SUPER VARIO WORLD

Hello from Kiev!

Yes, we are in Ukraine, no it's not a war zone, yes we are very, very far away from any trouble.

To bring you up to speed we decided to stay an extra night in Krakow and not do anything all day other than sit, read, play cards and dice games! We realised we were knackered after rushing around the city for two days. We spent the evening watching the Germany/Brazil game with a load of German and Dutch guys. They were most entertaining and it was quite impressive listening to them all effortlessly switch between German, Dutch and English, depending on how they wanted to emphasise their words. What was particularly amusing was how they used English to eff and jeff - they all sounded like The Terminator and Jean Claude Van Damme impersonators! 

It was great to have had a day relaxing as the next day was awful. As we left Krakov we got caught in massive thunder storms with the roof hatches open, resulting in wet bedding, tea-towels all over the floor and an allusive leak under Mario's windscreen.  Due to this and the ongoing storms we abandoned our plans for the day and stopped in a services to do a few running repairs, eat and sleep.  We did watch the Italian Job on DVD though, which made a bad day a lot better.

We then moved on to Rzeszow, initially just with the intention of finding an internet cafe but discovered it was a charming little place, with the most amazing flower market. We had a great time just wandering around mixing with the locals, buying chocolate that wasn't chocolate but some sort of 'dessert compound' - no wonder it was only 20p for 100g, it went in the bin after two bites!

Our next stop, thanks to Caroline's Dad's Europe map, was Lancut. This had a 'castle' that was really a grand house, with beautiful gardens set within a star shaped moat and surrounded by a massive park which included two riding schools, two tennis clubs and a music school. We were planning on spending the evening in a bar but a local chap told us about a classical music concert happening that night in the 'castle'. Apparently this happens every evening in July, youngsters from all over Eastern Poland play to show off their skills. It took part in the Great Hall in the 'castle' and whats more it was free! We felt very cultured but a little under dressed, but must admit that after half an hour we left to keep our date with the local bar!

That was Thursday night, it's now Monday night and since then it's just been stress! Friday we got caught in more thunder storms which lasted all of the day and needless to say more tea-towels and gaffer tape were required.  Then, thanks to unclear road signs we managed to drive up to the Poland/Ukraine checkpoint at 5 o'clock on a Friday evening.  We had planned on not trying to enter Ukraine until early Saturday morning to give us plenty of time to clear customs. Not only this but the van was filled with hanging wet tea-towels, loose bedding, a roof blind on the floor and various consumables which we'd managed to pick up from the Polish version of B&Q! And the sink was full of washing up which we hadn't bothered to do because the tea-towels were wet! It was most amusing (embarrassing) watching the uniformed officers and their massive hats ducking and diving under soaking wet tea-towels whilst trying not to trip on the various items on the floor. Ultimately, the crossing process wasn't too bad, it was just time consuming and confusing, we were even refused exit from the compound and had to turn back to get more paperwork stamped.  We would like to think it was a learning process but no doubt each border will be completely different.

With the extra hour difference now added on for Eastern European Time we got into Ukraine at about 10pm but then had to go to the Currency Exchange and then find an agent to sort out some insurance.  This resulted in us breaking our main rule of not travelling at night without a planned place to sleep.  It started raining, the roads were poor and the local standard of driving even worse. After a couple of hours and several aborted stops due to unsavoury characters, we finally found a quiet place to sleep. It had been a long day!

Saturday we woke with good intentions of visiting L'viv, but this was heaving with buses, trams, trolley buses and people everywhere.  Thanks to a diversion we had to drive up a very narrow lane where Mario got intimate with a very badly parked VW Polo, resulting in us soon changing our minds that seeing L'viv wasn't that appealing after all! So we then went to Rivne and promptly got stopped by the police, not for Mario's indiscretion, just a random stop - we didn't understand them, they didn't understand us and once they'd seen our documents they obviously decided we weren't worth the hassle and let us go. 

It seemed that the police were going to be a common occurrence as we were again stopped the next day, but this time 'fined' for speeding - £17.50 straight into their pocket! We knew the police were likely to be a problem and that you just have to treat it as a 'toll' for driving that particular road, but we hope it doesn't happen to often!

We then got caught at a fuel station where they thought we were paying cash, we wanted to pay by card, and after we'd filled up they told us the card machines weren't working.  We didn't have enough cash to cover the bill (thanks to the police fine), they wouldn't accept our Euros or Dollars, so we had a stand off for an hour while their 'techy' sorted out their credit card machines.

Monday morning we're up bright and early looking forward to sightseeing in Kiev, heading for a hotel recommended by Lonely Planet. When we arrived we found the hotel was no longer there, so we drove to the airport to use their WIFI and found a fantastic looking campsite with full facilities only 10 minutes away. 40 minutes later we arrive at the 'campsite' to find it was nothing more than a fenced in carpark with a garden swimming pool in the middle! It basically looked like a travellers' camp.  Check out their website compared to what our dashcam saw!

Another aborted attempt to find a decent hotel near the airport and we finally ended where we are now, a lovely resort type place called Kidev Park, where the restaurant is a series of little wicker huts - very nice in a bizarre way! We are staying tonight (early birthday pressie for Bry) and "doing" Kiev tomorrow. We may stay tomorrow night as well, but they've said Mario will be OK in their car park for the day anyway. First night not in Mario seems strange, but we've had a lovely meal (Bry had Chicken Kiev, obviously) and made good use of the WiFi!

Pictures to follow, further updates when possible!

Love to all xx