I wake up very early – pre-sunrise, to be precise… Refreshed and ready to start the day.
The weather forecast for today is 39°C for western Ukraine and i’m glad to get on the road this early to get to the border as early as possible. I’ve researched how long the process can take and found anything between an hour and 6 hours on various sites. Let’s see how things pan out for me today.
From Suceava, the road takes me broadly northward towards Siret where the main Ukranian border crossing is.
Whilst planning my trip, I found many smaller crossings but they were definitely not viable options… the following one is a good example:
This is even more important given the current – repaired – state of my TWIKE.
Also, sticking to the main road brings more opportunities… to buy ‘locally sourced’ energy drinks!
The road to Siret is pristine and the 40-odd kilometres melt away in no time.
In Siret itself, there is only one hotel – aptly called ‘Fronteer Hotel’ plus an Aldi, which, incidentally, has a charging station which was not listed anywhere and would have worked with my card…if I’d been able to continue yesterday.
From Siret to the border the road is around 2 km – many trucks and busses waiting to be called to the crossing. Arriving at the Romanian part of the crossing, I first get in line where all the cars and busses are queueing, even though there are other lanes that are completely empty.
Since all the people are getting out of their cars and obviously settling in for a longer wait, I do the same and try to find out what the other lanes are for … and that turns out to be a good move!
I was in the lane for Ukranians …plus any passport and there was another for any passport MINUS Ukranians. Look at the difference that made for me: I was able to drive right up to border control with just one car ahead of me!
It still took around 20 minutes to get past the checks and be let into no-man’s land between Romania and Ukraine. There, again, there was a queue. But this time the queue was in front of a barrier around 300m away from the Ukranian border control point.
Here, I waited around 30 minutes to get to the front of the queue and get my documents checked before being handed a small piece of paper – a control slip with my and TWIKE’s data on it and being sent onwards to the border control point.
The views from the TWIKE were indeed special – Ukraine knows how to make a visual impression!
I spend a good 90 minutes at the border control point. Everything is checked: I have to unload my TWIKE completely, have my passport and vehicle registration checked multiple times – the passport controls aren’t the part that takes the most time: customs checks!
Fellow people waiting with me explain to me that it’s taking me this long as the officials are openly discussing the fact that they really don’t know what to make of the TWIKE and that they will need to check with HQ first.
To make matters worse, there is a shift change at 8 am and they just shut down the whole border control post for 15 minutes to allow the new guys to accustom themselves with the open cases … one of which is my TWIKE.
Long story short – after another 45 minutes of waiting I finally get sent on my way with an ‘enjoy Ukraine’ from one of the officials. (Spoiler: during the next two days, I will be not only enjoying Ukraine but also learning a lot about the people, driving forces, resilience and what being at war really means as a country)
Since I wasn’t able to find an open money changer yesterday, I get some Ukrainian Hryvnia in order to be able to manage cash-only situations.
Then, it’s time for… some more local energy drinks!
I really liked this drink called ‘volia’ – which I researched, since the word was being used a lot.
It turns out to be the Ukranian base core motivation – an outwards pointed, freedom seeking, occupier-rejecting, doing #whateverittakes understanding of oneself.
As ukraine.ua explains in their FAQ section: Ask any Ukrainian about volia, and they will know the meaning of it – and its significance too. However, there is hardly one comprehensive definition for the term. “Volia” (воля) can be translated as “will” or “freedom”, but neither fully convey the essence of Ukrainian life philosophy.
Volia is the internal driving power to overcome all obstacles – longing for freedom, and the deliberate choice to be free.
The drink itself is presented on a webpage which is absolutely worth a visit. The drink was created to honour and support the troops and those who were wounded.
Whilst drinking my voila energy drink, I noticed a green patch on the petrol station table I was sitting – a fundraiser of the special kind:
With all of this – I get back into the TWIKE and continue my drive towards Dolyna. I’d like to catch up a little since I’m around a day behind my schedule due to the repairs and me not driving very far yesterday due to the heat. I’ll have to recharge in Ivano-Frankivisk but want to definitely make some good distance today as there are no hills or mountains to cross today and the road surfaces are acceptable.
