I found this on my teeny computer, peeking through all the documents upon it.

We guessed it would take around 3-4 days, more if we were too unlucky, less if our journey was too perfect, and it was without some sort of adventure. Instead of taking trains, the mode of travel I seem to take almost every day, or to try the 27 litas bus ticket (about the same as a day travelcard) our journey began on another path, upon a sharp, west-jutting angle, bouncing from the outskirts of Kaunas, over a couple of borders, to get to Kiev, somehow. My bus journey across the North sea that summer was on a one-way ticket. Neither of us were caught in a return, and I wasn't sure when i'd be coming back. I didn't even know if I had enough money to get back to London I'd barely ridden in a truck before, but the majority of our rides were from truck drivers,they were the only onestopping for us. Very occasionally a car would pick us up, such as the old man in southern Poland who offered us boiled sweets, or the lady with the baby in Lithuania. But i liked getting in trucks, with their fat wheels, it felt like riding a kind of mechanical caterpillar, and gave a new perspective. We sat so high, upon the bed at the back, gazing out over the road ahead and absorbing in long peeks from the side windows. After exchanging the usual pleasantries with each other " Are you studying?" / " are you married?" / "What do you girls do in London?" ... we could pay more attention to the landscape, against the thick soundtrack of pop music that most drivers blast, probably for its fake cheeriness. Our rides are jolting. Our first, full of luck, gave us a straight run from Kaunas to Warsawa. That night our bed was a coil of ropes, we curling ourselves into the coils in the vast emptiness of the trucks shell. But that luck resulted a 5 hour labyrinthine quest after getting dropped off just outside the west side of the city, making our way from of one side of Warsawa and down through to the autobahn, jumping bus after bus without paying a zloty, because we wanted to keep what few zlotys we had for a cup of tea and some sweet Polish treats. We gazed through the glass of our hitched buses and metro-trains, trying to cram as much in our eyes as possible. We didn't make that much progress that day. Half an hour down the road with some local builders, and we then found ourselves back on the shady roadside again, with the peasant women selling potatoes by the roadside. Our next ride took us 4 hours south with some sweet supermarket delivery man, who shared his vodka with us when we stopped that night, a heavy nightcap before we fell asleep by thick fields under the most starry sky. The skies are at their clearest in Eastern Europe in August. No hangover the next morning, the sun was already hot at 8.30. We didn't know how long we would be waiting on the side of the road, eager to catch a ride with pretty much whoever stopped. The usual gas-station breakfast of bomzpacket (Russian for instant noodles) on the grass, mechanical-tasting tea from a coin-machine, and the scent of petrol. Neither of us had even bought a map. I still always manage to get lost whether I have one or not. We keep checking our journey in the maps we borrow at gas stations.

It was colder than I thought. I put on all my jumpers and snuggled tight in my sleeping bag. The tent was quite small with the two of us and all our stuff, but warm.

We awoke early. The field was already lit golden in the 8am sun. We packed our things, got back to the roadside and walked to a nearby gas station, to find maps and hot water for breakfast bomzpacket (which  means 'Homeless Noodles' in Russian) resting before starting again in the roadside sun.

We took turns, one resting in the shade with our things, the other standing and enthusiastically pointing her thumb to the oncoming drivers. (Looking back in retrospect, it feels almost a hookerish pose, but we only wanted a free ride and an adventure. It took nearly an hour, as being not far from Lublin, many people pointed with their fingers down to us, signalling that they lived locally.

So, we got into a small white car, driven by a man around 40. The backseat was full of barbies, and he said, in Russian, that he was actually going to Ukraine, and he could take us. Indra already decided anyway.

We spoke the polite, typical conversation for a while, or until it was difficult to communicate in a combination of sign language and odd words whilst driving. The more south we went, I could feel the transition from leaving one country and entering another. The land looked less green, more arid, the buildings morphing from country shack things to having points and angles.

The border area was a dusty field, almost suspended, this purgatory. The space infront, gypsy men were dealing contraband, gathering around dented cars and bike, smoking and getting drunk with the midday sun.

The three of us jumped into another car so we could cross the border. Its not possible to cross the Poland-Ukraine Border by foot, only by train or car.

We finally passed over the border, it took longer than I thought. The yellow and blue striped flag rippled above us, and it was as though we’d gone back 50 years in time.

Falling apart, dusty, ancient tower blocks, rusty fairground rides, like an expanded circus.

I could barely read anything. The Cyrillic alphabet has only 5 letters in common with the Latin one: A, . . . . I understood Toilet, Apoteka, Bankomat, the basic needs.