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Sibirsky Extreme, Ukraine

The Odessa File

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A more comprehensive guide to yesterday:

11.04.09  Odessa

I packed up the gear and at about 09:30 left the sleepy Ukranian border town of Reni for the 4 hour drive to Odessa.  The plan was lunch and internet in Odessa, then do about 100km more and find a home for the night.

The cook in the hotel warned me the road was pretty bad.  Certainly the road out of Reni was in bad shape, but once on the open road it was comfortably manageable.  The first hour or so was weaving in and around lakes and channels in the Danube delta.

A young female car driver stopped me for a chat after spotting me taking photos of some local villagers, insisting I take some photos of her, before she zoomed off to Kiev at a high rate of knots.

I had to take a route along the coast, as the road between Reni and Odessa crosses into Moldova briefly a couple of times – which is easy for locals, but a bureaucratic hassle for a foreigner like me.  I sighted the Black sea for the first time, along with its beachy shore.  The beach didnt look too inviting tho today.  It was cold weather.  No rain, but about 10 – 11 degrees all day.

Eventually I reached Odessa, about an hour later than I thought, and it took a good half hour to get into the centre of town, where I knew I could find internet.  I parked outside a cafe with wireless internet advertised on the streetfront, took my 2nd wallet out of my tankbag to reshuffle what currencies were in my reserve wallet and what ones I carried witth me, and sat down to have a pizza, coffee and catch up on 5-6 days of internet absence.  There was a lot of catching up to do, and I spent a good 2 hours updating pics and text and responding to urgent emails.

When I got up to leave and pay the bill, I noticed my jacket pocket (my jacket had been draped over my chair) was open and both wallets gone.  It was a disaster.  All my cards were in the two wallets, along with drivers licence and about 750 eur in eur, usd and rubles.  It must have happened when I popped inside for 30 seconds to have a quick slash, and I kinda suspect the waiter himself who was covering the balcony area (of which I was the only customer).

After a frantic search, I called to cancel the cards.  I will get new ones sent out in due course, but that will take time, and I may not be able to have a reliable place to send them until Almaty in 5 – 6 weeks time.  Fortunately the bank is able to wire me some emergency funds by Western Union.  Unfortunately, it was now after 6pm on Saturday and those funds would not be accessible until banks affilliated with western union opened on Monday morning here in Ukraine.

I found 200 reserve EUR I had tucked away in a safe place and changed half of it into Ukranian hryvna so i could pay the cafe bill and top up with fuel.  I made a search of the alleyways around the Grand Cafe where I had the wallets stolen in case someone had just taken the cash and thrown away the wallets and cards, but no luck.

For both travel and business I had been to the former soviet union (FSU) over 70 times in all, and never been robbed.  I had been swindled out of a 50 buck “donation” by a dodgy Russian immigration official once, but in over 70 visits in over 15 years, I had never been robbed.  I guess while most people are paranoid about security issues in the FSU, I had gone the other way, and treated Ukranians, Kazakhs and Russians like trusted brothers.  Certainly the friendliness and hospitality I have always received in these parts has always been first class.  It seems I had relaxed a little too much.

I drove to the main pedestrian street, Deribasovska, where I once knew a couple of western guys who had an apartment business.  I guess I wanted to see some friendly reassuring faces.  By now it was after 8pm and I needed to sort out accommodation.  If I couldnt find the guys I once knew, I would just ride out of town and into the night, stopping at a hotel by the highway.

By total luck I stumbled across 20 or more bikers having coffee and some food by the side of Deribasovska.  They loved the sound of my Remus exhaust but on hearing my sad story, they insisted on giving me a home for the night and had a whip round for some cash.  I refused to take it, but they shoved it in my pocket, insisting “bikers always help other bikers”.  This is an attitude I had seen several times while on a bike in Russia, and it seems it was no different in Ukraine.  They are always very generous and helpful.  After their street meet split up, a guy called Sasha from the Motor-Life club in Odessa (http://motor-life.ucoz.ua/) told me to follow him.  He had a ground floor apartment and a secure garage.

It was good to feel looked after and to have a home for the night.

Sibirsky Extreme, Ukraine

Those damn thieves

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Well just as I wrote and posted that long series of updates, it seems I have been deprived of both my wallets, and all my credit and debit cards by some light fingered son of a gun.  I did at one point leave my table and go to the toilet and left my wallets in the jacket pocket on the chair.  I had both on me as I was in the process of switching between currencies and cards to ones that worked better in the former soviet union.  So here I am now with no cash and no cards.

