Trans-Eurasoa 2005 part 5
Trip Start
May 20, 2005
1
4
14
Trip End
Aug 05, 2005
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
I finally did get my bike at Bremerhaven on Friday (seems like a month
ago!) June 16th(?). But it was missing the license plate. Nobody seems
to know where the plate went. There were another 6 or 7 bikes came off
the same ship and not a license plate to be found. The shipper says
somebody must have stolen it! Never use MOL for shipping a bike
overseas. By a stroke of luck I do have a Chinese plate and
registration in my bag so I attach that and head off from the port. It
is threatening rain so to make sure it doesn't rain I put on my brand
new Nelson Riggs rain suit. I haven't been rained on since England!
I have a friend who works in Germany who is also from China, so I'll be
riding to Ahrensburg to see him. I planned to take the scenic route but
Friday is a half work day for alot of Germans so I need to get there
quick. I take the Autobahn through Bremen and Hamburg which wasn't as
bad as I thought. With a 36 year old bike loaded down with probably 100
kgs of packs including a sidecar I thought I would be too slow for the
hiways in Germany. Not so, I'm comfortably cruising at about 100 kph
and staying with the right lane traffic. By the time I get to
AShrensburg it is early afternoon so plan B is to ride to my friends
home which is near Grevesmuhlen in the former East Germany. This place
is really something. My friend lives in an old converted schoolhouse
with his wife and 2 boys. The town population is 72 and everybody knows
everybody in town. Ideal location to raise a family I think.
We ride down to the next town where there is a free music festival put
on by a radio station. The buildings, the landscape, and the people are
really very, very nice.
The next morning I'm off early for points east. I stop off at the
seaport town of Rostok and it is another picturebook setting. Amazing
how clean everything is. The driving is first rate, the roads are
smooth, and the scenery is outstanding. After lunch I continue east
towards Poland. I'm riding with the Baltic Sea to my left towards
Poland. I thought I could cross into Poland at the town of Swinoujscie
(SP) but it is not to be. Here the border guards turn me away as this
is a restricted zone. But this is on a peninsula so I have to backtrack
about 100-200 kms to the next southward border crossing. Lucky for me
as it turns out because along the way there is a sign for a Froh Market
which I take to mean a Flea market. But it is at the Zweirad Museum
which I know has somenthing to do with motorcycles so I make another
detour to see what that's all about. It turns out there is a show today
for old East Bloc vehicles. My bike was quite a hit as I rolled in
among all kinds of east Bloc motorcycles, cars, and trucks. In the
center was what looked like a 50's era Zil, quite a few Ural/Dneprs,
Trablants, Borzois, and even a beautiful Tatra.
Under a tent they are calling off numbers which I don't understand
anyway, so after an hour or so I continue towards Poland, finally
crossing the border at near Szczecin. This is the biggest city I've
been in all the time I've been in Europe. The streets are in poor
condition and the traffic signs are almost non-existant. I get out of
town as fast as I can and end up in a smaller town of Goleniow. The
further I get away from the big city the smoother the roads become.
Once in Goleniow, I stop to ask for directions to a hotel. There is
only one and they have a room available. Poland is in the EU so I
thought I could use my Euros. Not so. I have to find Zlotys but
everything is closed. The sun is still shining but it's after 10:00 PM.
Everything is closed except a bar. The bar has food but they don"t
accept credit cards nor Euros. But a customer in the Bar, Patrick,
grabs my arm and drags me across the street to his house. There he
cooks up a meal of chicken, dumplings, potatos, and carrots. Really
good. His son is playing games on his computer and his wife is asleep.
Really nice people. After I've had my fill I head off for my hotel and
Patrick insists to have me over for breakfast at 10:00 AM. I have to
leave before that though, so I hope he understood me. He has not one
word of English and me not one word of Polish. The bike does my talking
for me.
The next morning I'm off early for points eastward. I head back up
north towards the Baltic so I can follow it. I turn southward at Eiblag
and head towards Olsztyn which looks to have a nice road and a lot of
lakes. I met some Polish Bikers along the way who are very friendly. We
stop, shake hands, take pictures, and then ride off on separate ways.
