London to Kiev, via Budapest

---

Sitting in a marshalling yard in Ukraine

The last visa arrived with 20 minutes to spare and to keep up with the theme David and I caught the train to paris with 10 minutes to spare.

It was the usual swift journey to Paris arriving at the Gare du Nord at about 12pm. It’s only a short walk to the Gare de l’Est but we were pleased we had 45 minutes transfer time. Enough of this leaving everything until the last minute. The TGV raced us through France until we reached the hills by the German border; very pretty but not much Grand Vitesse.

Our plan was to meet Peter in Munich but we found ourselves on the same train, in the same carriage on the way from Mannheim. We enjoyed beer and a good meal in Munich before catching the sleeper to Budapest just before midnight. Now we in a Hungarian sleeper with some cans of beer we felt the trip to Beijing had really started.

We had an undisturbed night with no border guards to wake us up in the samll hours. Hurrah for the Schegen treaty.

Budapest was wet and cold and we tramped aroound the city getting wetter and colder as the morning went by. The undoubted highlight (for some) was finding 4 geocaches. Thw weather brightened for the afternoon so e toured the city by tram and drank beer.

The Kiev sleeper left at 6:40pm. It consited of mainly incredibly old Russian stock. The beds made Chinese ‘hard’ class seem soft. Whilst the Transiberrian is lively vital link holding Russia together, this train was a historical hangover from the Cold War when Huingary was under the thumb of the USSR. Just to emphasise this the border crossing takes 4 hours. First the Hungarian police check you on the way out. Then the Ukranian police ask you where you are going, where you are staying and how much cash have you got before letting have very boring entry stamp in your passport. Then they change the wheels on your carriage. (Hungary standard guage; Ukraine 5 foot guage)

Well that’s behind us now, we have left the marshalling yard and are rattling through the pretty Ukranian countryside on a fine Spring afternoon.

---