What goes around comes around... Dublin to New york

Lviv to Kiev

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I forgot to mention that I passed into a new time zone when I got to the Ukraine, I’m officially 2 hours ahead of home now, it really gives you a tremendous feeling of progress when you pass through them. It gets dark 2 hours earlier here than it does at home and I've rode the whole way on the bike made me feel pretty good, and a long way way from home.

Quick information down load on the Ukraine, things you may not know

Chernobyl is located a very short distance to the North of Kiev, in the Ukraine. Had the winds been blowing differently on the day of the nuclear incident in 1980, it would have taken out the whole city.

The politics of the country is dominated by “Those who hate Russia” and “Those who really really hate Russia”, just the other day there was a riot in the Ukrainian parliament over the government here allowing the Russian navy access to one of its ports

The Mongols, Genghis Khan’s grandson Batu to be exact actually conquered the city in the 1200’s, I love the fact that I’ll be going to Mongolia too on the trip, but think how close we are to Europe here.

The Ukrainians consider themselves European.

The Ukraine used to belong to Poland, something that when you read the guide books they don’t like to acknowledge, even though it was for over 300 years, up to the 1600’s.
Over 8 million Ukrainians died in a famine in the 1920’s which they believe was engineered by a brutal Russian communist regime

Another 8 million Ukrainians were killed by German and Russian troops during world war one.
Well with all that behind them, I guess they are entitled to be a bit mistrustful.

Such was the extent of the brain washing that we received growing up from the mass media that in my mind anyway it was a place where the sun seldom shone, the people were oppressed and afraid and the buildings and structures to be found in the countries were dull and lifeless. The only other thing that I gleaned from growing up was that female Russian agents were always hot and lured you one way or another with sex offered with a Naked body hidden under a mink coat. (Just me?, c’mon guys admit it!), those James bond films always had a grain of truth in them.

As I left Lviv it was a dull and cloudy and as I hit the outskirts of the town I couldn’t help but think how much of the stereotype seemed to be true, albeit after only two days(obviously minus the mink coats!. I made my way out onto the loop road for the city which joins up with the main road to Kiev and was stopped by the police. They brought me over to camera which showed me doing 74kmph in a 60kmph zone. I was barely moving as far as I was concerned and certainly didn’t see any sign, and was by no means the fastest thing on the road. Anyway the picture they had of me was great quality; if I’d spoke any Ukrainian I would have asked them could I have it for the oul blog!

So they brought me over behind the car and showed me a book which I didn’t understand which had the fines and that I would have to go to the police station to pay it. I asked them could I pay the fine there and then.

I knew the drill and before I left the hotel that morning I had left about 15Euro in various notes and currency’s so that when I was stopped I would be able to empty my wallet out and hopefully fool them into thinking I’d no more money.

They looked very disappointed that this was all I had in the wallet but were happy enough and let me go. Second day in the Ukraine… second bribe! The other way of looking at it is of course that I was speeding and I had an on the spot fine imposed on me, of course this argument is only sound if the money they took off me goes to the state and not into the coppers arse pocket.

The journey to Kiev was about 567km, and it took all day to do it. A lot of the road is marked as dual carriageway on the map but its seldom enough both sides are open and on at least 5 occasions the road was completely closed for road works, so the going was very slow.

Along the road there are hundreds of petrol stations, and petrol prices are roughly half what they are in Ireland. They also have lots of very good garages one in a particular is a chain called “a la minute” which do food etc and the grub in them is fantastic. Up until today I thought the yanks had the whole Apple pie gold medal sown up, well move over lads, the Ukrainian apple pie is a hum dinger. The pastry is really thin, and there’s huge big pyramid shaped pieces of apple all served with a scoop of ice cream and some Raspberry sauce…. Mmmmmm……now that’s good eating!, certainly got me off my “the Ukraine is crap” buzz.

In over 350 miles I barely saw a single thing worth taking a picture of, it was pretty boring stuff, just lots of flat ground, beat up towns and poor farmers working the land.

