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3rd June 2001
Just a quick word to say day one, ground zero, went pretty well. We did Stoke to Leicester which was about 60 miles. We did have a fairly healthy tailwind though which could change at any time. We managed to cycle at similar speeds as each other for most of the time but we will be prepared to go at our own pace and meet up in towns through the day.
The group is gelling pretty well, it has a good feel about it. Scott, the somewhat overloaded American (not wanting to deal in stereotypes) was a little weighed down - he has a laptop, solar panels to drive it and lots of other unecessary stuff which he will be sending back. Personally I think he should continue to carry it all for the good of the group. I was looking forward to being able to listen to my CDs in Kazakhstan.
That's all for now, got 80 miles to do today. Should be in Brighton on Tuesday.
8th June 2001
Having sat up until 3am watching the Conservative party get a damn good thrashing in the General Election I was rudely awakened and we left between nine thirty and ten. This was the real day zero for me, leaving home for the last time. Via Lewes, Eastbourne and Hastings we reached a place on the flats near Dungeoness power station called Lydd where I managed to sweet talk our way into camping in a pub garden. Good move on the part of the landlord since we probably had 4 drinks each, bringing him a good 50 pounds. Still, Trevor and Mandy of the Royal Oak, Lydd were good to us so, if you happen to be passing through Lydd (unlikely really) pay them a visit.
9th June 2001
On to Dover where Rory and I made a bit of a mess of trying to catch the ferry. We stayed behind in Folkestone in order to look over the Russian submarine that is moored there, leaving plenty of time to catch the others up in Dover. Having seen the sub, we had two hours to get to Dover, ample to cover the seven miles. We decided however to try to follow the undercliff path, saving ourselves mounting the white cliffs.
Bad move.
The path was not even a path as such, merely sea defences and quite rough in places. We then discovered various rockfalls which we lugged our bikes over with some difficulty, not taking the hint. Finally we reached a complete dead end where the concrete just disappeared into the sea and we had about an hour to get to Dover.
We legged it back as fast as we could along the path, getting back to the road with realistically about half an hour to get to the terminal. Climbing the cliff involved pushing ourselves to the limit, as fast as we possibly could, not allowing the merest thought of getting off the bikes to enter our minds. When we reached the top near exhausted and praying that the road did not go up then down then up again etc, we had to sprint all the way. It turned out to be pretty continuously flat or downhill but nevertheless we were cycling to the limit. We eventually made it with under five minutes to spare. I was never really too bothered since if we missed the boat, we would just catch the next, but when we arrived some of the others weren't best pleased having been had a go at by the ferry people. In retrospect a fun experience though.
13th June 2001
After having a pain in my knee develop yesterday afternoon and show no sign of going this morning I decided to be prudent (Gordon Brown would be proud) and get the train on to Dusseldorf, after all there's plenty of time for heroically struggling on in Siberia.
I went for a couple of beers and some food with a girl from the youth hostel and finally went to bed surprisingly tired - it catches up with you eventually.
I was enjoying my own space travelling alone since you meet more people that way. It's just another aspect of travelling.
15th June 2001
Met the others as arranged, at the hostel this evening. They'd had a mad experience in a tick infested forest in Belgium and ended up having to perform surgery on each other, digging the ticks out with knives. And some of them were in quite unpleasant places! In retrospect a good story to tell and funny really but, at the end of the day I'm glad to have missed out!
19th June 2001
Travelling up the Rhein valley, it is amazing how it goes from deep valley with castles and forests and then further upstream it is a plain with industrial cities such as Mainz. The first bit was very beautiful picture postcard stuff. A long hard day, 100 miles to Heidelberg.
20th June 2001
Spent about 120 quid in a bike shop yesterday due to a broken rack plus a few improvements (Brooks leather saddle - hurts for the first 1000 km but then fits perfectly) and spares.
21st June 2001
After further knee pain I have caught the train on towards Prague via Cheb. Slightly worrying really.
Cheb is a beautiful town on the border, in typical central European/Czech style. The beer is very cheap, the people are great and the women are beautiful. How anyone could not love the Czech Republic I can't imagine!
Myself and an Aussie I met on the train found a small bar with a few local youths in it, it seemed more like a small private gathering of
friends than a bar. Very friendly and unspoilt, we were plied with drinks until 1am when we went back to the hotel very satisfied.
22nd June 2001
Got to Karlovy Vary, a spa town north of Prague. Took the waters and had a sauna, then, feeling suitably good went looking for a similar kind of bar to last night.
We wondered a long way into a concrete residential area and eventually found a bar which looked more like a student union than an "authentic" Czech bar but that probably made it more authentic really. We went in for one, thinking we might have an interesting experience talking to people but didn't. On the way back we saw tucked away, an underground bar serving food to local families and young people, pretty much exactly what we had been looking for. Got hammered and fed for a few quid each.
23rd June 2001
Onwards and upwards to Prague.
After arriving at the hostel and meeting a girl from Colorado I went out with her to meet some friends of hers at an awful bar called Jo's Bar, run by and for tourists. They were all truly awful. Air headed, bubble gum blowing (is there a more irritating habit?) dumb-arses from LA. Made my excuses and left early.
