Ukraine, Sunday, January 13, 2008:

Alim:

We visit an orphanage in Simferopol and I give my mam’s shoebox to 13-year-old Alim Deenison.

He seems genuinely pleased to see what is inside. His mother drinks and his father died when he was quite young.

Hopefully things will work out for him. It was good follow one box right right from the UK right through to delivery.

Church service:

We also visited an evangelical faith church for a Sunday service – well Operation Christmas Child is a Christian charity after all.

I shot a few pics of what was going on and there was a lot of Ukrainian flag waving from the youngsters.

I later ducked out and got more shots of the surrounding area before my head started spinning, in the style of The Exorcist as I am not a Christian, by being exposed to such religious enthusiasm.

Boarding school:

After lunch we visit a boarding school. There are lots of kids there and handing out boxes is chaos – but it was good fun.

After our evening meal we have a quick look around Simferopol. It has an impressive town hall and a statue of Lenin – who is a bit of a local hero.

Overnight train to Kyiv:

The journey gets off to a good start but there was some confusion as to when the train will leave because the announcements are in Ukrainian and our interpreters speak Russian.

Eventually we hear that the carriages are there but there is no engine.

There is a mad scramble along the platform to get to carriage 14. The compartments are cosy with four fold down bunks in each one.

At the first stop the train is boarded by police and the conversation – which is limited because we left our interpreters in Simferopol – gets quite heated.

Apparently someone from Portugal had been drinking vodka back in Simferopol and they assumed they would have been travelling with us because we booked an extra bunk – but that was so we could have four whole compartments to ourselves as a group.

Initially language was a barrier but eventually another guy from Belarus, who could speak English, helped out and it was all sorted out quite amicably. The officers even wish us a Happy New Year as they left.

The carriage is quite warm because all of the windows were closed but one of our party opened one or two to let in some cold air in – much to the annoyance of the guards.

Bizarrely the toilet facilities consist of a hole in the floor directly onto the tracks below.

I don’t think I am going to get much sleep on this leg of the trip.