What is very visible immediately is that in every settlement, regardless of how small or big, there is, without fail, a memorial to the fallen and lots of fresh graves in graveyards with Ukranian flags and lots of fresh flowers.
Also visible are lots of old eastern bloc artifacts which make excellent photo opportunities for the TWIKE.
Whilst taking the photo above, some of the usual TWIKE magic happens: A guy stops his car and starts speaking with me. He introduces himself as the head of a children’s and youth summer camp close-by where children and teenagers from war-torn villages and towns from the front could come to ‘take a break’ from the war.
Would I be interested in visiting, having a look and introduce my vehicle and trip?
Sure!
The experience was humbling.
The kids and especially the teenagers had seen horrific things and were not shy to talk about what they had seen and experienced and what life with an active front close by looks like.
The teenagers’ English was excellent, their ability to reflect and recognise for example that there had been many people in their own country that initially had welcomed the Russians in 2014 and continued a low-intensity war until the full invasion in 2022 and that this meant that there would have to be some serious internal reconciliation before true peace would come to the country.
I had many interesting exchanges, lots of questions about the TWIKE… interestingly, most of them declined a group photo around the TWIKE.
One picture with Ivan remains, who was my main translator for the kids who didn’t speak English well.
After some tea, food and plenty of cold water, I was back on the road…
Out of curiosity, I checked if I would be able to charge in Doylna or somewhere along the road with any of my charging cards… the result was sobering for all cards!
On my way to Ivano-Frankivist – the larger city en-route, temperatures soared again to over 40°C and I was, again, fading fast.
Thanks to my stop at the youth camp, I was still rather far from Doylna, fading and close to a larger town. I then decided to call it a day and stay in Ivano-Frankivist. I found a nice hotel with protected parking, checked-in and then enjoyed the good air-conditioning in my rather large room.
Charging was an easy affair: creative charging directly from my room, as agreed with the employee at the front desk. (…the discussion was not yet done on that topic)
A little later, early evening, I ventured into the town centre. A quaint affair with real life just going on everywhere.
There were ‘stay cool’ opportunities everywhere. Water mist dispensers and in this town’s case, a fountain that did the same thing on a larger scale.
Something that was absolutely everywhere: memorials to the fallen. Literally hundreds upon hundreds of portraits with descriptions of who the soldier was and how / when / where he died.
Again, a very humbling experience – jarring, as life in the town was just going on normally.
Furthermore, there were multiple fundraisers going on by units manned by people from the town itself.
I continue discovering the town – everything seems so normal. Coffee shops, pop-up’s, restaurants and bars…
Until you see that every building, shop and place has its own generator (see the big red box for the hotel beside my TWIKE above)
Even smaller places … have smaller generators!
Should an attack against the power grid occur, I am pretty convinced that this town would be weathering the effect pretty well, albeit with some noise and emissions.
There were also some instances of newer public art featuring the war and its effects.
One last place I visited was town hall – an impressive building from the concrete brutalist past, complete with even more fallen soldiers.
All this walking made me hungry – I felt like some appetisers and some beers before having dinner.
I quickly found a nice little bar and checked the menu with Google Lens.
I was in for a treat: local specialities which were immediately ordered!
The pig tails were incredibly tasty!
Later on, I had some dumplings – also a Slavic speciality.
Also, very tasty.
After this, I retire to my room and start uploading today’s media to my server at home. I don’t feel like writing an entry today – there is just too much to ponder. I’ll try to write tomorrow again.
Let’s have a look at the stats for today:
I’m really looking forward to the next stage, even though I’d really would have liked a drive-free day tomorrow. Unfortunately, thanks to the issues with my TWIKE’s rim, the subsequent repair and the last two days driving around half the distance planned due to heat and visits, I’m around 600km behind my initial plan and, therefore, will have to continue and press onwards.