Rain in Ukraine and a Hotel Again

After a pretty good (if a little weird) breakfast. Cucumber is not a breakfast item! I was on the road at 07:30 heading for the border. After negotiating a main road closure and thick fog, I arrived at the border post at 9:42am and a que was starting to form

The Belarussian border is very smart with everyone in uniform and the very large Russian style military hat. However, they were very pleasant and the guy dealing with me said.
"Do you have a gun"?
I replied "No"
Cocaine"?
"No"
He seemed happy enough with that though took a casual look in my panniers to be sure.

I then moved onto the Ukrainian side. What a difference. Still in uniform but mainly camouflage t-shirts and baseball caps. Again very pleasant chap dealt with me, wishing me well on my journey but the system was shambolic. He went down a line of 10 vehicles collecting all the passports and documents. We then waited like lemons and a different guy came and gave them back. I got mine (I checked carefully) so I assume everyone got the right ones.

I had asked the first guy about Insurance and he just said to get it as I leave. So once I had all my documents I exited the border and stopped by a shack 25 metres down the road to buy some. 27 euros (as opposed to yesterdays 2 euro) but it looked genuine enough and he copied a lot of detail from my Driving Licence and V5 so I guess it is all good. At 12:11 I left the border. under 2hrs 30 so all good.

On driving down the road (if you can call it that) I realised I was halfway round my trip and glanced at the trip odometer to see 4125 km since leaving home.

Anyway, the road quality is poor but with holes and grooves everywhere. There are ruts running the length of the road that you get pulled into and then holes or lumps going across just for fun. The bike however, with off road suspension mode switch on just soaked it all up and I hung on bouncing around. A small amount of rain just added to the poor road conditions.

Speed limits in the Ukraine are it seems somewhat optional (a bit like Belarus) but my method is to sit at the tail of a few vehicles and follow them. It is so dangerous to stick to the limit as lorries and bused let along cars and other bikes just force their way past.

I treated myself (punished myself) with a ride through Kiev and eventually got here to my "alleged" campsite in the grounds of a hotel. In reality it was pitching a tent in their carpark and they wanted to charge 15 euro plus 2 euro for the wifi. However, a bit of negotiation got me a room with wifi included for 20 euro. The hotel is a travel and motorbike touring based one hence the bike in reception.