December 30, 2013
People are awesome!: I realised that I liked Ukraine a lot
As I cycled along the road away from town in the morning I passed another stand of broomsticks, apparantly for sale but not obviously attended by anyone. I thought it was very strange, it seemed such a completely unlikely thing to sell at the roadside. I put it down to overstock from Halloween and continued on, following the main road towards Chernivtsi. It was another grey day but the road had a wide dirt shoulder which wasn't bad to cycle on, so I had no reason to complain. I passed through a tremendous town along the way, it was so full of life, so many different people walking about, going about their business. Sitting in this town and watching these people I realised that I liked Ukraine a lot.
Then I passed more broomsticks for sale. They again appeared unattended, but closer inspection showed a man sitting in the woods nearby by a fire, waiting for his chance to make a sale. I imagined he would be waiting a long time. I couldn't work out why anyone, other than a witch, would want to buy a broomstick at the side of the road, or how there could possibly be any money in this enterprise. Further on even more broomsticks, three sellers close to each other this time. I was really starting to wonder what the hell was going on. I got it down to two possible theories. Theory one was that there was a large population of witches in south Ukraine, and therefore a reasonable demand in order to justify this extravagant level of supply. Theory two was that none of this existed and I had finally gone insane.
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In the early evening I passed through the city of Kolomyya which was another fine chaotic mess of people and traffic and stray dogs. I was on my way out the other side of town when a hitch-hiker caught my eye. She caught my eye because she was wearing a blue coat and a blue hat just like those which Hanna had been wearing in Lviv and for a split second my mind thought that it actually was in fact Hanna. This split second was followed by a split second of disappointment when I realised that it wasn't her, which was followed by a split second of indifference as there were lots of people hitch-hiking in Ukraine, which was followed by a split second of confusion as the hitch-hiker said "Czesc" to me as I cycled past, which was followed by a split second of braking. Czesc, as anyone who has ever worked in a warehouse in the UK can tell you, means hello in Polish. I said hello and realised there were in fact two hitch-hikers, although they were sensibly employing the tactic of 'big bloke stands just out of sight while blonde girl stands alone with thumb out.' We exchanged stories and theirs was that they had come from Poland and were going to Moldova, and eventually back to Poland via Slovakia. The first day hitch-hiking in Poland had been easy, but in Ukraine it was proving more difficult. As it was almost dark I proposed that we walk the rest of the way out of town and find somewhere to camp together.
What happened next was one of the greatest experiences of my whole entire day. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it was the absolute one and only greatest experience of my whole entire day. The town stretched on and on and after a while walking we decided to ask someone to camp in their yard rather than walk any further. The guy who we asked said yes straight away and invited us in for tea. His name was Oleg and we met his whole family - his wife, his two little daughters and his father and mother as plates of food and fruit tea and hot coffee were placed in front of us. A few moments ago we had been contemplating another night camping out in the cold, and suddenly here we were in this wonderful Ukrainian home being shown the most extraordinary kindness. It was decided that we would not camp but could all sleep comfortably inside.
PEOPLE ARE AWESOME!
Today's ride: 67 km (42 miles)
Total: 11,410 km (7,086 miles)
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