13th

From Ukraine to Poland at Ustyluh was 13th border crossing this trip, and about 40th land border crossing this year. It was the first one that was unpleasant, that took more than an hour, and that involved irritated and shouting border officials. The whole problem was on the Polish side; Ukrainians were nice and helpful and finished with their stuff long before the Polish gate opened to accept the next car.

The queue seems to be a normal thing there, and experienced fellow travellers told me to jump the queue, because bikers always do. I didn't believe at first, but when people before me in the queue started telling me to go, and one of them actually moved his car to make room, I decided to give it a try. Indeed, nobody objected, and even the Ukrainian officials went out of their way to help me through. One even walked with me to show where to circle one of the border buildings. As a result, I only waited 2 hours; for the drivers, it took probably the whole day.

What the Polish did: checked the passports twice, then took the passports into their building and did something with them behind their mirror windows for ten minutes per car. Ten minutes, without exaggeration, also for Polish people getting into their home country. (And there were hundreds of cars waiting.) Then customs searched the cars, and my bike. Twice again. And then there was the last signless window where the lady took my passport 5th time and said something in Polish. I apologised for not understanding and asked her to use English or Russian. She repeated her Polish a couple of more times with an irritated face and then called a younger colleague, who translated: do you have fuel with you? Wtf? How common can electric bikes be at this border crossing? Worse - why ask at all, if my "yes" answer still allowed me to pass?

I wonder what is it with land borders. Why do governments get away there with wasting thousands of person-days each day on this crossing alone, out of sheer stupidity? The only other option is hostility, because at airports they prove that the same procedure can be done about a hundred times faster. If it needs to be done at all, see Schengen.

Planned to ride straight to Lithuania to avoid the Polish government collecting taxes on my hotel night, but got too tired and frozen, and allowed safety concerns override the irritation. So stopped at a random place, which happened to be Suchowola, claiming to be "the centre of Europe", 760 km to home. At least I won't buy fuel in Poland, with special reference to that idiotic last question.