In Germany, you see very few Harleys, but in Poland I'm seeing alot
more. The road from Olsztyn to Augustow was one of the best roads I've
been on in Europe. The roads are narrow, zig-zagging between lake after
lake. There is no traffic (I think it's Sunday but I'm not counting)
and the views are terrific. I stop for gas in Olsztyn and after filling
up my tank I push my bike out of the way to a corner so it won"t be in
anyones way. When I come out, there are 2 taxi drivers examining my
bike opretty closely. It turns out one of them backed into my bike! But
there is no damage thankfully so no harm done and I'm back on my way. I
see another car ram into the steel rail that protects the gas pumps, so
I make a mental note to watch out for the driving here. Still it's
about 1,000 times better than Beijing driving.
I vowed to myself before the trip to not ride at night no matter what.
I'm about to break that rule as there are no hotels among these lakes.
In fact there are no houses, no cars, a whole lot of nothing but
pristine lakes, smooth curvy roads, and trees. I make it into Augustow
at about midnight, it finally gets dark here around 10:30-11:00 PM. As
I rode into town a cop in front of me pulls me over. It turns out he
was looking at his mirror and thought I was a car with a headlight out.
Instead I'm a sidecar rig with a missing light on the sidecar fender.
He warns me to get it fixed and points me in the direction of the
Warszawa Hotel which is pretty nice. This time I have Zlotys so I'm all
set. They even let me park my bike right near the entrance.
Next day up late, looking for a store to replace my gloves which
somehow went missing. No luck here so I head off northward for
Lithuania. Crossing the Lithuania border is easy and the guards got a
laugh (again) at either me or my bike. Either way I'm waved across and
continue northward towards Kaunus. Here the roads are fairly smooth but
straight over rolling hills of farmland. Boring. I stop for lunch at a
gas station and then continue northward for Daugavpils (sounds like Dog
Piss?). Passing through Daugavpils, my rear fender (the back part)
falls off the bike. The hinge pin fell out and the nuts on the sides of
the fender are now missing as well. Nothing some cable ties can"t fix.
So after a few minutes securing the fender, I'm back on my way. I
finally arrive in the last big city of Rezekne, Latvia before the
Russian border. The hotel (there is only one) is in a bank building.
Again although Luithuania and Latvia are both in the EU, like Poland
they have their own currency and don't accept Euros or Zlotys which
I've accumulated quite a few of. The Lithuania money is about half the
value of a Euro if my math is correct but the Latvia currency is worth
much more than Euros. There is a however, an italian restaurant in town
above a casino. I stop by for a Pizza which I'll regret later. Back to
the hotel and leave a wake-up call for 6:30 AM. And at 6:30 next
morning the hotel manager is banging on my door. I think I'm less than
an hour from the Russian Border and I've kinda been dreading crossing
the border because of the warning I got back at the Russian Embassy in
Beijing when they issued my visa. I was told my visa was not valid
except to arrive by air. Anyway I heard from others on the internet
this is nonsense and that any visa is good to enter by any means.
Leaving Rezekne I am told to head north 7 kms and there is a road to
take me to the Russian border. I gas up which is another experience
here. You have to put in the exact amout of paper currency you want in
a machine, pick your grade of fuel and then pump. I watch a few cars do
this before I try it. Of course I get it wrong and only gas up half a
tank. But I'm carrying a 5 gallon tank of gas in th sidecar so I head
off for Russia.
The road that should take me through Ludza to the border ends at a dead
end. And it is literally a dead end, ending at the entrance to a
cemetary.
So I take the only other road which seems to be taking me northwards a
long ways before I finally see the Russian border station. It's now
10:00 AM and there is no line in front of me. I work my way through the
procedures walking the bike from one building to another. I think there
were 8 small buildings that I had to stop at, fill out some papers, and
move on. Everyone got a big laugh at my bike and my destination but
they were very helpful, even getting me into the back door of the bank
to exchange Euros for Rubles. They even warned me not to change too
many Euros because I'll get a better rate in Moscow. At this point I
still assume I'm at the border crossing at Sebezh. It's opnly much
later that i realize that because of the dead end road, I actually
crossed much further north at Ostrov. The reason I now know this is
because before I reached the border I saw a sign for Mockba (Moscow)
that said 665 kms. But after crossing the border and riding a while I
saw another sign saying Mockba 772 kms. It took 2 hours to finish all
the procedures and get waved through to Russia. Amazing! I grew up in
the 1960s when Russia was what we were all afraid of. I remember the
nucear shelters and the loud alarms every Saturday morning when we had
to find a Nuclear fallout shelter which were labelled in black and
yellow signs. And now here I am! Anyway the terrain is much like New
England with 2 lane road, old farm houses, older cars sitting in the
"back 40". The difference is the road condition is really terrible. I
have to pluck along in 1st and 2nd gear for alot of the way and every
time I get up into 4th I have to brake for a deep hole in the road.
