Hello everyone! Richy here.
Since we last "blogged", a lovely morning was spent on the beach at Odessa enjoying the warm weather and admiring the (ahem!) scenery. I even went for a swim in the sea which for anyone who knows me I generally try avoid like the plague.
After a hearty lunch we then set off with the aim of trying to get as near to the Russian border as possible. With time not on our side we pushed our trusty car to the limit and actually a little beyond when our rear right tyre started to disintergrate and we had to change it by the road. (see middle photo). The air jack was cool but it did cause a few cars passing to stop and check as being wired from the exhause it did make it look like we were trying to top ourselves!
Pushing on into the night and with fatigue setting in we encountered another problem, Ukranian road signs are bollocks (see example above), several times we got lost and had to backtrack. With no available hotels we spent our first rather uncomfortable night sleeping in the car being periodically disturbed by inquisitive truckers - a most umpleasant experience.
The next day we crossed the Russian border, although this took a few hours it was quite painless and the guards compared to Ukraine were pretty friendly. Rostov was our overnight stop where the most frustrating problem was encountered; Russian policemen are absolute w*****rs. On the main street trying to find a hotel we were flagged down 5 times in the space of half a mile. Clearly they were radioing ahead to their colleagues up the road with the aim of making our lives an absolute misery. Much disjointed arguments, arm waving and document showing occurred, the result of which was payment of a bribe of 50 Rubles (about a quid). Annoying but at least it won't be bankrupting us!
Next stop is Volgograd, scene of one of the most destructive battles in military history! Hoping to get some cool photos of Soviet military statues on the way which I will post next time I write.
Catch you later......
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