Russia

Yesterday we arrived in Russia. After only 4 hours and endless filling in of forms (in Russian only) we were finally allowed to cross the border, after a nasty border officer forced us to pay him 50EUR! Not nice, and next time I will not pay, but after 4 hours of filling in the same forms again and again, because always something wasn't right we gave up... just after the border heavy storm and rain welcomed us. When I stopped at the side of the road, it was raining so heavly that I unfortunately didn't see the police that was waiting close by... so Marcin was led to the office, where a rude guy asked him to pay 200EUR (we did nothing at all wrong). He wanted to take of his number plates from his bike (but we strongly opposed to that) and I had to wait outside in the rain with several other police guys. But they were really nice those guys, and while Marcin was being tortured (noo.. he just had to sit and wait really, the guy thought that would make him pay this ridiculous amount of money, but we have more time than them :) ) I had a quite funny time outside. One of them spoke a little English and they were quite curious, one had even lived in Munich for a while (but spoke no German!?!). So in the end I think they told the other guy to let us go... Marcin wasn't so happy, but I think it was a funny event. Anyway, after hanging out there for quite some time we had dried and the rain stopped, so we went to Rostov-na-Donu and here were are now. We asked a nice person at the side of the road (with bad traffic jam) where we could possibly find a hotel. And he took Marcin with him to make phone calls and well, it was all too expensive so we ended up staying with him and his family. It is amazing how nice people are here and everywhere along the trip. Sure some funny ones as well, but in general most people are nice and want to help. In Ukraine we did some food shopping and as always when we stop somewhere some young guys walked up to us and asked some questions about the motorbikes. The standard questions are how fast they can go, and the second question is either how much petrol they use (if older person asking) or how much they cost (if younger person asking). Well, one of the guys was particularly happy to look at the bikes and after talking a little he asked us to stay with him for the night. Shortly after this his mum walked out of the shop, and she was really really nice, so we decided to stay and it was extremely nice. We left the bikes on their property (with a watch dog) and went for a little walk around the small town. When we were just on our way home, the nice mum called to say the house was burning. And it was! She was heating the Banja (sauna) for us, which was right in the house, and unfortunately the wooden walls started to burn!!!! Firemen came with a water hose and it was of course huge excitement, smoke everywhere...... in the end I think it was only a not too big part of the wall that burnt, but well.. we felt really sorry, because somehow it was because of us.
Tomorrow we will leave Rostov and ride towards Kazakhstan. Maybe to Volgograd first, but then it is not that great to go to larger cities with the motorbikes, because we can never leave them anywhere without one of us watching them. And to walk around in heavy motorbikes clothes is not that comfortable. So I guess on this trip we'll take time to drive slowly and see everything on the side of the road, rather than walking around. And hopefully in Central Asia hotels will be affordable, so that we can leave the bikes every now and then and do some sight seeing together. Apart from that, the motorcycles are running well so far. I dropped my bike in the mud once. That must have looked quite funny but I got a heart attack (almost) because it felt like ice skating on a 280 kg heavy ice skate, that will squeeze you if you are unlucky enough to get some body part between the thing and the ground... well, it wasn't bad at all, but I really dirty afterwards :) Since the people we are staying with are expecting us to be home soon I better go.

We are in Ukraine. no problems at the border yet. somehow everybody seems to like motorbikes.

We are in Moldova! sunshine, hot and so far beautiful

Slovakia, Hungary...Romania!

We have crossed Slovakia and Hungary and are now in Eastern Romania. By lunch time we should reach Moldova and hopefully will be able to look for a place to sleep in Ukraine tonight. So today we will cross the first real borders... Romania is absolutely beautiful! we havent taken enough photos yet, that will have to change in the future. More stops, more photos. But once we reach Kazakhstan we will have more time, now we are still trying to catch up the time we had to wait around in Poland. The roads here are interesting. Sometimes perfect condition, sometimes potholes that would definitely throw us of our bikes. Drivers are totally crazy here! Only the main roads are paved, most other roads are really really muddy or deep gravel dirt roads. Not exactly what I prefer with this heavy heavy heavy big ship I have to steer around... we are getting more used to riding with luggage every day, but still I have slight problems with turning around on small spaces.. and since one of us always has to stay with the bikes it is not easy to just go shopping or walk around anywhere. And Marcin is waiting, so I better dont make this too long. Next internet hopefully in Russia.

We leave on Tuesday!!

Finally, Marcin's passport arrived and we are almost ready to go. Tuesday we'll leave. From then on you can get it touch with us via email on our regular email addresses or send text messages on our satellite phone. Here's the link again for the free SMS: http://services.thuraya.com/sms.html

We have two phone numbers. We'll either use
number 1: 0088216 213 611 40 (most of the time) OR
number 2: 0088216 213 611 41 (ONLY in Russia and Mongolia)

We'll post which number we will be using. We'll start with number 1.

Since time has run away, we'll try to get to Kazakhstan as quickly as possible. Though we got the information that it would be easier to cross the border to Russia coming from the Baltic States we'll try to take the more direct way through Ukraine. And hopefully they'll let us in...

My passport arrived! hopefully we will receive Marcin's on Monday. I am more than ready to leave now finally...

Karte

click on the map to see a larger version

some photos from Bytom and Ladek Zdroj http://picasaweb.google.pl/b.misselhorn/Poland

Sleeping and eating in Poland

Good news. Marcin's passport is already in Poland and he will hopefully get his visa for Uzbekistan within the next few days. By that time my passport should be here with the last and most important visa I was still missing - the one for Russia. And then we're ready to go :)

Last weekend we did our first little trip with boxes. Even though we took only half of the luggage we will take on the big trip, we already had the size of two Fiat Maluchs. Hopefully our bikes will not end like this one

< ---- (not my photo, stolen from the web)

Who wants to see some pictures of our last weekend can have a look here:
http://picasaweb.google.pl/b.misselhorn/ClimbingInPasterskieSkaly

Marcin changed the look of his aluminium boxes a little as he was testing their shock absorbing abilities. I shouldn't say too much about this, it probably won't take too long before I follow his example.

In the meantime we changed hobbies. Instead of climbing and running we now enjoy eating&drinking combined with hibernation like sleeping. We have tested about every (communist style and normal) restaurant in the city and surrounding areas...