arrived in Las Vegas and in only 10 to 15 years that it is since I was last there they have reworked all of the roads so that you now have lots of flyovers and semi motorways that you had to content with to get to where you want to go. Finally after a few problems I passed a apartment complex that were renting apartments for $55 a night. This was a special from April till December, their off season, normally in season it is $200 a night, and it is less than a block from the Stardust Casino on the strip. The next day we explored the city as well as we could with the thousands of people walking the streets. I made sure Luda had some experience in gambling before we left, so I placed a dollar bill into a slot machine and allowed Luda to press the button, in doing so we helped keep the Casino in the black. The next day we drove to Santa Barbara via L.A., spent the night in Santa Barbara before heading up into the mountains to a old town built by Danish settlers with a Danish theme, on down the highway after the town to a beautiful lake and State Park where we were allowed a 15 minute excursion into the park with the knowledge that if we spent 16 minutes we would be paying the daily fee of six dollars. Then back on the road to L.A. stopping at another RV centre where we saw a 32 foot Winneabago with two slide outs for the bargain price of $168,000 and for some reason when I offered to pay by cheque they told me the unit had been sold! Back to our L.A. hotel we walked down the street to the Western hotel and had dinner to the music of a jazz band that was performing for the evening. Thursday
28 September It was a cool day in Auckland when we stepped out of the airport, after being told we had to take all of our luggage to the domestic terminal because there was not time for them to do it, so a brisk walk pushing three large suitcases does get you a little bit warm, but we made at the counter in time, and got to the boarding gate about three minutes before boarding. Our friend Peter picked us up from the airport, we collected some groceries on the way home, found that all of the coins had been downsized during our time overseas and now the $.10 coin is the smallest coin we have and is the size and the material of the old two cents coin, this sort of tells us where our currency is going having just come from the States where they still have a dollar note and a one cents coin. Some
statistics However it is good to be home, for a while, even though both car batteries were flat, and one of the cars was sporting a flat tire. Now
it is time to plan for our next trip, so until then good
luck with whatever you are doing. Finish....... till next year
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