Ukraine August 2006

I've spent a long time thinking was to go on my next holiday; I mean... not thinking too seriously, maybe just wondering. Eastern Europe was at the top of my list as I've not been much around there and I enjoyed the short experience I had in Latvia. One day talking with a friend he told me that he has been in Ukraine and he didn’t need a visa at all, just a quick stamp on the passport on the arrival. He also told me he has a friend there and a friend of a friend can be very useful for someone planning a trip alone in a foreign country. So Ukraine will be I told myself and from there I started to plan my unforgettable journey to one of the former ex Soviet Union countries.
First of all I studied a little about the country history and I made some research on what each of the main cities have to offer, then as a second step I had to find a flight. For about 15 days I planned a fairly long tour, through many cities quite far one to each other; I was going to cut out some stops as I didn’t think I could do it when the girl from the flight booking agency told me of a new flight route that for the same price of a normal flight could fly me from Dublin to Odessa and return from Kiev. It was like a sign for me, I was now able to travel all around the country and no need to go back at the starting point. So the tour was decided, starting from Odessa all around the country to Dnepropetrovsk passing through some cities of Crimea and ending the journey in the capital Kiev.
Looking for some places to sleep I found out that it’s cheaper sometimes to book an entire apartment through an internet agency than booking an hotel room, it may be quite difficult due to the very relaxed attitude. They can be very slow in answering and in taking decision so you need to plan much in advance and be sure to have all the addresses and telephone numbers you need before you pay anything, it’s quite easy to be in a situation where you realize the number they gave you is no longer active or the apartment you are supposed to get has been already given to someone else. They are generally honest, it’s just their way to do business, the best apartment will go to the most demanding customer, and so you may end up having something that is not what you are expecting if you don’t fight your way through it. They are very helpful as well; they really communicate their desire to help you with anything, obviously with a small charge. For instance they want to come to pick you up; even if I wasn’t going to arrive via airplane they asked me about 5 times if I needed to be collected at the airport. For a non Russian tourist can be cheaper to be collected, so at least you know the price from the beginning, taking a taxi at the airport can result in a total scam by the taxi driver.
I had some plan, I booked an apartment for few days and I asked this Ukrainian girl, friend of my friend to book me some train tickets to move around, I even booked an internal Ukrainian flight from Dnepropetrovsk to Kiev so I was ready to go. Filled my bag with summer clothes and a jumper because of the ‘you never know’ philosophy I go to sleep the last night in Dublin looking forward for my departure.