Chita turned out to be a place full of, in parts rather costly, ‘extras’ and ‘misunderstandings’ and we did a lot of cultural learning. We stayed two nights in a good, if slightly run down hotel. Funny enough we walked into the wrong place :o) We had intended to walk into Nr 15 and walked into Nr 17 which also was a hotel. It was quite expensive considering our budget because we were charged by number of people not by the room (and hotels in Russia are never cheap in the first place) but we were wrung out after 4 days on the road, desperate for a shower and decided to stay, not to mention the fact that one of us desperately needed to go to the loo and that public toilets in Russia are…, let’s say sub-optimal.
After check in, we wandered the streets in the falling night, admired the ubiquitous Lenin-Statue on the (equally ubiquitous Lenin-) Square which is the focal point of most Russian cities and had piroshky, salad and beer for less than 5 AUDs, at a small eatery obviously not aiming at tourists. We needed to wash our cloths, however, coin-laundries are not common in Russia but hotels offer laundry services. Obviously they charge you so we did T-shirts and underwear ourselves in the room and gave jeans and hoodies to the hotel. They also charge you for ironing, and this one rather big time – and as we found out, you have tell them if you don’t want them to be ironed, otherwise they just do – assuming that was your wish, ‘katching’ there went a heap of money, sigh….
Next day we spend half the day on registering. If you travel Russia you have to register your visa every three days – this happens mainly when you stay at a hotel, they may charge you a small amount for it but you don’t have to do anything. Not so in Chita, because of 8 Rubel (about 30 cents), we had to walk through half the city, wait a veeeeery long time in a bank’s corridor to make the payment and take the payment slip to the hotel.
Later that day we went to a eatery in a tank-park (the old officer’s casino with a large display of tanks) where they offered shashlik, which was really yummy with salad and bread. Turns out, they charge by weight and although it was nice food, it was not an enormous amount but we still paid 800 Rubels which is more than we had paid together for all the food we had consumed in the ten days leading up to Chita – pffft, we were unhappy and really felt ripped off.
Turns out, whenever you ask for a service you just have to be keenly aware of the conditions, the hotel offered us to put the car in the back of the hotel because the road they said was not safe. We drove Melville to the back of the hotel, which was not really a parking lot but the delivery zone. We were very happy about this as this also meant we could fix some things on the wooden drawer in the back. At check-out they the hotel suddenly charged us for it. This is fair enough and in other cities we have parked our car at paid parking, but no one mentioned anything about it when they offered us to put the car there which leaves a not so nice feeling. Anyhoo, Melville was save, we were able to fix the drawer, we managed to do our washing and they had a Russian music channel playing alternative music (and a disturbing amount of Rammstein, sigh!!!). Also, we had heard before that Chita has a reputation as rip-off city, so this is the end of my nagging! This is a time for holidaying not so much for getting worked up over petty annoyances and as I said we learned a bit about how things are run and organized in other places. On a nicer note: Chita has quite a few very beautiful old wooden houses brightening up the city, the pictures shows one of the stunning fronts. Before leaving Chita for Ulan Ude we made a detour to a monastery in a neighbouring city. This city is a major city for Buriat people, inhabiting this area. The temple precinct was very beautiful and serene.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Khabarovsk to Chita, 3.8.-6.8.2010
Driving through Far Eastern Russia is awesome! It took us 4 days to get from Khabarovsk to Chita and the scenery is fascinating, the population density is decreasing with every day. In the mornings we often stop at local cafes to have blini (pancakes) with custard or we stop for piroshkis (fried turnovers) - Yummy!
One day we met these two guys and their pet snake Jeanette outside a cafe. Both teams exchanged astonished glances: We stared at their spanky new Toyota Tundra (biggest Pickup I've ever seen) and Jeanette, draped nonchalant around their shoulders - they were amazed by our not quite so spanky but nevertheless still impressive vehicle with Australian an registration. After a bit of small talk we both headed our ways.
