In the morning I checked out my options. I didn’t have a much time as I thought left, so I couldn’t go south, and go to Romania, and go to Kiev for the Chernobyl tour.

When googling around I found out that the nice roads in Romania doesn’t even open until end of June, as there would still be snow on them. As that was my main plan with Romania, it now was a pretty easy choice, and I therefore checked for Chernobyl tours. After calling one, which would be earliest on Saturday, I found one which would be on Friday 13th instad, which would ”save” me one day. I would have two days to drive to Kiev, which would be enough too.

After booking the tour, I started driving. I ate pizza for lunch, which was different. Instead of tomato sauce I got ketchup on the side. 

When looking for a lunch place I saw this; is it an old bridge or something?

Soon I was in Poland again, and later in the evening, I was at the border crossing to Ukraine! It was already ten or so in the evening.

There were a long, long queue of cars, but everyone started waving at me. I wasn’t really sure of what they meant, but someone who spoke english told me to just go past everything. If it is because I am Swedish, or because I am driving a motorcycle, I am not sure, but I probably saved an hour!

Leaving Poland was easy, but entering Ukraine harder. Someone helped me to translate, though, and I am not sure what everything was about, but that guy fixed everything for me! He told me the roads were bad in Ukraine, and I told him I had travelled Russia, to which he answered that ”then the roads in Ukraine are good”.

I had forgot to turn the ignition off, so the lights were on. With all the stops and starts, I had drained the battery fairly well, and I heard the starter go really slow, and then not at all. The same guy and girl who had helped me earlier, helped me by hooking their car up to my motorcycle so I could get going.

First thing I did in Ukraine was hitting a giant pothole. Really good start, but nothing broke, as far as I know!

I was also out of fuel, so after riding for a while, also trying to find a hotel of some kind, I refuelled. The battery had gotten enough charge, at least, and now the engine started without a problem!

What I didn’t think of, was that my internet was for the EU, not for Europe. Because of that, I couldn’t check anything, for example hotels.

As the clock shifted forward one hour, it was now half past twelve, and I hadn’t seen any hotel or anything nearby. I decided to pitch my tent, and tried to find small roads. The first one I found was muddy and had some grass on it, and it had been raining earlier. That didn’t go well.

Really tired after getting out of there, I turned from the main road onto a gravel road, which looked like there wouldn’t be much traffic. I found an acre which was not used at the moment, and pitched my tent there, behind a tree (really stealthy, I now). It was really dark, with no city nearby, and if it would have been a clear sky it would have been perfect!