I wondered back through the backstreets hoping to find another tourist free bar and got solicited by a prostitute for the first time in my life. Saying no was not a difficult decision all things considered.
I'd just about given up on finding anywhere when I stumbled upon Max's Bar, underground, half empty and the staff spoke no English or German. Perfect. Had a beer and also managed to get served some food which was an achievement. After a while a guy started chatting to me, unfortunately he spoke very little English and not a lot more German. We chatted in half English, half German and managed to communicate surprisingly well, talking about Russians, Germans and Czechs; how the English sense of humour was similarly black to the Czech. I left at about two very pleased with how the evening had turned out.
27th June 2001
Went to get Russian visas today which involved a certain amount of hassle. Walking there through embassyland, we saw many different countries represented, with their flags flying, not to mention some propaganda of the "look at our great leader, isn't he fantastic" type. Right in amongst these was another official looking building with flags flying. Only this time, the flags were those of McDonalds. You've got to admire their sheer ostentatiousness, putting their embassy in amongst all the others. Did I say embassy, what I meant to say was Czech headquarters. Same difference.
30th June 2001
I went to a festival called the Open Air Field outside Prague on Friday night/Saturday morning. Amongst others Laurent Garnier, Dave Angel, The Orb and Richard Dorfmeister (of Kruder and Dorfmeister) were playing. Going to an event like that alone always makes for a slightly different experience.
I spent most of the night in the Open Air Stage because that was where Dave Angel and Laurent Garnier were playing and I had no idea what time. Dave Angel played from 2 until 4am and was really into it, taking the crowd with him, playing fairly hard beats.
A little later I discovered a really cool tea tent, serving all kinds of teas, in pots with the little China bowls to drink them out of. I had maté tea served in in a gourd and drunk through a metal straw with a strainer at the bottom. It's not tea at all really but some South American shrub with a stimulant effect and all kinds of amino acids in it - apparently some tribes virtually live off the stuff.
At around 6am I discovered that Laurent Garnier hadn't made it. He would have been the real highlight for me so I was a bit disappointed but had had a wicked time anyway. Making it back to the campsite at about 7am I met Scott who was just getting up, chatted for a little while and then went to bed, being fast asleep (snoring) within a couple of minutes of disappearing into my tent. Unfortunately I was rudely awakened at about 10:30 by the sun beating down on my tent making it virtually impossible to sleep, but I got a few hours in and am fully recovered now!
2nd July 2001
We set out late from Prague, having had a minor hitch with Scott's Russian visa, in that his replacement visa was for the same dates as the initial one, so he now has two identical visas. So if you happen to be Scott Zentack's doppelganger then I'm sure he'd accept payment in kind in return for a Russian visa.
After multiple goodbyes we finally left Prague, aiming to do about 114 km through some fairly beautiful countryside to a town about halfway between Prague and Brno, the Czech Republic's second city.
We were beginning to think about lunch when we came across a whole row of cherry trees beside the road, just beginning to ripen. We stopped and started picking, at first just eating and then getting more and more carried away, climbing the trees and collecting. We ended up with three carrier bags full that would last us for the next three days!
It turned out to be a long day, making it to our destination around 7pm we then proceeded to look for one of the several campsites on our map. After a couple of false starts we located the swimming pool/ leisure complex that was meant to house a campsite only to discover that this had closed down a few years ago, despite directions from at least two locals in the town.
So it was time for my first real free camping experience. We headed out of town in the rapidly fading light, looking for a secluded spot away from the road. We eventually came upon a little copse about 10km from town where we judged we were fairly safe.
3rd July 2001
Leaving early and eating breakfast on the road, we headed for Brno, another significant ride at 145 km, about 90 miles. The conditions were good for the first half of the day but by mid afternoon it was becoming broody and later began to rain on us - not what you want at the end of a hard day.
Using our trusty map we had located 4 or 5 campsites outside Brno, one of them on a lake, sounding quite picturesque. On reaching the centre of Brno we tried to orientate ourselves to leave the other side and find the site only to be approached by an officious policeman with nothing better to do than tell us that we were not allowed to cycle down this particular road and must return and find another route. Luckily we had been spotted by a guy with ruffled white hair, riding a bicycle and wearing shorts. He approached us and asked us, in perfect BBC English about ourselves and where we were going. He knew where we were headed that evening and said he'd cycle with us to point us in the right direction out of town. One of the many simple kindnesses you find on the road.
It turned out he was a writer who had written on controversial issues in communist times but had also been an engineer at a mine, making him useful to the government and giving him a little leeway to take more chances with his writing. He had learned English through listening to the BBC World Service and you could tell. We had wondered at first if he was an ex-pat.
Leaving town, I nearly wiped out on a wet tramline - very treacherous things. He left us on a main road to the satellite town where our campsite was located. We were fairly tired by this point and the wet dual carriageway was not particularly pleasant.
