and possibly for the first time not being able to see my bike, it’s locked up, but on the road outside this hotel. Every morning when I descend 2 floors to go and get my coffee I look out the window of the cafe and check it’s still there and it is.
I've never researched any part of this trip any more than I have researched the next leg
Mainly due to free stolen internet connection and noting else to do and also cus this was never in my plan I need to figure it out a bit. Korea? Shit I never even considered it, never, all I know about Korea I got from M*A*S*H. I research ferries, currency, maps and routes insurances, customs, carnets, regulations, shit until I get off the ferry I don’t even know what side of the road they drive on. But I've utilized the internet like never before I’ve even found pictures of the ferry I think, I hope I'm going to be getting it to get there.
So I left my little comfort zone with a dried out tent rapped tighter than it has ever been rapped before and a thermo rest compressed tighter than a passenger in a Mongolian minivan. This is all in rehearsal of getting as much luggage secured on my bike, under lock and key assuming the bike is accepted to get on the ro-ro ferry to Southampton, the authorization from Mr. big is still pending well it may be granted by now but my internet connection is ... well I don’t have one, I'm going to Korea anyway,
Last night I read that only international ATM’s in Korea will dispense cash on a foreign card. So that was a nice little worry for the night.
I have no US $ left so first thing Monday morning having by now completely forgotten how shit it is to get up to go to work, and immersed in my little travel world, the worries and what ifs the problems that come with a transient life style and not the first consideration how much worse life would be if I was actually working for a living. I go find cash machines to get money out as opposed to going to work to actually earn the stuff although that reality is looming, the first one offers me dollars or rubbles, brilliant except it has no dollars to dispense, I get Russian money and take it to babushka on the street holding a dollar sign and she rummages around under her skirt and produces some dollars and stuffs my rubbles... well I'm not exactly sure where. There are pigeons all around and 2 benches occupied by homeless drunks, bearded and filthy, its strange now international money transfers are going on in the street right next to them. One of the benches is actually free the drunk has fallen off in his night and lies on the pavement beside it.
I want more money, I need more money for all the costs I will incur both sides of the Sea of Japan (or is it the China Sea, or just the pacific? Can’t wait to see a proper world map.) Before I reach an international ATM so I chance my luck and stick my card in another hole and my series of numbers again and out pops more currency. I love this.
Back to babushka who is beginning to smell a rat but it’s just the sleeping tramp next to us.
Ok job done pack up, I actually get a visa registration from the hotel this time. My first this visit. I'm ready to go, I know there are better ways out of town but I want a photo of my bike above the harbour with the unfinished mega bridge in the back ground. Its and amazing structure and I can’t wait to see a photo of the finished project, I have no need to return to see it.
Being on a peninsula it’s not too tricky to get off, I contemplate one more picture but the Vladivostok sign but it would only be staged and the bike is all clean now, I took it to a power wash place, gave him a hefty back hander and he sprayed it with something that if the bike colour were not impregnated plastic than I think it would have taken the paint off. It took off a lot of the grime and if it had been done properly it would look amazing but only the part of the wheels that were showing got sprayed an trying to get him to do the inside of the mud guards was painful, it’s so shiny where the magic toxic spray was blasted but so the same where it wasn’t.
