My trip to Transnistria had a major hiccup in the way of getting there. The weather!
I mentioned in the article before that I was jaded with Prague winter and that was how I decided to make a field trip a bit south. I knew I wasn’t going somewhere that south on the Adriatic sea, but I thought it might be a tad bit milder than Prague. I was in for surprise. I checked the week before and it supposed to be around 10 degrees ( 50 for you Fahrenheit people). I did not expect a dramatic change. It was about – 10 ( 15f) when I arrived Bucharest and dropped even further when I set off on my minibus to Tiraspol. I was in snow up to my mid calve at some parts of the trip. Snowy and cold weather do not usually bother me that much as I may have made it sound in my last article. Except for this one small matter. I was terrible unprepared!
I did a poor job packing. I sort of did my packing in a bit of a frenzy and my brain was in a bit of a fog. I had a late night out with some friends in one of my local pubs that went longer than expected. It was one of those times where you plan to have ” a drink or two” but it ends up going until the early hours of the day. I am usually pretty skilled in the art of last-minute packing, but this was not the case. I threw something like 3 shirts, a pair of leggings,a sweater and my research material in my small suitcase. The only shoes that I had for the entire time were my vans sneakers, not exactly the footwear of choice for a blizzard. It didn’t occur to me to check the freaking weather when I was packing. This is a good example of why I am a space cadet. Most people with any kind of travel experience remember to check the weather.
The weather also delayed my arrival to Chisinau from Bucharest. I had originally planned a bla bla car ride to leave after a day and a half in Bucharest. My ride contacted me the evening before our planned departure and said there were a lot of road closures so we would have to leave the next day. The buses and trains were also delayed, so I gained another day in Bucharest. I had to cut a day out of my planned time in Transnistria. It wasn’t the end of the world, but I had to be a little more ” chop-chop” for my Transnistria tour . I also had to cancel on my host in Tiraspol and tell my host in Ribnitsa that I would be a day later than planned. I really try to avoid being one of whose couchsurfers that cancels or delays. But this was out of my control.
The next day, the Romanian blizzard was a little calmer. I met my ride in the morning and we were off to Chisinau. It was a 7-hour ride. We picked up another girl on the outside of Bucharest. She was Moldovan but working in Romania. A fair number of Moldovan are able to obtain Romanian citizenship which enables them to work and live in the European Union. Moldova has the lowest GDP in Europe. So anyone who can leave takes that option. We spoke a bit in the car. She was very friendly. She saw my American passport and got excited. She confessed that she thought I was German. I get that a lot. I asked her why does being American makes me more interesting and she replied: “Americans don’t do rideshares or go anywhere alone”. A bit presumptuous, but ok. She also told me she lived in the states for a year for some student-work exchange. She asked if I was going there to work with the Peace Corp and I told her that I was just curious to see Moldova and Transnistria, her reply was ” Oh you know……….. curiosity killed the cat” with a big smile.
We arrived at Chisinau and I got dropped off in some mysterious place that was not exactly near my hostel. I think by then he had enough of me, so I didn’t bother asking him to drive closer into the center of the city. He seemed already annoyed that I had to ask him to stop at an atm because I was a little bit short in Romanian Lei to pay him, so I had to pay him the rest in Moldovan Lei. I inquired around and found my way to my hostel where I was greeted with a glass of Moldovan wine. I was one of the 3 guests staying there, but I found the hostel to be quite pleasant. The owner was a very well-traveled guy who had previously lived in Thailand, Russia and the US. If anyone wants a hostel recommendation for Chisinau, I definitely recommend checking out the IQ hostel. I’ll save the rest of my Chisinau stories along with my Bucharest stories for another post.
The next day, I ventured to the central bus ride to get on a bus to Tiraspol.
My party ride
Actually, the ride to Tiraspol wasn’t exactly a party ride. The ride was bumpy and slippery. I didn’t have much faith in the Moldovan roads. It also took longer because the bus stopped every 200 meters at some point. I also stuck out a bit like a sore thumb. I wanted to be relatively unseen and blend in, but I received a phone call on the bus that I had to take so I had no choice but speak English giving away that I was the only foreigner on the bus.