We eventually found the camping/motel complex only to be told they hadn't done camping for the last five years. Again!! On leaving we met a Dutch couple on bikes called Heidi and Stuart (not his real name but what he used for foreigners incapable of understanding his utterly unpronounceable Dutch name). Naturally they spoke excellent English and we told them the score. They'd had a hard day too so we said we were going to find a spot for free camping and did they want to join us.
They did, so we headed into the countryside and looked for a spot to camp eventually finding a secluded spot on the edge of a field. It was good to meet people and sit around chatting and eating for the evening. I even made up some stewed cherries!
As the light was dying we spotted a shadowy figure making his way down the edge of the field with what turned out to be a gun over his shoulder! We wondered what was going to happen but there was nothing we could do so we let him approach us, not without a little nervousness. On reaching us he looked at us, muttered something in Czech and made a few hand gestures before moving on. We figured that he was probably as startled and bothered by us as we were by him, being more likely to be a hunter than a farmer. We did wonder if he might return with his mates though!
4th July 2001
Crossing the border into Austria the next day we decided not to change any money Austria being prohibitively expensive. So we stocked up on food and prepared for another night's free camping. No facilities for three days - charming!
All the towns we passed through in Austria seemed to be dead, no-one one the streets; empty squares and deserted parks. As evening came we looked for our spot, eventually coming across a deserted house down a drive, away from prying eyes. It seems someone else had thought much the same previously!
There turned out to be two houses, both of them deserted and in a pretty dilapidated condition, crumbling masonry and smashed windows. Of course we climbed in and had a look around.
The place was full of junk of all descriptions. Several rooms in one of the houses were filled with decommissioned slot machines and their innards. There were stacks of papers, some official looking, even some children's exercise books. We saw cooking equipment, games, toys, photos - everything under the sun. Peoples lives were laid out in front of us, just abandoned, presumably in a hurry. It looked to us through various evidence that this was fairly recent and we figured that it was probably refugees or immigrants of some description, squatting in the place. It was quite spooky all in all, should really have been haunted. We considered sleeping on the floor inside to save unpacking the tents but thought better of it, camping in the grounds.
6th July 2001
A hard day's cycling across a dull, endless plain into a strong headwind, from Bratislava to Komaron on the Hungarian border. By the late afternoon we were knackered, with about two hours to go till the border. Then we were passed by a tractor pulling a high backed trailer. Rory raced off and caught it's tailwind, gesturing us to follow and before long we were sitting comfortably behind the tractor, being sucked along at a steady 30kmph, using virtually no effort at all. We speculated that he might even go all the way to Komaron, not believing that our luck could hold out that far. To our amazement we spent an hour following the tractor, covering the last 30km effortlessly, eventually waving a very grateful goodbye to the farmer only a few hundred meters from the border!
On the other side in Hungary we met a local who'd been over the border to buy beer. He told us the low down - please, thank you etc in Hungarian and then led us to a campsite a couple of hundred meters away with thermal mineral baths of all things. Very much appreciated after a hard day's cycling. Had a beer with him and went to bed.
8th July 2001
We have now reached Budapest having had an eventful week's cycling since Prague. This week has felt like the beginning of the trip for real, with the passing of western/central Europe and some mixed emotions including excitement, anticipation, not to mention the last opportunity to feel homesick. It is only now that I have really begun to appreciate what I am leaving behind, what is to come (in as much as I can) and the fact that we are spending virtually all our time for the next nine months together.
24th July 2001
Hungary to Ukraine
We have made it to Odessa on the other side of Europe, deep into the former Soviet Union and the former home of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Since Budapest things have really seemed to feel that bit more remote and different from home. I have said this before but now the trip is truly underway, we are about to set off for Chelyabinsk and Siberia and will be seeing little in the way of western amenities or even amenities or settlements of any description. Long days cycling with little or no entertainment en route await.
From Budapest we cycled relatively quickly across the Hungarian plain. Things began to change at this point. The roads became much quieter with more horses and carts and bicycles and fewer cars. Service stations to fill up with water became few and far between and we began to use the standpipes in the street that appeared at this point. The terrain was mostly flat (a bonus) but not desparately interesting.
Crossing into Romania we had a few reservations, feeling it to be that bit further from western Europe and a little more wild and perhaps even dangerous, in part based upon what others along the route had said. It's true that it's less developed but we couldn't have been more wrong about potential dangers to us.
The roads it has to be said were truly appalling with potholes big enough to fit the diameter of your wheel, although I'm sure we'll encouter worse.
On the first full day in Romania we set off around 9am and cycled for around half an hour before finding somewhere for breakfast. We went into a little shop with sparsely stocked shelves, run by a very friendly Hungaro/Romanian woman who hardly spoke any English (Transylvania has a large Hungarian population). We bought some bread and jam and a few other sundries and went to sit outside on the pavement to eat them. Before we knew it she came out and insisted on us coming back in and eating at her table in the shop. She plied us with free drinks and we tried to communicate as best we could in English and German. She seemed a little frustrated, as if she had a lot to say but obviously couldn't express it to us, we got the impression that she was probably well educated, perhaps an academic, for some reason confined to running her shop. An early example of the many small kindnesses we would meet in Romania.