I got to Kiev in the early evening and made my way to the old town, which is the touristy area (except they don’t really get much tourists here). I found it really hard to find a place to stay. The old town is cobbled just like Lviv and with the Tram lines is a major hazard for motorcyclists. After about 90mins I did the whole call a taxi thing and asked him to take me to a hotel where the staff were about as helpful as Gonorrhea.

I keep telling myself, dude, you’re in a different country, you need to more tolerant and adapt to how these folks live.

Tomorrow I’ll go out and about in Kiev and see what it has to offer…..

Over and out,
the big fella
 
Kiev

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I left the hotel early and went walk about armed with a map and a bottle of water. In keeping with the countryside, the city is full of beautiful churches. One is more beautiful than the next, and yes the women were the same, although instead of just being hot blonds, it was hot every color hair. And no I didn’t take any pictures, too pervy, you might see one or two walking through the pictures above!

I made may way from tourist site to tourist site. The average Kiev type seems to be pretty devout, most blessed themselves as they passed a church, and where one church faces another they bless themselves twice, doing a quick shuffle as they turn around to face the other church.

I learned some new stuff walking around as well. If you want to look like a Ukrainian dude, get yourself a leather jacket which goes down to your pants pockets, make sure its flat fitting. Then get yourself a fairly snug set of black jeans, black shoes, 20 cigarettes and be sure to always have one smoke in your hand. Finally brush your hair straight and your all set….. you too can be from Kiev. I’m pretty certain I’m the only person in the city of Kiev with curly hair.

The other thing is that people are very suspicious; if you try and get directions from anyone they walk right by you and just shake their head. Nobody makes eye contact and it’s all very “head down and arse up” as people are walking around.

The women are a bit too done up, how is that possible I hear you ask? Well if you going to wear a 6 inch heel, its probably not a good idea to be walking on a cobble street.

I made my way to freedom square which is where the Orange revolution happened, which was watched worldwide, you remember, it was when the KGB tried to poison the president and his face aged 20 years over night. I had my next big scam played on me while I was there.

You do get a lot of looks in the city, ie, its pretty clear you don’t belong there, you stand out, or at least I do. Well these two dudes were looking at me, and at the same time pretending not to. I said to myself “Ok this is a bit dodgy” so I went to cross the road to one of the statues where there were a lot of police standing. To do this in Freedom square you have to go underground. As I went down the stairs I rubber necked back to see them following me. “Fucccccccccckkkkkkkk!!!!!!”

I pulled over to the left of the tunnel which leads to the stairs on the otherside and pretended to look in a shop window as they over took me. They passed and I started walking again and as I walked up the stairs behind them one of them paused for a second, and then accidentally on purpose dropped a plastic money holder full of US Dollars, I walked sharply to the left of him and his friend and as I passed the guy on the left I shouted at them “You dropped your money” and kept walking. One of them continued to follow on the charade of thanking me for telling him to wish I pushed away his hand and told him to “Get the fuck away from me” and did a Benny hill impression walking as fast as I could over to the Police. When I got to them, I turned around and the guys were gone. “Fuuuuccccckkkkk, what did they want!”

I’m pretty certain I wasn’t in physical danger, they were using some scam or another , maybe if I picked it up they’d say I robbed some of it or something like that. I looked around for them and then for the next twenty minutes walked like I was Jason Bourne in the Bourne Ultimatum, down roads checking windows to see if they were following me.

As I was burning down the road two separate SUV’s mounted the footpath right towards me, I said to myself “Oh fuck, this is them” but it wasn’t, it was either the secret police or some other rich boys flouting the law. You can see in the picture above, in this town there is one law for some, and one law for the others.

After about 30mins with no sign I relaxed and went into the “Belfast Irish Pub”, and had something to drink.