We got to the ” border” about 45 minutes later. Transnistria does not make people get visas, but every one that isn’t a ‘citizen” gets a card on arrival. You can either get the card for 12 hours or 24 hours. If you would like to stay longer, your host has to register you with the local authorities. If you leave after the time it says on your card, you get a KGB style interrogation and thrown in jail. Just kidding, but you probably have to pay a fine or deal more with the authorities than what is comfortable. Everyone on my bus went through the security in 2 seconds, I was another story. The ‘ border guards” were more interested in me. They were surprised that I requested for the 24-hour card and not the 12-hour card. I guess they are used to most “outsiders” coming there for the day from Chisinau. He was also a little perplexed that I told him I was not staying in a hotel or hostel, but with a person there. My Couchsurfing host was also in Ribnitsa and not in Tiraspol. They took my passport to the backroom for probably 5 or 10 minutes top, but it felt like an eternity. That is never a good feeling. I really hate it when some kind of authority anywhere has my passport or driver’s license for more than 10 seconds, let alone an authority from a place where international law doesn’t exactly apply. I also saw the bus pulling away. ” Great, I probably have to walk the rest of the way and get picked up by the police doing so.if I am even left in” I probably came up with 500 scenarios and nearly fainted in these ten minutes. The fact another bus full of people were able to go through while I was still waiting didn’t help calm my nerves.
One of the border control guys finally came out and motioned for me to come here. He asked me if I spoke Russian. I told him a little bit. He obviously saw all my Ukrainian, Georgian and Russian stamps. He asked”Journalist?”, I shook my head. I told him I was just a tourist. He handed me my passport and arrival card and told me in English. ” Make sure your friend registers you if you stay longer…Welcome to Transnistria” I thanked him and scurried off to see if my bus was still there, which to my amazement still was. As a bonus, nobody looked like they were super pissed off at me for delaying their time. A couple of them even clapped for me.
The rest of the ride to Tiraspol was a bit like riding in a time machine. I sort of felt like a character in a John La Carre novel. I tried to get some pictures in, especially of the propaganda posters, but unfortunately, I was too late to get many of the shots in on the bus ride into the city. I am not exactly the best at having a camera on hand with me when I travel. Example: Tried to get this cool graffiti at this soviet style bus stop and failed to get all of it.
I did manage to get this decent one passing through Bender.
I arrived into Tiraspol at the end stop. If I knew what the bus route through the city was like, I would have not gotten off at the end stop. This was my warm welcome to Tiraspol.
Looks inviting? I didn’t mind as I could take a walk into the city and see what I could find. I found a place at the train station where I could get some Transnistrian rubles. I forgot to calculate again what their “currency’ was. My phone was not quick with it either. Mr.Google is also a bit slow to find an exchange rate for a currency that isn’t exactly a real one. I just pulled out 20 USD that I had leftover from the states and gave it to her. If I get ripped off, I get ripped off. She handed me back a big stack of tattered bills. When I researched the actual rate, I discovered she was pretty honest and gave me the exact rate. That is one stereotype about ” Eastern Europe” that I am not entirely convinced about. In nearly every country I have been to that is east of Germany, the first thing people have told me was “Watch out, everyone steals”. It is not only other Western tourists that say this, but the locals themselves. I’ve learned in my travels all over Central and Eastern Europe that it really isn’t anywhere worse than anywhere else. I’ve had someone in Poland run down the street to give me something I dropped. I had a stranger in Bosnia tell me to be careful as my bag was open. My idiot self once left my phone in Kyiv and I came back to discover that it was still there. Maybe I am just lucky. I have nearly never been ripped off when traveling. The only time I can really recall was in Croatia and I’m not entirely sure it was on purpose. I once had my bank card stolen in Prague, but it was in the hostel I stayed in years ago before I even move there. It also happened in the hostel so probably not by a Czech. I had my camera stolen once when I was 16 in a nightclub, but that was on a trip to Holland with my father, so not even close to Eastern Europe. That is really one stereotype that should jump off a cliff. There are people that scam and rip off everywhere. I have largely found that in most places, people are more honest than not.
I had my fairly exchanged money, my stuffed panda travel mascot, tiny pack and my mental map of Tiraspol ….I was off to put a face on this area.
Stay tuned next time to hear about my adventure in Tiraspol and Ribnitsa!