Russia.

I got up pretty early and began my journey to the Russian border.

Not even twenty minutes in and I got knocked over by a car. A bus had pulled over at a bus stop so I pulled out and the bus decided to pull out too. I ended up getting sandwiches between the bus and a car. Not going to lie, I shat myself. The bike got thrown to the ground yet somehow I was able to get out of my pedals and was standing straight over the bike trying to lift it up and off the road before I got hit again. I was alright but the bike had yet another injury. A broken spoke on the front wheel. With no spares and no time to get it fixes I used my pliers to cut the flailing spoke from the wheel and carried on, avoiding buses as best as I could.

The journey to the Russian border seemed like a lifetime away, the hills and winding roads were hilly and winding. I overtook a local who had an electric assist bike, seemed like a good idea with the countryside the way it was.

I passed through a few towns and got the usual look of disbelief from the locals. As I got to the top of an extremely steep hill and was having a break I heard someone calling. I turned around to find the man with the electric bike coming up the hill. I turned out o had dropped a bottle of water along the way and he had followed me to give it back to me before cycling back the way he had just come. What a crazy, but helpful, guy!

I got to the border after a few hours and was greeted to the Ukraine guard post by a stray dog chasing me. The guard got out and went after it with a baton, chasing it off then waving me on to the next checkpoint on the Ukraine side. I had my passport stamped by a soldier and in was on my way to the Russian side of the border.

It was a very sleepy border crossing with only a few lorries waiting to pass through. I was fast tracked to the front if the queue by a laughing Russian official. In fact, all the officials at the border laughed at me, pointing out how skinny I am and how massive my bike was and how much I was carrying. I wasn't bothered about it, I am aware that I look ridiculous. In fact, being laughed through the border crossing made me forget how nervous I was before. You hear so many horror stories about border crossings, I would prefer to be laughed at than have to end up bribing people.

The road to Kursk was pretty uneventful. Just miles and miles of farmlands and small holdings.

I arrived in Kursk at dusk and checked into a rather luxurious hotel. I mean, my room even had a bath!

Coffee mines, a hat wearing Jesus and a cross country train ride through Ukraine

The day after the staying at Mykyta's friend's house he Picked me in the morning and we went to his.

There, I met couchsurfers he was hosting who were leaving to go out for the day. Mykyta needed to apply for jobs online so he sat at his computer for the majority of the day and I read my kindle and nodded off a few times.

Much later in the day he was heading off to play 5-a-side footie so asked if I wanted to cone with him for a quick tour of the city before he went to play.

It turned out that he is training to become a tour guide so I had a rather comprehensive tour within the time that we had. The main thing that stood out for me was the statue of Jesus wearing a hat. Supposedly its the only image of Jesus wearing a hat. It certainly looked bizarre..

Then something happened to me that hasn't happened in years. My gullibility got the better of me.

We went into a coffee house in the middle of Lviv which had what appeared to have a mine underneath. Mykyta explained to me that it was a coffee like mud that was extracted from the ground which was then used to make coffee.. It certainly smelled like a “coffee mine" and I could have sworn I saw people “mining". After about half an hour the empiricist in me pushed for answers about the “mine" to which I got the reply “It was a marketing gimmick". I felt like the gullible child I thought I had grown up from. The child who believed, amongst many other things, that Irn Bru was made from rusty girders and that a haggis was an animal from Scotland which had its legs on one side shorter than its other, leaving it perfectly adapted to run around Scottish mountains in a particular rotation. The way you would catch them would be to chase them the other way, causing them to roll down the mountain where people would catch them in tartan sacks.

I would like to add that all these stories where further embellished by my parents, making me look like a complete idiot in front of my friends and teachers, much to the entertainment of Mam and Dad. Cheers for that! Nothing like being scarred for life so that now I don't believe anything anyone says until I read up about it myself.

Anyway, enough of my parents' bizarre social experiments, back to Lviv. Mykyta left me in Lviv to go play football so I had an hour to kill in the city centre. I found a coffee house with WiFi and caught up with friends and family.

After meeting Mykyta again we went back to the flat I stayed at, had a bite to eat and grabbed my stuff and got a taxi to the station as it was pitch black.

We got there just in time and after saying my goodbyes the train departed from Lviv for an overnight journey to Kiev.

It was my first time in a sleeper train and I was impressed. I managed to shove the bike into the overhead compartment of the cabin in was in. I had the cabin to myself but after a few stops more people got on and I shared the rest of the journey with a family of Ukrainians, one of which spoke English (a stunning blonde woman who was possibly the same age as my own mother) and told me her son lived in Sheffield, which I found random.

We reached Kiev early morning and I had a two hour wait for catching the next train to Sumy. Getting onto that train was eventful. The guard did not want the bike on there and was just shouting in Ukrainian at me for a good twenty minutes. I finally got on and was sharing a cabin with a young woman and her three or four year old daughter. Both of whom laughed at the amount of junk I had.