I met my first real hill that day, although not a particularly impressive one at around 500m, it was still a hell of a climb, particularly given the fact that I was phisically exhausted for some reason, probably a virus. On the other side the landscape seemed very alpine, with highly decorated churches beside the road and houses in an Austrian style, although without the very obvious wealth of that part of the world.
Soon we were following a river downstream although the wind was in our faces so it didn't seem like it at all, working hard to go downhill. After a while my legs had nothing left to give and we stopped to pick up food for the inevitable free camping (Romania just doesn't do campsites). In the shop Andy got chatting to a guy with a Euro 96 T shirt on who turned out to be a leader of a Baptist summer camp for local children who wouldn't get a holiday of any kind otherwise. He invited us to cycle 7km up a side valley to the camp and sleep there, which we duly did.
It was a beautiful journey up to the camp, with a gurgling stream running alongside the road, shepherds tending their flocks, cow and sheep bells ringing around the valley and the ever present locals waving at us.
On arriving we found a half built camp nestling in the crook of two forested valleys, running on very little money and containing lots of curious children and our very hospitable host, "Chi Chi". He had a lot to say on the changes, Europe, globalisation etc and seemed a genuinely good man, working to give something to the kids.
We were fed and watered and made to feel very welcome. Late in the evening there was a fire aranged since it was the last night. This was a traditional Romanian way of doing a fire, quite unlike anything I have seen before.
A live birch tree was cut down and staked vertically into the ground on the site of the fire. It was then surrounded with branches leant against it to a height of around six feet. The fire was lit and took a while to get going. When it did it began to fry the leaves sending sparks high into the air. The fire burnt for some while, needing continuous tending and we began to wonder if it was like spin the bottle, whoever the tree falls on has good luck. Eventually it came down in a relatively managed way, but I did have my doubts. We'd have health and safety up there like a shot in the UK.
The following day the alpine valleys transformed into rolling hills. I was finding it very hard work again and by late afternoon was more than ready to stop. We had a couple of beers at a bar literally in the middle of nowhere and then moved on with still less energy, quickly realising we had to stop soon. Luckily fate was smiling on us again.
We passed a field with a wooden building and a large camper van with Italian plates. Thinking "western European" we stopped to ask if he knew of any campsites - i.e. "can we camp in your field".
It turned out to be a cutting shop for timbers for prefabricated pine houses, run by a guy called Allessio from Rome. He of course invited us to stay and we chatted with him and his local night watchman Tibor. Tibor appeared quite a comic character due to his complete lack of English and burly appearance. This wasn't helped by the fact that we saw him climbing down the well the following morning to attempt to retrieve a power tool dropped down there by a love rival.
We chatted and ate pasta with Allessio, enjoying the company greatly. The following morning we were served genuine Italian cappucino made with fresh milk straight from the local cow. The well water tasted fantastic too, despite the powertool!
Passing through the Romanian countryside, pitchforks seem to be the order of the day. Forget Ford Escorts with bass bins in the boot pumping out hard beats - it's the size of your pitch fork or scythe that counts here!
On Sunday 15th I climbed my first real mountain at 1100m. It was quite a long climb up the valley before it began in earnest. Even then I found it far easier than the previous one when I'd been exhausted. On reaching the top of the pass we found the inevitable beer stop and chilled out for a bit - a welcome reward. After that it was downhill for 40 kms, albeit into the wind, to a lake and a free campsite. The town turned out to be nothing more than a glorified bus interchange with a couple of cafes, a mechanic's shop and a tack market. Reminiscent of some places in India. It was made more bizare by the appearance of an Arriva bus (they run services in the South of England).
Overall Romania was very friendly and beautiful, I thoroughly recommend it.
So we passed into the former Soviet Union and Moldova. The border was the most complicated yet with our bags being x-rayed and lots of forms to fill in. They were very friendly though and we got photos taken with the boss! We now had 48 hours to cross the country, about 250kms.
On getting through, the roads were instantly better and the countryside was not full of people in the same way as in Romania. It seemed just a little less unspoilt and unsophisticated than Romania - the agriculture was clearly not dependent on musclepower in the same way.
We didn't have too much of a chance to see that much of Moldova but I didn't get too much of an impression of there being that much to see, outside of the capital Chisinau. This was a reasonable size town with the usual amenities and some interesting buildings that we didn't really have time to investigate.
On heading out of the town, we had stopped at the side of the road to grab snacks when we were approached by a friendly looking, bearded man called Victor who wanted to buy us beers and talk to us. Who were we to say no! He turned out to be a water eco-system scientist with 25 patents to his name but without the support to develop them. I get the impression that a lot of Soviet science has gone this way, resulting in nuclear secrets and materials finding their way onto the international black market. He was making his money through web portals and maintaing his first love of hydrology as a hobby, I suspect keeping open the hope of being able to really take it somewhere at some point.
