Back to Poland
Well we'd overstayed our time in Vama Veche and after one night and a morning in Cernivci it was time to leave- stocked up on cheese, we were told how to hitch out of Cernivci by our host, after a couple of minutes a Lada Riva stopped and the driver a Russian/Ukrainian/German/English speaking guy from Cernivci who worked as an agent for an Austrian timber company was nearly driving to Lviv.. perfect... a 300km ride. He was a fast driver and unfortunately after about 70km the Ukrainian police pulled him over, he refused to sign the documents and so they wanted to take him to the police station. We got out and began hitchhiking, his car broke down and the police had to push him to get him going before running into their car to take him to the station... quite entertaining.
We were stuck in the middle of the Ukrainian countryside, on a fairly large road but it was filled with full minibuses and the occasional truck, after 30 minutes.. a guy with a mad moustache stopped and took us all the way through Ivano-Frankivsk and dropped us on the road to L'viv by a gas station.. after a few seconds, a man came running towards us and pointed to his car.. he took us to a city 30 or 40km away called Bielszyn. The locals seemed quite worried about us and were trying to explain to us we were in the wrong place for the bus to stop.. we explained we were hitchhiking and they tutted their head.. but after a few minutes an elderly wealthy man stopped in a brand new car.
This guy was Ukrainian with Russian parents and was going somewhere near the Poland border.. he dropped us off north of L'viv about 20km from Rawa Ruska, a young man in a Lada stopped immediately and the guy didn't really know where in Rawa Ruska he was going for.. so he took us to the border, we offered him our last 10 hryvnas but he turned them down.
The Ukrainian border guards told us we had to get in a car to cross the border and that no one was allowed to walk over, despite Sylwia waving around her Polish passport when knocking on people's windows (all the cars were polish).. no one would listen and some wouldn't even open the window. Eventually a father and son, bringing alcohol and cigarettes from Rawa Ruska to the other side of the border took us over.
From then on.. things were simple.. one lift by a funny Italian guy and his polish girlfriend (who both lived in London) to Tomaszow, where we met some people hitching to Ukraine in the other direction, immediately an old guy stopped and took us to Zamosc, then a guy (with excess gas to share... :0).) in a Mercedes took us rapidly to Lublin.. and the last ride was from a trucker who took us close by our house in Warszawa. It was 12.5hrs from Cernivci to Warszawa.. not bad.
We were stuck in the middle of the Ukrainian countryside, on a fairly large road but it was filled with full minibuses and the occasional truck, after 30 minutes.. a guy with a mad moustache stopped and took us all the way through Ivano-Frankivsk and dropped us on the road to L'viv by a gas station.. after a few seconds, a man came running towards us and pointed to his car.. he took us to a city 30 or 40km away called Bielszyn. The locals seemed quite worried about us and were trying to explain to us we were in the wrong place for the bus to stop.. we explained we were hitchhiking and they tutted their head.. but after a few minutes an elderly wealthy man stopped in a brand new car.
This guy was Ukrainian with Russian parents and was going somewhere near the Poland border.. he dropped us off north of L'viv about 20km from Rawa Ruska, a young man in a Lada stopped immediately and the guy didn't really know where in Rawa Ruska he was going for.. so he took us to the border, we offered him our last 10 hryvnas but he turned them down.
The Ukrainian border guards told us we had to get in a car to cross the border and that no one was allowed to walk over, despite Sylwia waving around her Polish passport when knocking on people's windows (all the cars were polish).. no one would listen and some wouldn't even open the window. Eventually a father and son, bringing alcohol and cigarettes from Rawa Ruska to the other side of the border took us over.
From then on.. things were simple.. one lift by a funny Italian guy and his polish girlfriend (who both lived in London) to Tomaszow, where we met some people hitching to Ukraine in the other direction, immediately an old guy stopped and took us to Zamosc, then a guy (with excess gas to share... :0).) in a Mercedes took us rapidly to Lublin.. and the last ride was from a trucker who took us close by our house in Warszawa. It was 12.5hrs from Cernivci to Warszawa.. not bad.
posted by dangaroo at 9:06 AM
1 Comments:
Thank you for that. I was wondering what the conditions were for hitching to Lviv from Warsaw. While you didn't do that your information has proven very valuable.
Thanks mate :)
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