I’ve been thinking all afternoon of what the scam was. If you picked it up would they accuse you of picking their pockets? Then call the police? And say ok lets settle this for a hundred bucks. I’ve no idea but it’s enough to say to me that I won’t be back to Kiev in a hurry.

This is the end of my third day in the Ukraine, tomorrow I head for the town of Kharkiv, just south of the Russian border. From there I’ll travel to Oriel in Russia, and then on up to Moscow where I’ll hang out with Bill Finn from Ireland, and hopefully get the bike serviced and get my tires sorted out for Mongolia and Siberia.

All the best
The big fella
 
I suppose we tourists must look like money on the hoof to these dodgy types, keep safe :thumb2

Stewart
 
Kiev-Kharkiv-Orel I'm in Russia baby!!!

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Sorry for the delay in updating... had a couple of very strange days! :-)

I left Kiev very early, certain I was going to spend hours lost in the traffic. As it happened I found my way out really easily and made my way through some very boring countryside on the way to Kharkiv, just south of the Russian border.

Kharkiv was really just a base for me to get set up to cross the border with Russia. I met 2 chaps from Kiev and Germany in the car park who were dead cool, The guy from Kiev when I made mention of all the fine looking women in the Ukraine said that its "compensation" for all the other crap.

I headed off in the direction of the border with Russia nervous as a cat in a dog pound. The place was mayhem and I'd to drop another bribe with the Ukrainian customs to get through which after Q'ing for over two hours just to get out of the country gave me a royal pain in the ring.

So summing up on the Ukraine
The Good
Incredible churches, Fine women, Cheap (half as expensive as Europe for most stuff)

The bad
Corrupt out the fucking door, there 4 days, 1 scam and 3 bribes....too hard lads.

Summary
Give it a miss.

As I passed the Ten Euro over and the gaurds walked away saying bye, I just said in my best Arnold accent "I wont be back"

From there it was over to Russia, man I was shitting myself. As it turned out, bar the fact that the computer system crashed it was reasonably straightforward, taking about 4 hours all told. I'm not sure if getting there earlier would have made any differance.

From there I made my way north to the town of Orel, about 200 miles from the border. I kept saying to myself....."Dude...you're in Russia!..."

I got stopped by the Police not long after getting across and they gave me the Rubber glove treatment but eventually let me go. There was nothing bad natured about it they just had a lot of questions that I couldn't answer, actually didn't have a clue what they were asking. If you could have seen the scene with me and two Russian police officers holding Kalashnikov's leafing through the lonely planet russian phrase book in search of words you would have roared laughing!!

(note no pictures, these guys at the border etc don't mess around with the whole "no camera" gig)

Anyway I made my way to Orel and was looking around for a place to stay after missing my connection with a friend of Bill Finn's (Irina), turns out that when you cross north into Russia you go forward an hour so I was way late. I stopped by these bikers and asked was there any hotels and Max, as cool a guy as you could hope to meet brought me to one and even helped me unpack the bike and bring my stuff up to the room.

Later on we met for what I thought was going to be a couple of pints, as it turned out it was a good round of knacker drinking as I was introduced to a great bunch of lads from the town. We'd a great night!

The next morning dying with a hangover the lads came back and helped me get packed me up and escorted me out of town past the police checkpoings.

Orel is a great spot....I'd go back in the morning and the guys made me feel really welcome.

From here I made my way North to Moscow....

Take care...and a big thanks to the folks in Orel for all there help....

The big fella
 
Oisin

Glad you stopped following the Long Way Round Route...

Mind you - you did do "the long way to Orel" !!

Was wondering whether you'd forgotten you were supposed to be going to Moscow... Looked for a while like you were focused on following them from Kharkiv to Krasnyy Luch and then Volgograd on your pilgrimage !!

Hope the "entertainment" in Moscow is as promised...

