Sunday, August 16, 2009

31 July 2009 Zarubino Russia























After gettign up early, I started packing my motorcycle. It wasn’t long and security came to check me out again while I was loading my bike. I’m sure they thought I was going to skip out of the hotel and not pay my bill even though my bill was already paid. I loaded the top box and then ate breakfast. I made three more trips upstairs to get all my baggage out of my room. On the last trip I asked reception to check the room to make sure everything was in order. The bell boy immediately took off to check the room. Everything was in order so I was able to check out without any problems. I checked that my passport was in order……that I had all my money…………that I had my wallets and hotel receipts. The motorcycle started ok. I programmed Matilda to get me out of Vladivostock and I departed the hotel. It was almost 8:00 a.m. before I left and traffic was building. Getting out of the hotel parking lot was a challenge. There was a steady stream of traffic which I had to break into. The car in front of me was also making a left hand turn and stopped all the traffic so I just followed him. There was a lot of horn blowing and wild hand waving but we got out of the parking lot ok. You can’t be too timid when you drive Russian traffic because you’ll get run over. Anyway, Matilda led me out of the city just fine. I was grateful for that. I got stopped by the police again. I don’t know what for but I stopped. The police officer started hollering at me and I told him I didn’t understand Russian. He asked for my passport and I gave it to him. He checked my papers and gave it back to me. He then waved me on without a fine or reprimand. For some reason that Highway M60 into and out of Vladivostock was highly patrolled by the police. I continued on until I came to a westbound road which crossed a river and then turned south to the Port of Zarubino. Initially the westbound road was under construction and pretty miserable. Then it changed into a beautiful black top road. I said to myself "this is a little bit of heaven". True to form, that was pretty short lived and I was back in the gravel, potholes and the dust. My relatively clean motorcycle was re-covered in thick dust. The road eventually turned back into black top again and then into dirt. By now the traffic was heavier in both directions. The dust was coming at me from all directions. I eventually arrived in Slavjanka where my hotel for the night was. I drove all the way through town not finding it. I stopped at one of the apartment buildings and saw two younger women talking and asked them if they knew where the hotel was that I was looking for. Of course they knew where it was but couldn’t tell me so one of the women told her husband to lead me to the hotel with their car. When we got there the husband motioned that this was the hotel and was about to drive off. I motioned to him to wait for a moment. I gave him a nice tip for his help and dug a blog card out of my jacket sleeve. I explained it was an internet site and e-mail address. He understood my card, shook hands and he left. I was still covered with dust so I took my gloves off and dusted myself off and went into the hotel to check in. I handed the receptionist the voucher for my room and my passport. She found a room for me and registered my passport. She said the paperwork for my passport wouldn’t be ready till the next day. She handed me the key to my room and then headed to the stairway to show me my room. By the time she stopped we were on the fifth floor again. It seems that all the single rooms are always on the top floor. My tongue was hanging out again and I haven’t even carried any bags upstairs yet. She opened the door and let me in. It was a nice room. Actually it was a one or two year old hotel. We went back downstairs and I started carrying my bags up. By the time I carried up the tires I laid down on the bed and took a break. I fell asleep for about an hour. I went back downstairs to my motorcycle and decided to ride to the Port of Zarubino. I wanted to find out if the road was gravel or if it was blacktop all the way. Before leaving Slavjanka I decided to buy a tank of gas. I stopped in the nearest gas station to fill up. This will be the last gas I buy for the motorcycle until I get to Vancouver, BC Canada. I went up to the small window and gave the ladies 500 rubles. They wanted to know how many liters of gas I wanted. I told them I wanted to fill the gas tank. One of the ladies could speak some English and said she’d pump the gas for me. She came flying out the gas station door and headed for the pump. This woman was close to 6 Ft/183 cm tall and tipped the scale at 250 lbs+/114 Kg. She was no woman to mess with. If you would have harnessed her and hooked her up to a plow she could have pulled it. She grabbed the gas pump hose and proceeded to fill my gas tank. She almost overfilled it running the gas nozzle into it wide open. I hollered at her when I realized what was going to happen. She slowed the gas flow down and filled the tank right up to the gas cap neck. Perfect. I saw two guys whose job was to pump gas overfill my gas tank and spill gas all over my motorcycle. Then they stood there with this dumb look on their face like can’t figure out what happened. That was a first in Russia for me. A woman offered to fill my gas tank for me. I pulled out of the gas station and headed toward the Port of Zarubino. It was blacktop all the way there. I was glad of that. If it would have been gravel I would have had to have gotten up earlier to get to the port on time. I drove into the town of Zarubino. It was a small port city that provided manpower for the port. I turned around and headed back to the port. I saw a small grocery store near the entrance of the port. I wanted to buy some food for supper tonight. I purchased some apples, bananas, Snickers bars, water and two pasties. I walked outside, ate a pasty, apple, all the bananas and water. I drove to a hill overlooking the port and took some pictures. I then drove back to my hotel in Slavjanka. It was a 30 mile drive. I arrived back at the hotel and was digging my computer out of my top box when these two boys rode up on their bicycles. They wanted to look at my motorcycle. They were real curious so I asked them if they would help me. Music to their ears. I wanted to put my motorcycle up on the center stand but couldn’t do it myself. They both grabbed a saddle bag and I operated the center stand. It was a max effort by everybody but we got it up on the center stand. I then told them the story about me riding my motorcycle around the world. I took out the electronic word translator and showed them all the countries I passed thru. You should have seen their faces. It was the most unheard of thing in their lives. They were bloody impressed. They asked if they could take my picture. I said yes. The older guy had mobile phone that could take pictures. Each one of the boys had their pictures taken separately with me. They were just about to leave and I saw the older boy’s backpack had the Harley-Davidson logo on it. I told them to come back and I showed them a picture of my 1941 Harley-Davidson chopper. They thought that was the coolest motorcycle on the face of the earth. They then jumped on their bicycles and rode off. Five minutes later here come the same two boys with another three boys and two girls. They looked over my Kawasaki KLR 650 and wanted to know all specifics about the motorcycle. Things were winding down some so I pulled out the picture of my chopper and showed the older guys that walked over. That impressed them and one of the girls. The other girl was too interested in one of the guys to even look at the motorcycle. One of the older guys could speak a little English. I tried to communicate with him to show him I could understand his English. It’s always pretty exciting when you use a foreign language for the first time and you realize the other person can understand you. I took a picture of the group and they eventually walked back out the gate on to bigger and better things to do. They wanted me to come with and have some fun. I declined their offer and thanked them. I oiled my chain and went back upstairs for the night.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. simply unbelieveable you rode across Russia. Said it before, and I'll say it again: your sense of adventure is awe-inspiring! D.D.J.

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