We drove through many villages of wooden houses, all painted very detailed and ornamented in greens, whites or blues – maybe the odd yellow. The locals sell vegetables and fruit from the roadside and because of the season mushrooms (big stone mushrooms) are sold everywhere. And I mean everywhere: in the middle of nowhere, we found people sitting by the side of the road offering their crops. It was not an unusual sight to see people riding their bicycle through the Taiga or waiting at the roadside for busses – miles away from the next village. We took advantage from being offered so much fresh food and bought some blueberries and carrots on the way.
Sofar, we mainly slept in old quarries a bit off the road – highlight was a lookout from which you could overlook a valley. The road is really good two thirds of the time, but it is also a major construction zone – which makes for the remaining third. There we mostly had gravel just waiting to be paved and only in very few places were there bits which needed more work than paving, these were dominated by huge potholes. We share the road with many of the imported cars coming from VVO, but because they usually have more than 2 passengers and presumably drive longer hours than us we usually only share a day with them (you meet at petrol stations and recognize each other from overtaking). Everybody is always so interested in us and asks about Melville’s age, where we come from and where we are going and the reaction most of the time alternates between ‘Wow, that is a great trip you are doing’ and incredulous stares a la ‘You must be mad’.
Talking of petrol stations: At one point Holger and I were getting a bit nervous because we needed to refill and the number of petrol stations had dwindled dramatically about halfway between Khabarovsk and Chita. While having a nature break, a Russian car stopped and asked if we had any idea whether a petrol station was close – :o). We both made it to the next petrol station a few k’s down the road. In petrol stations in Russia you pay before you fill up. Hence you go to the cashier, usually a lady in a little hut behind bars and a glass and place your ‘order’. Cashiers almost always communicate via yelling, firstly because they don’t understand you, secondly because they don’t believe you (we usually ask for about 100 liter because we have two tanks) and thirdly to let Holger know he can press the lever now to make the gasoline flow. This lady was particularly harsh and that I suddenly screamed, jumped aside and pulled down my pants didn’t help: A bumble-bee had crept up my pants and once it reached the thigh I got out of the car and the bumble-bee did not like it a single bit and stung me, and stung me again, and again, and again… – in the end I counted 10 stings. It took me a few seconds to figure out where the pain was coming from and that’s why I pulled down my pants: the bumble-bee actually happily flew away but I was kinda in pain (for the next hour or so). A few minutes later Holger found out that the nozzles in Russia do not have a stop automatic, the overflowing petrol interrupted Holgi’s flawless interpretation of a kangaroo’s moving pattern he had chosen to explain the tank-guy, presumably the harsh lady’s husband, where we come from. Needless to say that we left the petrol station with slightly blushed cheeks and that this memorable tank stop has now a special place in our memory. Oh, and I did not take up the offer of the said Russian family, who had asked us about the next petrol station earlier and which was now witnessing our conundrum at the petrol station, to apply the cooling ointment here and now but warmly thanked them.
One day we met these two guys and their pet snake Jeanette outside a cafe. Both teams exchanged astonished glances: We stared at their spanky new Toyota Tundra (biggest Pickup I've ever seen) and Jeanette, draped nonchalant around their shoulders - they were amazed by our not quite so spanky but nevertheless still impressive vehicle with Australian an registration. After a bit of small talk we both headed our ways.
We drove through many villages of wooden houses, all painted very detailed and ornamented in greens, whites or blues – maybe the odd yellow. The locals sell vegetables and fruit from the roadside and because of the season mushrooms (big stone mushrooms) are sold everywhere. And I mean everywhere: in the middle of nowhere, we found people sitting by the side of the road offering their crops. It was not an unusual sight to see people riding their bicycle through the Taiga or waiting at the roadside for busses – miles away from the next village. We took advantage from being offered so much fresh food and bought some blueberries and carrots on the way.
