Odesa, staircases and naughty neighborhoods

sitting here in that Euro standard/price hostel in the busiest street of Odesa makes me think of Budapest, the hippie hostel and different the attitude of the travellers there. to cut it short, there's self complacent men sitting in the other room drinking beer wating for the night and all those cheap Ukrainian girls to come. Its amzing there's not a single female guest but all young and eager looking girls working at this place. There's those obligatory two japanese guys in my dorm looking kind of stressed out from whatever long journey they've been taking.
If you understand what the female stuff is talking about in a not so exerted friendliness they use when speaking english to the guests but in Ukrainian/Russian. You'll get a sense of what conflicting temptations the life of a young ambitious "Ukrainza" is exposed to. Its all about assumed options, for the (western) guys its just about getting laid or being flattered by women who need to get a husband if the want to move up the ladder (something not really to be found in those western countries they come from).
Lets all read Michel Houellebecq’s book's and be cynical about it, shall we...

Anyway, as I'm in Ukrain right now I had to be in Moldawia in the first place this is what happened:

Day23 (2.9.)

After another night out in the rain at a camp spot chosen rather haphazardly on a fiel right next to the street (I did and continue to do this for there is no reason, why one of the local clowns should attempt to rob the curious foreigner out there in the rain with cars coming by every 90secs or so) I got up early and rode the remaining 10ks to the border. Stocked up my food supplies and made it it in just under 10min across what is to be the future Schengen Border.
_
little interruption here: one of the female employees has just being surprised by a local friend with a bunch of little roses (as she joyfully exclaimed). Maybe thats a precautionary measure being taken by the local boys given the obvious avocations.
But to be honest I don't really see this blonde marrying the guy with the roses...
_
As I could already see when getting to the eastern parts of Romania things where about to get worse in just any sense. People are poorer, less fortunate (theres no real near time perspective for Mioldowa joining the EU) and they just lok like that. This is not to say that there aren't nice people you can have conversation with (I'm finally able to use my Russian again!).
After a couple of ks it started to rain again. I didn't bother to put on the haevy rain gear since the trousers aren't fitting too well and the neopren spats are just clumsy when walking on them.
The thing about cycling in the rain with short pants is that you can do that as long as you keep going. Theres nothing worse than getting up again in cooled down wet gear. Given this I made an early stop just 50ks out of Chisinau the Capital and aim for that day.
After a weird encounter with an aged lady making the sign of a cross many times at the sight of me and then telling me that she only rented out rooms to Jews and that she was much cheaper than the guy upstairs I sensed that I got into the wrong building. The right one was on the main street right next to the "Abmen Valuty" were I changed some money. Again the first encounter with the lady renting out teh rooms was somewhat funny since I was helloing for about five minutes in the hallway until I found out that she was in her office asleep at the desk.
She couldn't change the 100LEI bill (5,84 EUR) for the room was supposedly only 80. So I went out to buy some things and eat something not cooked by me in that little alupot meaning a Schnitzel with fries and salad plus the lemonade for just 2 EUR. You'll might get an idea what this about, Moldawia is cheap! When I came back to the hotel it turned out that the room was only 18LEI (*shame on me for missing the slight difference between 80 and 18 in Russian). Thats a new record even for me, 1 EUR for a room to sleep in alone for one night (there's alway SOMEthing included...)
This time it was the occasional cockroach running under the bed when turning the lights on plus a wedding party going on all night right outside my window (no, I was not ivited and didn't dare asking since everyone semmed to be really dressed up and s tuff). Sometime at night the music changed from humpta-humpta gypsie-style out of the ballroom to boom-boom out of the cars of the remainimg youngsters out on the parking lots.
I had a beer with the local boys at a billiard place nearby being invited to glasses of Moldowan Congnac (30yrs old, you could really taste the wood) out of a plastic bottle. Just when I left the place the girls showed up. I don't know what took them so long, maybe the fact that they really dolled themselves up. Despite all that I went back to my room listening to that music all night long.
Oh, and there was a rat fissling with the plastic bag containing the waste that lay on the floor close to the whole in the wall where there was to be a sink.

Day24 (3.9.)

The main reason for checking in to a hotel after a rainy day on the road is to dry things up, especially the shoes. I already told you about that little fan hair-dryer I always carry with me. It only takes about two hours of noise and someone elses energy to get the boots dry again.
Last nights party had somehow emerged into a jolly morning pint (bit less turbo folk and more humpta-humpta again)/ Anyway it was me leaving early for the Capital with only 18 hours left on my visa.
It took 90min of hammering on the road to get me there. I could only take a brief look a what seems to be a big and changing city for I was being guided to the right bus station to catch the BUS to Ukraina.
Wait a second... didn't that guy tell us he was goin to do it all on the pushie.
Well, I can tell You it was surely a one time only experience. Not that I hadn't taken the bus with bike and all the stuff on earlier occasions. It was just the fact that it took us 6 1/2 hours to do that 200km or so drive from a to b bypassing that banana-entity called PRIDNESTROVIAN MOLDAVIAN REPUBLIC. I knew that border crossings in busses could take a while but this was a real one-time only chance of being treated like cattle in a bus that had been built before the invention of air conditioning.
I was really sorry that my passport had already been collected, otherwise I would have hopped of and done it all in 10 min instead of 2 dreadful hours.
We finally made it to Odesa where i got of at the bus station close to the main basar. I was tired and hungry and got the first dodgy hotel i could get. Now that one was up to set a new record in my personal statistic. Not that it was another one in those single digit EUR category, but it was the sheer size of this place that was amazing. Lots of thugs and floosies around. It was the way you would expect it to be in a really naughty neighborhood. (see the pictures)
The open window was only meters across the market. At night you could watch people going to sleep under the sales booth and a guy beating a young girl calling her a dirty whore for standing around acouple of yards away at the corner. Earlier on he had received money from her and it was obvious that she was dependent on him in a real sad way. It was a big drama that somehow reminded me of A Streetcal Named Desire but in the morning it was all getting up and to work.

Day25 (4.9.)

First thing in the morning upon leaving that place was to get a city map. I cycled a bit around town waiting for banks to open. I saw the staircase and lot of American tourists and then hooked up to a local mountain bike hero that seemed to know where to get things for the bike. He was really nice first showing me the expensive shop where he worked and then the stand at the basar being more affordable for the low tech stuff. I went back to his shop to let him do the maintenance and also baught a new fleeze sweater because minesomehow got lost the other day when getting of the bus on the basar. It was worth it because it wasn't expensive and the old Adidas one was really worn out after five years.
Next thing was getting to this hostel, washing clothes and making all those observations I've written in the above. I'm going to get out to get some fresh meat (no, just for the pasta sauce)...