A Trip Across Russia

Green was also the predominant colour that welcomed us in Russia. Gras, trees and Taiga.

It took us 4 days to get the bikes through customs. By this time the two English blokes have already crossed two thirds of Russia with the Tran Siberian Railway. This will take us two months.

The MC Iron Tigers welcomed us at their club house in Vladivostok. It was a warmly welcome. We slept for free in the club house during our stay in the easternmost city of Russia.

A look at the map showed us what we have ahead of us. An enormous stretch of land to cross. Will it become true what people (even Russians) told us: it is impossible to cross the continent. There are no roads but instead there are wolves, bears and killer ticks. If we don't get killed by the nature then we will be robbed by bandits. They where partially right we will find out. We heard about incidents with bears from other travellers but we only saw one near a restaurant in a cage. Talking about criminality. We always had to lock away our bikes in security parking. So are the Russians doing with their old Ladas and Moskwitchs. Security parking where easy to find in bigger villages but a pain in the a...s in the little villages. In the countryside we preferred to leave the road when no one was around and put up the tent some kilometres off the main road. There we usually had to fight against the Siberian wild life: millions of mosquitoes.

If one wants to cross Russia from east to west he is facing the fact that there is no road for 1000 km. In the winter time cars travel on the frozen rivers. The temperature drops normally below -40 degree Celsius. But we had August and 30 degrees above zero and the ground was soft and swampy. We said good bye to our fellow travellers Angela and Shigeru. They where getting on the train like the cars to get over the stretch without road. We try it with our bikes. It takes us one week. In my memory those days where some of the best on the whole journey. We drove through Siberian villages where time stood still the last 50 years. Babushkas (grand mother) sitting on the wooden bench in front of the wooden log cottage with the brightly painted and decorated window frames. We where able to get food they grow in their garden. Mainly potatoes, cucumbers and tomatoes.

Along our way in the wilderness we met many construction workers. They are building the road that should be finished in the year 2003. But this is utopic. They are still logging and the bridges are not built yet. Only the pillars are built. But the worker where a good audience when we where crossing the rivers on the bikes. They invited us for tea or lunch and we could set up our tent near their barracks.

Then we left also the construction place behind us. The only orientation in the wilderness was the rail road track. So we kept close to that one. Sometimes we had to cross the railway. Not as easy as it may look like. The iron rails are higher than the ground clearance of the bikes so we have to lift them over the bars. The biggest problem was the rail way traffic. Every 5 to 10 minutes a train. We managed to get over it with unpacking the bike in order to make it lighter. 45 minutes per crossing. Then it started to rain. The underground is either swamp or clay that turns into slippery mud. It is not possible to ride anymore. The bike sticks in the mud up to hub. I let the rear wheel spin and Barbara is pushing. The dirt flies off the wheel and covers her from head to toes. It is not the first time on our journey that she yells: "why always me, why do I always follow that moron..."

Indeed it looks critical this time even to me. Although we nearly made it (according to my map it should be only 30 to 40km until the road starts again) we have to face the fact that we put us in live danger if we continue. Our petrol tanks are nearly empty and in our jerry cans are only 5 litres of 76 octane petrol. If we carry on we might be lost in the middle of nowhere and nobody seeking for us. Only the wolves and bears. With mimic and our poor Russian language we found out before that there should river to cross with water shoulder deep. I do not dare to tell Barbara the plan I have in my mind to build an improvised float for the bikes by emptying our waterproof luggage bags and use them as air chambers.

The decision is hard for me but we have to turn around and reach the village 50km further back. It took us 10 hours to cover this distance. We are too exhausted to cross the rail way once more today. So we put up the tent and fall asleep in open day light. The next day we tried to get on the train. Not easy because in the small village stop only passenger trains which are not allowed to carry motor vehicles. We managed to convince Vladimir the postman to hide us in the mail wagon. We paid him the regular price of a passenger ticket for us and each bike. A fair deal for us and an excellent deal for him because the money went directly into hit pocket. So we spent a short distance on the legendary Tran Siberian Rail Way. We had to get off at the nearest unattended station with a stay long enough to lift the bikes by hand down to the 1.5m lower platform.

I have to stop writing so detailed or it will take too long. So just a short summary. Eventually we reached Lake Baikal. We spent some days on the green shore of this world largest drinking water reserve.

In Mongolia we have only seen 3 road signs. We covered 2500km on unmarked pists always navigating with compass, trip counter and topographic maps. It was one of the most challenging country in terms of supply of petrol and fresh food. One positive surprise where the nomads. Very untypical for Asian ethnics they had a distinct respect of other people's privacy. I think the best way to travel in Mongolia is on a horse back and try to avoid the capital Ulaan Bataar. Back in Russia: A welcome change in vegetation. The desert like (Gobi) landscape turned into green Taiga. For us this meant vegetables and fruits we where missing so much. For the people here in Siberia the things did not change a lot the last 100 years. Under the Zar they where poor and had to live from what grows in their garden. In soviet times there was no food in the shops. Because they could not eat the vouchers they lived from potatoes from the garden. Today everything is available in the shop but there is no money to buy it. Back to the garden again. The people are poor but never complaining about their situation. This is more a westerner attitude. Moscow and the West are far away. These open hearted people have been isolated for a long time and now there is no money to travel. This might be one reason why most of them are so eager to hear the story of our journey. We are always the attraction. We are asked to give autographs to people and interviews to newspapers, radio stations and TV programs.