Simon
 
Moscow Part 1

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I'm staying Moscow with Bill and Oksana Finn and their family and today we headed off into Moscow to see the sights. Pretty much straight away we headed for Red Square to see the Kremlin.
(Big thanks to Oksana for taking care of my laundry bag, definetely fits in WMD category at this stage)


For me, having grown up in Ireland, the only time I've ever seen it is when they would have mass processions of military prowess in vast convoys passing by dignataries, all done in a sea of Red flags.

Today its a lot more touristy (not that touristy) and like every town I've encountered so far the place is bedecked with Blue and Red to mark the 65th anniversary (May 9th) of defeating Germany in WW2. Its a major part of psyche here, and I'd say there'll be some hoolie on May 9th.

The first thing I felt after walking out onto Red square was a tremendous sense of achievment.... Dublin to Moscow Bosco!....well done big fella. The place was packed with people mostly Russians, but I did hear the odd american accent around the place.

From there we travelled to some other places around Moscow (can't spell them) all done via the underground Metro system which is as modern, clean and efficient as anything I've ever seen. Some of Metro stations are works of art and the Metro runs every 5 minutes during the week to service the 15 million population of the city. (7 million Metro users ever day apparently)

As we were going up one of the longest escalators you can possible imagine there was a comotion to our left and as the escalator arrived at its destination there was a man lying dead on the ground with blood all over the floor. (Blurred out pictures) Three or four police officers were bundling him onto some plastic and were taking the body away. Up until that point it had been identical to a day out in London, or Paris....all of sudden like getting kicked in the nuts by a horse you were reminded.... You need to be more careful. Bill told me in his time there he'd seen several, similarly a couple of the expats who live near Bill had similar stories.

As if to turn the moment completely on its head, when we turned the corner there were two guys playing some Bach on a violin and a chello. We didn't say much for a long time after.

Russia has been amazing so far....hopefully this is just was just a blip.

More later
Oisin.
 
Wow the dead guy incident is an eye opener. I mean there you are, having a lovely tourist afternoon with your friends when some bloke gets stabbed/shot/bludgeoned minutes before you get there.
You say 'be more careful' but you can't really anticipate or avoid it, these things just happen and is part of the whole adventure thing.
Just keep the hammer ready:)
 
Moscow part 2

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We continued on to the WW2 equipment exhibition and into the main park. The whole area, as it has been since I arrived in Russia is covered with 65th anniversary flags; that how long it’s been since they won the war against Germany.

Having seen enough of Moscow we went back to Bills place and went for grub with the kids and had a nice evening sipping beer and talking crap.

I spent the next day organizing my gear for setting off the following day. I worked on the route and also arranged with Oksana about where we were going to ship the tires to. Barnaul and Ulan Ude were the two logical points, some really big logistic items to overcome before that happens but all going well I’ll change my rubber in Barnaul, and with a bit of luck get the bike serviced too.

It was time to get rid of all the emotional crutches that I’d built into the trip. From the start Dave was coming with me as far as Wales, I’d meet Barry and Phil in Bruges and when I got to Russia I’d stay with Bill and Oksana in Moscow. This was the day when no matter how far I looked ahead I couldn’t tell the next time I’d meet someone I’d met before, maybe it won’t be till I get back to Ireland in August.

With that in mind I said good luck to Bill, Oksana and the kids and thanked them for all their help.

Only a couple of moments later I was rocketing towards the “three o clock” position on the MCAD Moscow loop road. In case you haven’t heard about it, it’s a ten lane superhighway which completely circles Moscow and people refer to their location in Moscow based on what time they are at on the circle, eg: Bill lives at 11 o clock, I was heading east so therefore was burning for the three position. I pulled off and without too much hassle I made my way to the M7 which I’d be staying on to the town of UFA some 1450km away.

Take care...sorry about the delay in updating....really hard to get internet in Russia...
Over and out
Oisin
 
Moscow to Mongolia Day 1 (Kazan)

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Some did you knows on Russia:

1) It covers 1/9th of all the land in the world (ooooooohhhhhh if you don't mind!)
2) The population is about 142 million and it all lives in a very narrow sliver in the southern part of the country, much like Canada; any further north is virtually uninhabitable
3) It has the worlds largest amount of forests, 25% of all the fresh water in the world
4) There are 83 nationalities in Russia, so really no such thing as a typical "Russian"

Ok..you get the point!...its huge!!!

