The Ukraine

Finally having cleared the border at around 6pm and having bought some Hryvnia (the local currency), we aimed to get in one or two hundred kilometres to catch up on yet more lost time.
The Ukraine has great roads, well surfaced and the driving is good - much better than in Romania. The landscape, whilst being fairly flat is green and there is a fair bit of agriculture. Temperatures started to hot up a little, although we did have a couple of days of getting soaked. There must have been a fairly big storm as for the next 1500km, we saw large puddles and
flooding by the side of the road.
The people that we saw in towns all seemed friendly and non-confrontational. Most of the younger men seem to wear singlets whilst the girls wear - well, not a lot!
There was not a Kalashnikov in sight. No undercover agents following us. No agenda to make our trip difficult! We did have our first encounter with the police, but that was only to ask where we were going and to take a look at the bikes.
As we were catching up on time, almost 1000km in 3 days saw us through to Russia the Russian border. Getting out of the Ukraine was a breeze, with some paperwork checks, a half-hearted search of the bikes and some questions on whether we had any weapons or narcotics. We then we rode across 'no mans land' to the Russian border some 2-3 km later.