We spent the majority of the journey miming to each other, with both of us using the odd words that we that the other would understand, the tiny amount of Russian I was able to learn from phrase book apps on my phone not really helping.

I got off at Sumy with help from the girl and her daughter. Who I waved off, much to the pleasure if the little girl!

Trying to find the hotel I had booked would turn out to be a nightmare, my GPS gave me the completely wrong location of where I was meant to be heading. I ended up on a dark street in the middle of an estate which I didn't feel safe at so I headed back to the train station and got a taxi instead. It was miles away from where my GPS had taken me.

I checked in, showered, rang my folks to let them know I was fine then headed out for supplies and something to eat before getting an early night. Russia tomorrow!

Luck in Lviv

The roads to Lviv were pretty good. According to the map in was following I was cycling on a motorway but it only a single carriageway for the majority of the trip.

Along the way I hit a bit of a milestone. One which I know I actually achieved a while back. According to the GPS I had cycled 1000 miles!

Rather annoyingly, there were large distances where I didn't use the GPS (the whole of UK and Belgium for instance) or the batteries had died without me realising. There was also the nuisance that the bike computer didn't work for a long time after the bike breaking in Belgium.

Despite this, I was very excited to get to that milestone!

I got to Lviv sometime around 1600 and was greeted with the usual potholes and cobbles I came to expect of larger towns.

I stopped somewhere in the middle of town and tried to get in contact with a guy I had contacted via Couchsurfing. He told me to try and call him again at 2100 and maybe he'd be able to help.

I couldn't wait around til that time for that level of uncertainty so I desperately looked for a hostel/hotel. With no internet I was really beginning to struggle. The joy of Europe was that I was able to pay for internet at least.

I ended up going through my emails and found that someone else from couch surfing had replied and gave me his number. I managed to get hold of him and he told me to wait at the train station. I was miles away from there but I took the chance and got there as soon as I could.

I think I was there for about 20 minutes before I met Mykyta.

I was in one of the waiting halls of the train station and must have stood out like a sore thumb because he just came straight up to me and asked asked “Martyn?"

He happened to have two Turkish guys who were travelling to Poland that he was hosting with him. They just looked at me in shock with how much I was carrying.

I had asked on my couchsurfing request if I could get help booking a  train ticket to the Russian border and Mykyta was more than willing to help. He suggested that whilst we were in the station that we get the ticket there and then.

After about an hour of having to wait in different queues (turns out the ticket offices are a mystery even to Lvuv locals) we managed to get my tickets.

A friend of Mykyta who showed later inputted the address of where I was heading for the night then they all left, leaving me to navigate Lvivs streets in a quickly darkening dusk.

The road was horrendous, added into the mix of potholes and cobbles were tram tracks which were little more than metal gutters that worsened the state of the road.

When I got to the address given to me, I was in a housing estate with blocks of flats as far as the eye could see. I felt a little nervous if I was being honest, just because these types of places are normally rough as hell back home.

Mykyta came and met me and gave me a hand with my stuff to the 6th floor in a lift no bigger than an airing cupboard. How I managed to get the bike up was nothing short of a miracle.

The flat itself was really nice, but I couldn't help notice the vast amounts of jars everywhere. It looked like a pickling factory.

There was a whole group of people here who I got introduced to systematically. Most of them spoke at least enough English to hold a conversation with.

One of the girls asked me if I liked sushi as they were having a party of sorts and were making it from scratch. To be honest I haven't had a lot of sushi, but what I have had I liked. I was even made to make some sushi myself, the inclusion was really nice!

After the sushi Mykyta took the Turkish guys to the bus station as they were leaving that night. So I was left alone with the rest of the party. I didn't feel at all nervous, everyone was extremely friendly. I also found out that thus wasn't Mykyta's flat, but I would be staying here out of convenience. 

Then the night took a turn that I never expected.

I was asked if I liked 7 wonders. I didn't understand and it was explained to me that it was a board game that these guys played. In the end I had an amazing night playing a highly strategic board game (I came a very close second place).

In went to bed feeling very lucky that I was able to get hold of Mykyta earlier that day.

In an alternate dimension I imagined myself still waiting for that other guy to get in contact with me.

Into the unknown

After spending the weekend cramped up with nowhere to stretch my legs, I was happy to get back on the bike.

I got up and going for around for around nine and headed for the Polish/Ukraine border. It took about 45 minutes to get there and I was able to get some supplies at the duty free supermarket.

I phoned home to let my mam know that I was off and didn't know when I'd be able to call again, then made my way to the pedestrian border crossing.

It was really straight forward. By which I mean I am so surprised how easy it was. I was expecting interrogations and bribes, at the very least I thought I'd have to empty all my panniers for some stuck up bureaucrat.

