Russia

well ive been in russia a week now it seems so much longer, and to try to recount it all is daunting, i said good bye to an 11 day riding comapnion and there was a physical pain as i roed away from fun farmilia company back on a lonley unknown road towards the ferry to russia, one more police check one more bribe, this time the 'present' they wanted was 2 10p coins,the cheapest curroption so far but still princebaly outragous. this sad transition was not made any more pleasent buy spending yet another grey sunday at yet another ferry port waiting for a ferry that was canceled, it started to rain i sat on my bike shelterd under my poncho, some moments you could just cry and with rain on my face and ipod on even i wouldnt know for sure if i was. i cant explane how difficult it is, every aspect of this, first find the port there are more than one, do i need a ticket? is it a free service? i can see russia from here, its a shuttel ferry, then wait , then buy ticket for me and bike, everything has to be pointed, mimed , explaned, customs, immergration, and ontoferry , having to hold my bike up for the crossing in the damp smelly hold of the boat, whilst others watch the view. then want i was dreading the entry into russai, but as is often the case then things you fear most are the leas proiblems. people will always put the frighteners on you , telling of there terrible experiance wiht roads and officials, and traffic, just cus it was a problem for them does not mean it will be for me just as an uneventful road for them becomes a traumatic event whne i come to it, the thing to always remember is the only experiance that counts is your own and my entry into russai was painless, i got a from in english and was helped every step of the way , professional and attentive i was taken to buy my insurance for russaian roads and with a smile i was told i was free to go into russaia, there were 2 probelms, both of which were my own doing, i had no fuel and no curency i could have filled up in ukrain before i left, i had money i had no other use for, how stupid, so annoyed at my self, i made the only probelms i encounted today, i gained an hour and all money changers were closed. so i found a petrol station who tool US $ and got some juice. well now what i ned to find a place to sleep , i found a town and roed around as the light faded, come on flid you got to do something, stop, ask, dal with this situation, i got out my phrase book, and looked at he shapes they call letters, so a star backwards 3 piramid shape and backwards n now do i pronunce that again? oh yes loudly and slowly i say " BED?' so i stop i see a sign that starts like it means room for rent but it was so much more, the lady shots a name and two 11 year old girls come running up both speak english, show me the room , its perfect, then take me to bank and to the late shop so i can get some food to cook, but when we get back granny has made me soup, chicken and potato, feet landed on again,

so i stay a few nights and the girls pull out there hair with frustration as i slowly pick up the russian they teach me. but i learn some good words and a grat phrase prounced 'wotbling' it meand oh bugger, or damit , or bollocks, i use it all the time. im invited to go to the beach with them and granny, its so difficult being an older single man and playing with girls, the world is so quick to point its pedo finger, and the only thing the girls think is slightly strange behavior is my standoffishness. i have shown granny photos of madalynn and her mind is put at ease whne se see's i am a father. so we make sand castles and i learn my numbers written in the sand. and even the cat makes friends with my sheep skin seat cover and sleeps on it in the sunshine. i buy thne all chocolates before i leave ans everyone comes out to wave me off, im so good at finding good people and leaving them.

so i ride the black sea coast to Sochi, you will all know this name is 4 years after they host the next winter olypics. its full of money and not much else, im fed up with sea side tourist towns, it doenst matter whare you are india , chile, or russai its never good to go where the nativs to to holiday , its not the real country and its not why im here, in fact why am i here, i was having a few down days, its inevitable thye come and they pass, i couldnt find the road i wanted across the mountains so had to double back along the stinking slow truck filled exhausted poluated lada crawling coast road, everything was annoying me, my squealing back break, my constsant sweat, the constant stareing and no waving, the seaside tourist tack, the potholes the erasticic driving. its time to stop when this happens. i get on the road i want to the mountains and pull of into a orchard un seen . i put up my tent , cook a meal and call me mum.

next morning i wake to havvy dew and bright sun i get up to wee and then is a man tending to his trees, he comes up to me with ah massive sythe, hes not that happy, but thankfully hes not grim either. hes indicates it ok for me to camp , so i pack up and decide it would juse be bad eticate to leave a steaming dump in his orchard, so i head out the track is nowe slick from morning moisture, and for the first time i drop the bike, no damage, and wiht adrenalin enhanced strangth i lift it up like superman. so too mt elbus europes highest peek, its definatly about the journey not the destination, the village at the base of the mountain is a shit hole ,somewhere between a quarry, a scrapyard and building site, a man with tanned hyde for skin and 70's sunglasses comes up to me, i thought it was just another well wisher telling me im crazy to ride this far, but its a carparking attendent , what this bit of litter filled gravel is a car park? ya know what i dont think i even want to stop. man do they know how to ruin natural beauty, its awful. i go down the road and stop to eat a yoghurt . well shit, i throw the pit on the ground whne im finishedm its a statement, its hard to put into words but it was something to do with their lack of respect for the sceenery they have and everywhere is rubbish, half built monstrosities, and decaying machinery. its amazing how a mood can change wiht direction on the way up thisa caynon i was in awe and full of excitement, now im full of discust , disapointment and yoghurt.
but anyway i continue, my reguard for road regualtions becomming less by the mile, the police checks are frequant but no currption in this country, just doing their job, all my docs in order. big language barrier, one gold tooth official says "barrack obama" to me and we both laugh and im free to go. overtaking the slow trucks and the crawling ladas. i stop at yet another junction and check my map again. i had oven taken too off duty cops, they give me a telling off. i carry on and again they catch me at next junction, they instruct me to follow them out of town, i dont wat to leave, im looking for a market to get food, or amy be a room to stay the night but at a safe and aanal 30mph i am lead out of town the the road i sort of told them i was looking for. well thanks guys, see ya, and i go find a hidden place to camp which had not been used befored and there foe covered in plastic bottles and any other rubbish deemed not worth packing up and despoing of thoughtfully,
and this , tis is the point of the email

