Moldova

My bus to Moldova was very much like me, 30 years old, extremely hot and absolutely knackered. My travelling partner, Steven from Iowa, was tired and hungover after a night on the tiles but for once I had behaved myself the night before and was eager to push on to my 14th country of the year.

Our one simple instruction to the girl at the ticket office was that under no circumstances were we to go via Transdniestria as this would mean lengthy delays, bag searches and most likely, the need to offer a financial incentive to let us pass through. When we arrived at the Transdniestrian border, our first reaction was to curse the ticket saleswoman before working out what we were prepared to pay and how far we were willing to go to avoid being robbed of our stocks of US currency. One thought was to do 'the embassy thing' and call the office of the british ambassador, speak slowly in the Queen's English claiming huge injustice on our right to pass freely without let or hinderance (well my right actually, I'm not sure what the US stance is on migration). The problem with this approach is that despite having it's own police force, army and currency, Transdniestra doesn't actually exist at all and so we were totally at the mercy of the border guards. Once our identities had been confiscated, the bus driver gave us a look as if to say "why didn't you get the other bus?" and the customs officials took our passports to a small hut containing what appeared to be Joseph Stalin! As he looked us up and down through the window, his hand moved towards his bat and he began to swing it in our direction with a wry smile on his face. Fortunately, it was so hot that neither Steven nor I were taken in by this pathetic attempt at bravado and so after being called into the office we decided that 30$ each was our maximum and we should just get on with the journey as soon as possible. With a mixture of poor Russian from me and excellent Romanian from Steven, the upshot was $30 each to go through Transdniestria or walk back to Odessa for free! Given little choice we paid our dues and asked that in return for the payment we each receive a Trandniestria stamp in our passports. Stalin shook his head and shoo'd us out of his hutch and back onto the bus where we were finally and gratefully reunited with our unstamped passports :-(

With Tiraspol a mere 15 minutes up the road, the bus creaked out of the checkpoint and down a deserted 3 lane highway. As the stark apartment blocks of the city grew bigger and bigger, the feeling of being in a forgotten world grew equally so and Steven and I started to read what the good old Lonely Planet guide had to say about this place. The first thing it said was that given the difficulties in the area, the border crossing was to be a surreal 'Kafka-esque' experience that would most likely leave you $20 to $30 out of pocket. The second thing that it said is that if you are unlucky enough to come here you will find what has to be the worlds largest open air museum. How right it was. Everything, from the roadsigns to the crumbling balconies had that unmistakable Soviet feel to it. The huge Russian trucks weaved their way through the pothole induced chicanes, the trolleybuses (dare I say it, in WORSE condition than those in Pyongyang) could barely turn the corners for the mangled tram tracks jutting out of the concrete and the Ladas, well, Lada'd their way round the streets in that noisy way that only Ladas can. As we arrived at the deserted railway station (all trans-Transdniestria train services are currently suspended) the driver announced a 10 minute break to which Steven and I jumped off the bus to do as much as we could for our $60 investment in this sorry city.

Steven had $4 in change and so we headed to a currency exchange booth to get as much local notes and coins as we could before attempting to buy 'Dva butelya Voda, Byez Gaz' (2 bottles of still water) from the ramshackle cabin next to the station. At this point, the driver angrily waved us towards our bus, now full of unhappy Moldovans, as apparently our 10 minutes was up. Once we had returned to our seats, the driver swung the bus around and it juddered through the rest of Tirasopol whilst we proceeded to get drenched by our extremely fizzy Transdniestrian water! A couple of Soviet monuments later, the city turned to suburbs and the suburbs to countryside. The driver opened the door and a gust of cool air snaked its way through the bus much to ours and possibly two other people's delight. Everyone else sat there (e)motionless and as miserable as ever whilst the bus picked up speed for literally seconds before our third border control of the day. Thankfully, this one was pretty quick as the driver already had the relevant paperwork signed by Stalin 40 minutes ago. "I wonder if our visas are on that form" Steven said with a smile, "either that or we're off to Siberia" I replied, wondering in fact if this were a possibility.

Our fourth and final border crossing was several feet ahead and after boarding the bus, the Moldovan guard moved along the gangway, briefly glancing at everyone's passports. Everyone except for 2 passengers of course and for what we hoped would be the final time, we were led off the bus into a small hut containing a desk, chair, radio and a 'Capitalist scumbags' logbook. I don't think it was actually called that but it may as well have been as it's doubtful to my mind that anyone would ever actually read it. As the angry Russian voice bellowed out of the radio, the guard looked at our passports and quickly took down the details before returning them to us. "Why did we have to get off the bus?" whispered a now very unhappy Steven, "beats me" I replied, lets just get back on it and get the hell out of here.

Yet another hour was to pass before we saw the first signs of Chisinau and with our last gulps of carbon dioxide juice (surely this should be banned!?!) we pulled up at the North bus station, Gara Nord. It was at this point that Steven explained to me that about 30% of Moldovan is French with the majority being Romanian, 'thank you' in the local tongue is 'Merci'! Beer was the next priority and with a bottle each of the local tipple (Chisinau Blonde), we sat in the shade and discussed the last 6 and half hours worth of time we had spent to travel a little over 100 miles!