Midnight Train to Ukraine

Last night, October 2, in Krosno, Poland, we walked down ul. Stapinskiego from the ancestral home of the Bienia family to the bus stop down the road. We flagged down the bus to Rzeszów, kissed a cousin goodbye, and we were off, in the dark, down a narrow road heading north. An hour later, in Rzeszów, we carried our luggage down the street to the train station, a desolate and deserted place. It was 10:00 pm.  The train for Lviv would not come through until 12:23. Across the street was a hotel which had a teeny bar. We stayed there until it closed at 11:00, each of us polishing off a large Tyskie beer.

The midnight train came rumbling through around 12:05. We found our little 2-bed sleeper in the last car and made ourselves comfortable, me in the lower berth, Zach climbing like a monkey to the top. I congratulated myself; we would have a solid five hours of sleep before the train rolled into Lviv at 6:03.

Hah! An hour later, we were awakened by a pounding at the door! The conductor opened our door and turned on bright lights. We were at the border! Polish border guards scrutinized our passports, moved on down the narrow train corridor. Loud voices, the open door, the bright lights, made sleeping impossible. This went on for at least 45 minutes. Then the train began to move. We closed our door, turned off the light.

I tried to get back to sleep and was almost there when... another pounding on our door!  Now we had entered the Ukraine! This time, Ukranian border police were there. They asked for our passports and took them away.  Some time later, they were back, women in camouflage, asking us questions.  Where did we live? How many days would we spend in Ukraine? Did we have family in Ukraine? Where were we going next? Did we have family in Moldova? Finally, about 3:30 am, they were gone, the car was once again silent, and we turned out the light. Ahhh. OK, now we can get in a good two hours of sleep before our alarm goes off at 5:30. Wait! Time zone change! It's not 3:40! It's 4:40! Reset the alarm!

Stumbling out of the train at 6:03, we found ourselves in a bustling train station in Lviv. How do we find out where the bus station is? Where's the information window? Here's how you find out: You go up to a random window, labeled in cyrillic alphabet. (Had we taken the time to learn how to at least de-code the alphabet to be able to pronounce words? No.) You figure out that here, no one in line stands politely back to allow the person at the window some privacy. People budge in ahead of you in line, because you are obviously a fool. You ask, "Do you speak English?" The answer is No. You ask in Polish, "Can you tell me where the bus station is?" The woman behind the window says, in halting Polish, "Go to window number 2." There is no one at window number 2. A gentle looking man approaches from behind us, asking where we are going. I ask again about the bus station. We are speaking Polish. "We have eight different bus stations. Which bus station do you want?" How do I know? "We are going to Kamyanets-Podilsky," I say. He says we need the central bus station and that he can take us there.  "Can we walk?" I ask. "Can we go on foot?" "It's about 13 kilometers away," the man says. We agree on a price in Polish Złoty, and then I realize I have no Ukrainian Hryvnia, which I'll need at the bus station. The man accompanies us to a "bank-o-mat" and I withdraw 200 Hryvnia, about $24US.

We follow the man outside to his taxi. It's totally dark out, and the man has my suitcase. He's walking very fast, and I am grateful that Zach can keep up with him. Zach is right behind him as the man walks up to a regular car, not a taxi. Whoops!  Is this a mistake?  Or not?  We take our chances and get in the beat-up old car. The man drives just like a taxi driver, zooming in and out of the pre-dawn traffic. We go through the heart of this big city and out the other side. Where is he taking us? I'm worried. And then there it is — the main bus station! All lit up! We get out, pay the driver exactly our agreed-upon price, thank him. Our first encounter in the Ukraine, and it was a good one.

But there we are. Absolutely no place to sit down, no waiting room. Forget coffee — there is no restaurant or snack shop anywhere at the bus station. We hand our reservation for the 10:15 am bus to a woman at the only open ticket window. People crowd around me on both sides, watching what I'm doing. No privacy here at all. I pay the woman for two tickets to Kamyanets-Podilsky. She tells me to hurry up as I search for the right paper bill.

It's now 6:40 am. Our bus doesn't leave until 10:15. It's still totally dark outside. And it's freezing outside — literally freezing. We have had just about an hour and a half of sleep, total. We have had nothing to eat or drink. We hang around inside, standing up against the wall. Kill time. Take turns going into the WC. Now it's 7:15. We stare at the unintelligible list of bus departures, trying to make sense out of it. Wait! Here's something that starts with a KAM...  Could that mean Kamyanets?  Must be! It's got a departure at 10:15. Wait! It's got another departure at 8:00! I wait in line again at the ticket window. Can I exchange these tickets for the 8:00 bus? Yes! For a small fee! Back we go to the bank-o-mat, then back to the ticket window.

Here's how we can tell we're on the right bus.

We get on the 8:00 bus! Yea! Zach stays awake, I drift in and out of sleep. Zach likes the countryside.

The windows kept steaming up. 

We pass a few cows, horse-drawn carts, a few women working in the small fields. The narrow road is filled with potholes, so different from the smooth new asphalt of the Polish roads. Here, for long stretches, the bus weaves around the potholes at 5 or 10 miles an hour. This is the main road between Lviv and Kamyanets-Podilsky. Up in front, the bus plays sexy music videos, competing for our attention with the fascinating countryside. For a while, the windshield wipers brush away snow. It's cold.

More than six hours later, some time after 2:00 pm, our bus pulls into Kamyanets-Podilsky. We are bone tired, incredibly hungry. We're here for two nights before moving on to Moldova. Tomorrow we'll rest, maybe post something more about Poland on the blog, maybe see the famous castle in this city. We feel farther away from home here in the Ukraine than we did in Poland. It's good to be here.