By chance while riding around wondering what to do next (I just had enough change in my pocket to pay the cafe bill) I stumbled across a bunch of bikers – The Moto-Life Club of Odessa – having a few drinks in the centre of town.  These guys took me in, passed the hat around and got me a bunch of cash to get me through till Western Union branches open again on Monday, and one of the guys has kindly offered me a place to stay for a night or two and a garage for the bike.

All my cards are cancelled, and the only document in there was the driving licence.  But I have the paper copy and an international driving permit so that should be fine.  But I did lose a decent amount of EUR and USD … and it will take at least 2 weeks to get new cards to access my accounts.

So its been a worrysome first 24 hours in the Ukraine, salvaged by typically outstanding hospitality from local bikers in this part of the world.

I will need to be more security conscious in future.

Moldova, Romania, Sibirsky Extreme, Ukraine

Alone: to MD and UA

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Apologies.  I havent had internet for 5 days.  We havent looked for it specifically and ended up staying in very out of the way places.  But I am now here in a cafe in Odessa (Ukraine) eating pizza with wi-fi access so here goes 5 days updates.

– – –

Day 12: Good Friday

A look out of our window early in the morning said the weather would be good, so Marcin and I rose early to tackle the Transfagarasan.  This road had been built as an escape route across the carpathian mountains to provide and escape route for communist dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu, in case the Soviets invaded as per Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.  Romania is split in two by the curved Carpathian range.   The plains along the Danube to the east and south of the country, including Bucharest, could be easily invaded by the soviets.  But the land within the curve of the Carpathians would involve crossing the Carpathians somehow.  The road is said to be a feat of road engineering up there with the best of them , and very scenic to boot.

The Transfagarasan road is supposedly only opened in mid May each year as the high pass is around 2030 metres up.  I had just ridden the Arlberg pass in Austria last week and was feeling up for it.  As we climbed up from the base of the mountains at about 500 metres to the level of the first lake at about 850, the temperature dropped dramatically.  In theory, temperature should drop about 1 degree C every 150 metres in altitude, subject to a couple of variables, but in this case, it must have dropped 7-8 degrees in just 350 metres.  By the time we would our way around the lake and climbed up through 1000 metres, the snow was becoming more and more abundant.  By 1300 metres there were avalanches across the road, with narrow paths just wide enough to fit a car cut through them. and by 1580 metres, the road became impassable.  Snow covered the whole road, to a depth of several feet.  we were defeated.  We turned back dejected for the one and a half hour ride back to the bottom of the mountains.

At Curtea de Arges, Marcin and I parted ways.  He had to head North West to get back to Poland, and I had to head East and get to the Ukraine.  24 hours earlier, we had been 3.  Now it was just me – “And then there was one”.  The first half an hour was strange.  For the first time in the trip I had no-one in my rear view mirrors; No-one in front of me; No-one to bounce ideas off; No-one to tell me my ideas are stupid.  As much as I love the freedom of riding alone, I will surely miss the company of Jonathan and Marcin.

I decided to head to a bizarre double border crossing at the southern tip of Moldova.  Due to the Danube estuary and delta, there is no border crossing between Romania and Ukraine, to the south of Moldova.  I had to go through Moldova… but recent Romanian news reports were of revolution and demonstrations in Moldova.  One voice even said the borders were closed.  I took a chance and headed for the Romanian city of Galati, near the crossings I wanted to try – from Romania into Moldova, then about 1.5 km later, the Ukranian border.  I wanted to be in Ukraine for the night so it was head down 120km riding all the way to Bucharest.  Then I hit the ring road.  If there is a worse capital city ring road anywhere in the wolrd, I have yet to see it.  It took me 30 km of reckless gung-ho riding through the worst traffic and most  rutted bitumen roads I have ever seen to get to the other side of the city.  What should have taken 20 minutes according to Garmin, took over an hour.  If I had ridden responsibly, I may still be there.

When I finally exited the ring road from hell, it was straight back to 120 km/h head down riding, with the little X-Challenge screaming away beneath me.  I had been scanning the trucks I passed and those which came the other way for Ukranian number plates to confirm the border was open, despite the on-going revolution, but I had seen nothing in the hundreds of kilometres I had been on the lookout.  Then, 70km from the border, a stroke of luck.  I saw two Ukranian trucks parked by the side of the road pointing in the direction of Ukraine, drivers engaged in social chat.  I slammed on the brakes, did a u-turn and chatted to the drivers in Russian.  The border was indeed open.  They assured me that all this revolution business is only in Kishinev, the capital city, and way down on the southernmost border there would be no problems.

