Odessa - Chesinau (Muldova)

No Andrew, Graham sad

There and back again... Well at least as far as Chesinau.
This time my faithful companion has deserted me :-( - see my actual sad face in photo leaving Odessa without Andrew.
The task was to complete 190km today, including two border crossings through the police state of Transnistria. As a result, I started early and promptly got very lost on the outskirts of Odessa for two hours in heavy morning traffic. Things were not going well.
Cycling solo as a "lone wolf" is something to which it is difficult to get accustomed. A combination of not being able to share experiences in the moment en route and having to face all the headwinds alone was proving difficult, even within the first few hours. But with steely determination, I reached the Ukraine-Transnistrian border. In thus direction I got the full shakedown by the border patrol guards. With a few phrases like "dollars, euros", "you bring money into country?" and "this is very bad", they were looking for me to offer a bribe to speed up the process. Refusing politely and using my bike as evidence that I had no money, after 45 minutes I was through, albeit somewhat frustrated by the delay.


Gate-crashing Raufs birthday

Wine + Vodka = roudiness

Google maps had directed me to the promising-sounding M14 road bypassing Transnistria and reducing 5km immune journey. My suspicions were aroused by the dearth of cars using this road, but I proceeded to the border. At this point, a tank, barricade and three camouflaged soldiers with assault rifles convinced me that once again, google may have miscalculated. They were pleasant but insisted that I had to go another 15km south to the border control.

There were also some girls at the party too

At the border between Transnistria and Muldova, I was taken into three separate offices, where they wanted a bribe. Sticking to my guns, I told them about my limited cash situation. This sort of questioning seemed quite normal for them and they were quite overt around other guards. It's pretty crazy. All this delay meant that as the sun was setting, I had 60-70km to go to Chesinau.
30km from Chesinau a most unlikely encounter happened. A guy jumped out of a car and requested me to stop. Happy for the break, I stopped and started chatting with him. He is a friend of Victoria, who we had met a few days previously in Chesinau. Over coffee in a nearby bar, he (Ilea) told me about his cycling treks. My presence had piqued the curiosity of the others in the bar and I was invited to join them. Rauf was having a 30th birthday party and we partied until the early hours with wine and vodka. This ended a day on a real high note and some impromptu Irish dancing.