You get what you pay for, or how to take 10.5 hours to travel less than 200 miles
Okay folks, this is a quick update on our travels, because, well, we couldn't wait to share this story with you.
John and I decided (read: I decided) that we should take the bus to Helsinki instead of the train since we would save mucho bucks. And indeed, we did save mucho bucks. We got 2 bus tickets for 910 rubles or 36 dollars. Yeah.
So we get the bus at 9:30 pm, and of course it leaves about an hour late because they are trying to fill it up at the last minute with cigarette smugglers. You are allowed to take a certain number of cigarettes and booze across the border duty free and they were asking those who weren't taking their own to accept a share as well. I ended up agreeing for John and I, not really understanding what was going on, or the implications, as I assumed it was just for someone's personal use.
Anyway....we set off. Less than an hour later we make a pit stop at a Russian gas station, then we drove some more. Then we stopped in Vyborg, the last real town in Russia, to change money, then we stopped again to buy gas. Then not long after that we stopped again to buy cigarettes before the border. By this point in time it is after midight, and oh its still light out, as in its dusk, but we could still read without aid of a light. THEN we got to the Russian border, which involved several passport checks and the actual border itself. They briefly questioned John's lack of registration, but all was well and went smoothly. THEN we got to the Finnish border, where John and I realize that I had agreed to us carrying a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of whiskey through customs. Okay, fine. It is now 3am, and it never really got dark out and was starting to get light again.
Well, the Finnish border control turned out the be the highlight of the trip because the border police were suprised to see a 2 American tourists on a bus full of Russians smuggling stuff across the border. They ask if we are travelling together and Finn guard 1 asks John what our itinerary is. Finn guard 2 asks me if I enjoyed my trip to Russia. When I mention that I live there, he looks at my passport and says, 'Yes, I see you are very familiar with that country.' THen he says 'No Finnish stamps? You have never been here before?' I answer no and he asks why we are arriving at 3am. I say that we decided to take the bus instead of the train and John pipes up 'It was her idea'. Finn guard 1 says to him 'I believe that!'
Yes, the one humurous moment of the whole trip. After we clear the border the guide asks us not to do anything with the merchandise yet, since we're at a rest stop right by customs and we don't want them to send us back to Russia. HELL NO.
The bus was really not comfortable, there was hardly any leg room and sleeping was not an option until complete exhaustion took over. This hit me not long after the border. John, in his still jet-lagged state slept fitfully enough to see various Russians get off the bus in random Finnish towns at odd hours of the morning with cartons of cigarettes, presumably to sell at a profit. Hmmmm.
Lets just say we weren't on the express bus and by the time we got to the train station in Helsinki, our stop, we were about to lose it because we were just so tired and so stiff and so.....sick of the Russians. God bless the European Union. I mean really, what are those Frenchies thinking? Clearly they haven't spent a lot of time in Russia.
We found our bus to our hotel in Espoo, outside of Helsinki and are spending the day there, because we are beat, and it would cost us 4 Euros to get back into town today. But the hotel is right by the Baltic Sea, and its a sunny, cool day.
Moral of the story - Never EVER take the Russian bus. Always take the train. Never agree to smuggle cigarettes across the border, especially for no compensation.
