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Well, let me see what day is it? Oh yeah,
it is Thursday, October 12th by
my watch. Time is sure fleeting whether we
are having fun or not. Right now our days
are filled with apprehension: Will the bike
be released from customs? What fees will we
have to pay now? Will the bike be able to
be fixed? When can we leave Russia? We
have been in Russia since September 28th,
except for 2.5 days when we left for Latvia
to renew our Russian Visa. This seems to be
the pattern so far, ride for a short time,
breakdown and stay in the city for 3-4
weeks. In most cases we have met some great
people and have felt welcome in the
country. This is not the case in Moscow and
Riga…people in general have been quite cool
and not friendly at all. Luckily there have
been a few exceptions, otherwise we would
have not been as far along in the customs
process to free Max…in one case I heard that
it took someone a month and was charged a
late fee for storage, even though it was
custom’s fault. Yes, we were charged also,
but it was only 3,000 rubles ($111.11)…it
could have been thousands of dollars. Of
course, we have been charged other fees that
have added up to about $1000.00, I think.
The trip so far has cost us more than we
ever anticipated, because when you are
planning a trip on paper you cannot foresee
all the pitfalls that may occur. If we had
known this in advance, we would have
seriously considered riding a different more
reliable motorcycle. Now it is a matter of
what can be done with Max, if anything.
I am concerned with some of our options:
(1.) if Max is fixed, will it be reliable
for the remainder of our journey? (2.)
buying a new bike would present us with
other problems, such as the purchase price,
a new carnet, registration and paying duty,
which all involve additional money that was
not set aside; (3.) where do we purchase a
new bike…laws make it almost impossible for
us to purchase it in Moscow? (4.) What do
we do with Max, because you can buy a
similar bike called an Ural on the street
for $500.00? (5.) It was suggested that we
scrap Max and sell him for parts. So right
now I am waiting to hear from Jack to find
out if Max passes the muster with customs
and was he trucked to the service shop for a
check up. Our future plans remain in limbo
until we hear the results of this analysis,
so I am a bit anxious at this point.
Today is Thursday, 19 October and I have
been fighting boredom, frustration, lethargy
and feeling pangs of hope for the past week.
Max was released from customs and has been
at Dimitry’s, the mechanic and owner of
MOTOXAYC or MOTOHOUSE in English. A
solution was found to Max’s continued
breakdowns, but Jack will elaborate on
that. At least, a solution was found and
the repairs and adjustments are proceeding.
If all goes well, we may depart Moscow
Friday or Saturday. Unfortunately our
site-seeing has been limited due to the
weather conditions, but we at least got to
see Moscow from a moving car. One night we
did experience great weather and we were
able to view Moscow from one of 7 hills in
the city. Even though the night was crisp
and damp, the view was spectacular. Stalin
commissioned architects to build a large
building on each hill, and on the one where
we were was Moscow University. It is a
magnificent structure during the day, but at
night it is magical. We could view it from
our hotel room, when and if the day and
night were clear. I also got to visit the
Novodevichiy Convent that housed Peter the
Great’s half-sister, so her designs on his
throne could be thwarted. The Novodevichiy
Convent, founded in 1524, was home to many
high-profile Russian women over the years.
Nikolay Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vladimir
Mayakovsky, and Nikita Krushchev are only a
few of the famous Russians buried in the
adjacent cemetery.
It is a large and growing city in terms of
architecture, but the population is
decreasing. At least this was outlined in
an article that our webmaster, Patty,
referred to in an email she sent. The
decrease is largely due to alcoholism and
aids. I certainly can attest to the alcohol
problem in the population of Moscow.
Drinking is done at all times of the day and
night, even taken to the streets in the form
of beer bottles carried openly around the
city. This is all explained as getting the
body ready for the cold weather. They make
it sound like alcohol is the common healthy
remedy to ward off colds and other related
winter ills. Sex is openly advertised on
television after 11PM. It is not uncommon
to see couples hugging, kissing and involved
in heavy petting in your local restaurant.
