Bladders Of Steel On The Kyiv – Warsaw Bus

This week I’m “liveblogging” my trip to Ukraine. Unlike traditional reports, these posts will be shorter and more frequent.

I must say I’m impressed by the Ukrainian people and their bladders of steel. Here, I’m not even being facetious. We went five hours on the bus before we stopped for a bathroom break.

The Dearth Of Bathroom Breaks On My Kyiv – Warsaw Bus

I’m not a frequent bus traveler and when I did regularly use the bus (in law school), my journey from Philadelphia to Washington, DC would always be on Megabus, which did feature a restroom onboard.

So I guess I came unprepared. Guilty as charged. At the hotel, I had two coffees, two glasses of orange juice, and two berry smoothies. At Bruce and Aimee’s I had a large glass of water.

And so even though I did use the restroom before stepping on the bus, it wasn’t long before I had to go again. But unless I wanted to find a bottle somewhere, I was going to have to be patient.

About three hours into our journey we did pull into a rest stop, but there were over 100 women waiting in line to use the toilets (and the line stretched outdoors in the bitter rain), so the driver did not even stop and we kept going.

Finally, two hours later, so five hours into the journey, we stopped in a city called Rivne. There, the driver came up and said something in Ukrainian. Then he handed each of us a business card, presumably with a telephone number to call in case the bus left us behind?

Passengers scooted off. So did I.

The facilities were rancid, but I was so thankful for them.

Someone brought a hot ham and cheese sandwich onboard and a pleasant aroma filled the bus. I came prepared with nuts, beef jerky, and fruit and unlike my train ride into Kyiv during which I fasted, this time I was hungry and began eating my “picnic” dinner.

But I didn’t open my bottle of water. Who knows when the next stop will be…