Minsk - Day 2

I awoke and immediately expressed hope that I would spend as little more time here as possible. I went down to breakfast, which was actually quite good. A buffet with a variety of strange Russian food. After breakfast, I headed off to the bus station to buy a ticket. The timetable I found online indicated that the first bus left for Vilnius at 12:30, so I didn't bother bringing my luggage (it was only 7:30). I took the metro, which was so crowded I was touching people on all sides. When I got to the central bus station I despaired, as it had recently been gutted. Thankfully, with the help of a non-English speaking taxi driver, I figured out that the bus service to Vilnius had been transferred to another station that was very far away. Not being sure exactly where it was, I had the cabbie take me there. The online timetable was wrong as well, as the ticket I purchased was for 11:00. After leaving the bus station, even knowing where I was on the map, I still couldn't figure out how to get to the metro due to a complete lack of street signs. I ended up taking a cab back to the hotel. After checking out of the hotel, I got another cab back to the bus station. Unfortunately by this time I had run out of Belarussian play money, and so overpaid the driver in Euros. During the hour-long wait for the bus to leave I was very nervous about the possibility that something would happen and I wouldn't be able to leave this dreadful place. Thankfully, the bus did turn up.

While Vilnius is only 200 km away from Minsk, it took five hours to get there. This can be explained through the terrrible Belarussian highway system, a stop in a small town, and a two and half hour ordeal at the border. At the small town, more people got on the bus, including a babushka (grannie) and a middle-aged woman who sat across from me. I also saw some horse-drawn carriages - positively medieval! The grannie immediately tried to sell me cigarettes, and then began to hide more of them beneath in a small space next to the door. The other woman was also smuggling them through, carrying two huge bags of them. At the border we waited at least an hour for the Belarussian guard to take our passports and return them. At the Lithuanian border, we all had to get off the bus and bring in our luggage for inspection. The guard spoke good English and asked if I had brought any alcohol or cigarettes from Belarus. Interestingly, while the Lithuanians seemed rigorous in terms of making sure all the people had the correct documents to get through, they did not bother to search the bus, and the two ladies were able to smuggle their cigarettes across the border. Immediately after entering Lithuania, the highway felt smoother. Half an hour later we were in Vilnius. Thank god!