Ukraine, anyone?

So, you peer out the hotel window, there are very old and shabbily dressed women sitting beside the moon-cratered road below desperately trying to flog laces - shoe dye - squashed cigarettes and other tat. Did you board the wrong plane and land in hell, or do you just like taking very interesting holidays? As for me... I call it, HOME!

I've not stayed in a hotel in Ukraine since 2008, a year after first going. I've opted for renting flats for my stays, including the time when I didn't wanna leave, so took one for an entire year; one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life. Most recently, though, I've begun staying with friends in their homes each time I go, which is often.

What could possibly be the attraction?

There are many, but you have to be of a certain disposition for them to appeal. Glossy holiday brochures will not seduce you to the delights of Ukraine, because there aren't any holiday brochures. As we know, travel agents earn their fat commissions by us stampeding their shops demanding they take our money right after we've ogled the high-res photos of the established destinations that festoon their windows; we're pissing off to Benidorm for two weeks, again. We'll pay extortionate prices for dodgy food, get tanked-up every night and wail "God Save the Queen" at every foreigner we encounter, we'll get laid if we can find people desperate enough to have us and we will even get arrested to round things off (nearly 6,000 Brits were arrested abroad in 2010).

Tanked-up Brits abroad

Then we return to Blighty and tell anyone who'll listen how "wicked" it all was. "I'm deffo going again next year - you coming?" It's a multi-million pound arena in which Ukraine cannot possibly afford to be in. Colour brochures? Travel agency commissions? Discounted air fares and hotels? Ukraine doesn't even have the money to supply clean water to its population! But, maybe that's just as well, about the holiday brochures I mean; gangs of Brits bounding through some foreign town centre hollering "o le o le o le o le" might intimidate most that come face to face with it, but in Ukraine, it'll get them arrested at gunpoint before they hit the second verse! Euro 2012 footy fans, don't ever say I didn't warn you!

Ukraine is the largest country situated completely in Europe with a population of around 46 million (Russia sits both in Europe and Asia so I'm discounting it). Now, consider England: 4 times smaller than Ukraine and excessively over-populated at around 55 million (throw in another couple of million unaccounted for immigrants the Government can't be bothered to chase down!). In fact, Blighty (that's England, Scotland & Wales) is more than twice as densely populated as France and nine times as densely populated as the USA. Good reason, for me at least, to get off this crazy island every couple of months and just go some place where I can breathe; Ukraine has such vast empty space, most of it owned by nobody.

Taken by me - summer 2011

I'm both in awe and in admiration of how Ukrainians get through their daily lives with so little. The average salary is about £90 - a month! That's for those that have a job; millions and millions don't. Many, perhaps most, live three generations in a single flat of two bedrooms (they'll still find a place for you to sleep when you visit). I've only ever been in one home that had a bed. The pull-out sofa rules supreme in Ukraine.

Family, homemaking, socializing, traditions, education (Ukrainians are widely known to be some of the most intelligent people in the world - every home is filled with books of all types - most can tell you more about British history in an hour than has been taught in any British school or college over the past 20 years, that's if any British history has been taught in a British school or college in the past 20 years - and many Ukrainians speak more than two languages fluently) it's all so important over there, not superficially so, as it seems to be here, but REAL important. For me it's an allure. It all touches me somehow. It makes me want to live a simpler life. Get back to the basics, the essentials, and do away with excess. This is why saturation advertising of shiny, new products I simply don't need doesn't work on me anymore. It's also part of the reason why I sold the Porsche and personal reg plate in 2011, the Super bike in February 2012 and gave the Ray-Bans away to a friend.

