One thing that is not only not a good idea, nor at all feasible, is fording* the Prut. And if you take the 3pm train from Chișinău to Ungheni, then you’re going to miss the once-a-day Ungheni—Iași Express which crosses the train bridge. If you’re thinking that this ain’t no thang and you can probably make the connection by running through the door with the “DO NOT ENTER” (purposely suppressing any knowledge of French and denying any plausible connections between the Moldovan “Interdis” with the French “Interdit”) sign on it, up the stairs and into a room full of border guards exclaiming, “PLEASE LET ME OUT OF MOLDOVA!” then you can just stop right there, because I can save you the effort and let you know what the result will be: they will tell you no, you cannot do this. They will, however, be really nice to you and they will appreciate your can-do, go-getter attitude. But they will also ask you to please leave their office.
Anyway, all this sort of left me feeling a bit defeated, but it was still early enough in the day, the weather was getting warmer, and the border guards gave me a hot tip that the only crossing for me was 10km north of town. No buses or marshrutkas seemed to be around, and I reflected on whether this is my fault or Moldova’s, and began dictating a terse-but-friendly letter in my head**. I decided to walk to the border, thinking that 10km in Moldovan was, like, 2km in Canadian. I found the main road and hadn’t gone very far into the countryside when I met a policeman who was standing at the side of the road. We chatted, talked about hockey (I hadn’t the heart to tell him that the Quebec Nordiques aren’t as “nordique” as they used to be), and he told me to wait. I assumed he was indicating a bus was coming. But no, even better: a police car. Full of more policemen. As voluntarily getting into unmarked police cars in the former Soviet Union is one of my passions, I assumed absolutely nothing could go wrong and I gladly went along with them.
And thank goodness I did. They drove me straight to the border and gave me priority boarding. Pyotr/Pietr, the veteran border guard who I had been speaking with before, put the Soviet general’s hat (given to me as a parting gift from Transnistria) on my head and led me to the front of the long, long line of cars trying to get through the border. He introduced me to the whole gang, and one of the smokin’ hot border babes*** in charge of interrogation and fear-mongering arranged for me a seat with a Romanian family who lived in Iași. I bid adieu to the ol’ gang and set off for Romania and was dropped off at the train station by a seriously concerned family (though not serious enough to offer me lodging).
*If you’re not familiar with this word, I suggest you go back to grade 2 and play Oregon Trail on a Mac Classic.
**On a bus in Chisinau an advertisement caught my eye and while I cannot quite ascertain what it was about, I think it was hinting that public feedback was welcome by posting something like Moldovan.Transport.Ministry@gmail.com at the bottom. Looks like someone has finally gotten off the Hotmail bandwagon.
***Seriously, these women are unreasonably attractive. It’s like the market for Moldovan supermodels is flooded so they have to find regular jobs.
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