After thanking him and exchanging addresses we moved on, thinking of where we would camp. We were passed at high speed by a couple of Tri-athletes on racers. Rory managed to catch them and make conversation, in the process gaining us a place to stay. People are wonderful.
Andrei and Vladimir knew of a spot by a lake where we could free camp and took us there, probably frustrated by our lack of speed, due to the fact that our bikes probably weighed 5 times as much as theirs.
We set up camp and Rory was taken off to get some food and drink. He was taken to Andrei's Dacha which contained an orchard with all kinds of fruit and vegetables, with which he was amply plied, not to mention the jam that had just been made.
They returned to the site after an hour or so of local hospitality and we spent a very pleasant evening eating, drinking and chatting by the lake although Andrei and Vladimir weren't drinking because it turned out thery were Moldova's two Tri-athletes and were in a race in Austria the following Friday. They will be trying for the Olympics so if you ever see a Moldovan team, cheer them on, they were great hosts.
he next day we passed into the self declared Republic of Transdniestra, complete with Russian people, Soviet ideology and iconography and dodgy currency. It has managed to spend ten years going it alone within Moldova, in an unsustainably small area, propped up basically by Russia.
The border was fun, being taken into a portacabin that seemed just a little toy soldierish. It was manned by a military official sat at a desk with a bed behind it almost like it was a genuine war situation in the field. They filled in the required forms, giving us Israeli style visas on a paper insert rather than actually stamp the passport. There was no Moldovan exit post since they don't recognise that there is a border there.vIn some ways the country was in a Soviet time warp but it did seem to be running. The capital city was obviously small and quite what infrastructure there was I'm not sure, but these are trifling matters.vOn the other side (not very far at all) we sailed through the Transdniestran border relatively easily. I got the impression that perhaps they didn't need to take things too seriously since no-one recognised them. Then suddenly the border guard asked to take another look at the passports and picked out Rory's.vHis Ukrainian visa it seems, had been given the wrong dates, expiring 10 days previously. It felt like the first major testing event - what would we do. We started making plans for Rory to return to Chisinau to sort out a new vias at the Ukrainian Embassy and he tried to call Victor to see if he could help (an amazing spot of luck that we had just made two contacts in the capital). He couldn't get through on the phone and returned to talk to the rest of us. We were making all sorts of contingency plans by this stage when suddenly, out of the blue, the Transdniestran guard told us to try our luck with the Ukrainians! I smelt a bit of a rat, thinking something was up so we went through and I think their response on the other side was so prompt it was almost as though they were expecting us - as if the Transdniestrans had called through.
We were taken into a small room by two guards and asked the usual questions for the forms. The guards were very friendly and we tried to appear as relaxed as possible. They filled out slips of paper which they attached to our visas, reading our papers and transfering details. We had carefully placed Rory's passport third from the top in the pile to maximise our chances of it not being noticed, but I don't think these guards make mistakes. All four visa slips had the same correct dates on, and they let us through, not mentioning anything, except a few hints about how nice my watch was and dropping the word presents into the conversation. They were very happy with some of our accumlation of European coins though. So Rory is in the country illegally with their tacit approval (or blind eye) I think, the visas have to be registered at your hotel which we achieved with no problem, the only thing now is getting out of the country.
So we made it to Odessa, a relaxed port with Mediterranean style boulevards, pavement cafes and grand Russian empire buildings.
Sunday was spent for Rory and I running around trying to find bike shops to fix buckled and broken wheels. I discovered a spoke ripped clean off my rim, we think by a very large Moldovan bump that literally sent me airbourne. Replacement rim it is then. We were directed by the bike shop to a repair man in a bazaar on the edge of the city and placed in a beat up Lada taxi to get there. The Ladas are cheaper than newer cars and are unmarked, simply being somewhere between light yellow and beige in colour you just have to keep trying to hail them until one stops.
The ride was exciting, cutting through traffic, crunching gears and generally having more adrelelin flowing than is really healthy. The card we were given took us to a guy called Dima. He seemed to know his stuff so we left him with my back wheel to replace the rim, my front wheel to sort out dodgy bearings and Andy's back wheel to straighten (it turned out he had a broken spoke too, but not a broken rim).
Dima turned out to be another very friendly helpful character and when we turned out to be still on the street trying to hail a cab 15 minutes after we left him at the end of his day's work, he drove past, saw us and gave us a lift into the centre of town. So if you're in Odessa needing bike parts - he's your man.
If you've made it the end of this you've obviously got a long attention span! It's taken me several hours to write but I figure we won't be seeing many internet cafe's for a while. So until Rostov or maybe Chelyabinsk in around a month.
31st July 2001
Odessa to Rostov
We have reached Rostov after a hard week's cycling; which was described to us last night by a slightly dodgy looking Lithuanian drinking with his "business partner" as the mother city of bandits to Odessa's father! It does seem a little bit like that being as how it is crawling with military - it just has that feeling in the air! It is not so far from Chechnya and the volatile Caucuses - we even met a Chechen last night who said something about being in the military but it was difficult to make out the full picture.