I think that sex is great, but I prefer to
eat my meals in a family atmosphere…I know,
I am just a prude.
Right now it is 4:59PM on Saturday, October
28. Many days have passed since I sat down
to begin this update, and a lot has
happened. So let me start on the day Jack
picked up the bike from the mechanic,
Dimitry 1, since there are three Dimitry’s
that we met. We were to leave on Sunday,
but since it was so late in the day, we
decided to wait until Monday. The bike was
running well and we packed to have an early
start. The next morning all the luggage was
placed on or in the bike after breakfast.
Vladimir, the sales manager for BMW Russia
would direct us out of town. All was ready,
but Max. Jack could not start the bike. A
bit of poking and prodding and we were off.
Once Max started he hummed and purred along
like a satisfied cat. Am not sure
how long we had driven, but when we stopped
for gas, one of the attendants noticed that
the new front fork on the right side was
broken. Luckily not many kilometers down
the road we stopped at a diner and next door
was a small auto shop. The owner helped
Jack to remove the fork and also repair it.
It was getting late and we would not make
the Russian border today, so we stopped at a
local hotel. It is always fun when we try
to order our food. We either point to
others plates or do some fancy hand
gestures, but we usually do get a meal to
eat.
Since I did not sit right down and write out
a timeline, so I am a bit lost on the days
and times. I think that we finally made it
to Bransk in Russia on Tuesday evening and
were given the numbers of a couple of bikers
that would help with a hotel. Jack called
and we finally hooked up with doctor. He
came out to meet us and took us to a
truckers’ hotel, which had a shower and
toilet in the room, but no hot water at
night we found out. By 8:30PM we were
settled in the room waiting for Doc to go
out to eat…this hotel did not have a
restaurant. I guess you cannot expect all
the services. We had a pleasant meal and
good conversation, and by the way, he is a
surgeon and his name is Alexander. “THANKS,
DOC, FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP!” The next morning
Jack had some trouble starting Max, but
eventually he started. We headed out to
find the Russian Border. We had many
concerns about how long it would take to
clear the border…probably an all day wait,
maybe only several hours. As we approached,
we got the stares, the low conversations and
then the questions. When the custom
official came out, all chatter stopped. He
wanted all the appropriate documents:
passports, registration for the bike, since
it is Chinese, this is always a point of
conversation, and our registration card for
the time spent in Russia. Every foreigner
must register with the police and this is
usually done through your hotel. Since all
our documents were in order, our time spent
at the border was shorter than expected.
Not many kilometers down the road we reached
the Ukrainian Border. The people were more
relaxed and when they were told about our
plans to ride Max around the world, they
literally all laughed. Then the custom
official approached the bike and he was all
business, except when he heard our plans and
he cracked up, but tried to maintain an
official air. We did have an agent come to
ask us about money…we thought he was looking
for a pay off, so we acted dumb. He brought
an interpreter back with him, who was a
truck driver that was going through customs
also. The agent was only looking to inspect
any change that we had from other foreign
countries, but we had off loaded all our
change in the morning. Then we were free to
go. Whew, how easy was that. We were
ushered through and told to go to the next
booth. This was passport control. They
have to check to see if we were criminals or
other seedy characters. All was in order
and we were stamped to pass into Ukraine.
With both crossings, we neither paid any
money nor had any problems from any of the
officials. So we rode off feeling quite
good about the continued ride, even though
the weather was wet, cold and windy. It
seemed to be following us across the
country.
As we continued into Ukraine, Max sounded
and acted worse and worse. We could only
travel 35 miles per hour, which meant that
we would not get into Kiev for several
days…250 kms out. We stopped for a warm
drink and something to eat. As we were
leaving, we noticed that a truck stopped
outside and the driver was walking into the
restaurant. Low and behold it was the truck
driver who interpreted at the Ukraine
border. He had seen our bike and with the
rain thought that he could drive us to Kiev,
since he was going in the same direction.