i deaming about a confrentation with incompetent british airways officials about a missed flight, when im woken by 2 stray dogs barking at me, i grawl back and they run off, i pack up my departure lounge and take off. its 400kms to astrachan whne i will have a day off the riding. but my plans are to be somewaht different, the speradic sign posts fool me again and i inadvertantly leave the main road. at the next police check im told i can go another way, ok that will work , but wait that sends me into Dragastan. and place of unrest anf kidnappings, frequant bombings, shootings, shit, im heading into it, i cant really stop it, dont ask me why i dindnt just turn back, may be it was not to loose face with the chack point officials, everthing has changed the land is barren, the heat is intense, what building there are are abandoned, and in a state of disrepair, the few petrol stations are unatended and have been for some time. and everything is scary , i dare not trust any more 'officials' but if i keep ridinh will i be shot in the back and if i stop will i be mugged or worse? i find a fuel, in my fear i miscalculate the amount i need, and dont get a full tank, (you pay first for the amount of fuel you require) then\re are several men standing round excitedly studing a map, are they discussing no go arears, signs have become yellow, are they danger signs? probably best i cant read them, i have enough fuel now to get out a full throtel which is only 70mps i long for my triumph for the forst time this trip which could get me out of here at 120mph, im over taken by tinted window mercedes with no plates or form of identification. in the heat haze ahead to truck are stopped on each side of the road ,someone walks across the road, an ambush? i pass at full speed, no wire had been strung across and neck hight. on top of all this the heat and the fear the sky is full of locus or crickets and they splat big and yellow puss over my screen i cower behind, they hit like hail stones on my legs, the T junction im half way a few huts are all the depict the village, i hurtal north, im so thirsty but dear not stop to drink, some trucks with plates from countries i cant spell, like abergerzan and north orsetta georgia, but also ukrain, so that makes me feel safer. and then the river, and the chack point, im back in stable russia. and greeted with a gold tooth smile but the official, but he has some bad news, the road is no more, i have to take a different route, now 3 sides of a rectangle a totla of an extra 300kms, and its so hot, i find shade, eat out of my hot panniers and feed a stray dog. thne the road just ends, what the fuck? its turns to not just dirt but deep ruts and sand i cant really ride this it must be wrong, i go back to the tarmac, but the only choice is to gointo a village, this must be right, so back to the dirt track, i ts not a matter of how many times i nearly drop the bike, its constant, im not riding im balancing, a constant struggle to keep it up right. i cant do this i turn back again, ive been riding 8 houes in extream heat now. i ask a fisheman the way he pints to the village, ride rounf the dusty tracks of the abandoned village, anf find hard road, i find a broken down truck he says it the right road but indicated it will turn to dirt, he is right but at least its level dirt i reduce my tyre pressures and get on thne in time it tunns to tarmac again, and unexpectle i run out of fuel, its been 30mph and 3rd gear yeah than makes sence, i find a small village, indicate to a chinnes looking person i need petron he points at a container, and sure enough iinside the 20foot container is a petrol pump, i pay a grumpy mongolian woman she doesnt seem nearly as pleased that im here and i am to be here. its a mongolian village, its amazing, even the roofs are up turned like chinnese roofs, i could take some photos , go to the beach for 3 months and tell ewveryone i made it to mongolia. so finally after 450 miles i get to Astrachan, 12 hours it should have been 5 hours and 400kms. but what an adventure. i cant find a hotel, im so hot, so tired , it takes over an hour, i find one it expensive, but nice, the woman opens the big metal gats for me to bring my bike in and cant close them. i help and she slids the metal bolt into my thumb full force. it bleeds like a bastard. all that road and its the hotel that breaks my skin. she rushes me to a sink, puts iodine on the gaping woumb andput on a bndage so big that it ruins my spelling on this keyboard, it almost hurt as much as i made out it did, whilst she cooks me a dinner made of pork and guilt. , ant that is where i am right now ready to cross into kazakstan, on monday, monklet has endured all kinds of chalenges, whne he is humilated buy officials who point and laugh at him on the check points he still smiles , when crickets fly into his face he keeps on smiling, when i drop the bike and his tail is trapped under the handle bars, he still smiles, and now whils i sit in an airconditioned interent cafe he is guarding the bike and i just bet hes smiling , i know i am.
love flid

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