How not to travel from Lviv to Ljubljana

Having spent a nice, if cold, few days in Lviv it was time to go, and leave Ukraine behind. Next on my list of places to go was Ljubljana, which isn’t the easiest of places to get to from Lviv. It’s almost as if it’s not a regular commute.

I decided to show you how I did it so you don’t - just fly instead. Trust me.

Thursday, 22nd February 2018

4:00 Get woken up by some alarm somewhere. Remember you have to be up in an hour. Don’t fall asleep.
5:00 Stop alarm the microsecond it goes off, because you’re already awake. Lie in bed knowing it’s going to be a long day.
5:20 Get up. Get dressed, collect bags packed last night.
5:30 No-one at reception - remember last night receptionist said to wake her. Feel weird doing so.
5:40 Receptionist lets you out. Start walking to bus station.
6:00 Starts snowing. Route is an uphill route. How silly of you to have forgotten.
6:20 Cold and tired, arrive at bus station. No sign of bus, where to wait or any other information. Fair enough.
6:40 Spot bus in the distance. Walk towards it as fast as the ice allows.
6:45 You made it on board the first bus to Krakow! Congratulations.
6:48 Consider eating beef jerky as reward; decide to save it until after the border with Poland.
8:04 Arrive at border control. Wait in queue.
9:00 Still waiting.
9:05 Passports collected, some movement!
9:40 More waiting.
10:45 Make it to the Polish part of the border. Notice sign saying no animal products to be taken into the EU; say tearful farewell to beef jerky.
10:50 Feel like slob as customs person checks your bag and all it contains is laundry.
11:00 Finally make it through!
10:01 Remember Poland is an hour behind Ukraine time.
10:20 Fall into a sleep so deep you’re surprised when you wake up.
11:00 Wish you still had that beef jerky. Have some biscuits instead, but it’s not the same.
12:40 Make it to Krakow at the time posted. Bitterly, bitterly remember asking at the hostel if the bus times included border crossings and being told they don’t - they obviously do. Next bus is at 23:59 - what to do?
12:45 Remember you left all your leftover Polish money in the UK over Christmas.
12:48 Head to nearby shopping centre for food and to kill some time.
13:30 Decide screw it, and have a McDonalds.
14:00 Start with a massive headache. You don’t have any painkillers. Try to kill it with coffee instead.
16:00 Coffee has not worked. Give in, and try to find a pharmacy.
16:10 Success! You found a pharmacy, and the pharmacist even understood your whimpered pleas for aspirin.
16:20 Realise that you were given soluble aspirin. Go to get some water, but they give you a Sprite instead. You don’t have the energy to correct them, so dissolve aspirin in Sprite. Lots of bubbles. Sit very still.
17:10 The Sprite/aspirin approach seems to be working! You can move again.
17:20 Go to a coffee shop to see how long you can make a hot chocolate last.
17:22 Meet nice American lady in queue. Still too headachey/tired to make decent conversation. Feel bad about that.
21:05 That must be some kind of record for drinking a hot chocolate.
21:10 Head to bus station for next bus.
23:20 Realise you need to use the bathroom quite badly - try to scrape together enough money to pay the lady so you can use the bathroom in the station, or wait until the bus where you can use it for free?
23:23 Grudingly decide to pay.
23:50 Board bus to Budapest. You’ve made it through the first day!

Friday, 23rd February 2018

00:10 Spanish guys behind you do not stop talking when you really want to go to sleep. Contemplate murder.
00:11 Fall into fitful sleep instead of commit crimes.
07:00 Arrive into Budapest! Congratulations, just one more bus journey to go.
07:01 Look for coffee place. This is a cruical step.
07:02 Find coffee place. Also remember that you’d carefully made sure you’d used up all your Hungarian money last time. Swear softly to yourself. Contemplate life without coffee.
07:04 Go look for an ATM.
07:15 Find ATM conveniently located hidden behind some stairs in a basement level. Swear again when you find out the ATM doesn’t supply the smallest notes available.
07:20 Get coffee. Don’t even remember asking for it; assume instead the barista saw you and assumed you needed coffee.
07:30 Feel more human. Catch sight of self in mirror; look like zombie.
08:00 Treat self to Twix. Feel conflicted; use up all Hungarian money or try to keep some in case you somehow end up back here?
08:10 Read until time to find the bus.
09:00 Reflect on how it’s become reasonably normal to be sat in a bus station in Budapest next to an asleep homeless guy at 9 in the morning. Avoid questions about whether you’re becoming that guy who sleeps in bus stations.
10:00 The last bus is here! Board, get best seat and get laptop set up to do some writing.
10:33 Try to suppress groans as the French guy opposite has a loud phone call in which he admits to being drunk and high. Hope he’s not staying at the same hostel.
10:50 Smirk to self as the girl he’s talking to obviously doesn’t want him to visit her, then feel a bit sorry for her.
12:00 Stop for lunch. Hide laptop from French guy, get out and stretch legs. Buy KitKat as a present for making it so far. French guy buys more beer.
12:20 Board bus again, work on site.
13:00 All falls quiet on the bus. Everyone is asleep.
13:10 Put laptop away, fall asleep yourself.
15:10 Final stop before Ljubljana - French guy staggers off the bus!
16:45 You roll in to Ljubljana. Finally. Never, ever, attempt a journey like that again without breaking it up.

And there we have it, about 36 hours to travel (as the crow flies) just shy of 1,000 kilometres. If I’d not listened to the receptionist in Lviv and just got a later bus to Krakow this would have saved me an early morning and about 12 hours waiting aimlessly. Still, hindisght is always perfect and at least this way I wasn’t worried about the border crossing taking too long.

But trust me, if you find yourself in Lviv and need to get to Ljubljana, take a flight or break the journey up by staying the night in Krakow or Budapest. Written on February 23rd , 2018 by David Seddon