By 7pm I made it to the Romanian border.  The 10 km from Galati to the border was deserted and felt like a no-mans land.  By 7:45 I was into Moldova, having been made to buy a 20 EUR insurance policy (from 4 lovely women who I photographed below) for the 1.2 km ride to the Ukraine border and then the Ukranians held me  up for over an hour while they went through bizarre paperwork rituals.  My passport was checked half a dozen times under ultraviolet light.  So too were my registration papers. By the time I was set free into Ukraine it was around 9:30 and well and truly dark.  The border guys recommended a cheap hotel in the town 6km down the road.  After a quick search I found it.  It was extremely soviet,  Very bare. But at this hour I didnt have a lot of choice.  And at 100 UAH for a room for the night (about 10 EUR) I didnt complain.  They even had secure parking for the bike and opened up the kitchen for me.

Texts came in from Jon and Marcin.  Marcin had made it to Hungary, and Jon who we had left just after midday yesterday (Thursday), had ridden non-stop though the night and made it to his girlfriends parents in Linz (Austria) at 7am this morning while Marcin and I were still thinking about waking up.  A remarkable piece of iron-man riding.

A couple of minor milestones came up today, day number 12.  Kilometre number 5000 of the trip came and went, as did the 200th litre of fuel, as well as the 22nd country and the 30th degree of longitude from the start of the trip in Wales (3 degrees 46 mins west to over 28 degrees east.)   This is where the rate of border crossings slows dramatically.  In the next 5 weeks there will only be 5 more countries to add to the list: Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.  After that, no new countries for about 3 months.

Bulgaria, Romania, Sibirsky Extreme

Bulgaria and Romania

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Another fine day dawned as the 3 of us awoke in Kosovo – Jon and Marcin in one room, and me in another.  We had worked out a deal where we got 2 rooms for 40 EUR. As breakfast hadn’t been included in the price and we had a hell of a lot of miles to try and do due to the Serbian intransigence, we packed up the bikes and prepared to head south again to Skopje, the Macedonian capital, from where we could head west into Bulgaria, and then north again to Romania.  The detour would add at least 250 km to the route and delay progress by 2/3 of a day or more.

As we were about to leave, the staff of the Hotel, disappointed that they would not get a chance to say goodbye over breakfast, insisted we come in or a coffee, on the house.  We accepted and rewarded them with a sticker 🙂

And so back south we went – past the Swedish and Italian forces clogging  up Kosovo’s roads.  I had entered a electronic black hole.  My compact camera and small video camera were both not working.  Frustratingly I missed a great conversation between Marcin and some Polish troops just before the Macedonian border.  On the positive side, the weather was fantastic.  It had been pretty much perfect since that first morning in Croatia, many days ago.

An hour or so later, just before crossing the Montenegro – Bulgaria border and re-entering the EU, Marcin had to stop for a 45 minute business conference call.  By co-incidence, I blew two fuses, continuing my electrical black hole of a day, and stopped to sort that out.  With Marcin on the phone for a while, i took the chance to superficially strip the bike down to try and find why I was blowing so many fuses.  I still don’t know  the answer, but I did find some original wiring under the seat that had been rubbed bare.  I taped them up as best I could and kept my fingers crossed that I had solved the problem.

Bulgaria was a blessing and a shock.  As a new EU member, the border crossing would be easy (as we all had EU passports) and things like petrol stations would be more likely to have machines that accepted credit / debit cards.  To our surprise, while the roads were still very “Balkan” – lots of up passes and down valleys, twists and turns, the surfacing of the roads was the worst we had experience on the trip so far.  By sundown we had reached the Bulgarian border town of Vidin, on the banks of the Danube river, just across from Romania.  The last hours ride, from a town called Montana, was really impressive.  The road was in top condition and the scenery as the sun set was like riding through somewhere in the US midwest or outback Australia.  It didnt seem like we were in Eastern Europe at all.  We pulled into a truckers motel, 500 yards from the ferry boat across the Danube to Romania.  A 3 person room was just under 10 EUR a night and we wondered if there would be any knocks on the door during the evening.  Being a border town in Eastern Europe where truckers pass through it wouldnt have surprised me.  We had seen a number of girls by the highway soon after entering Bulgaria from Macedonia.