The thing is the trip has become a succession of worries, I wake in the night and the consideration begins, the formulation of a plan, yeah great may be things run smoothly cus it’s all been thought about , but I would like to actually enjoy the moment instead of considering the next move, money is changed, registration is received, the bike is oiled, pumped and ready to go, appropriate photo is taken fuel is found, as is the right road and then next right road, it’s a tricky little place to get to this tiny village that happens to have a port that takes freight and hopefully me to Korea.,
I'm here at the port where the ferry goes from, I got here 36 hours early in case there was a problem, there was a problem, I was here too early , they won’t sell me a ticket the customs lady is not even working today ‘nyet’ then ‘no’ in English says the miserable old bag behind the glass. Like I don’t know what nyet means, ‘no what? No ferry? No ticket? No fuckin what? Don’t just say nyet you sour old boot.’ But nyet is the answer to everything I try and ask. I go find a place to stay the price is outrageous, I'm too tire to argue, always a struggle always another hurdle,
Get a room then with cooler clothes on go back to the building which I will refer to as the terminal, now I have the assistance of a boy breathing vodka fumes all over me, just because he has 5 words of English the babushka delegates her negativity to him, seems to think he would get me to understand why she won’t sell me a ticket in fact why the answer to all my questions is no. Me time you time, he keeps saying pointing aggressively at a clock this me time no you time, ‘oh Fuck off boy’ I go get supplies I haven’t eaten and somehow it’s become 3pm. a guy looks interestingly at my bike like everyone has from Manningtree to Siberia and when I come out of the shop with sausage, bread and cheese his wife or daughter, (he is either lucky or younger than he looks) speaks English and asks the usual questions but today the answer is I left 100days ago today 20,000kms yes all the way from England. Perhaps you could help me. And they follow me to the thing that isn’t a terminal and once again the babushka is interrogated, I mean why the fuck is she here if there is no boat and she won’t sell tickets? Make the bitch do something useful. Once again she explains something in Russian but this time I get the translated information I need, come back tomorrow is the gist of it, I kind of guessed that but now I know for sure. The girl of unknown relationship to the man asks me, cus she cannot understand how and why I would come so far without the native language, how do I manage why do I bother? I don’t really have an adequate explanation, I didn’t mean to come here, I didn’t expect to be here, if I said for fun she would know I was lying , yes I'm tired yes its nearly over, no I'm not always alone. It’s not the sort of description of a journey that would make someone envious, I'm sure she left pitying me, well that’s a pity. after all this, the roads I ride I don’t see, I'm just contemplating the next move, it will probably continue in Korea until the bike has left my position and I can sit in a bar in Seoul clutching an e ticket and knowing it’s all over and then perhaps I can paint a picture of achievement and for-fillment cus for now those things are alluding me.
I walked the causeway then down to the water, at least when I sit on the shore and drink a can of cheap beer I can indulge in the luxury of leaving the can on the ground and walking away, across the endless line of plastic bags and discarded bottles of vodka water and all liquids in-between, my careful disposal won’t make any difference to anything, when in Rome trash the place like the locals do.
I walk on to a kebab shop that had no kebabs I've really had enough of Russia one more person says no to my perfectly reasonable and undemanding request.
so walked back with another beer from another shop don’t want to buy from the same shop they may think I have a drinking problem ,in a humid sweat to find that my second choice, the hotel cafe did not sell food either she indicated walking back the way I came but I'm all hot a sweaty now so lidless and just in a mussel shirt and for the first time this trip with a lovely little 2 beer buzz I ride back across the causeway to the cafe where briefly the no and cants stop, at last a good experience, Little things like a willing helper at the restaurant are nice touches, he goes through my point it book with me and I get fish bread, salad and soup and it’s oh so cheap in fact they added it up wrong so I correct them and pay the extra. And the ride back was even better, 2 miles, less than that, but the sun was going down behind a rocky islands and the sea was lapping like it does and I love to ride lidless and buzzed.
So next morning a new packing strategy is needed I have to have a bag to take on board, still in my discarding anything I don’t need mode I use the last of my washing powder and hang my underwear on my mirrors and put on my wet but clean t shirt.
when the cleaner barges into my room without so much as a knock I decide it’s time to either head butt her or leave, she obviously doesn’t use the nose I so desperately want to spread across her miserable face judging by the stench of the toilet. When I travelled India I would come across screaming westerners who teddy was out thrown out of the pram and whose dummy lie next to it. they had been there too long it was time for them to leave India, it’s a trying place. It’s time for me to leave Russia. I'm trying to but guess what? the bikes electrical fault has made another appearance after a month’s absents once again the start button does nothing. Oh great. I use my auxiliary live wire from the battery and touch it to the solenoid and I have contact and ignition. So from the electrical terminal to the not really a terminal. Everyone is at dinner, I stand around. Behind that guard, behind that door is a toilet.
‘Toilet?’
‘Nych’
Nych nych, bloody nych say nych one more time mother fucker I dare you, I double dare you. I go piss up a wall. Then Mrs. No is back from lunch, she sticks her hand through he window, ‘what? What does that mean?’
Passport
Then she wants 250,
250 what? Dollars,
‘Nych’
‘Credit card? ‘
Nych rublerleies’
Every word you say annoys me, I give her money she indicates I go into the port, and I get on bike start it with my jump wire but the guard wont life the barrier,
‘Nych’
Oh what the ports full is it? And I have to wait before I can entre.
Some Koreans turn up with polite intrigue, questions and conversation and I know I'm going to like Korea. I share my dislike for this country with one of the men, he wholehearted agrees with me.
A woman in casual dress and shopping bag comes and asks for my documents, ‘and who are you? A passerby?’
