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Published: November 10th 2013
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The crossing from Russia into Ukraine was pretty smooth, although the Russian guard got out a magnifying glass to look at my passport and asked me questions about my visas for other countries. As soon as the Ukrainian guards had done their thing (and the cutest sniffer spaniel had done his), a man went up and down the train exchanging Russian roubles into Ukrainian hryvnia, one was selling Ukrainian SIM cards, and a woman went down selling honey and jam.
I managed to sleep pretty soundly despite the fact that I was on the top bunk, without anything to stop me rolling off whenever the train slammed the breaks on, and wondering whether or not the evolutionary traits that kept my ancestors in the trees have survived in me.
The train journey felt very long. I much prefer starting the long ones at night. You fall asleep straight away, and when you wake up you're already seven or eight hours into it. The train to Ukraine, however, began at 6am, and it seemed to take an eternity to get to it's destination.
The countryside of Ukraine is (unsurprisingly) much the same as southern Russia. Large, open and flat.
Lots of farmland. Ukraine was called the breadbasket of Europe, and even today China is trying to lease some of Ukraine's land to feed itself. It did gradually get warmer though, which was nice.
I arrived in Simferopol in the early morning and crossed over the road to my hostel (a two bedroom flat that could sleep up to ten people. I was let in, dropped off my things, and set off into the city.
The first thing I came across was an art gallery that was preparing for an exhibition on English artwork. I popped in and felt like I was interrupting an art lesson (which I probably was) but the ladies that worked there turned on the lights for me and ushered me from room to room.
I walked through a pedestrian zone to the museum that chartered Ukrainian life from the Palaeolithic to 1944, there was no history after that.
Back in the pedestrian zone I had some lunch at a swish little place called Mamalad then made my way to the botanic gardens where I took a relaxing stroll along the river.
Later that afternoon I went out to the cinema
and was surprised by how much Ukrainian I could understand (though it could have just been a very simple storyline).
The following day I went to Yalta on the longest trolleybus in the world. The 53 miles take two and a half hours, but the views were stunning. we went up and down mountains, passed vineyards and small villages.
The best thing I did in Yalta was take the cable car up to the top of one of the mountains near the town centre and see across the very blue Black Sea. There was a restaurant where I had some lovely dumplings local wine (from Alyusha).
I couldn't get across the water to the Swallow's Nest castle, I asked down at the docks, but the woman told me there were no more boats for the day and I had to wait until tomorrow (it was only 3pm). I had a walked along the pebbly beach and passed all the shops on the front. There was even a fairground set up with swinging pirate ships, Segways and photobooths with costumes (I restrained myself).
And, yet the most memorable part of my trip to Yalta were the worst
toilets I have even been unfortunate enough to use. Communal squatters. Awful. There is no photo of them as I felt taking a photo would be inappropriate as there were several women still in there.
Still, better an awful toilet than an uncomfortable three hour trolleybus back to the city.
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