Sofar, we mainly slept in old quarries a bit off the road – highlight was a lookout from which you could overlook a valley. The road is really good two thirds of the time, but it is also a major construction zone – which makes for the remaining third. There we mostly had gravel just waiting to be paved and only in very few places were there bits which needed more work than paving, these were dominated by huge potholes. We share the road with many of the imported cars coming from VVO, but because they usually have more than 2 passengers and presumably drive longer hours than us we usually only share a day with them (you meet at petrol stations and recognize each other from overtaking). Everybody is always so interested in us and asks about Melville’s age, where we come from and where we are going and the reaction most of the time alternates between ‘Wow, that is a great trip you are doing’ and incredulous stares a la ‘You must be mad’.
Talking of petrol stations: At one point Holger and I were getting a bit nervous because we needed to refill and the number of petrol stations had dwindled dramatically about halfway between Khabarovsk and Chita. While having a nature break, a Russian car stopped and asked if we had any idea whether a petrol station was close – :o). We both made it to the next petrol station a few k’s down the road. In petrol stations in Russia you pay before you fill up. Hence you go to the cashier, usually a lady in a little hut behind bars and a glass and place your ‘order’. Cashiers almost always communicate via yelling, firstly because they don’t understand you, secondly because they don’t believe you (we usually ask for about 100 liter because we have two tanks) and thirdly to let Holger know he can press the lever now to make the gasoline flow. This lady was particularly harsh and that I suddenly screamed, jumped aside and pulled down my pants didn’t help: A bumble-bee had crept up my pants and once it reached the thigh I got out of the car and the bumble-bee did not like it a single bit and stung me, and stung me again, and again, and again… – in the end I counted 10 stings. It took me a few seconds to figure out where the pain was coming from and that’s why I pulled down my pants: the bumble-bee actually happily flew away but I was kinda in pain (for the next hour or so). A few minutes later Holger found out that the nozzles in Russia do not have a stop automatic, the overflowing petrol interrupted Holgi’s flawless interpretation of a kangaroo’s moving pattern he had chosen to explain the tank-guy, presumably the harsh lady’s husband, where we come from. Needless to say that we left the petrol station with slightly blushed cheeks and that this memorable tank stop has now a special place in our memory. Oh, and I did not take up the offer of the said Russian family, who had asked us about the next petrol station earlier and which was now witnessing our conundrum at the petrol station, to apply the cooling ointment here and now but warmly thanked them.
On the Road to Khabarovsk! 30.7.-2.8.2010
The biggest task of the following day, Friday 30th, was to get out of VVO and its rather hazardous traffic in one piece! Particularly in the city drivers were quite liberal when it came to traffic lights (more guidelines then rules), the breadth and number of lanes (varying from 1-3) and many traffic situations were solved on the spot. And all of this on the right hand side :o) Needless to say that Holger managed this quite competently with me functioning as the second adjustable mirror.
We drove for nearly all of the afternoon and tried to locate a Tiger Sanctuary half way between VVO and Khabarovsk. At a petrol station a guy drew us a map with directions which turned out to be really good – and this although he did not speak a word of English and we did not speak enough Russian to make our inquiries. Alas, all to no avail – when we finally managed to locate the sanctuary we arrived out of their normal hours and were not able to track anybody down. Bummer, by then we had driven several times through the very small and serene village probably much to the amusement of the locals. We spend the night on a hill a bit off the highway and had our first night camping under Far East Russian skies which we celebrated with some spaghetti!
Next day we made it to Khabarovsk where we stayed in a hotel and explored the lively and in parts quite European city the following morning. Finding a hotel proved to be a bit of an ordeal because they were all rather dear and all smelled quite badly because they were old and you are still allowed to smoke in hotel rooms in Russia, which makes for a rather stuffy room climate. We ended up in a truly Soviet-style hotel with glittering wallpaper, a veeeery soft bed and a bathroom with a shower head adjusted to the wall directly opposite the toilet without a curtain or wall in between – which made for wet feet. Well, it WAS the cheapest option ;o)
Now to the city: A grand boulevard starts leads to (or from) the great river Amur and offers some magnificent views over the vast river, the many monuments located along its shores and the many splendidly rebuild churches.
