Ukraine Info
Index
The first little
repair at the ZXR were necessary before leaving Sanok towards L'viv/Ukraine.
Some screws had gone lost and the front fiberglas mudguard were broken, also
some minor maintenance on the other bikes.
I have had called the Ukrainian Embassy in Bonn and Berlin, but couldn't get any connect, maybe they've moved or didn't pay their telephone bill. Everybody I ask instead were sure that it is possible to get a transit visa at the border. Still not sure we ask a polish friend to call ukrainian border police - he reported: Yes visa at the border.
Nobody in Sanok really liked the idea to go to Ukraine - but still they tried to give us helpful information. To avoid long waiting hours up to 50h it should be better to put the bikes on a train and go by train to L'viv they advised. To me that sounds to risky: What would be if we couldn't get a visa on the train? The train would leave to L'viv with the bikes but we wouldn't. So we rode. An estimated 5km long line of cars and vans waited at the border to cross. Because we didn't like to wait too we passed all vehicles, crossed polish border and reached the ukrainian some 15 minutes later. The personal were very friendly and definitely refused to let us in. Absolute no visa at the border (even no transit visa) - visa only in Krakow or Warszawa. That took us an hour of useless negotiation so we returned.
That was Saturday and meant no visa in Krakow until Monday. After a short powpow we decided to go via Kosice (Slovakia) and Tokaj (Hungaria) to Satu Mare (Romania).