Getting older by
the minute
The day began badly.
There was a knock on
the door at 3.40 a.m. And then another. “Bart” I said. Nothing. I
turned the light on. “Bart there is somebody at the door”
Nothing. I get up and acknowledged the knock on the door after just
under 3 hours sleep. It was only when I shook Bart's foot that he
woke up and got ready for his 4 o'clock taxi. He wandered off but
that, plus some irritating mosquitoes, did it for my sleep.
I was up at 6.30, too
early for breakfast. Well, I wasn't really, although it was before
advertised time. After three consecutive mornings I couldn't face
more tasteless cheese, dried up cucumber and tomatoes plus dry bread
(and salami for the carnivores) so I had some fruit juice and headed
for the train station. For some reason the train ticket office is
only open from 14.00 to 15.30 each day so I was ticketless but the
guy let me on anyway. Bart had predicted that, either I would sleep
through my alarm, or they wouldn't let me on the train and I would end up on a
horribly uncomfortable bus, of which there were plenty, as opposed to
one train a day at 07.30. When I saw the slatted wooden seats with a
curve in the back to make you sit up straight I begun to wish he had
been right.
Not much chance of
catching up with my kip then, although I did nod off a few times in
the five hours it took on a trouble-free ride to Odessa. Trouble free
but not boredom free; train is my favourite form of transport but
there was remarkably little to look at, at least out of the window.
Odessa railway station
– no tourist information, no ATM, nothing in English, in fact
nothing I could understand because everything is in the cyrillic alphabet.
Hmm, my Ukaranian (and Russian come to that) is significantly worse
that my Moldovan. In fact Moldovans speak a romance language (called
Roumanian) so you can understand some words and guess some others –
and not just because it is written in Roman Script.
This is looking tricky.
When I first arrived in China I obviously had a similar problem but
then I was travelling with an Israeli friend who had been before, we
were met at the airport, had people to help us, stayed in a flash
hotel and the street signs were written in Roman Script as well as
Chinese (not that that helped much to begin with when I couldn't
pronounce anything.) I was beginning to think that guide books were,
perhaps, not such a bad idea if it is a bit difficult. Anyway, after
about twenty minutes I found an ATM that worked. Slight problem was
that, as I was using the machine, three guys who were chatting away
came up to the machine. Did they wait behind – er no. I looked up
and there is one very large guy leaning on the wall to my right,
another large guy leaning on the wall to my left and I knew that
there was a third one behind me but it was broad daylight in a busy
street. I grabbed my cash, ducked under the arm of the guy on my left
and exited hastily. It was just a case of different culture but
things were not at their best in my mind.
Found an open
restaurant – I was hungry, it was one p.m. by then and I hadn't
eaten or drunk anything. The lady didn't speak any English but I had
the trusty “Point It” book that Lori had leant me and that got me
a damn good fish salad and, of course, I can get beer anywhere in the
world (yet another country where it is called “pivo”). I was
feeling better because I was fed and watered and the young lad there
helped me as he did speak some English. “wifi” seems to be
universal and they had it so I booked a hotel and got the lad to get
me a taxi and he put me in it with directions to who knows where. It
is rather sad that when someone helps you, you say thanks and never
think of them again but I suppose that I, and, one hopes, both of my
readers, have done the same on many occasions. The taxi driver
wandered all over the place until he had got the price over €2 and
then dropped me at the right place. Reception was on the top floor of
this rather obscure building so it took me a while to find it and, of
course, nobody speaks English. From then on it was great – nice
room, pleasant streets – a street near me is pedestrianised with
lots of bars and varied nationalities of restaurants on it and bouncy
castles, springboards etc. This felt like a city on a Sunday
afternoon when people were enjoying themselves. (I later learnt that
this was downtown – there are some rougher areas but after Chisanau
…)
A wander past the port,
which is very active with lots of containers on the docks, not to
mention massive heaps of coal waiting to be hoovered up. It seemed to
be thriving and not missing being a base for the USSR Black Sea
Fleet. I arrived at the beach which seemed to have more concrete
than sand but lots of people enjoying themselves. I had acquired a
map so I was confident in finding my way back despite the fact that
the spelling on the map was somewhat different from the spelling on
the road signs. Both were in cyrillic but careful matching revealed
significant differences e.g, many names on the map began with, say, k
but the street names began ek; you just have to try and make sense of
the key middle group of characters. I am such an arrogant type that I
believe that I can navigate despite such minor difficulties. I count
the junctions and turnings and always claim to know where I am. Why
are people always asking for directions from me? Three in an hour,
two in ten minutes today – my ex-wife was amazed that I could
direct somebody to Brooklyn Bridge within 24 hours of arriving in New
York. Occasionally I am right.