We rode the 789 kms from Odessa in 6 days, quite hard work but we didn't miss much on the way - there were two or three big cities but between cities in the Ukraine there really is bugger all. Cornfields that go on for ever, grain on the roads and towns that consist of precisely nothing with very little apparent reason to exist. One doesn't really like to write things off too easily, but as far as most of the Ukraine goes, it really isn't holiday destination number one.
The people as ever were friendly and curious, thinking we were mad for the most part.
One of the most enduring memories must be of turning a corner at the top of a hill in Maryopol (I think) and seeing this enormous factory complex, complete with Soviet iconography, stretching into the distance belching out all kinds of smoke into a deep red sky. It seemed to go on forever with all roads leading to it and looked like something out of a sci fi movie like Blade Runner or Total Recall (is that the one with the factories on Mars?). We had to cycle along underneath it for what must have been at least a kilometer and it really did begin to hurt your throat and lungs. Give me London smog any day!
Cycling along in the Ukraine, we were waved down by the police, presumably for riding two abreast. They asked to see our documents and at this point Rory began shaking slightly and whether he needed clean pants later he did not say. Anyway they looked at the passports and even glanced over Rory's illegal one but did not spot the mistake; they chatted to us and sent us on our way in single file!
It was not so simple when we got to the border however. After initially looking at our passports and taking them into the office, a few minutes later one of the officers returned and said "James Rory, problem!"
They explained that his visa was out of date and that they couldn't just let him pass out of the country and we did our best to look surprised, saying that we'd been stamped in so thought everything was ok. After some blustering and chatting amongst themselves thay started asking us questions like how much money we had and how much our bikes were worth! Ok course we only had about 30 dollars between us and the bikes were worth a mere 300 dollars each. They also wanted to change 100 dollars worth of Roubles (at what turned out to be a reasonable rate) but since we'd already said we only had 30 or so that was out of the question. So they went back inside and made us wait with our bikes for what seemed like an age, probably at least an hour. They were trying to contact the border that let us in or perhaps an embassy but it was a Sunday which can't have helped. Eventually they came out and said it was all ok. It's amazing how these things can be sorted when they want them to! So we proceeded through the Russian border controls and on to the customary first beer of the country.
We checked into the Hotel Tourist and having filled in a million and one forms managed to get out to have a drink. Firstly we went to an MTV style bar meeting a suited, middle aged man sitting at a table of three young girls and generally looking like it was business rather than pleasure. Moving on to a beer tent in the park, we met our Chechen friend and after chatting for a bit we decided it was time to leave after two soldiers turned up and started talking to him, about what we didn't know, but neither did we wish to find out!
Having rested for a day in Rostov (and hopefully not come to any harm by the time we leave), we proceed to Volgagrad at a fast pace, from where I will choose from either 6 or 7 consecutive 100 - 110 mile days or take a pleasant interlude on a Volga cruise. Decisions decisions!
18th August 2001
Rostov to Samara.Trains, strains and bureaucrats.
Leaving Rostov, it was still hot although not so punishing as the 40 odd degrees of the Ukraine. The roads remained long, fairly straight and, frankly boring, undulating in long up and down cycles broken up by the odd flat stretch.
I'd been having energy problems on the way to Rostov, running out of energy inexplicably mid afternoon on several occasions. This was not a matter of simply feeling tired but sheer exhaustion, being unable to do anything other than plod along at between ten and twelve miles an hour. The heat, I suspect made it worse but it remained a problem even after the weather cooled a little. So when I had the same problem after two days rest in Rostov I considered I needed a more substantial break in order to recover for the ardures ahead. Crossing Siberia was the number one priority and I felt it important that I be in top condition for that stretch of the journey after Chelyabinsk.
So the second morning after leaving Rostov I decided to catch a train to Volgagrad (aka Stalingrad). This I thought should be a relatively simple affair although I was not completely naïve to the rigours of Russian bureaucracy.
The first problem was simply getting into the station. There was a nice big, obvious front door but that would be far too simple. Then there was a second one off to the left a few metres. That too was locked but a kind Russian pointed me around the corner to a little side entrance through which I accessed the ticket office.
There were two ticket windows with a couple of fairly nebulous queues, one of which I joined although whether it made any difference which, I'm not sure. Queueing in Russia is quite different from in England and quite frustrating for someone used to our way of doing things. It is not clear quite where the queue is and who is in it. People are constantly joining and leaving the queue, apparently pushing in and it is difficult to know exactly where you stand. To make matters worse people will go to the front and talk to the person serving over the top of the person being served. It is almost impossible to get someone's undivided attention in this country. When you do get to the front, you must be forceful. If you meekly wait to be served like a good Englishman the vendor will continue with whatever they are doing, however trivial it appears to be. So you must be assertive and speak to them first, pretty much demanding service, otherwise you will be ignored. You will find other people doing this of the top of you while you are being served if you let your attention slip for one moment so it is important to hold the vendor's attention.