We met Alex who offered to be our guide for the day but because we were keen to get going we decided to skip sightseeing in order to leave towards Chita. We tried to hunt down a cable to connect car stereo and Ipod (which we stupidly forgot to take with us) which turned out to be quite difficult – the issue still needs to be resolved, hence so far no music!. On the road leading towards Khabarovks and the one leading out of Khabarovsk we were for the first time stopped by the police. On the first occasion Holger had been speeding unbeknown to him, this way we found out about the local speed limits and the office was very nice and laughed when he tried to talk to Holger but found that poor Holger’s knowledge of Russian, err, did not extend beyond ‘Hello, my name is…’ and insufficient for a proper conversation. Instead, he sent us on our way without issuing a ticket and, presumably, whished us well :o) When leaving Khabarovsk the officers just checked our papers, enquired about the route and wished us all the best, telling us that this npart of Russia is beautiful (which in fact it is!). These stops were permanent police checkpoints and same as with Australian booze busses as many cars are checked as there are capacities, but more often than not we’ve just driven through them. Every police officer so far has been very polite and interested.
The roads have been really good so far, only in a few places they were heavily under construction and on one stretch made of rather coarse gravel, Troopy lost a light - but handyman Holgi fixed the problem quickly with the bottom of a 5 litre water canister - has worked fine so far :o)
We drove for nearly all of the afternoon and tried to locate a Tiger Sanctuary half way between VVO and Khabarovsk. At a petrol station a guy drew us a map with directions which turned out to be really good – and this although he did not speak a word of English and we did not speak enough Russian to make our inquiries. Alas, all to no avail – when we finally managed to locate the sanctuary we arrived out of their normal hours and were not able to track anybody down. Bummer, by then we had driven several times through the very small and serene village probably much to the amusement of the locals. We spend the night on a hill a bit off the highway and had our first night camping under Far East Russian skies which we celebrated with some spaghetti!
Next day we made it to Khabarovsk where we stayed in a hotel and explored the lively and in parts quite European city the following morning. Finding a hotel proved to be a bit of an ordeal because they were all rather dear and all smelled quite badly because they were old and you are still allowed to smoke in hotel rooms in Russia, which makes for a rather stuffy room climate. We ended up in a truly Soviet-style hotel with glittering wallpaper, a veeeery soft bed and a bathroom with a shower head adjusted to the wall directly opposite the toilet without a curtain or wall in between – which made for wet feet. Well, it WAS the cheapest option ;o)
Now to the city: A grand boulevard starts leads to (or from) the great river Amur and offers some magnificent views over the vast river, the many monuments located along its shores and the many splendidly rebuild churches.
We met Alex who offered to be our guide for the day but because we were keen to get going we decided to skip sightseeing in order to leave towards Chita. We tried to hunt down a cable to connect car stereo and Ipod (which we stupidly forgot to take with us) which turned out to be quite difficult – the issue still needs to be resolved, hence so far no music!. On the road leading towards Khabarovks and the one leading out of Khabarovsk we were for the first time stopped by the police. On the first occasion Holger had been speeding unbeknown to him, this way we found out about the local speed limits and the office was very nice and laughed when he tried to talk to Holger but found that poor Holger’s knowledge of Russian, err, did not extend beyond ‘Hello, my name is…’ and insufficient for a proper conversation. Instead, he sent us on our way without issuing a ticket and, presumably, whished us well :o) When leaving Khabarovsk the officers just checked our papers, enquired about the route and wished us all the best, telling us that this npart of Russia is beautiful (which in fact it is!). These stops were permanent police checkpoints and same as with Australian booze busses as many cars are checked as there are capacities, but more often than not we’ve just driven through them. Every police officer so far has been very polite and interested.
