Stormy Marshrukta (Vylkovo)

To get to Vylkovo, a small canal-town on the Danube Delta near the Romanian Frontier, you have to go to Odessa's central bus station. This is an experience of it's own. As you walk in (when you eventually find the bloody place) it's like being transported to to downtown Calcutta. There are people, cars and stalls everywhere. Marshruktas beep and squeeze through impossible spaces and bus drivers shout locations.

We went to get some tickets from the kiosk (a joyful task that never grew arduous) to be told that the next bus was in two and a half hours. Damn. It could be worse though, so we went for a beer in a nearby bar. We came back two hours later to wait for the bus. I decided to try the kiosk again, just in case you did need a ticket. I asked again " 2, Vylkovo?" the woman went to the computer "okay so we did need a ticket". She shook her head and said there's only one seat left and that the next bus was in two and a half hours... Why didn't you give us a ticket in the first place!!!!! I shouted, in my head, as I took two tickets for the later bus and imagined how I was going to tell Fiona.

The bus journey was quite exciting. We ran into a storm that grew the further south we drove. We didn't slow down though, despite the fact that the water was running down the road and the windscreen was blurred by the torrential downpour. I took this photo as we slowed through a town half way towards to Vylkovo. It was getting dark outside and I had to take it through the marshrukta window so it kind of blurred. But it's all I've got.

The rain stopped as night fell but the drama wasn't over. We pulled off the main road that had taken us from Odessa and headed down a little country affair. I have never seen less tarmac on a road. It's almost as if the tarmac had just been used to decorate the potholes that had become full on baths of doom since the downpour. The driver didn't slow down here either but instead swerved violently from left to right, doing anything it possible to avoid the holes. We drove off road a few times - something that didn't feel too great under 20 year old mini-bus suspension. Someone in front of me managed to sleep through it! Maybe they had their sea-legs.

We survived but had over-estimated the size of Vylkovo which turned out to be signless and streetlightless. In a streak of luck and kindness stranger from our bus arranged a taxi to our hotel, well he put us in a locals car and told him the directions.