We have discovered that in Russia nyet does not mean nyet. When you ask if something is possible or whether someone has something be it to sell or tap water to fill your bottles (this is obviously quite a constant concern of ours), it is worth not taking no for an answer or just putting your question differently. So when I was told diffinitively that in order to travel to Volgagrad, I could travel today and my bike would go on Thursday, I plugged on, insisting as I obviously had to, that I could under no circumstances be separated from my bike. After some discussion it became possible for me to travel at the same time as my bike but only if I could "make small" or dismantle it. I was not entirely sure what they meant by dismantle but I said yes it could be, planning to simply go ahead anyway, doing the bare minimum to get on the train.
Having established that, yes there was a train to Volgagrad, today, that I could buy a ticket and yes I could take my bike, they told me that it was at two o'clock and that I should return at twelve to buy my ticket and then someone would help me to get my bike on the train, I returned to the cafe outside where the others were waiting. Having established that I would be alright they cycled off into the sunset.
So I returned at twelve, found no one who was obviously waiting for me so I queued again like the good little Englishman that I am. Where there is a problem, the answer can usually be found in a queue of some sort! Reaching the front of the queue I went through the same rigmorole as last time, hoping someone would remember me and help me out. There was no one there to explain what to do with the bike or help me pack it so I simply bought a ticket to Volgagrad. If the worst came to the worst I reasoned, I could simply carry my bike onto the train and present whatever conductor I found with a fait acompli. Sheer brute force can go a long way in these situations.
Buying the ticket involved some further unexpected bureaucracy which said something about the level of freedom in the new Russia. In order to buy a ticket, any ticket on train or boat (and I presume long distance coaches too) you must present your passport in order that the ticket can be made out with your name on it. The state therefore wishes to keep a close track on who is moving where and restrict their movement if necessary. Russia is by no means a free country. I was later told by a newfound Russian friend that the government wished to keep track of Chechen terrorists and their like. To me this seems a little paranoid and something of an over reaction to restrict the movements of the entire population to combat a terrorist threat - even our wonderfully paranoid and authoritarian New Labour government has not gone that far in the wake of the Ealing bombing has it? I don't know, perhaps it has, I am a little out of touch.
Having bought the ticket I went to wait at the cafe by the platform. I only had a couple of hours to wait, or so I thought, so I sat with my diary out and a beer on the table. There were plenty of people waiting on the platform, as if for the weekly train, so I reckoned I would be alright.
Around quarter to two I readied myself for the problems that a simple act of getting on a train might present. Two o'clock came and went, nothing happened. No problem I reckoned, trains can be late, even in England! After ten minutes or so I became a little more agitated, wondering what was going on and whether I should be worried. I reassured myself that the only way to survive this kind of situation was to chill out and wait for it to happen. By three o'clock this attitude was begining to wear thin so I asked a local on the platform if there was a train to Volgagrad and he said yes, at two o'clock. I realised that what I had suspected for a little while was true, not being conversant in the 24 hour clock, I was in for a long wait.
I had little option to buy another drink and watch the world go by, something I was not entirely averse to. The rest of the day was spent drinking beers then soft drinks, then beers, just enough to justify my place at the open air bar and excuse my eating my bread and cheese.
Around nine someone came along and said he would return around ten and help me pack my bike. Glad that someone knew that I existed, we were finally getting somewhere I thought. Still not know quite how much dismantling I would be expected to do I prepared my bags shortly before 10 and waited. Of course he turned up in Russian time at about 20 past, but I was not complaining. And then suddenly, the train pulled in three and a half hours early! He helped me lift my bike into the train with no dismantling whatsoever and we were off.
The conductor kindly showed me to a four berth compartment, instructing me to bring my bike with me and place it on the upper bunk. I was unsure about this, feeling that both I and the bike would be safer if it had less far to fall but he insisted so I locked it to one of the fittings, thinking at least there may be some warning if it rips the fitting from the wall as it falls.
Not long after, as I was ordering my things and thinking I'd done rather well for myself getting a four berth compartment, I was greeted by a knock at the door. It was a businessman from Tomsk who spoke some English, trying to explain that I must pay a further 1000 Rubles on top of the 500 I'd already paid, for the privelidge of carring my bike. I smelt something of a rat so asked that he actually got the conductor rather than just passing on the message and expecting to take my money. This he duly did and they explained first that it was business class, and then that I was taking up four berths and therefore would have to pay for them. This seemed reasonable enough although there was no question of any receipt or extra ticket, somewhat strange for a country so obssessed with paperwork. So it was to be 1000 Rubles, about 20 pounds although they made the concession that I could pay just an extra 500 Rubles and then maybe there would be other people using the other two berths. Too tired to worry and a little concerned about security, I paid up, thinking there was a fair chance I was being had but not wanting to argue. The moment I paid up, the bed was made and I was served with Russian cognac, treated, well, as if I was in Russian business class I suppose. I slept surprisingly well, awoke at half four and awaited our arrival in Volgagrad at 5am as the sun arose.vAs I left the station, the town was still sleeping, the sun was on the horizon and even the usual street vendors you find at stations were not yet active. Not knowing which way to go, I headed off in an arbitrary direction. Asking directions to the centre I seemingly confirmed that I was headed in the right direction. So I carried on, just following my nose. I came across a rather large and impressive Lenin and decided to investigate. Behind him I could see an obelix with a road leading down to it. Following the road down, I found the obelix was beside the river. Alongside it stood a derelict factory, left as it stood after the Battle of Stalingrad. It had holes blown in it and all that remained was the bare skeletal brickwork. This apparently was how the whole city looked at the end of the battle, completely devastated. It was a moving sight and was to be only one of many monuments to the war in Volgagrad.