The roads have been really good so far, only in a few places they were heavily under construction and on one stretch made of rather coarse gravel, Troopy lost a light - but handyman Holgi fixed the problem quickly with the bottom of a 5 litre water canister - has worked fine so far :o)
Vladivostok, 24.7.-30.7.2010
Hurray, we finally made it – after a very stressful last six months we are now on our way! In the weeks to come we will gradually update the postings and add photos – but it might take some time until we get it done :o) We are right now already in Choibalsan in Eastern Mongolia!
Anyway, this is how it all started: Thanks to Borut and Janina, we made it right in time to the airport and thanks to the ground staff’s patience and interest (‘Oooh, I’ve never checked anybody through to Vladivostok’) we were able to check in our massive luggage without any problems. We needed to collect the boarding passes for the connecting flights in Kuala Lumpur and again some very friendly staff (not without giggling a lot and throwing questioning stares) managed to get this organized in a minimum of time. In Seoul we detected that we were entering Russia on a plan taking many Russian holiday makers back and we heard already many Russian voices :o)
Entering Russia was again as smooth as you can imagine: we had to wait in the same line as all the others, the lady-officer looked at our immigration cards, the visa and our faces – and here we had our stamp! Collecting the luggage was our first adventure because the airport is an international one but only became so a few years ago, so the facilities are quite small and there were quite a few people and many more bags cramped in a very little space but everybody was very lighthearted and the atmosphere was quite merry. The customs officials simply waved us through and it was up to us to ‘hassle’ them a bit because we wanted to get a customs declaration for our troopy (or Melville as we have christened him).
Getting to the city then was another, rather adventurous, episode: Let me say this, after a thorough scientific enquiry (result confirmed in 2 out of 2 cases) we can say for certain that taxi-drivers in Russia (as very likely everywhere in the world) are pirates when it comes to carrying non-native passengers. Instead of billowing sails they have broken windscreens but their driving technique can be easily described as ‘reckless’. Not to mention the rather outrages fares…. Anyway we made it to the hotel in one piece and 90 Dollars the poorer. Hotel Primorye was great and the staff was awesome and helped us heaps finding places and accommodated us when we had to stay longer than expected.
We spend a day and a half exploring VVO which is a great city. It is an extremely busy (you live quite dangerous as a pedestrian) port town and we were surrounded by sailors all the time (at time of our visit an American and what could have been a Korean or Taiwanese military boat were there for a maneuver). In the evening a central little harbor came alive with stalls, entertainment and fireworks. Everything was open till late and it took us some time to get used to have daylight right until 10 o’clock. We sampled some food and the self-serve cantines and mobile food stalls where you can take things or simply point at things - handy. Quickly we learned the words for chicken, meat and fish. We had yummy and really cheap turnovers with various fillings and decided quickly that we like Russian food. Holger was especially pleased to find pickled cucumber in Russian cuisine go with nearly everything (even breakfast) :o)
Monday we started retrieving Melville, we went to the agent’s office where we met Irina our ‘case-officer’, she also turned out to be a really great guide and we spend a great time together. She did the paperwork and brought us in contact with our broker Vladimir who did the actual customs part. It took half a day to locate Melville’s container and then things started. Customs took one and a half days and involved numerous trips to the customs office, sitting around on corridors, being ushered into official’s office’s and signing many a document. It was all more costly than we had expected but then again our Australian agent had not been able to find out anything about the local importation costs beforehand. The customs office was a busy place, heaps of customs officers, dealers and people who were presumably privateers were running in and out all the time and there seemed to be a competition among the female customs officers as to who could wear the highest heels – and those were serious high heels! At 5.30 on Thursday we finally saw Troopy leaving the port’s gates – Hurrayh!
