Of course there was no bus to Kiev from that bus stop where I arrived in Moscow.And it's so strange how things happen. I was swearing in English on the previous bus driver (because he lied about this bus to Kiev). I could have sworn in German, but then.. it's more fun to swear when someone actually understands. So I picked some words of which I was pretty sure this staff of that bus station would actually understand. They did.. and it amused these guys, which had previously just tried to get rid of me, they were just security personnel making sure no one would sneak onto some bus from the wrong side.. and it amused them enough to find interest in my case. So I tried to explain that I really needed to get to Kiev in time to get to my bus to Munich, where I already had the online ticket. One of them misunderstood the whole thing, and thought I wanted to get on one of their busses with my online ticket. Which again made him get some guy from the next higher level.
And this guy again was kind enough to walk along this line of buses, to find one going to Ukraine. There was no bus to Kiev, that was clear, but maybe one going into the same direction.. and this was a brilliant idea. So I took a bus to Donjetsk instead and got off in Charkiv. Charkiv is basically somewhere on the way to Kiev and would definitely be a good place to find a bus to Kiev. That bus was scheduled to leave about 1 hour later, which gave me just enough time to comfortably get a bus and baggage ticket and refill my stock of food and drinks.
After spending all night on this bus, we arrived early the next day in Charkiv. As expected, there was no problem at all getting from Charkiv to the capital, so some time in the afternoon I arrived in Kiev. No problems taking the bike with me on the bus. Surely the driver of every single bus will complain, there is no space for a bike and so on.. but with a minute or two of begging, laughing and smiling it turned out to be not much of a problem to fit my bike into the baggage compartment. But I am really happy I didn't take a new bike on this trip. Mine looks pretty worn down now :) they don't have much sympathy for bikes in any of the countries east of Czech Republic. For most people there it seems that a bike is nothing but the worst possible and most shameful form of transport and should be treated accordingly. I tried to explain that mine is different.. without any success. Just because I should really mention it somewhere: my bike has been the most reliable companion one could imagine. It never complained... and gave me not even a single flat tire. Nothing. Only the minor problems with the gears in Czech Republic, but with some more knowledge on my side I am sure I could have fixed that myself easily.
Since I had already bought my ticket from Kiev to Munich in Nizhny Novgorod I had nothing else to worry about. I paid a taxi driver a quite rediculous amount of money for a ride to a cheap hotel. I was lazy and tired and wanted to make sure this guy will actually come early the next morning and take me to bus. And he did. Because I gave him only some part of the promised money that night. So I got one night of horizontal sleep, had enough time to fill the empty space in my bags with all sorts of good tasting high calorie foods and high percentage drinks to take home from Ukraine and Friday morning I got on the final bus. It's a very long and incredibly cheap ride home from Kiev. It takes roughly 30 hours, but this totally depends on how much time you have to spend on the border between Ukraine and Poland. Plus traffic jams etc... but we were lucky. The money collected on the bus to ensure a quick passage of the Ukrainian border must have been enough to satisfy the border officers (I didn't pay anything - I had enough time, I could have waited around for a few hours). And no traffic jam.
So Saturday morning I finally arrived... after a long happy and successful journey.. in München.