I cycled around, finding no particular centre to speak of and then eventually came across the Hotel Volgagrad, a grand old hotel overlooking the main square, complete with Lenin statue, which had been the resting place for many famous figures, the more notable among them being Stalin, Gorbachev and several cosmonauts. I booked in, it being affordable despite it's grandeur and relaxed for the first time in days. The room had sattelite TV which was good for BBC World if nothing else and a telephone from which I could call my bank in England for those essential financial matters. The telephone would provide amusement later in the evening when it rang at about 9 o'clock and I was greeted by a voice saying "You would like Russian girls?". Not quite as abrupt as the call in the hotel in Rostov which merely said "Sex yes, sex no?".
In the afternoon I went looking for Mother Russia, the most impressive of Volgagrad's war monuments, standing 200 metres high! This is a statue of Mother Russia, sword raised high and robes flowing. She is situated on a hill which you must approach from the main road up several long flights of steps, over a distance of what must be around 500 metres. The steps climb the hill and level out at several points passing a fountain, an eternal flame and up through a semicircular wall with typically communist, angular carvings of faces and figures of all sizes subtly running into each other, all bravely fighting for the motherland and also hiding in there, a Lenin to remind everyone what it's all for. As you walk through this you are bombarded with the constant sound of battle and rousing speeches. The statue itself is absolutely immense, being visible for miles around as I would discover when I left the city. The big toes are probably about the size of the foot on an average statue. I spent a little time there before returning to the hotel to entangle myself in further Russian bureaucracy trying to use the internet, and then bed.
The following day I was reunited with the others who had had a couple of hard days cycling into the wind and the difficulties of making Chelyabinsk for the 15th were becoming apparent. Scott had to get to Chelyabinsk in plenty of time in order to sort out his visa and Rory was keen to see his dad and their friend Natasha with whom we are staying in Chelyabinsk. Which left Andy, the hardcore, fundmentalist cyclist, absolutely determined to cycle every inch of the way to Singapore and more than capable of cycling 100 - 110 miles a day for 10 days if necessary to do it.
So Scott, Rory and I decided to take a river boat cruise up the Volga to Samara, a trip lasting two days. I had already bought a train ticket to Ufa, not having expected to meet the others in Volgagrad and so after buying the boat ticket early in the morning of the 5th I now had to try to get some money back for the train ticket (I knew I could not possibly expect a full refund). That alone would have been problematic enough but by the time I got to the station, my ticket had incurred a small tear to the corner. The corner was not missing, just hanging by a small thread. This caused the bureaucratic mind to go into sheer apoplexy. Phone calls were made, glances exchanged and handbooks consulted. My ticket had a "defect" I was told and therefore was void and could not be refunded. If I wanted to try harder (remember nyet does not necessarily mean nyet) I would have to take it up with head office in Saratov. Fat chance. I wrote off the money and went back to eat breakfast at the hotel before boarding at 12pm.
We were allocated a 4 berth cabin with room for the bikes, in the bows right down near the waterline. It had openable portholes and we could feel the spray from the bows although they weren't quite big enough to fall out of without really trying hard. The boat left and then passed through a series of huge dams before truly getting underway. The Volga is absolutely immense, at points being more of a lake than a river. For much of the way the far bank was merely a thin line on the horizon. Where it was visible, the terrain was mostly rolling grasslands with little agriculture evident.
The boat trip was as expected very relaxing. We spent a couple of days just sitting around, reading, writing and drinking beers. I met a very interesting guy call Fyodor who told me lot about Russian history and politics. Apparently at the time of the changeover from the Soviet Union to Russia, when the currency was converted there was just one week in which to change your Soviet Roubles for Russian Roubles before the Soviet ones became entirely worthless. So anyone who had all their assets in cash and could not get to the bank to exchange them, was made a pauper. Along with all the other ways in which former state assets (factories etc) were simply seized by force by those with the power to walk in and take them, a great theft was conducted at the time of the changes, redistributing wealth from the many to the few.
On one evening I attempted to eat at the restaurant on the boat, arriving just before nine. Things were a little confused at first but they then told me to wait, sending someone off to the other end of the boat and probably phoning Moscow to find out whether they were open or not. Eventually it turned out that they were but could only serve a fried egg with bread so I thought better of it and ate in the cabin instead.
We left the boat to continue it's way up to Moscow (at least another week) at Samara and passed through the British Council there on our way out of town. Having spent an hour there, chatting to them and appreciating the home from home feeling we left town behind to face the journey to Chelyabinsk, aiming to make it in a week of 80-90 mile days.
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