Damn Odessa Internet Cafe...

The last time we posted we only managed to get half down before the damn INternet cafe timed us out. As such youall missed our other numerous Ukrainian adventures. Now we're nearly into Kazakhstan and have the various Russian ones to tell too. So this might take a while.
To backtrack to the Ukraine, our night before the one spent in Odessa was spent in a random small town in the Western mountains we can't remember the name of and involved alcoholic fromer economic students and friendly if scary taxi drivers. It began with a nice guy called Roman giving us a hotel recommendation and his phone number to call if it didn't work out so we could sleep on his floor. A couple of hours later we were wishing we called as we found ourselves assailed by every taxi driver and alcohlic in the town, all expressing an unusal interest in our car and sleeping habits. Asit turned out it was genuine curiosity and friendliness but at the time it seemed agressive to the point of worry. We even managed to store the car in a taxi drivers garage for the night (for a price) though there was a brief panic when he overslept and failed to turn up to collect us from the hotel in the morning.
The next night was Odessa where we hung around a bit with a couple of cool Italian Rally teams we met en route (Carface and Yesweekend). Reasnoably nice city. Slept in a car park with the nice security guard's permission, woken up by the not so nice seceruioty guard in the morning. Then we slept the next night in an actual hotel. Smallest rooms ever. Thinest walls too. Andrew and I managed to resist the temptation of the peephole gouged intoour wall but did wake up to the sound of an estimated three or four couples doing some waking up of their own. Not that we woke up in that particular way.
After Odessa and losing the Italians after catastrophic failures in organising our lives we drove straight to Lugansk and the Russian border. Not as bad as Ukrainina border until the very last point where we met angry-moustache-man with no English. Grr.
So, onto Russia! After rolling off the border to the melodies of 'Back in the USSR'' we managed to promptly get stopped by the police. ANd then again. And again. And again.... And again. Six or sevenm times in 1000 clicks. Luckily they don't arrest you, just exthort bribes from you. So we're left poor and tired after driving through the night trying to avoid them. On the plus side though, we've got the routine down now and got away without paying at all this morning. The formula seems to be: don't speak much Russian so they get tired of trying to get you to understand, speak a few little phrases so they think you're making an effort, and shout names of Dostoyevsky books at them. They love it.

Now,onwards to Kazakhstan - the land of deserts and probably very little Internet access. So ta ta for now.

Team Wiki Wiki :)