We spend the evening getting Troopy ready and did not went to bed before midnight & the next morning saw us starting quite early to get the last things organized including saying farewell to Irina who had helped us in so many ways.
Vladivostok
Hurray, we finally made it – after a very stressful last six months we are now on our way!
The first big step: Sending Melville off, Fremantle Port, June 18 2010
In the weeks to come we will gradually update our Blog but given the current run of things ( we are already on Mongolia but only start posting abour Russia now) it will be slooowww ;o) Pictures will appear soonish as well...
Thanks to Borut and Janina, we made it right in time to the airport and thanks to the ground staff’s patience and interest (‘Oooh, I’ve never checked anybody through to Vladivostok’) we were able to check in our massive luggage without any problems. We needed to collect the boarding passes for the connecting flights in Kuala Lumpur and again some very friendly staff (not without giggling a lot and throwing questioning stares) managed to get this organized in a minimum of time. In Seoul we detected that we were entering Russia on a plan taking many Russian holiday makers back and we heard already many Russian voices :o)
Entering Russia was again as smooth as you can imagine: we had to wait in the same line as all the others, the lady-officer looked at our immigration cards, the visa and our faces – and here we had our stamp! Collecting the luggage was our first adventure because the airport is an international one but only became so a few years ago, so the facilities are quite small and there were quite a few people and many more bags cramped in a very little space but everybody was very lighthearted and the atmosphere was quite merry. The customs officials simply waved us through and it was up to us to ‘hassle’ them a bit because we wanted to get a customs declaration for our troopy (or Melville as we have named him).
Getting to the city then was another, rather adventurous, episode: Let me say this, after a thorough scientific enquiry (result confirmed in 2 out of 2 cases) we can say for certain that taxi-drivers in Russia (as very likely everywhere in the world) are pirates when it comes to carrying non-native passengers. Instead of billowing sails they have broken windscreens but their driving technique can be easily described as ‘reckless’. Not to mention the rather outrages fares…. Anyway we made it to the hotel in one piece and 90 Dollars the poorer. Hotel Primorye was great and the staff was awesome and helped us heaps finding places and accommodated us when we had to stay longer than expected.
We spend a day and a half exploring VVO which is a great city. It is an extremely busy (you live quite dangerous as a pedestrian) port town and we were surrounded by sailors all the time (at time of our visit an American and what could have been a Korean or Taiwanese military boat were there for a maneuver). In the evening a central little harbor came alive with stalls, entertainment and fireworks. Everything was open till late and it took us some time to get used to have daylight right until 10 o’clock.
We sampled some food and the self-serve cantines and mobile food stalls where you can take things or simply point at things - handy. Quickly we learned the words for chicken, meat and fish. We had yummy and really cheap turnovers with various fillings and decided quickly that we like Russian food. Holger was especially pleased to find pickled cucumber in Russian cuisine go with nearly everything (even breakfast) :o)
Monday we started retrieving Melville, we went to the agent’s office where we met Irina our ‘case-officer’, she also turned out to be a really great guide and we spend a great time together. She did the paperwork and brought us in contact with our broker Vladimir who did the actual customs part. It took half a day to locate Melville’s container and then things started. Customs took one and a half days and involved numerous trips to the customs office, sitting around on corridors, being ushered into official’s office’s and signing many a document. It was all more costly than we had expected but then again our Australian agent had not been able to find out anything about the local importation costs beforehand. The customs office was a busy place, heaps of customs officers, dealers and people who were presumably privateers were running in and out all the time and there seemed to be a competition among the female customs officers as to who could wear the highest heels – and those were serious high heels! At 5.30 on Thursday we finally saw Troopy leaving the port’s gates – Hurray!
We spend the evening getting Troopy ready and did not go to bed before midnight & the next morning saw us starting quite early to get the last things organized including saying farewell to Irina who had helped us in so many ways.
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