Tuesday I drove to the Ukrainian border, alongside miles of parked trucks waiting to get in. I was very happy they had separate lanes for cars. Upon arrival a soldier wrote down my registration number and the number of passengers in the car (1) on a small scrap of paper. Despite his instructions that I absolutely, positively HAD to keep this little piece paper, I managed to lose it in the ten minutes it took to travel the 50 feet to the border checkpoint. I never even left the car, and to this day I have no clue as to how I did it. Clearly I have a talent for these things.
The guy at the immigration control gave a weary sigh when I explained that I had in fact lost the paper, and he then had to get out of his booth, track down some more paper and then painstakingly write the same useless information on a new, tiny scrap which he then stamped in red ink. I was then waived through with no further information. Imagine then my surprise when I came to the last checkpoint and was told I had to go back and get a BLUE stamp on it - for CUSTOMS, you see.
So I backed up the 50 or so yards to the main buildings and tried to get me a blue stamp. This was easier said than done. None of the many soldiers hanging around spoke English, but fortunately I was not alone in my quest, lots of Poles and Ukrainians were also stuck waiting for it. After five minutes a grumpy woman finally emerged from one of the side buildings, still wiping the crumbs of her lunch from her ugly mug. Needless to say, none of the cars got even a perfunctory check, she just stamped a dozen pieces of paper and went back inside again. Also needless to say, the guys at the final checkpoint just glanced at my red & blue stamps and waved me through. There was no point to the whole procedure, it just had to be done according to proper rules and regulations.
I'll save you the tales of woe connected with driving into Ukraine without enough hard currency on hand, suffice it to say I was very happy and very hungry when I finally reached a city big enough to have an international ATM. Having filled up on food and gas I stopped and asked for directions to get back on the main road, and probably provided entertainment for the rest of the month to a couple of young people walking their babies in strollers. They spoke maybe twenty words of English between them, and the directions were given (and received) using a combination of hand signals and sounds that to an uninitiated bystander probably looked more like we were all having brain seizures at the same time.
Ukraine is generally flat and boring to drive through. Giant forests and huge plains pretty much make up the landscape, and the many tiny towns and villages are quite dull, grey and worn down. As in Poland I could see (mostly old) people walking their cattle to graze from the grass along the roadside, and some places they were selling their local produce out of buckets or carts. I'm willing to bet their style of clothing hasn't changed much for a couple of centuries.
I'd been told that the speed limit on the motorways was up to 120kmh (75mph), so as I was on a four-lane highway I felt safe in doing 110. Road signs are few and far between in Ukraine, but I honestly thought I was on a motorway until I came around a bend and was promptly waved in by a couple of police officers. It turned out I was in a "town zone" - marked exclusively by a Ukrainian sign, not a number - and had been measured doing 108 kmh in a 60 zone. In Norway this would probably have meant jail time, or at the very least I'd have lost my license. Here they wrote "150" on a piece of paper - meaning I had to pay 150 Hryvna (=$30). My lowest denomination was a 200 Hr bill, which the policeman promptly put in his breast pocket (aka his pension fund). I was then given a firm handshake and sent off without any change or receipt.
I later found out that even this small amount was way too much. Apparently, since they know the odds of getting a foreigner to appear in court, local cops never push the issue of traffic tickets to the point of actually issuing them - they will only harass you for a while. Therefore, one should always keep a 20 Hr note ready to give them after arguing for a couple of minutes. That way both you and the Ukrainian government save face and money.
From the border area - No trumpet playing allowed!