I had intended to stay in the town of lizney novgorad about 250 miles east of Moscow but I got there too early to pull in and I’d been off the road for 3 nights so I just kept going in the direction of Kazan.

All in all I rode about 430 miles. This part of the world has almost no natural beauty in the way of mountains or even an odd rock formation, its mainly just flat boring farm land. Now before anyone starts jumping up and down, i'm not saying that farmland isn't nice....its just that in over 400 miles an oul hill here and there would be nice.

All the population centers sit on the River Volga which meanders its way through the part of Russia.

The only thing of interest I passed was a long line of whores standing at the side of a road near a truck layby, based on the look of them; these were bargain basement high mileage models.
The further east you go, the amount of cars on the road dries up to almost zero, and everything you meet is a truck.

In a way I was glad, i wanted to get some "east" miles under my belt.... it was time to get the head down for a couple of days and clock up some time zones..

Along the way I stopped in several garages meeting lots of nice folks and pulled into a truck stop motel for the night about a hundred miles short of Kazann. Once there a guy who hadn’t a word of English had me phone this guy “Barry in England” who the trucker had met in Omsk (about 1200km further east of where I am). I phoned him, Barry answered and I said “Emmm, A guy just gave me the phone and told me to talk to you?”….”Its er…..em….Oleg from Omsk?” It wasn’t long before Barry hung up.

I went out to stretch my legs and got talking to truckers from Poland, Estonia, Russia and even one from Kazakhstan, he didn’t really get my Borat impersonation; “Very nice!”

I went through my route with the guys and they gave some great tips on which sections to avoid based on traffic and difficult towns to get through and all in all I was starting down the barrel of about a 7 day hard ride to the Mongolian border including taking time out to change tires in Barnaul.

I said good night to lads as they were ordering in whores for the night.


Take care....
May the force be with you (ps..backdating the blog at the moment as its the first time I've had internet.....made it to siberia...here is a teaser)

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Oisin... Good to natter tonight - hope the tyres turn up...

If you have a bit of time to kill in and around Barnaul check out Artybash... Walter recommends it - picturesque lake in the Altai - about 200 miles from you on the road to Gorno Altyask...

Emailed Wendy Choi's details to you this evening re freighting Sam Gamgee 2 from Seoul...

Let me know if you need anything more...

Susie sends a :kissy2
 
Moscow to Mongolia Day 2 (UFA)

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Some more stuff about Russia first:

Petrol prices run at about 2 dollars a gallon, or 50 cents a litre, about 1/3 the price of juice in the UK, and ~40% of what they are in Ireland; when you consider the size of Russia it’s just as well. That price is for 95 Octane by the way.

Russian people's monthly earnings increased to $303, thats the average!.... a really really good job pays about a 1000 a month, think thats bad? well in the Ukraine its only 163 dollars a month. (SRC: PRAVDA)

The average price to rent an apartment (1 bedroom) is about 1000 dollars in Moscow, but even in the crappy towns is as high as 500 dollars....as a result of the cost of renting married with very low incomes...whole families share one room in a lot of instances.

Russian women outnumber Russian men by a 2-to-1 ratio, it was a lot worse after world war 2.

Lots of hotels don't want tourists to stay with if they have the hassle of registering you when you arrive. They have to go to the immigration office and get some paperwork stamped and if you change your mind and stay and extra day they have to repeat the process.

Ok, back to the blog.....

I was on the road at 6:50am this morning after dropping into yet another time zone, by the end of the day I’d be in another; a full 5 hours ahead of the folks back home in Ireland.

