January 2, 2014
Moldova is sh!t: And I really mean that
The road I had taken to the border looked, at least on my map, like a major international highway linking Ukraine and Moldova. It was a bit of a surprise, then, to be pretty much the only vehicle on the road by the time I rocked up to the pretty woman in army dress who greeted me at the border. She addressed me in English, gave me a piece of paper, and told me to go around to the right, not stop at the Ukrainian checkpoint, and go straight to the Moldovan side. Politely following instructions I cycled off around to the right, then remembered I really did need an exit stamp for Ukraine so stopped at the Ukrainian checkpoint anyway. There was nobody there so I looked around blankly trying to look as lost and confused as I could so that somebody would help. This is, I find, a great strategy when you aren't sure what to do next. Consider it my gift to you. Finally, when a car came through, the driver pointed me towards the Moldovan side and I decided that is where I should go.
Sure enough, there was a row of four windows at the Moldovan checkpoint and the first one had a Ukrainian flag in the window. Either the Moldovans were really getting behind the anti-government protests or this was the Ukrainian exit man. He gave me my exit stamp and also stamped my piece of paper. The next window was Ukrainian also (I assume customs) and he also stamped my piece of paper. Then it was on to the first Moldovan window. The man there was wearing a very nice hat and I wished that my language skills could have allowed me to tell him so. He asked me something and, taking a guess at what, I answered "Chisinau" and then he asked me something else and, taking a guess at what, I answered "Romania." For all I know he thinks to this day that I am a Romanian man named Chisinau but he stamped my passport and thats all that really mattered. At the final window sat a gruff man who shouted one word at me which sounded something like "STENCH!" and stared at me intently. I tried to explain I was on a bicycle, saying "Bicyclet, Velociped" but he interupted me, shouting the same word again and stamping my piece of paper with a look of utter contempt. I rode on and had to wait several minutes for the pretty army girl on the other side to turn around and see me so that she could collect my now very colourful stampy piece of paper, and I was in Moldova.
I was quite excited about getting to another new country and the village that I cycled through soon after the border was a delight. The road was truly terrible, which was to be expected from the poorest country in Europe, but there were almost no cars. Of the few that there were, an even higher percentage were now of the Lada variety. Also increasing in number were the stray dogs that seemed to be hiding behind every lamppost. But the really great thing was that there were quite a few people about on the street and they seemed almost friendly, one or two even stretching to a smile or a wave. I felt right away quite safe in Moldova, which isn't something I had expected. I'm sure the lack of traffic played its part:
The first town that I came to was Lipcani and here I sat in a park to eat my breakfast under a statue of Lenin that overlooked the town. It was a bleak day but the town centre was full of people. I stopped to find a bank to change some money and a guy spoke to me and we finally decided that French was the closest thing to a common language that we had.
"Pourquoi avez-vous voyager en vélo?" he asked.
"Parce que c'est... c'est... c'est..." this is about the point at which we both realised that I couldn't speak French and a split-second before he said "Au-revoir"
To get out of Lipcani I had to cycle up a very steep hill. This was to be the first of a great many times that I would have to do this in Moldova. It is a very hilly place but even so it did seem to me that the road was almost seeking out the hills. In most countries I can see a logic to how the road was designed, but here it seemed to have been designed by a madman. I came to the conclusion that whoever first walked across Moldova must have kept walking up to the highest points in order to get his (or her) bearings. The next person just followed in their trail. And so the next, and so on until there was a major trail going over the tops of all the hills and then obviously when it was time to build the major highway through the country, they didn't think to build it in the valleys and just followed this trail.
For the first day and a half in Moldova I was trying to get to Chisinau for the fourth so that I could couchsurf. I had sent a few requests for this date because, even though it would be much more convinient to get there on the fifth, I thought it was too close to Christmas for anyone to host me. So I was trying to push through 100 kilometre days on these constant rolling hills and, to make matters worse, I was constantly battling into a headwind. And, to make matters even more worse, the road was utterly boring. All of the villages were set a few kilometres off the road and there weren't any people around and there was nothing of any interest whatsoever. It was utterly depressing cycling. By the time I got to the town of Balti I had already given up on getting to Chisinau by the fourth and I found wifi in a cafe to cancel my couchsurfing requests. None of them had even bothered to reply anyway. By this stage I was so darn frustrated and needed a break so bad that I booked a night in a Chisinau hostel for the night of the fifth and to hell with the budget!!!
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My third day in Moldova was as utterly boring and depressing as ever, but at least I had a more relaxed deadline for getting to Chisinau so I was a bit less frustrated at the slow progress slogging up the hills into the wind. And things got better in the afternoon when I found a few kilometres of flat through prairie fields and saw shepherds tending their flock and it looked more like Mongolia than Moldova. And then, because I was out of food I had to take a detour into one of the villages a couple of kilometres off the road and this was a fantastic experience. There were lots of people outside and little shacks for homes and it was all, finally, quite interesting. I found the little shop, which had everything behind the counter so that you have to ask for what you want. First I had to wait for the woman who was in the shop before me to get all her things taken off the shelves for her. Then I had to wait for the old man who came in after me but walked past me and got served first to have all the things taken off the shelves for him. Then I had to wait for the mother with two kids who came in after me but walked past me and got served first to have all her things taken off the shelves for her. Then finally I got served, which was difficult, what with the language barrier and the very great difficulty in doing 'jam' in sign language. About half an hour later I finally left the shop with two loafs of bread, a stick of butter and five chocolate eclairs.
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On the fourth morning there was a heavy fog which at least had the benefit of blocking the looming hills from my view. Even so I reached such new depths of boredom and frustration that I decided to take the ambitious and difficult step into the field of video-blogging. I do hope you enjoy watching this as much as I enjoyed making it:
And yet, shortly after making this video I did find a reason to cycle tour in Moldova. Granted it probably won't have all of you googling 'cheap flights to Chisinau,' but it was, without doubt, a serious and most unlikely contender for the title of Best Bus Stop In The World To Sit And Take A Break In. As you can see for yourselves, it looked like a castle! A castle!!! And the mosaic pattern, simply divine!
02/01/14 - 82km (80km in Moldova)
03/01/14 - 76km
04/01/14 - 70km
Today's ride: 226 km (140 miles)
Total: 11,775 km (7,312 miles)
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