Thursday we woke after an uneventful, undisturbed evening and did a little bike maintenance.  I had stayed up past 2 am while the otheers slept to cull my baggage.  I had known a few days into the trip that my fears re taking too much baggage were indeed true.  Jon was going to be heading back to visit his girlfriend in Austria today and in needed to give him whatever I no longer wanted to take, so that I could lighten my load.

We packed up after breakfast and minor bike maintenance to headed to the ferry.   We waited, and waited and waited.  Over and hour we waited for the ferry.  It only runs when its full and the roads were eerily quiet. At midday a ferry finally pulled in and we paid out 6 EUR each crossing fees.  The crossing itself was over half and hour and I took the opportunity to cut thee wires to my side stannd.  I had been told the best bet is to short them so the occasionally troublesome switch is bypassed.  I did that on my back on the ferry across the Danube only to reach the other side, start the engine and have it cut on me when I put it in gear.  I had shorted the wrong wires (there were 3 wires, and two of them had to be shorted.)  So after pushing the bike uphill to the customs shed, I shorted a different two wires and this time it seemed to work.  We powered on into Romania, our 20th country of the trip so far and headed for a petrol station to fill up.

So far on the trip, I had been getting about 25 km / litre which translates to 70mpg UK language, or 60mpg in US gallons, or 4 l / 100km for those who use that system.  Jon was typically filling up with 7-8 % more fuel than me at each stop and Marcin 15% -20% more on his carburettored KTM.  Jon carried a 5 litre tank with him strapped to the back of his bike and so had a total capacity of 21 litres and a range of about 430 km (270 miles). That was the smallest range of the 3 of us, and we based our fuel stops around that.  We had done pretty much that range when we had pulled into Vidin the previous night so we knew we had to top up with fuel on entereing Romania.  Jon topped up with 20.65 litres … he had at best 0.35 litres (about 6 km) left in his tank.  Throughout Eastern Europe fuel was universally just under 1 EUR a litre.

15 km into Romania and we had to say farewell to Jon.  He had to get back to Austria for easter evening tomorrow night, and there was a quick road back from this point.  Jon christened his own experiences in Eastern Europe as “Balkan Extreme” and certainly after surviving the likes of Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, I hope he sticks with that title.  There is a lot more to see and write about this part of the world re motorcycling than I have time for right now and I am sure Jon, who took a lot of pics, will document this all over the next few week once he has returned to sunny England.

With Jon heading off North West, Marcin and I headed North East.  We had almost 300 km to cover to get to the start of the amazing Trans-Fagarasan highway through the Carpathian mountains.  We took some interesting dirt back roads through hills and villages before being halted for an hour by rain.  Fortunately, just as rain fell, we came across a series of covered roadside bar-b-q stalls as we crossed a highway.  We paused and ate for an hour before resuming our journey.  We reached the Trans-Fagarasan just as darkness was falling and decided to overnight before the highway, saving the highways glory for tomorrows sunlight.

Albania, Kosovo et al, Macedonia, Sibirsky Extreme

Macedonia and Kosovo

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Todays update comes from downtown Kosovo.

Its been a spectacular couple of days riding.  The roads down here in the Balkans are great motorcycling roads.  Since arriving in Croatia 4 days ago, we have done about 1300km and less than 100km of those I would describe as a bit on the boring side.  Mainly about 50km leading into Tirane (Albania) and about 50 km leading into Prishtina (Kosovo).  The rest has been wonderful mountain roads, snow covered mountains, passes, switchbacks, fast sweeping bends etc etc etc. Its fantasy stuff.  I think we have been lucky enough (in the main) to have picked an interesting route, and I will try and get our GPS track posted up in the next few days.

So on with the story.  We left off last blog in Tirane … Monday morning I started off by changing yet another fuse in my bike.  I still havent worked out where the electrical gremlin is, and I probably wont have a chance to do it before the Crimea, but I will be geting some work done to the bike there anyway and will use that as an excuse to try and find what keeps blowing my instrument panel fuse.  I borrowed a cup of tea from the only other guest of the Hostel, a french guy backpacking and bussing his way to China.  He said he didnt have any normal tea, but he had this other one and I could try it.  I recognised the tea immediately.  It was Bolivian cocoa leaf tea.  Brought back a lot of memories riding the Bolivian Altipano a few years back.

