Quiche. Now.

Some may ask whether the last post was about Romania or Moldova, but at this point I am not quite sure it matters.  What matters is that I was now in Moldova.  If, god willing, the Soviet Union still existed, getting to Chișinău (literally, "quiche now") from Odessa would have been quick and easy, but of course no trip in the FSU is complete without needlessly extending your trip by several hours in order to circumvent a breakaway republic (more on this later).  The bus went directly to Chișinău and stopped at the border for three hours while everyone else’s bags were searched and our passports were taken en mass.  Then the customs officer came back on, handed the stack of passports to the person in the front seat, and then let that person distribute them.  Chaos ensued as passports were passed in every which direction and I panicked, trying to figure out the grammatically correct Russian for “Wait! I need my passport back first, it’s more valuable than yours!”  Yes, I said it.  My main fear was actually how expensive and time-consuming it would be to replace it, so in dollar terms it actually was and is more valuable.  Furthermore, anyone can get a Ukrainian/Moldovan passport (I actually know a girl who knows a guy who can get me one for $3000) so this was serious business.

Borders are usually so intense that I like to see what kind of impish, zany antics I can get up to lighten the mood.  While the customs officials were rummaging through every plastic burlap bag full of socks, or Crocs, or chocolates, or something that didn’t need to have been bought in Ukraine and brought to Moldova, I left the bus of my own accord and walked up to a group of cold and forbidding armed soldiers.  This is my “hot travel tip” of the day:  when there are a group of soldiers with guns yelling at you, walk directly up to them smiling and speaking loud, nasally English.  The smile lets them know you’re harmless, and the English lets them know how much paperwork is in store for them if they shoot you.  I asked to use the bathroom and they begrudgingly indicated that it was around the building, but all I could find was a little wooden shed over a swamp with a plank up to it.  I went back and said, “Wait, where is it?” and they escorted me to the shed.  I walked up the unsteady plank into the shed that simply had a hole in its wooden floor.  It’s this kind of investigative journalism that makes me understand the motivation behind border guard corruption. 

The Moldovan countryside was beautiful but there was something a bit strange about it.  The landscape was decidedly greyish-brown, punctured by villages the whole way to Chișinău (interestingly enough, Moldova is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe).  The roads were narrow but perfectly straight and gridded, which reminded me of driving along backroads in Saskatchewan (or would have reminded me if I had ever done that in my life.  But I assume life in Moldova and Saskatchewan are roughly the same).  Each village had a stucco bus stop with decorative mosaics on it, depicting traditional Moldovan life and the triumph of socialism (the two were not mutually exclusive) and we also passed an abandoned Palace of Culture or two.  While the detailing on each individual house was remarkable—well-kept and painted wooden siding with ornate tin roofs and eavestroughs—the village as a whole was obscured by the early spring dusk that obscured each village and its environs into a monotone,  almost 19^th century haze.  Of course, I was on a French bus from the early 1980s (TRANS-Isere Voyages et Loisirs was stylishly slashed across the side) and for entertainment the radio was turned to this song which the DJ liked so much that we got to hear it about 8 times.  This, complete with a smattering of Russian techno, helped to complete the dichotomy that I so eagerly search for and embellish upon in Eastern Europe.  

It took about 7 hours to reach Chișinău , and the litre-and-a-half water bottle that I emptied on this duration came to haunt me about halfway through.  We stopped in a medium-sized village for some unknown duration (this is the main problem with travelling in other countries.  No one tells you how long we are going to be stopped.  Or else they announce it in some impractical language like Moldovan or whatever) and there was no way of changing money so I was in it for the long haul to Chisinau.  When we docked at the Chișinău bus depot, I burst from the bus anxious and desperate to not only find where the actual city of Chișinău was*, but most importantly a bathroom.  Continuing in this pattern, I burst into a restaurant exclaiming, “I have no money! Where is your bathroom!?” which was unsuccessful.  Consequently, I have learned to enter an establishment calmly, use the bathroom, look at the menu and see what they don’t have, ask for it, and look sweet and apologetic when you say that you’re a tourist and you were really hoping for that one dish that you already knew they didn’t have and then exit.  In today’s neoliberal world of pay-per-pee this is how one person is beating the system.  Ultimately, I pretended this was southern France and I peed behind a dumpster.**

*For potential visitors, the Northern Bus Depot is on the Northwest side of the city, across a small river and a major highway.  It’s actually fairly easy to access by foot but when you de-bus, it looks like you’re in an industrial wasteland in the outskirts of town.  Which you actually are.

** I’m totally kidding!  That was unfair.  If I were actually pretending this were southern France, I would have waited until I was in the centre of town and then peed against the side of a government building or school in the middle of the day.