There is not much car traffic but alot of big trucks. I was told at the
border I can only stay in a hotel that caters to foreigners and I must
get my visa registered at the hotel. Seeing how there are no big towns
between here and Moscow, I need to haul ass to get to Moscow before too
long. The road from Latvia to Moscow as I say is in terrible condition.
And along the way there are lots of cops with radar guns. I get pulled
over for speeding which I know I'm not. But when the cops try to talk
to me and realize I don't understand a word and I show my American
passport, I'm waved along with a warning to keep it under 60 kms.I
finally get to Moscow at about 1:00 AM and it is asleep. I stop at
several gas stations asking for directions to a hotel but nobody seems
to know where there is a hotel in Moscow. It's now getting to be 2:00
AM and still no hotel. I finally find a cop that has pulled over a car
so I roll up behind the pulled over car. This spooks the cops who point
an AK 47 in my direction. I raised up my hands and smile which calms
them down. I then make pantomime of wanting to find a hotel. Lucky day
for the pulled over car as they left him in his tracks and told me to
follow them. My first time in Russia and I'm riding through the streets
of Moscow running every red light we come across. We stop at 2 hotels
with no rooms before they find a 3rd hotel that has a room. It is the
worst hotel I've stayed at for some time and I'm from China! No water,
no phone, very dirty. But it's a bed, it's now 3:30 AM, and I'm tired.
The next morning I call someone I met over the internet who has a bike
and has ridden it all over Africa, Europe, and China. His name is Roman
and he is a life saver. He invites me to his house to clean up with a
hot shower, and then takes me to his garage to wrench on my bike. He
then finds me a nice hotel just off Red Square and the Kremlin. He
belongs to a motorcycle club and they meet every Wednesday which is
tonight. The streets of Moscow are very wide, smooth, and traffic moves
here, unlike Beijing. To get to the bike meeting we have to circle
around Moscow. That takes an hour and we are doing about 100 kph the
entire time. I meet another 20 or so bikers mainly riding Japanese
sport bikes althoug there is a big fat trike, powered by a turbo Smart
motor, and a 1949 Russian bike. We eat at an outdoor cafe and most
everybody is smoking apple tobacco from a Hookah.
After we eat we move on to another spot where bikers gather every
night. This is just outside Moscow University which is a building you
have to see to believe. But there is a park on one side and a big wide
street on the other. So every kind of bike is doing drag runs up and
down the street. My kind of place. The Moscovite bikers could not be
friendlier. And the women are slim, beautiful, and fashionable. I'm in
motorcycle heaven!
Roman, my "host" is in the pyrotechnics business which is probably my 2nd favorite thing after motorcycles.
Last night we rode out to a park where he is putting on a fireworks
show for some local area on a large man-made pond. Another fine night
in Moscow.
Today there starts a big motorcycle festival about 170 kms south of
Moscow. I think it's like Sturgis or Daytona Bikeweek but I'll know for
sure after we get there. So I'll head for that tonight and tomorrow
morning leave Moscow for points eastward. Funny thing happened last
night at my hotel. You don't actually get a key at the front desk. You
get a card which you then present to the floor lady on your floor and
she exchanges it for your key. I went out to watch the fireworks with
some other bikers and when I got back, the front desk showed me that I
had the wrong card for my room. They issued me a new card and told me
to take care of the problem with the old card. I went up to the 10th
floor (I'm in room 183 go figure) and told the floor lady my problem.
She gets all pissed off and insists I came back at 6:00 PM and gave her
the wrong card. Now she does not have my key and I haven't even been in
the hotel since 4:00 PM. It finally does get straightened out, but with
my imagination, I was wondering if the KGB needed more time to search
through all my belongings in my room?
But this city is spectacular. Too bad it's so difficult to get to
because it definately rates an A+ for motorcycle friendliness. I saw a
racing Ducati 999 the other night, no plates, no sidestand, running on
the streets.
I'm off to Kazan as my next stop tomorrow morning. I've already stayed
2 days longer than I planned and the club members are asking me to stay
through the weekend to take in fully the BikeFest. But I do have a home
to get to so I'm off.
I hope this story is interesting to read as it is to ride.