Back in to town, more
TMS, a good dinner and bed. That was me done for the day, I had been
up for quite a while.
The day began well.
Not exactly up with the
lark but good enough to find a decent website that had lots of
information about travel options so off to find their office. But
first a good breakfast; an interesting omlette, coffee and an unusual
array of fruit and vegetables in my juice, such a contrast to
Moldova. Then off I go and I begin to realise that I am in a bit
rougher area of the city. Not complete crap but not so “luuuverely”
- buildings a bit rundown, not so many “nice” shops, banks
appeared to be non-existent – you get the idea. Anyway after a
decent stroll and a bit of a struggle with Ukaranian building
numbering I found the people I was looking for on the fifth floor of
some non-descript building. They were extremely helpful and if you
are ever in this neck of the woods try http://travel-2-ukraine.com
I decided to locate the
railway station for future reference. Tricky. I saw this building
with a large dome on top of it with a flag that looked as though it
was near the railway station and I thought that I should look at it
after I located the aforementioned place for the dispatching of
people on public transport.
Diversion did occur as
I was getting thirsty (it is thirtyish here, about eight degrees
warmer than Moldova) when I looked in one of those big fridges that
normally hold all sorts of variety of shit made by coca-cola. There
was nothing in it but beer and, wait for it, I walked away and went
into a shop to buy a tonic water. I saw a couple of other similar
fridges but it was typical of the area I was coming in to around the
railway station – run down, people selling cheap shit on the
streets, megamarkets – quite similar to Chishinau, just not so
prevalent.
It will come as no
surprise to some of you that my complacency about my navigation
abilities came unstuck. After a good ¾ of an hour wandering around I
finally located the train-station under the aforementioned dome with
a flag so there was no need to look at or for it after all.
Ukraine, like Moldova,
seems, mercifully, relatively uncontaminated by the evils of
religion. There are, by western European standards, very few
churches. However, I rather like the onion-dome shaped cupolas and
have tried to go in to a couple. Yes, they were closed; the god of
consumerism reigns in Eastern Europe too. (The following day, I did
get in one and it was rather pleasant. The design lines are similar
to drab northern European churches but it was light and airy inside
with white being the predominant colour, not bloody gold as in
Catholic churches or grey as in Protestant ones. The impression was
rather ruined by a shouting woman being dragged out on her arse by a
couple of heavies – I kid you not, I couldn't make that up.)
Why are eastern
European women so beautiful? Sorry ladies, girls, feminists and other
assorted people of a different gender and sexual orientation than me
but I have no idea what makes for a handsome man (apart from the fact
that he doesn't look like me) and have no interest in finding out.
The simple fact is that they (Eastern European women even including
Moldovans, not men) are not more beautiful; just more careful. There
are a few stunners but not many, just as in any society. What they
don't do is get complacent, so many women of fortyish are still damn
good looking. You see a woman walking round with a six year old girl and
you think that they must be sisters but you can tell by their
behaviour that they are not. In England if a girl is stupid enough to
have a kid at the age of sixteen or seventeen she looks thirty-five
when she is twenty odd, not here. It is an interesting contrast with,
say, Cuba where the girls at sixteen are all stunning – lovely
figures, great complexions, a magnificent mix of racial backgrounds,
fabulous eyes etc. but by eighteen they have all reached the legally
required minimum weight of seventy-five kilograms no matter how short
they are and a lot of them are under 1 metre 60. Of course this is
not to say that Eastern European women are that good looking –
after seven years in the Far East I can say, with at least a seventy
per cent certainty, that if a woman looks like she is eighteen she
is less than thirty.
OK, I have pissed off
all the women, PC men, gays, feminists and assorted ignorant
liberal-minded people etc. So, Gary, shall I bother continuing?
An audience of one does
mean that you don't have to hold back!