Genuinely, I walked through the Polish border, handed the guard my passport. That got scanned. Walked about ¼ mile to the Ukraine checkpoint, handed my passport to the guard, that got scanned and stamped. I walked to the customs checkpoint and in mime was asked what was in the bags. The guard questioning me really made his own assumptions and mimed “clothing" and “food" whilst pointing at the bags.

And that was it. My first real border crossing.

I hope the Russian border is that easy. Fingers crossed.

Now I have to make my way to Lviv.

A weekend of “Training"

So I managed to get on the train just fine and I was really surprised at how modern the polish trains were. Much better than even the trains back home! The carriages had “rooms" of four seats, each with their own charger for mobile phones and a control for air conditioning!

The train took something like 7 hours to get to Krakow. I assumed in had to change train as the ticket from Wroclaw to Krakow had a different train number to the Krakow to Przemysl route. It wasn't until I fell out of the train with the bike and cut my leg open that I realised I was to stay on the train.

I clambered back onto the train and got back into the seat I was in before. My leg grazed badly I had a strange thought, it didn't matter what happened to me or the bike, as long as I had my phone and wallet/cards I could get home. As I thought that I instinctively felt for my phone and wallet. Where was my wallet? No, seriously Martyn, where is your wallet with your cards?

I checked everywhere. At least five times. In the little four seated berth/cabin I was in I emptied my panniers and repacked making sure I hadn't dropped anything else.

My heart sank. Where had I put it? Had it fallen out my pocket when I fell out if the train? Had it been pick pocketed?

Only thing I could do was double check it wasn't back at the hostel. An email explaining my predicament was sent. Fair play to the staff at the hostel I was at, they messaged me back straight away. I didn't want to open the email. Just in case it read out my worst fears. And it kind of did, in a way.

I had left it under my pillow.

Seriously? So far on this trip I never left anything under my pillow. Too obvious. God only knows why I did it this time.

Back onto the internet I tried to suss out the best course of action. Should I get it sent by courier, by post? The woman back at the hostel told me to not even bother with the post, it would only go missing.

There was only one real/safe option. I would have to pick it up myself. Damn, I was already behind and spending more money than I should.. Thank God the railway tickets in Poland are dirt cheap.

Before I arrived at Przemysl station I already had the number/time of the train that I needed to catch. As soon as I was was off the train and packed up again, I went and got some money changed for tickets and accommodation.

I literally put the phone up against the window of the ticket booth and the woman laughed as she jotted down the trains I wanted. It was pretty simple really! I found the hotel soon after that (not before passing a Tesco 24hr supermarket - albeit a Polish equivalent of the one I worked in back home in Holyhead - I shuddered as I rode past, but wondered if my staff discount would still work, ha!)

I was able to stick my bike in the wine cellar of the hotel I stayed at, had a boiling hot shower and asked for a taxi to be booked to take me to the station before I got my head down for a few hours.

It hardly felt like I slept and before I knew it I was on my way to the station with only myself for a change.

0215 the train set off again. This would be a long weekend, and not the good kind.

There's not much to report about the train journey itself, only that I set alarms for when I needed to be awake for the connections.

I got into Wroclaw 1410 (ish) and I pegged it to the hostel. This would be cutting it fine as the train back was at 1455.

1420. I got to the hostel and an elderly lady who spoke no English only understood what I needed when I whipped the old translator app out. She rang someone and told me to wait 5 minutes.

1430. Still no sign of anyone helping me out. I was thinking I wouldn't make it back to the station in time. I showed the lady my train tickets and she freaked! She rang whoever again in a much more animated manner than before.

1432. A young woman (apparently the one I'd been emailing) burst through the main door, quickly ran to a draw, fiddled with a few keys before handing me an envelope with “Griffith" scrawled across it.

1434. I said my goodbyes and thanks as I was running down the stairs. As I got out, the traffic lights which on the way to the hostel went in my favour decided to go against me this time for that privilege.

1440. Wroclaw train station. I couldn't find my train on the board. Now I was panicking! I was looking for the number/time/destination, nothing.

1443. I was looking at the arrivals board. Idiot. I found the Departures board. My train was on the top, flashing. Platform 2.

* I would like to add here that in Poland, when they say platform, they mean platform. Unlike Britain, the platform number displayed generally means indicates track you will be using. In Poland a platform has two tracks and its down to you to make the wrong decision.

1448. Thank God, only one train on the platform. On I got, found my seat 5 carriages down and settled down as the train slowly made its way out of Wroclaw with a Welshman whose embarkation was such a close shave, father time himself wouldn't need to use a razor again for at least a millennia. It was so close, I expected the carriage to break out into spontaneous Mexican waves!

The rest of the journey doesn't even justify having anything written about it part from that it was an arduous 12hr journey back to the hotel.

I checked my pockets for my wallet and phone. This time round, I had both!