It was a scorcher of a day, the whole day the sun shone and never stopped shining and with every mile I was calling myself a dillweed for getting the clothing so wrong, although I know it will be freezing at times in Siberia, who thought it would be 28degC in Central Russia in early May.
(I was eating my words 2 days later)

All told I knocked out 700+km and ended up in the town of UFA, or rather on the eastern side of it in a Motel which takes the word “shithole” to a place it’s never been before. The Motels whack up the prices for foreigners, and for this little corner in the pig sty I’m being gouged to the tune of about a hundred bucks.

The Cops are everywhere on the road and thankfully most of the folks who are coming towards you will flash you to let you know they are ahead. In most countries the Police normally need a probable cause to stop you, i.e. were you up to something; not in Russia they can and do stop you without any reason. (Come to think of it though they can do this in Ireland too)

The average Police patrol isn’t sitting there waiting to catch you when you do something wrong, they just stop you anyway; so to stay grief free you need a bit of luck. To stop you they stick out a batton and point it right at you till you slow down and pull into the side of the road.

They stopped me today and was about to be given a ticket when he asked where I was off to, when I explained with a map he let me go with a smile, so far fingers crossed I’ve had no major hassle with the cops.

The countryside was all flat farmland again today, not much to get all worked up about but at least it was a little bit hillier than yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll arrive at the Ural Mountains which will be a welcome break.

Along the way I passed many truck stops which cater to all the trucker needs. You can get everything from tires to whores in these places and on several occasions I saw lines of six or seven prostitutes all waving in trucks. There's something so weird about seeing hookers all geared up and ready to go at 10am in the morning.

As I continue east the amount of bikes on the road has tailed off to zero, didn’t even see a single bicycle not to mind a motorbike in over 700km today. Also the number of cars has tapered off to a trickle, it’s just me and the 40ft trucks out here. If the roads are the countries arteries then these trucks are Russia’s blood supply. Several of the folks I talked to last night do as much as twenty day round trips and that’s just within Russia.

I’ve also moved into an oil rich region of Russia, passing several midsized oil fields and a massive refinery. As with a town I passed in Slovakia they pump the oil up and over the roads forming metal pipe bridges in the process. I would not want to be the car that goes out of control and hits one of the pipes.

The last two days were really the doldrums of the drip, every trip has them I guess. In order to get to the really scenic places you have to drive to the not so scenic to get there, I’ve had almost 1500km without a hill, Bring on the Urals, which will be quickly followed by the Altay region in Russia, one of its most mountainous.

Internet is almost nonexistent now, the last place I was able to get plugged in was in Moscow, lord knows where the next place will be.

As I've gone that bit more remote in Russia the amount of poverty is on the rise. On the outskirts of each town large settlements of wooden houses have appeared, I feel bad moaning about not having internet when these folks don't have running water or electricity.

One thing that I always wondered about was Russian brides, you heard of em, all fine things etc. I'd often ask myself why they'd do it, marry a man they never met. Well the answer is starting to grow on me.... the man to woman ratio is a mile out, poverty, crammed living conditions in the city.... well if your that girl...and you've the opportunity to marry a nice guy with a few quid from the west who'll take you away from it all.....of course you'd go......your problems would go from "No toilet" to "I wish the spare bedroom had an en suite"

..and on such things does the mind linger as you pass through this flat, neverchanging, neverending landscape.

Over and out
Oisin
 
Oisin

Hope Oksanna gets Denis sorted... If not, let me know and I'll see if Tony / Walter can unblock things... Could back tracking 145 miles to Novosibirsk open more options ?

I've emailed everything you asked for to you - shipping agent details in Magadan still awaited - but Vlad to Korea details sent matey...

I look forward to tomorrow's challenges from you... Stay safe...

Simon
 
new bike....

Cooperman said:
How's the relationship with the new bike going?

Superb reading :thumb2
Click to expand...

bike is going great....have 10000km up on my tourance metz and they look like they could do another 10....hopefully the ews and final drive hold up!

but so far so good
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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