Very often we have got private invitations and have been treated like kings. I will never forget this. Thank you Russian friends. In the "o so dangerous" Moscow we have been invited by motorcyclist friends to visit the Bike Show organized by the Night Wolves. Words can not describe the hospitality we received. I hope I once get the chance to "pay back". Incredible that we accidentally ran into Alex in St. Petersburg. He was officer on the cargo vessel we took from Australia to New Zealand 6 months ago. We had to leave too early but the visa was running out. The Russian soldier at the border was asking us where Zarubina is because this was our point of entry into Russia. We had to explain him that this is south of Vladivostok and that we rode 10 000 km since and we crossed Siberia by motorcycle. He could not believe it. He called his fellow officers, lowered his Kalashnikov, took off his gloves and shook our hands in order to congratulate and show his respect of the unbelievable adventure we experienced. When I think back it also seems unbelievable to me but not in the same way the soldier thinks. SCHASLIVA TRUGA ROSSIA...

The boarder crossing in Finland was incredible easy. We just showed our passports and it was done. A matter of 30 seconds. In the last two years we calculated half a day per boarder crossing. Some times it took more. So we were back in the western world. We even had to ask for a stamp in the passport as souvenir. Right behind the toll was a petrol pump with self service. Wow we almost forgot that there are countries where you first get the amount of petrol you need and then pay for it. It is very convenient but also much more expensive. The cash station is also nearby so no problems.

On this boarder crossing we experienced the biggest difference in prices, cleanness and standard of living of our whole trip. We where aware that northern Europe would not fit in our regular low budget but near the end of the travel we decided to allow it.

In Scandinavia we experienced a significant temperature drop. It was end of September and in the night times the temperatures where below 0. As one of the first things we bought us new sleeping bags with warm goose downs. One morning we could not make a warm drink because the water in the water bag was frozen. From that moment on we filled the water in the pot the night before so we could melt the ice in the morning. It was a big help to have a warm drink in the morning to get the stiff joints going. To save money we always camped outside in spite the harsh climate. The colours of the Nordic autumn where just overwhelming. Yellow, green, orange and red of the vegetation went hand in hand with the blue of the sky and the sea. We had the first snow at the north cape. To escape the winter we jumped on the coastal steamer and went to Lofoten. We had some beautiful days there and every night we saw northern lights. It was so cold that we could enjoy this fantastic phenomenon only for some minutes before we had to crawl back in the warm sleeping bag. In Lillehammer the winter reached us again and we have been trapped by 20cm of snow. We had good luck that it melted away. By that time it was already November and the real winter could have stopped our journey. In Oslo the snow came once more. The news paper told about total traffic chaos. The police asked all people not to use the road due to ice and snow. So we enjoyed the ferry trip to wonderful Copenhagen. There we visited Morten a motorbike traveller we met on this trip. We have spent New Years Eve in Islamabad two years ago in the city park with a bottle of horrible whisky. We met him 6 month later accidentally in Bangkok. All overland travellers are a kind of family.

The next 6 weeks we did nothing but visiting different family members. We tried to make a line from Copenhagen to Switzerland. Even though we made big detours we did not manage to see them all. Hopefully they will visit us once in beautiful Switzerland (which is excellent for motor bike riding). When I look at the slides I realise that it was like a fairytale. A dream world we where living in. Am I able to continue this dream or will I wake up. It is a funny experience to come home after more than 2.5 years on the road. It is a mixture of feelings. First there is the happiness to be back save and sound and to see friends and family. We went to the first supermarket and shopped the food we where so desperately missing. It is like paradise. Good bread, Zweifel Chips, Thomy mustard, Aromat, Cervelat and so on...

I ride on good sealed roads in a green landscape with gentle hills and I think to myself "what a beautiful country Switzerland is". I ask the same question to myself as I did in many other countries on this trip? Do the people who live in this country know how lucky they are to live in such a nice place." I am not sure about the other people but I am about me. Now I do understand the saying you have travel the world first and then you know your home country. It took us 2 years 6 months and 4 days and a distance of 97 000 km in 30 countries to get this experience. How much did it cost? All the money we had. What did we get? Much more than all the money of the world can buy. Many good friends all over the world of all different religions and languages. This sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Thank you and cheers. Enjoy your life and live in peace.

There are some more pictures from our trips at http://photos.yahoo.com/bnebiker