He was given directions to a loading
company, since he was looking for a ramp to
load our bike. Well they did not have one,
so they made one from planks and a couple of
horses. Jack rode it up with some help from
workers. These workers had to rearrange
bags that were piled in the back. This took
about an hour and then we were on the road,
so by 1PM we were on our way. We reached a
town outside of Kiev by 5:30PM. The sales
manager for BMW had given us a number for
the general manager here, who in turn passed
us off to a local sales manager, Swiet. We
needed to get Max off of Ivan’s truck, so
Swiet called some of his friends, which
turned out to be about 8 – 10 bikers, and
once all in place and organized, lifted Max
off with no trouble.
We then proceeded down the wrong way on the
highway for 3kms, driving toward a garage to
house the bike for the night and spend the
night in his mother‘s house. It was a large
house, but we found that they only live in a
few rooms and do not have running water.
With all these circumstances, Tetiana was
very gracious and cooked us a large dinner
with sausage and eggs, cheese, breads,
coffee…this was all done on short notice.
The next morning we were presented with a
large breakfast that featured hand-made
potato pancakes. Tetiana is a university
professor who teaches literature, but she
had the time to make us welcome. We did not
want to impose on her another night, even
though we were invited to stay. Supposedly
there was a hotel for about $45.00 and Jack
came to pick me up in a taxi. The taxi
driver had the name of the hotel and off we
went. When we got to the location, we found
out that a reservation had not been made and
there were no rooms… Kiev was booked for the
entire week due to exhibitions in the city.
After about an hour, we found a hotel for a
night, thinking it was over a $100/night and
we could find another one the next day. No
such luck and we have spent the last 5
nights here, as it turned out this hotel’s
rate was $80.00, which is the same as the
Moscow hotel, but more than we wanted to
pay. We are waiting to find out about an
apartment of a biker that has helped us
while here.
I wish you a Happy Halloween since today is
October 30. I am looking out the window in
Kiev and staring at a cold, damp, blustery
day. Since we left Ulaanbaatar, we have
experienced mostly this kind of weather.
First, it is very depressing, but second it
is inhibiting for site-seeing. I did get
outside today and checked out the food
vendors, buying a chicken and bread for
lunch. Although eating in the hotel room is
not appetizing, it does save some money. We
do not know how long we will be here. On
Saturday we had made the decision to dump
Max and fly to Stuttgart, Germany to
purchase a new bike. Well, the night before
we had been invited to a local bikers bar,
having a great time and drinking a lot of
beer and vodka. We had made plans to go
play paintball the next morning, when Oleg,
Vadim and Valerliy arrived at the hotel our
plans got put aside not only for paintball,
but to purchase a new bike. The decision
was made to try a fix on Max one more time.
First, we could not sell Max in the Ukraine,
because parts and similar bikes were cheap;
second, we could not leave the country
without our bike since we entered on it; and
third, they had a mechanic that is good and
would work cheaply, but we had heard that
before and it cost us $1, 500 in Moscow.
Luckily, the mechanics at the BMW in Kiev
only charged us $170.00 for two days work.
Since Max has additional problems, the BMW
mechanics could not continue to house Max
without charging us regular prices, so he
has been moved to another garage for
service. Right now we do not know how long
it will be before we move on.
Our escapades with Max: take a train, drag
Max, take a truck and drag Max remind me of
an old golf joke. There are four guys that
are playing golf. On the 10th
hole Charlie has a heart attack and dies.
So it is hit the ball, drag Charlie, hit the
ball, drag Charlie.
I certainly hope that this changes with the
next fix. But there has to be a time when
we say that there are no more fixes and I
think that we will reach it, if we have any
more problems with Max.
So right now we sit and wait…for a room,
better weather and the decision on Max.
Take care until the next update.
Janet |
