the road to ukraine

by chance, i bumped into alesea one day as i was strolling down stefan cel mare in chisinau. i told her i was looking for someone to hitch to the rainbow gathering in ukraine. she replied that she had had no news of daniel, whom she had intented to go with... and she would write an email today and if there was no reply to that tomorrow, then she would hitch with me instead. inna had also tried to hook me up with her friend, but that came to nothing.

i made a last busking session with sasha, bought a new set of strings for leusha, and waited for alesea's call the next day. no news from daniel and so we decided to go the next day. sasha and serioja wanted to do one last last busking session and then we could all leave the same day but i was tired of waiting and convinced alesea that we should just be spontaneous and go. we went to the usual hitching point out of chisinau, which although it seemed to be the wrong motorway to balti, alesea told me it was also used to get there. we got a lift to balti with a flat-bed truck, we stashed our gear in the back and got into the cab. and alesea got to do all the talking whilst i enjoyed the views. a short lift to the roundabout outside balti before an artic picks us up and takes us to the roundabout at the start of edinet.

we hitch on the bypass road and get a lift with a quarry-stone truck to near lipscani, and finally we hitch the marshutka going to the border at criva. good ol' alesea turns on her charm with the marshutka driver, who is loooking at me all suspicious like. we walk up to the border and the moldovan guards there. alesea had already told me the story of her last visit here... the ukranians were convinced that she was going there to work illegally and had kept her there for 24 hours, before finally she had used her fathers' diplomatic contacts to extradite her from her incarceration. "don't worry", i told her, "nothing like that is going to happen this time... the baraban magic will do the trick again." my last visit here was the previous year where the immigration guys asked me to play my drum for them and were very appreciative. and just like last year, the immigration guy beckons me into his office, where there are three others looking very bored. i play my drum for them, their faces light up with smiles and alesea and i breeze through the bureaucratic formalities and past the last army guy at the mamaliga border post. and only ten minutes to wait before we get a lift to cernivitsi.