Transiting Transcarpathia

Lviv was a whole lot colder than I wanted it to be, and I realized then what a godsend those Carpathian mountains are.  While they can't keep out Mongols, Huns, Hungarians, Russians, or literally anyone else, they can keep out the fierce Siberian winds that seem to envelope the whole of Ukraine, Poland and Belarus, and keep Hungary nice and toasty through October like a Balkan pizza pocket.  So as you can imagine, I was a bit chilly and wondering what I was doing in this ice palace instead of roasting in the Balkan sun.  

So the next day I decided to worm my way to the Hungarian border and on the advice of the hostel worker, went to Tukhlia, which was rumoured to have wooden churches. I went to the train station and learned that my train left from the suburban train station, the electric lines that cater to the nearby villages.  I ran outside and, in one of my trademark panics, starting howling at people passing by and pressing them with questions about where the "electric railway" station was.  Turns out it was right next door.  I got in, easily found my train and prepared to stand for my journey in the packed carriage.  Standing was actually preferable to sitting, as the seats were wooden and it was a rocky ride.  

The best part about Tukhlia was the weather, over which Tukhlia had little-to-zero control.  What Tukhlia had control over was the availability of restaurants and in that they were sadly lacking.  When the train stopped in the village and I was potentially the only person to disembark, I tried to leave my backpack at the train station so I could wander the city hassle free.  The clerk was less than enthused, as this was likely a part time job for her.  But she acquiesced in the end and I was smugly went on my way, as Tukhlia had just become my oyster.

But what an oyster.  There was so little to do there.  I didn't see a single wooden church.  In fact, all I really remember was a second hand clothing store, a good domed church, a convenience-store bar, and a tonne of farmhouses with these really cool painted wooden crests on them.  I overpaid for borscht and beer, did not get any cabbage rolls, and then waited for the next train to take me away to Mukhachevo, on the other side of the Carpathians. The train wound its way up the hill and down the other side, up past Ukrainian huts, and down past Hungarian and Romanian ones.  On the other side there was no snow, no bracing winds, and things looked decidedly European.  This is also, roughly, the area where the Good Solider Svejk abruptly ends.  When the train abruptly ended in Mukhachevo, I was unsure about what to do with myself, as it was about 9pm at this point.  

I was going to leave Mukhachevo to another post, but I did absolutely nothing there.  I wanderered around forever trying to find an affordable hostel or hotel (I was pooooor at this point, and 10 euros was a stretch.  I was in one of those places in the FSU where backpackers don't go, and people don't stay in cheap hotels, so if you're there it's because you're willing to spend money) and even though hostelworld.com said there was a hostel, the hostel was impossible to find.  And I'm no stranger to hostels that don't exist.  I ended up eating a tonne of perogies in a bar by the train station, buying a train ticket that took half an hour for the clerk to fill out (she had to fill out four different sheets of paper and cut it accordingly) and then bought a bunch of delicious Ukrainian beers in bottles to enjoy over the coming holiday season.  I'm so glad Ukrainian bars do offsales.