Six years of ownership - sold in a day

165 mph and can out accelerate a Ferrari - I sold it just as fast

And, I suppose I had better just mention the women. I opened a spam email back in 2007. As always, whatever garbage they're peddling, I, and you, don't need. And even if we did, we'd never be dumb enough to buy it from a spammer, as dumb as I can be sometimes, I'm not that dumb. But this spam wasn't concerned with improving the size of my inadequate genitals (how can they tell?) nor was it concerned that I may have been mis-sold some PPI at sometime in my existence. THIS spam adorned the photos of a dozen or so stunningly beautiful young women with a headline just as provocative... "LOOK! These Ukrainian beauties want to fall in love with you - yes, YOU". Nothing I hadn't seen before, but this was spring, butterflies were flapping at my window and the hares near my home were hopping about like mad because for them, it was the month of lurve; the time for 'getting some'. I was single, and getting none.

A quick search on the net and I understood that not only did I not require a Visa for up to 3 months stay but that I didn't need to fly to get there either (flying turns me into a gibbering idiot). About six weeks after first opening that spam I and my suitcase were in a bloke's car whom I'd never met before and had only exchanged a few messages with on a forum, destination... Ukraine.

Typical Ukrainian girls strolling in Odessa

It is true that the last English girl I dated was back in January 2007. It is equally true to say that she will be the last Western woman I ever date. I've never been married, have no children and neither are on my to-do list anytime soon, but I have been lucky in Ukraine as far as dating goes. The caliber of girls I have dated (love has so far kept its distance) blows my mind. I am literally invisible to women here who've a quarter of the assets of the women who will happily give me the time of day over there, especially now, since I sold off my toys and retired myself from Broadcasting! It's just me now, and for English women that's just not enough. I suppose I could learn how to speak street..."cuz den da laydeez mite c me az da real man an den i get me sum babee muvas, ya get me?". I could even bounce around with my trousers hanging round my ankles showing off my polka dot boxers, but stuff all that. And stuff them.

Baybee muva

Ukraine's awash with millions, and millions and millions of fine women. And it's not just their outer beauty and femininity that's so appealing, but their traditional values, too. If a Ukrainian girl isn't married by the time she's 25 she is considered a babushka (old woman) and her family begin to get really worried, and so does she. Ask just about any Ukrainian girl from the age of 13 years upwards what her dreams are and she'll almost certainly tell you they are to marry a wonderful man, start a family, have a modest home of her own and enough money so no one is ever hungry. And maybe have a car so the family can go on trips sometimes. UA women care nothing for laying on a sofa screaming at children who are supposed to be at school whilst stuffing their faces, burping, farting and watching bollocks on TV all day. Their minds are on that dirty British word...WORK. They'll work 10 hour days at jobs (if they can find one) and non-stop around the home no matter what. If they're without a man, they'll spend copious amounts of time with their families, and with their girlfriends, in cafes, nattering, and strolling arm-in-arm around the park til the sun goes down. They think traditionally, eat natural and dress feminine. Unlike in the West, Ukrainian politics has so far refrained from poking its nose into nature's business and completely turning everything on its head, where females have become 65% male, and men, well they don't know what the hell they're supposed to be anymore.

Here in Britain, there is quite a crude saying among white women that prefer non white men..."Once you go black, you never go back". Well I've come up with one of my own..."Once you go Ukraine, Western women are lame".

So, how do you like THOSE apples?!

Welcome to Ukraine!

A coach from London to Kiev takes around 50 hours, stopping roughly every 4 hours. Once off the ferry at Calais the coach will pass through France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Poland (2 hr restaurant stop at German/Polish border). The coach is air conditioned, has tea & coffee as well as a toilet. Films are shown but these will be overdubbed with Ukrainian or Russian. It's a Ukrainian coach that doesn't run every week, so if you fancy a trip to a country that's not your typical holiday destination then contact me and I'll speak with the company's head office in Lviv and get you a ticket, just let me know of the dates you want to go. Your ticket will cost under 200 quid, return (a BA flight from London to Kiev runs into the hundreds, one way!).

I'm back and forth to UA every couple of months and have used the same coach company since 2008 to get me there. They know me, I know them. I'm happy to help them get a few more arses on their seats. I don't know what I'd do if the company went bust due to lack of paying passengers; oh Lordy, I am not going to think about THAT! So, see you over there, maybe.