I went for a long, long trip to Chisinau, in Moldova. The reason was to sort out my visa, but in the end it didn't really work out. On the plus side, I was able to visit a new city and country! In addition, I now know how it feels to spend 18 hours on a train (yes, really).

I'll divide this trip into two neat parts, just because I don't want to upload more than 50 pictures in one update. It's not divided into Day 1 and Day 2, as I didn't really do much on Day 2 other than hang out with some guys from the hostel and go for lunch.

I arrived on the train at 2am, the night of Friday 2nd November. I walked into my 'kupe' - four-person cabin - and all three of the other beds were full of sleeping guys (yes, long trips in Ukraine have beds as standard). I struggled to dress my bed and climb onto the top bunk, but eventually fell asleep with the others snoring around me.

I awoke around 6am as the others in the kupe awoke themselves. We were due to cross the border around 9am but these guys decided to wake up and get chatting early. Not for me. I tried my best to sleep for the following three hours. When we hit the border going out of Ukraine, the passport people came along. The Russians and Moldovan in my kupe were obviously no issue, but they took me away to talk to someone with basic English. Why they needed to debrief me so much when leaving the country I don't know, as getting in again was much simpler.

The Moldovan border people were much different: they were in full 'militsia' dress, contrasting the khaki dress of the Ukrainians. Not only that, but just one guy went through the carriage, armed with a netbook computer with attached passport scanner. The difference in tech between the two countries surprised and impressed me. The guy was quick, to the point, and spoke reasonable English (but he didn't really need much since he was, as I said, brief). It was 10am, and I was happily inside Moldova.

I might as well take a picture of what I saw, then. Moldovan countryside. Pretty much the same as Ukrainian countryside (not that you guys'd know).






There was a long time to go yet, though, as I travelled from the north to the south of a country the size of Belgium, in a slow sleeper train. You'd think that they'd speed it up during the day as nobody's sleeping.





I think this stop is called Ungen, and we waited a while here. Still a few hours to go, though...







The swine flu's really taken this area of the world, but unlike the distorted nonsense from the Ukrainian government, the Moldovans produced this lovely little leaflet...









...in Russian and Romanian. Judging by the pictures, pretty sensible information - and do you see any masks? Exactly.










Finally, at around 8pm, I arrived at the train station in Chisinau. I changed some hryvnia into lei (money), grabbed a marshrutka towards the hostel, and got off at Mall Dova, a nicely-titled shopping centre next to it.

I went inside the huge red building first. Here is a chain you see in Kyiv, but normally written in Cyrillic. A lot of the stuff you can buy here is the same as Ukraine, with a few differences. Booze is a little pricier here, but restaurants are better value than Kyiv.





Also near the hostel is this 'boutique hotel', which is such a bizarre building that I felt compelled to take a pic of it.







And finally, in the hostel for a sandwich, a game of cards, and bed. The following morning I looked out from the balcony, and took this pic.






Time waits for no man, and I headed out for the embassy to do my business. On the way, I met some chickens.







This is the 'huge red building' I mentioned, Mall Dova. You try telling a taxi driver you want to go to 'Mall Dova'.







Perehod (that's 'subway' in Russian) which is rather dark. I took a very crowded marshrutka, got off at the embassy, and was thoroughly disappointed. Visas are never simple.






Never mind, although my entire point of coming had failed, I might as well make the most of it. I walked past a sporting arena. At least it's in Latin characters now, I don't have to translate for you lazy buggers.





A closer look. Romanian and Russian are both used. The two languages seem to have equal currency, at least in Chisinau. Romanian - sorry, 'Moldovan' - is the only official language, of course.





As I walked to the centre, I went past a library, with a statue. Well, you know me by now.










And onto the main street, Stefan cel Mare Boulevard. This street goes straight through the city, and all the nice stuff is on this street. That's not to say nothing interesting lies beyond it, of course.





But as you can see, all the big official stuff is here. And that really is big.











There was a church as well. I've been to bigger ones, but this was nice enough.










My Romanian isn't very good.








Here's a closer look at that huge building.








And a final look, as I walk on.








This, I believe, is the presidential building. Very swanky.











And here, opposite, is the parliament building. Scene of 'civil unrest' in April - that is, lots of people burning stuff and looting. That's why there's a big grey wall to stop people doing that.






The opera house. Yeah, not exactly Sydney, is it? But what's that on the left...?







It's a restaurant! The charmingly-monikered Andy's Pizza, a very nice (and very cheap) place for a meal and a drink. The meal was basic but cheap (I didn't have much lei on me) and the beer is Chisinau beer, of course. It's not bad, but Ukrainian beer is good enough for me.




Remember I said Russian was spoken a lot, but Romanian is official? Well, these guys are saying 'we want Russian to be an official language'. That's what their massive banner says. I heard them marching as I left Andy's Pizza, and ran back to the parliament building to watch them.




While I was there, I got a closer pic of said building.








Back on towards town. This is a park very close to the centre. Why there's an EU flag there I don't know, as Moldova sure ain't EU, unlike their Romanian neighbours.






The park is home to the Alley of Classics, a collection of busts of important Romanian and Moldova people. Wikipedia has a pic of every one of them, so I only took one pic.






Here's a more general view.








I really don't know what this is. Probably a bit Soviet, who knows.








Woo.








Grr, I'm a bear.











This is a fountain. I guess it works in Summer. Meh.








And who might you be?








Pushkin, of course. I guess he's important enough to have his own pedestal thing, surrounded by flowers. And he was born in Moscow, so never mind the local heroes.









It's a pretty nice park, all told. As usual, I'm sure it'd be nicer in Summer.







As the statue says, this is Stefan cel Mare, or Stephen the Great in English. Former Prince of Moldavia, this street's named after him, his picture's on all of the money, and when Romanians voted on a TV poll for the 100 greatest Romanians, he came in at numero uno. So a pretty cool dude, then. (Incidentally, Nicolae Ceausescu came in at number two on the Worst Romanians list - meaning Ion Iliescu must've been REALLY bad)





Turn around, and you can see this large square. This is, essentially, the centre of town. Regular readers will have figured out that communist cities loved to have massive squares where they could organise a load of people. Think back to Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Sevastopol... think of Red Square in Moscow and Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The commies love a big empty space to mark the centre of a city.


Here's the government building. Though I thought the other two buildings were government, so not sure what this one does.







This is the Arca Triumfala. Any fans of Paris don't need a translation. In the background is the cathedral, which I'll show you next update.






To round off this update, another shot of the Triumphal Arch, or Ark Pobyedy, or whatever.










Right, I don't want to do the whole day of Chisinau in one update, as I said, so I'll leave it at that for now. Next time you'll see lots of interesting and banal things. Should be fun.