Day 50 - Vinnytia

Oops, another one I am not sure how you spell it, but the Vinn bit is right.

Having used the internet yesterday, there was confusion when I left as they would not accept any money from me. I did my best to give them some money but they just laughed, still it would only have been about 40p as that is the hourly rate here, better than the 9 pounds in Switzerland. When I left it made me wonder if I had just walked into an office and used one of their machines, but they did give me permission.

There is not much to report as I only updated yesterday, but as today was another short day and this place isnt over exciting I thought I would catch up on emails etc.

I was glad to be in a hotel last night as the weather turned bad again in the afternoon and seemed to be raining most of the night and was still raining when I got up. The hotel didnt do breakfast so I stopped at a bar down the road (yes, Harpo they did have them) where even my pointing could not be interpretted by the girl serving. There wasnt much to point at and I thought I made a pretty good job of it, but the poor girl didnt have a clue and had to go and get her boss, who could understand what I was pointing at the the problem was resolved. Hmm, lovely stale bread and manky meat, good choice, may be she just couldnt believe that I wanted to eat that, but it looked reasonable before I bit into it!

The route was easy and once I had translated the place name navigation was a doddle as it was well signposted, added to that the road rolled but much more gently than of late. I got here at around 2pm and found that 2 hotels were full, frankly I dont think they liked the look of a sweaty old cyclist, well one was the Savoy! Another seemed to double the price to the printed one, probably for the same reason, so once again I am in the big concrete Soviet style hotel with the service to match.

I think I needed a couple of short days for both body and soul. I would ideally like to finish no later than 18:30 but since I have been here it has been 19:30 - 21:00, due to the lack of places to stay and limited camping places. I do feel better for the last two days, but another early night is in order. Actually, one of the problems with hotels is that I seem to get away later than if I were camping, so the day is always off to a bad start, apart from the fact that I like the lie in and the breakfast.

Other than the above, my spirits have been pretty good. I thought I might struggle being alone for so long, but that hasnt been a problem, helped by the better communications that are available these days.

So what now. I did toy with the idea of going to Kiev, but it is still a couple of days away, so I will probably turn south tomorrow and make my way to Moldova. Looking at the map for tomorrow there seems very little chance of a hotel, so it will be wild camping again, but I will make sure I find a place earlier and the same goes for water supplies.