It's been a while

Other than my stumpy little entry the other day I know I've not posted any photos or blog entries for a while. Thanks to the folk who have mailed to say to pull the finger out or offer assistance. As it is I've managed to get through the final part of Mongolia, into Russia, traverse the rest of Siberia (in the region of 4000km) and get onto the ferry. Im sitting in a bed not unlike the top bunk of an offshore cabin except I'm sharing with nine other people.

So whats been happening... Uncertainty has been a huge part of this section of the trip. Im still a little nervy about border crossings because of all the bad press each and every one seems to have gotten when I read other blogs or write ups but the three border posts Ive experienced since Ulaanbaatar have been fine. The last one in Russia despite all the fuss I've read about it involved me ignoring the customs departure lounge for an hour and a half while staying outside, having lunch, going for a coffee, and also entertaining the natives. All this while the majority of the ferry passengers sat in a stairway and small holding room sweating away. Once there was space I passed my tank bag through an x ray machine where I don't think the guy was looking at the screen, walked through a switched off metal detector then stood for ten minutes awaiting my time to get the passport stamped. I thought surely there must be more but walked through another door onto the dockside toward the ferry.

Working through my thoughts in the other direction I wasn't too worried about the re entry to Russia but uncertain about what was going to happen after. The days ride from the border to Ulan Ude was fine on good tarmac and I got there without stress. I was little nervous about the bike and something else going wrong with it but managed fine with other thoughts about my front tyre coming in. Melusine (backtojapan.fr) pointed out my front tyre wear before I left UB but there wasn't any time to do anything there despite all my hanging around otherwise so I figured something would work out later.

Once in Ulan Ude I found a nice spot to stay and decided that although it was Sunday I would try and get a tyre. The girl on the front desk was incredibly helpful and found some info for me but the first place I went was closed and everyone in the nearby shops said I would have no hope either there or in Ulan Ude at all. Undeterred I returned to the hotel to seek more help and was given another address and directions. So setting off I returned to the bike and... Click... Nothing.

I was certain that it was the same issue I had in Mongolia again and was gutted. Wasting the rest of the day in a strop (unlike me I know...) I eventually got in touch with Bad Man who took the brunt of my grump but gave me some good thoughts and stayed positive. Eventually I went downstairs with my new multimeter to check the voltages. It was only at this point as dusk was falling that I did this and noticed a small spark off the negative terminal as I pressed down. Repeating this a few times I then tried it with the ignition on, kept the pressure there and started the bike without issue. What a muppet. Still, I can't explain the relief. It didn't remove the fear of another failure totally but at least this feeling slipped as time went on. Perhaps it was very opportune that I did this in dusk so I could see a spark.

There was another uncertainty in the sense of the tyres when I knew my horrid knobblies weren't going to last too much longer on road. On the way out of Ulan Ude I made my way through a few locations for a couple of hours only to get no luck but when I came out of the last place there was a guy looking at my bike. No surprises with this but he seemed to be taking photos of the front wheel, I figured that this may be because of the rim ding I got in Turkmenistan but no, he was looking at the tyres.

Now Viktor has a CBR600 which is an interesting choice of bike for this part of the world and he was texting, photo messaging and calling round people without me asking while I was being distracted by a school teacher chatting away to me in English. In the end Viktor scoots off and tells me to stay put for twenty minutes. The teacher doesn't stay much longer and Viktor returns to me twenty minutes later and good to his word with a 21" Dunlop front tyre which has a bit of life left. He suggests driving to Chita and getting the tyre swapped there as I do have some life left on my current tyre. He also insists I take the tyre for free.

And so I set off onto another stretch of uncertainty, the Amur Highway. Again I've heard horror stories but the first days ride to Chita was fine on reasonable tar surfaces and the M55 gave way to the M56, M58 and finally M60. I knew the road was being built and upgraded as a legacy from Putins time as president but there's so many little stories on the net about this road to Vladivostok. Basically because of the strength of the Trans Siberian Railway there was no real need to spend billions on a new road because people here just got on with tracks and small sections of road built by individual towns. The stories I've heard are of days and days traversing gravel, gravel and more gravel in amongst horror driving.

As it turns out there's a good selection of surfaces over this long road but only about 150 - 200km total of gravelly construction site to navigate, the longest section being about 15 - 20km long so it wasn't bad. Another uncertainty which wasn't so troubling in the end.

So back to the tyres. The trip to Chita wasn't particularly nice with the front squared off unbelievably and there still being a big lack of grip from the remaining knobs. Once there however I managed to find a tyre place no problem and the chaps there charged me three pounds to swap the tyre over onto the second hand Dunlop. This element of uncertainty rapidly vanished as I could see how well it was wearing and it was nice to have some rubber with a round profile.

Well, this meant that the borders ended up fine, the bike behaved itself and the tyres were sorted very cheaply. In the meantime theres the selection of people I've met. Lunch one day being particularly funny as I spent an hour with Uri, Dima and Vitali by the roadside trying to refuse cups of Vodka while eating shish kebab. One of my best meals of the trip bought very cheaply with no end of banter and a free knife to be getting on with, I would need it they thought as I was spending a lot of time through the forests.

I also managed to bump into a guy called Iain later on one evening as we were both dodging storms. I met Iain in Ulaanbaatar and he left a few days before me, heading toward lake Baikal. Over this period I caught up with him as he moved from one storm and then was retreating back from another. In the darkness I could tell it was a dark colored Yamaha Tenere, turned round and gave chase. From there I've had company over the next week on the way to and within Vladivostock.

On the topic of people from Ulaanbaatar (and Khovd) in Mongolia. I bumped into, or more truthfully was spotted by two Spanish guys. One of whom has the same bike as me. Seems that the battery failure he was subjected to in mid Mongolia really was a similar issue that that I've had with my bike and he has ran out of power a few times in Russia. The result of his problems is a purchase of four different batteries and then a battery charger where the decision was to try and charge the battery every night somewhere. These guys also had the bad luck of arriving in Vladivostok the day the ferry left toward Japan so needing to wait another week, then they didn't go with the shipping agent option and had a very stressful day the day before the ferry left trying to sort out the notoriously difficult Vladivostok customs procedures. In the end they were put in touch with the same guy I was told I needed to use and Uri sorted them out. I think with Uri everything was sorted out within two hours for me without any stress.

As usual there's probably much more to say but everything going well as I sail toward Korea on my way to Sakanaimoto in Japan. There's going to be a few contrasts between Russia and Japan going to hit me soon I'm sure.

Location:South Korea