Basket case

So here was the thinking: we need something up top to put spare tyres, jerry cans and bags of the random crap currently clogging up the inside of our car. We're overflowing, and it's only going to get worse. The roof rack isn't cutting it, the sleeping bags and a small grip wrapped up burrito style in a tarp barely fit inside it. We figure we need a basket. Not a roof box, as it screams "break into me", but a basket of some kind. So the plan was made - head for the beautiful town of Lviv in western Ukraine and give ourselves 36 hours to get it sorted.

We got in late, found our hostel and slept like logs. Woke up late, then the team went off to explore while I set about getting Ka-put set up with a roof basket. Possibly the nicest and most helpful hostel manager in the world (BIG shout out to Denis - you rock!) sent me off to a camping store that might be able to help. After getting slightly lost came across a shop that seemed like it belonged in Covent Garden with Ellis Brigham and North Face, not the middle of nowhere Ukraine. Prices to match too - the best they could offer was €350 and wouldn't be available till Tuesday, not looking good. But Roman, my ever so smiley and friendly Ukrainian shop assistant, was determined to get me sorted, so hopped in the car and took me to a discount car parts market on the other side of town. Completely went above and beyond (a common theme in this tale), the guy was an absolute legend.


I was feeling good, things looked positive, I was walking into a massive complex of maybe 100 autopart shops with a translator possessing boundless optimism and a mission to make sure I didn't get ripped off.
Alas though, despite my friend's best efforts, and many fat mustachioed men laughing at our intended destination, we left bearing no fruit strapped to the roof rack. Roman did everything he could, but we took off pretty dejected, him more so than me I think. No one had anything that would fit a car as small as our little three seater Ka-put. Home empty handed.


Not to worry. Our man Denis has been on the case in the meantime. We're told to be at some random address at 14:50, where a big mechanic lady will meet us.


Matt and I jumped in the truck (I know, I know, but at least let me dream) and headed out. What with having no idea how to read Cyrillic, directions are getting increasingly harder but we did make it there pretty close to on time. We're confused, pulling up outside a random bank building, and are thinking that that might be her, but she's not what we're expecting. The lady standing in the middle of the car park doesn't look very big, or very mechanicy. Ilona is tall, slim, blonde and actually dresses well (Ukrainian women seem to have a different style to what we're used to and don't appear to follow the cat-walks of Paris and Madrid), and confuses us even more when we got no word of hello, just 'follow me'. Which we tried to do, but not very well, mainly due to her being much better at driving head first into oncoming cars and cutting across three lanes of traffic before the lights go green than we were.


She got much friendlier once we got out of the car at the mechanics though, and it was then that her reason for being here became apparent. Ilona didn't really speak English, nor did she know anything about cars. What she did know was how to sweet talk men into doing what she wanted, especially so a crowd of mechanics. Within 5 minutes she had a bunch of about 15 of them all coming up with ideas of how to help us. She couldn't translate, but she had Denis on the phone the whole time doing it for us. Absolute legends.


Long story short, Ilona strutted her stuff, we drew lots of terrible pictures of cars with roof mountings, we get introduced to Costa, the most excited mechanic I'll ever meet, he drives us to the scrap yard to pick up some metal for 20 quid, we leave him to do an all nighter on making us a basket and we're offered a lift home. Your car will be ready tomorrow before 6. All of this, and all we've done is spend €11 on a hostel bed. Notable moments include the mechanic boss coming out to see what was going on, cigarette hanging out of his mouth and only saying "ka-put?", and Costa deciding he is Xzibit but not understanding me when I ask him if he can install a fish tank in the dash.

Matt and I choose to swagger home on foot full of manly pride in getting the job done, and resolute in the belief that Ukrainian people are amazing. Tomorrow we will sleep in, eat well, look around the city then come back and collect our new pimped out babe-magnet. Things are going to plan.