Here’s where the fun begins.
So we completed our one mile tour of Moldova and entered the Ukrainian border check point. To our surprise we see not one but three other rally cars waiting there. As there is a line about ten cars deep I go over and talk to the guy in the nearest rally vehicle. Their teams were from the UK and he sad that they had been there almost six and a half hours, as one of the three cars in their convoy had some vehicle registration papers that didn’t seem to match the numbers on the car. Oops! Each one of them had had their car’s contents inspected and had been fined for numerous offenses, including having money stowed in the vehicle ($15US fine). He was just waiting on the final paperwork to be finished before they could head off.
We waited in line for about an hour and saw the other ralliers leave the checkpoint (although minus the one car with the paperwork mix-up that had to be left there). When we got to the front it was a fairly simple process–hand over our passports and car registration and then wait for them to do the paperwork–just like the previous border. We got our passports back in no time, complete with Ukrainian entry stamp and everything. “Wow, looks like were getting by much easier than those British teams!” remarked Collin (thereby effectively jinxing us).
There was just one small problem–we were informed that our car couldn’t accompany us into the country.