Marcin and Jon woke up a bit later and we packed up the bikes, rode down the steps to the footpath and a kind traffic police woman in front of the Hostel stopped traffic to let the Sibirsky Extreme Project hit the Elbasan Road.  The road from Tirane to Elbasan was one of those great roads I spoke of earlier. It follows a razorback ridge for much of the way with steep drops either side of the road. We probably overpaid for a huge meaty brunch by the side of the mountain road but like every other meal we have had in the Balkans, it was HUGE.

After lunch we hit the road again headed for Greece.  Again it was all mountain roads, then along the western shore of Lake Ohrid, another pretty Balkan lake, before turning off at Korce for Greece and the EU.  Before hittiing the border we came across row upon row of fortified concrete bunkers.  We had seen them facing the Yugoslav borders too.  he Albanians must have been seriously paranoid about invasion at one point.

In Greece we climbed up to 1550 metres, passing another working ski resort along the way before dropping down into Florina, and heading north to the Macedonian border.  Jon had made the mistake of telling the nice Greek immigration lady that we were headed for Macedonia next and got an earbashing of how Macedonia is in Greece, and that other place is not really Macedonia.  Once in Greece, all the signs toward the border we to “FYROM” … Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.  The Greeks cant bear too call another country Macedonia.

We were stung for 50 EUR insurance for entering Macedonia.  It was the 17th country we had been to on this trip so far and only the second where we had had to pay border insurance – the other being 10 EUR for Montenegro.  Marcin however had insisted his Polish insurance company give him a green card, and he was free to enter as his green card was valid almost everywhere in Eastern Europe.  So lesson number one here learned on this trip, make sure you insist on a green card from your insurer before coming to the Balkans, and if they wont give you one (As BMW / NIG insurance didnt for me) consider changing to an insurer who does do green cards.

Apart from the border insurance, Macedonia wa a very pleasant surprise.  It has the Sibirsky Extreme official stamp of approval.  Almost everyone speaks English.  Food and accomodation are great value.  The scenery is outstanding.  Roads are pretty good.  What more can you want.  Darkness fell just as we began looking for a place to stay on the shores of Lake Prespan … the third large and pretty Balkan lake we had seen in the past few  days.  Lake Shkoder bordering Montenegro and Albania, Lake Ohrid bordering Albania and Macedonia and Prespan Lake bordering Macedonia and Greece.  After a bit of faffing about we found a out of the way hotel in a dusty old village called Stenje, which probably saw a few local tourists in the summer season but was so out of the way that we were the only inhabitants of the hotel that night.  It was a lovely out of the way spot and the owner cooked us up a feast.  As has been the norm in this part of the world, accomodation was in the 10 – 15 EUR a head (including breakfast) range, and meals were about 5 EUR each.

Tuesday started with bike maintenance.  My front brake pads were down to zero and late on Monday after some particularly vigorous mountain pass riding, I begain to hear noises that were a little too metallic for my liking coming from the front brake pads.  Indeed there was nothing left on them.  Jon’s rear pads too were pretty thin, and Marcin “Safran” Safranow had a small oil leak on his KTM (thinks a valve cover seal is past its prime).  And so in the sunshine, by the beach in Stenje, we did our respective maintenance jobs.

First stop for the day was the pretty monastery at Sveti Naum.  It was 20 minute ride over a spectacular road and another cool mountain pass with snow still over the road at the higher levels.  Marcin took a detour and decided to do some snow riding only to discover the snow was deeper than he suspected :-).  Then it was North up the eastern side of Lake Ohrid and in fact North all the way to the university town of Tetovo.  Again the whole way way from pass to valley to pass to valley.  Most of the time between about 700 and 1600 metres in altitude.

We headed North again from Tetovo to the Kosovan border and were again stung for insurance.  Marcin also had to pay this one (20 EUR) as  the green card does not cover Kosovo.  It was late in the day and we decided to blast though Kosovo to get to Serbia for the evening, and so along the busy crowded highway to Prishtina we flew past Italian, US, Swedish, Irish KFOR forces.  The Prishtina traffice was the worst we  had encountered on the trip and it took some pretty creative riding to get through it all.  Once we made it through, it was 40km to the Serb border and we got there just before darkness fell looking forward to country #19.

The Serbs were having none of it.  You cant cross from Kosovo to Serbia, effectively because Kosovo is still part of Serbia as far as the Serbs see it, so the border post is not a crossing point, it is merely a checkpoint.  Their argument goes that we were already in Serbia yet had no valid entry stamp.  We had no choice but to turn back and stopped by a newly built hotel by the side of the road just outside Prishtina.