tikistitch

...just playing with our macro lens.

Also wanted to just jot down a couple trip memories. Unfortunately, the Ukranian assholes not only made off with a cheap, outdated camera, but also with all our photos of Moldova - weird to lose an entire country like that.

As we've mentioned, we entered Moldova via an overnight train from Bucharest. Overnight trains are a great trick so cheap b*st*ards like ourselves can save time and money, but there is a down side: scary bathrooms are one, and being awoken, sometimes repeatedly, in the wee hours by a heavily accented gendarme demanding to see your passport is another.

In the case of entering Moldova, said government official looked to be possibly 16 years old, and, seemingly to further emphasize his youth, was dressed in a shin-length khaki overcoat that looked big enough to contain not only the border official but perhaps assorted brothers and sisters. The unsmiling child spoke a few sentences in his native tongue and, when that wasn't going over well, disappeared from the door of our compartment for some moments. He returned with a cheery, gum-snapping teenage girl, who made up for her lack of serious intent with her superior command of English. "So, why are you visiting Moldova?" she grinned. We addressed our responses to the grimacing boy soldier, "Tourism." "Vacation." "Holiday." This only drew more blank stares. He inquired, through the girl, how long we planned to stay, and whether we already had departing tickets (do Westerners often give up their lives to squat in the former Soviet Union? The mind boggles).

Having passed inspection, and spent a low key day touring Chisinau (what there was to see, which was not much), we returned to the train station for another overnight passage, this one to Ukraine. At one point, Mr. Tiki and Dooncan went off to change money, buy train snacks, and other small errands. They returned minutes later, rolling their eyes, and pulling passports out of our luggage. "We'll fill you in later," they told us. As it turns out, in the middle of the station, they were detained, or rather, pulled aside by some Moldovan police. We'd been warned of similar shenanigans by the tour books, so the guys played along, answering questions, and trying to blithely misunderstand some rather comically blatant hints for a payoff. The Moldavi-cops evidently at one point inquired as to how much income we make annually, and then started to rhapsodize about life in America, land of the dollar. Mr. Tiki and Dooncan, though we weren't present to witness, we are confident probably smiled sweetly and let them rattle on.