The Wild East

"...in doing so, I got myself cursed. "

Ukraine -> Slovakia.

We got our bus to Kosice without problems. An old gypsy woman was begging aggressively as we getting on the bus. I totally ignored her and in doing so, got myself cursed.
Then the ticket cashier came running onto the bus after us. She hadn’t given me my pound change. An incredible amount of honesty on her part. The money was useless to me, since Ukrainian Hryvnia can’t be exchanged outside the country. I should have asked her to keep it, but she vanished immediately. It reinforced my belief that Ukrainians are extremely honest people at heart.

The bus was quiet. We got to the border.
Taylor remarked that borders were like a series of sieves in the amount of dirt (undesirables/people without visas) they filtered. All 10 passengers were taken to a large grey concrete building where 10 border guards waited eagerly. Me and Taylor were the only Brits. There was a Slovak woman, a man who we suspected was Moldovan, some Ukrainians and a Romanian family.
I was asked where my drugs were. Me and Taylor had to open our bags. Our socks and boxer shorts were pulled out onto the floor and trodden on, but overall we were treated quite fairly. The customs officials were much more interested in the Moldovan man who had nothing but packet after packet of cheap cigarettes (presumably intended to be sold in the lucrative market of Slovakia). Moldovan man didn’t make it out of Ukraine. I was a little bit sorry to be out of UKR, but 3 weeks had been enough.

We got back into the bus and drove 200m into no-mans land. Then the same process happened again, only the Slovak building was a bit smarter. This time the border control was really severe. The Romanians were getting a lot of hassle as were the Ukrainians. The Slovak guards were going through their stuff with a toothpick and finding a lot of hidden packets of cigarettes and bottles of vodka. Me, Taylor and the Slovak woman were back on the bus fairly quickly. We waited for the others. After a while the bus driver got fed up and drove off. Only 3 of us (only the EU citizens) made it into Slovakia.

Slovakia was looking very good. There were potted plants by the roadside, Everything was well kept and looked after. Slovakia looked like Switzerland after coming over the border from Ukraine. Of all the countries we’ve been to, I think Slovakia is possibly my favourite.

We got out of the bus in Kosice. Our hotel Metrolpol Tyristicheski was still there. We checked it. Nothing appeared to have changed. However, the old man was not at reception. Maybe he was on another shift or maybe he’d been pensioned off - perhaps he gave the wrong sort of image now that Slovakia was joining the EU. I thought the hotel was poorer for it. I think we need more 60-year-old, non-English speaking, laid back male receptionists – I’m getting rather sick of the pushy, arrogant, English-speaking, goal/customer-orientated girls that seem to staff all the hostels in Central Europe these days.

Mark seemed to derive substantial pleasure from seeing all the old sights, but I felt a great sense of disappointment. The weather was terrible (15 degrees and heavy rain. Last time it was 33 and sun) and there were a number of loud Americans backpackers having arguments about where to go. Slovakia has well and truly been ‘discovered’. The same woman worked in the museum, but this time we didn't have it to ourselves and were joined by a large number of Spanish backpackers.

Levoca
Levoca is a walled town in the north of Slovakia. We checked into the Hotel Faix. The girl on reception had a nervous giggle (more on this later). But trying to book a room earned us 4 giggles. The weather was still damp and cold. We had a look round the town and looked up to the Marianska hora – home to the highest alter in the world at 950m, which we would climb the next day.

We decided to eat our evening meal in the hotel. The waitress turned out to be the receptionist (I hope she is well-paid for taking on all these responsibilities). She delivered the menus with a little giggle. Mark decided to be cruel. “Ummm…I think I’ll try this” he announced which, of course, she found funny. The receptionist/waitress/cleaner then started playing with a young child that belonged to the family on the next table. taylor expressed his reservations about whether he would allow the girl to play with one of his children. “This looks delicious” announced Mark. Slovak girl laughed. Mark started to laugh (probably deliberately)as well, which set her off even more. I was worried she wouldn’t be able to stop, but eventually she got herself under control.

The night-life of Levoca is not up to much. We went out looking for a bar but everywhere was closed and the streets deserted. We arrived back in the hotel to find our receptionist friend engaged in some other activity. We had an evening drinking 9p (a new record!!!) supermarket beers and arguing about politics (which is one thing me and Taylor do not agree on)

Thursday 15 August
Walked up to the Church. Despite having a tarmacked road all the way to the summit, it was pretty steep. There were a few busts of the Pope’s visit in 1993. levoca reminded me of Romania, except that it was in much better shape. That evening we ate in the hotel restaurant, with a repeat of the previous nights performance. Taylor seemed fascinated by this woman.

Friday 16 August
Got the bus to Bratislava. A long journey and possibly a mistake, after Ukraine I was sick of hot, boring bus journeys. At least we got to see a bit more of the Slovak countryside, which is mountainous and a bit more picturesque than UKR. We eventually got into Bratislava at 5pm. We were immediately accosted by a Slovak girl who wanted some men to help her carry her cases off the bus. In return she recommended us a hostel, the student dormitories (Bernolak hostel) about 1.5km from the town centre.

My first impressions of Bratislava were not good, the hostel seemed to be in a seedy neighbourhood that was poorly lit and covered in graffiti. The staff were sitting behind what looked like bullet-proof glass! The hostel and its surroundings were full of dark skinned foreigners, continually harrassing us for cigarettes, or worse. At first I thought they were speaking german and presumed them to be Turkish Guestarbeitet on holiday from nearby Austria and Germany. But it was probably Arabic and they seemed afraid of the police and were possibly Tunisians or Algerians transiting Slovakia on the way to Britain/France/Germany. The centre of Bratislava is really beautiful.

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