One last thing on the subject of women and affection. Here, as you will see further east, lots of young women holding hands or hugging each other. What a shame that westeners are so restrained that we think that women holding hands are gay - and we look askance at them and cannot just accept that life is like that. Or am I just being a male chauvanistic pig as normal?.
Actually my next
subject is pretty innocuous – traffic lights. I first came across
the countdown timers at traffic lights in China a dozen years ago
and have seen them for both cars and pedestrians in a few countries
since. What the Ukranians have done is add flashing green lights for
car drivers. They (the drivers not the lights) know that the four or
five flashes precede the lights going amber so they can gun it or
slow down whichever takes their mood. Isn't that sensible? Why don't
we do it? The law in the UK says that you must approach a set of
lights at such a speed that you can stop so if you are two feet short
of the line you should be down to 2 mph, if you are two inches you
should be well below baby crawling speed – cyclists remember that
the next time the cops give you a hard time for jumping the lights.
Having said that if there is no timer for the pedestrians you had
better be damn quick, once the light turns red you have about three
seconds before it goes green for the cars.
So what do you predict
doing on your sixty-first birthday? Today is mine and fifty years ago
I wouldn't have predicted spending it on a beach in Odessa, nor
twenty years ago, nor a year ago, nor last week. Just as well really
because I didn't. I had planned to but I had to move rooms and this
took until 1 p.m. When they moved me into a room with a three piece
leather suite and a jacuzzi what was I supposed to do?
Actually I went back to
the railway station for the third day in a row to make sure I could
go again on the fourth. I joined a queue, after ten minutes the
shutter came down on the guy in front of me saying that she had gone
for a ten minute tea break. And some of you think that I am not a
linguistic expert. I joined another queue to be told that I was in
the wrong queue and go over there somewhere. A bit tricky. However,
there were some signs in English (contrary to my first experience)
and “advance bookings” did the trick. I was smart enough not to
join the queue where the lady was soon to go for a tea break and
after twenty minutes or so got to the counter. I had attempted, in my
immaculate handwriting, to write Kiev in English, Ukaranian and
Russian plus the date and time of the train I required. Any questions
were answered with a nod and I appear to have the correct ticket.
Piece of piss dealing with Johny Foreigner in her own lingo.
In my mega room the
jacuzzi didn't jacuzz but at least it was a big bath to lay in for an
hour or so.
I decided that I would
have a damn good dinner then go to a blues bar that I had spotted.
Now some of you know that music is not very important in my life and
I am certainly not very keen on blues but....
In fact Odessa has some
rather impressive 19th century architecture. The city was
only founded just over 200 years ago by that very impressive German
lady – Catherine the Great. This is much more my field – history
(plus cinema and theatre but I am not sure that my Ukranian or
Russian is up to either- hence the blues bar) but the place is really
too new for a lot of good architecture.
Dinner was excellent,
helped by a waitress who spoke good English and recommended a couple
of vodkas and a pud. Actually her recommendations were crap but she
tried hard and did get me a ten per cent discount – ooh, how
difficult was that. Obviously the tip was … Hm, I don't know.
Found the Blues Bar.
Empty with football on the many TVs. You can't win em all. So I was
back in the hotel by 11. Should have remembered where the clearly
labelled in English “Strip Club” was. Ooh, yet more readers gone.
Oops no – just Gary left and now he has gone.
One last thing about
Odessa. It is a tourist town – mainly for Russians although I did
hear somebody speaking English tonight for the first time. I rushed
away, obviously. Tourism does mean horse rides in the street, people
dressed up and painted in one colour to stand still (I wonder why
anybody gives them money), snakes and small crocodiles to wrap round
your neck – that sort of shit. One thing I saw today was people
climbing across various difficulties on rope bridges. A bit different
and, doubtless, health and safety would stop it in England but it
looked like fun. One of those things that you would have done it if
there were two of you but not on your own.
I have been wondering
over the last few days if my appetite for aimless wandering on my own
is nearing its end. Let's face it, I have spent many hundreds of days
wandering round towns and cities looking for something interesting
(remember, I detest shopping) and many places are not that
interesting but, unlike Chishanau, I like Odessa.
So maybe there is hope.
But I would rather go walking up something big.
Maybe it is time to go
diving.
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