On crossing the border from Ukraine to Poland we would be
entering the EU for the third and final time on this trip. I’ve mentioned
before some of the various “end points” of this grand expedition; arriving in
geographical Europe (Blog Day 246 –Breakfast in Asia, Europe for lunch, and back to Asia for dinner), entering
the EU for the first time (Blog Day 251 –Bad cops turned good), making it to a country which is on the Euro
(Greece), entering the EU again (Blog Day273 – From Melbourne to the EU), and many more. Entering the EU for the
last time though did bring with it a certain sense of finality – after arriving
in Poland we would remain in the EU all the way to the end of the trip. With
less than four weeks to go, we really were on the home stretch now.
We made an informed decision about which post we would cross
the border at, having been warned by several people that the main one near Lviv
can involve waiting in excruciatingly long queues taking nine or ten hours in
some cases. Usually we’re relatively dismissive of advice we get from locals
because the situation is always so different for us anyway. We seriously
considered avoiding this one though and taking a detour to the smaller border
post because amongst the people that warned us was the Polish EU guard who we
spoke to when entering Ukraine (Blog Day300 – Friends with the EU Babysitters).
The border post was a monstrosity of stainless steel and
reinforced concrete, towering over the horizon. As we approached the entrance
to the intimidating complex a blond-haired muscular Russian-looking man in army
uniform waved at us to stop, at which point he asked us a series of questions
all of which were answered with various types of shrugs. After peering through
our windows, Muscley Blond Guard handed us a slip displaying a number and
gestured for us to proceed through the gates and down the left hand lane. Several
hundred metres later we found ourselves at the back of a queue of cars where we
waited for a while until a portly guard worked his way back to us. We handed Portly
Guard our numbered slip, at which point he turned his nose up at us, asked for
our passports and car documents which we handed him and thrust a new slip of
paper in the window. Turning away from us, Portly Guard waved dismissively back
towards the gates we’d just gained access through. Well this was a pain. We
called out as Portly Guard sauntered off and thankfully we managed to catch his
attention. Our requests for some sort of explanation or more specific
instructions, along with our insistence that we were in fact a car, as notated
on our numbered slip and demonstrated by the hard evidence that we were, in
fact, a car, therefore meaning that we were in the correct queue and shouldn’t
be removed to the other one which was clearly for lorries, were ignored. Our
indignation was met with passive disdain so we bit our tongues and returned to
Muscley Blond Guard on the other side of the gate.
Muscly Blond Guard didn’t take much interest in us this time;
I suppose his curiosity wasn’t strong enough to outweigh the amount of work
that was required in looking after us. The very young looking guard standing
nearby took us on though and ushered us to a booth where we were met by a very
surly guard. Young Guard hung back but remained in view, watching us out the
corner of his eye while Surly Guard stared at our new slip.
“Passport? Document?”
“The guy in the car queue has them. He told us to come here
and go in the truck queue.”
“Passport. Document.”
“Over there. We need to go in this queue. Look at the slip.”
“Passport! Document!”
“We don’t have them! We were told to go in this queue!”
He stared at us, made a few phone calls and eventually
instructed us to return to the car queue.
“We. Were. Told. To. Go. In. This. Queue.”
Some more phone calls were made and eventually we were
allowed to proceed into the truck queue. Hopefully our documents would be
waiting for us up ahead somewhere and we wouldn’t just be directed to yet
another queue.
We waited in the car while our documents were passed around
between various offices and it wasn’t too long before we were sent on towards
Poland. Relieved to be through the Ukrainian part of the process we drove
onwards only to be pulled over at the usual passport checkpoint before no man’s
land. The jolly guard asked us for our passports and a particular document
which we handed him, only to discover that it hadn’t been stamped by the correct
authority in the correct place. Denner followed Jolly Guard’s directions back
to one of the many offices and received the necessary stamp, and with a smile Jolly
Guard allowed us to proceed.
With that part completed and now on the Polish side, we had
to start from square one again, choosing a queue to join the end of. Worlds
away from their post-Soviet, excessively bureaucratic and highly disorganised
counterpart, Polish Customs and Immigration were highly professional and the pinnacle
of efficiency. A charming female guard was making her way through the queue of
cars, moving people through as quickly as possible. Friendly and approachable,
Charming Lady Guard was a far cry from the burly, intimidating Ukrainian guards
we’d just left and we happily answered her questions and waited patiently while
she did a cursory search of the car. The questions she asked were the type of
ones you get when entering Australia or Britain, where they’re subtly digging
in a very friendly way, attempting to decipher whether you’re suspicious or
not, and you can’t quite decide whether they really are a little bit interested
in who you are and what you’re doing, or if the curiosity is entirely feigned and
purely business. Either way I always end up enjoying speaking to them, and in
this case I choose to believe that she really was intrigued by the concept of our
trip. When Charming Lady Guard was satisfied with us and our answers she
disappeared with our documents and promptly returned to give us the all clear.
The next and final stage of the border crossing was to have
the car ripped apart at the searching station. A dainty but formidable female
guard approached and we gathered that she was here to take care of us. Formidable
Lady Guard completely ransacked our vehicle, taking torches and screw drivers
to every nook and cranny, searching the entirety of each bag and box, the backs
of the chairs, the underside of the engine, the door panels, inside the trim
and linings, underneath the carpet in the boot etc. As well as unpacking every
item she even tore the lining of my laptop bag just to check I wasn’t smuggling
anything through in there. (I wasn’t.) There were other cars nearby that were
much emptier than ours and were being scrutinised even more thoroughly, with
wheels being removed and entire panels taken away. Eventually, and much to our
relief, we were dismissed as non-smugglers and granted entry to Poland. We
quickly threw everything back into the car, all of our belongings tossed
haphazardly on top of each other, unpacked from their bags and boxes making
retrieving anything later on more of a challenge than usual. On we went and we
were finally in Poland, and back in the EU where we would now remain for the
remainder of the trip.
It did cross our mind that although there were dogs sniffing
around the general vicinity earlier on in the border crossing, they didn’t seem
to be thoroughly searching and there certainly weren’t any around at this point.
So although we couldn’t have hidden a toenail clipping inside the car, our
luggage or the lining of my laptop bag, I could have had anything I liked in my
pockets and nobody would have noticed. It is odd how the focus is entirely on
the possessions in this situation and not even remotely on the person.
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