Bombed down the Wales Friday night just gone, stayed in Merthyr. Wow, now that is a very special place. Really friendly people though, bloke in a bar (we took the weekend off DryJan) called VNU insisted he bought us a drink. Then he got ejected for fighting. And everyone hates the English, all good bants, mainly about the rugby but due to the area being the heartlands of their old mining industry, even Thatcher got a mention.
Drove up the road to the Storey Arms at the foot of the hills and made out ascent. About a 2.5hr round trip taking in Corn Du and Pen-y-Fan (we were later corrected that it’s pronounced Penivan). Excellent to get amongst it once again.
Then over to Aberdare for a Bowie tribute band that evening where we were well looked after by the locals there too.
Love love love that part of the world. Love Wales. Love the Welsh. Boyo.
End of November we headed back down towards the Black Sea for a long weekend in Moldova, Transnistria and Ukraine. Landed, drove straight out of Chisinau (pronounced Kiss-shin-yav), along the R2 via a drink pitstop, through the town of Bender (!) and into…Transnistria border control. “Border control?” I hear you say, “but it’s not a country!” Except it is. From there we went into Tiraspol centre, stayed one night, excellent, mahusive oysters. Picked up the train down to Odessa (not easy when cards aren’t accepted and you don’t have the cash to pay). Did the border control on the train into Ukraine, ate cake, did a lot of moseying around town including the Potemkin Stairs and found a good bar showing this Fatboy Slim video from my home town. Stayed a night there before taxiing back to Tiraspol the next day, picked up the hire car to drive back to Chisinau which to be honest was nothing to write home/ a blog post about.
Getting back to Transnistria though (over the Dnister River)… Not officially ‘recognised’ by the UN but is in a club of about 5 other breakaway states who recognise each other. What makes a country? Sovereignty seems to be defined as:
A defined territory
Permanent population
Passport
Currency
Its own government
The ability to enter into relations with other nations
It’s this final one which seems to be the most important or the blocker to births of new nations but from my experience travelling through it; passport control, customs, different number plates, different currency (Moldovan not accepted) plus also a different language, a different alphabet but moreover: The ‘feel’ changed.
Elsewhere:
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