I'm waved inside the port without my documents, I rode around the only people about seem to be deaf mutes. I find a lady in uniform who blanks me; I turn my bike a round shout at her, ‘HELLO?’ ....‘HEY!’
Totally blanked, there are signs in English telling you what not to do, no smoking $30 fine no rubbish $30 fine but no signs telling you what to do. Customs? Immigration? Nych
Fuck this I try and ride on the ferry, finally a reaction
‘Wait it will not leave till 7 o clock now is 2pm.’ Ok fine that’s all I need,
So I park my bike in the sun, sit in the shade and put some Motorhead on my iPod and sit fuming with attitude. Ready to explode. I'm so ready to get on that boat and wave good bye to Russia with one fifth of my hand.
And then, long overdue and so needed an angle arrives, the form of an overland motorcycle with a Canadian on it. And he knows who I am, met the Germans I shared with in Mongolia and passed on their best wishes, he’s been on the road for 16 months. Is equally burnt out on Russia, and the hours pass, and the conversation flows, we are of same age, same lone traveller observations and feelings, and humour, nothing is a problem anymore. It’s not halved its diminished. We get covered in dust as the ferry in unloaded of Korean imports, and diggers drag race off the dock.
His trip is over too, just fly from to Korea to San Francisco and ride back home up to Canada; I just ride across Korea and to a port on the west coast and may be, my bike will be home ward bound too.
But there is a problem, Mrs. shopping bag has at least returned my documents but due to an Englishman making such a fuss 2 weeks ago with refusal to pay certain fees now all payments, bike freight, my boarding pass, Korean customs fee, disembarking fee, compulsory insurance, and carnet, deposit have to be paid up front, but they won’t take credit cards, or rubles, I'm in fuckin Russia what do you want?
‘US $’ oh for fucks sake. ‘672 of them.’ After an hour or more of dealing with this idiot boy and a lovely translator, it’s announced
‘So it would seem you will not be getting on this ferry’
oh yes I will you can’t just make up the rules, costs and currency as you go along, I offer you payment in several forms but you won’t accept it. I to ATM get more rubbles, and when the boy pulls a $100 out of his shiny trouser pocket I take it from him, with that and my emergency dollars I can make the amount needed. It’s painful, I take his name and mobile number cus he has not heard the end of this. It’s done, receipts are stamped invoices are signed; bill of laden is issued, fright paid. Its progress but not as we know it. Now the Canadian has to go through the same procedure. I am out of currency my dollars were for emergencies but when it looks like I won’t be boarding the ferry it becomes an emergency. More hours pass and just when my emergency noodles are about to be taken from the panniers and cooked we are asked to board. The only two vehicles on the entire ferry. 4 polite helpful Koreans in red boiler suits ask where they should fasten the straps to secure my bike, it so refreshing, whilst bulshy Russian officials scream for my passport. Look, I've been here for 24 hours before I entered the port, I've been in the port for 8hours sitting around, now is the most important part of the day to supervise the securing of my bike for its journey to Korea, now shut the fuck up and let me un load my bag, then you can see my fuckin passport. Oh yes it’s so time for me to leave.
‘Go to customs’
Do you realize how flawed your system is? All the Kalashnikovs drugs, lucky Siberian tiger foot charms and other contra band is in the panniers, which you haven’t even looked at, I have just the fleece and toothbrush in the bag that you will be x-raying.
So bikes and monklet are once again left in the care of the unknown and my bag is x rayed and I get the 6th stamp next to my Russian visa. I am free to leave. An even number, this isn’t good evening, this is good bye,
‘Have and good trip please visit Russia again’
‘Nych’
The ferry is Korean run, I'm greeted on board with a bow and a smile, you are the motorcyclist, your room is this way, and this will be the restaurant, wow. What a difference a smile makes a polite, happy helpful culture. I knew it; I knew I wasn’t tired of travelling I was tired of the country I was travelling in. Everything is good again even the guy that collects the dirty plates loves his job and accepts the tray joyously. People smile and say hello, and I just realized I am going to Korea, I was simply getting out of Russia but now there is a destination to look forward to. A new country I never even thought I would end up in with my bike. I sit on the top deck all to myself,
I’m going to Korea and everything is ok again. When I spit out the dummy monklet smiles
When the problem is terminal, monklet smiles
When I swear into my voice recorder he keeps on smiling
And when once again he is overlooked by customs he keeps his mouth shut and smiles
And when I realize the problem was the country not the journey I'm smiling again and it feels so good.
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