B - reporting
Left Vladivostok today! We checked out of our hotel at about 8am, then had to find a gas station...I had the map and directed us the wrong way at our first turning. Argh! Traffic here is bonkers. So went to the gas station the scenic way, showed a piece of paper with "60L" to the fierce-looking lady in her cage and off we went!
We eventually (when I say 'we', it was pretty much G!) found the road out of town so headed north. It was a grey, overcast day and with all the cars and trucks belching fumes it's easy to see why Vlad is such a polluted city. There are three great chimneys to the east, burning coal to supply the entire city's hot water, which is then piped to every building.
The roads of Vlad are either full of potholes, or under construction. So it was pretty slow going. We had just approached a construction detour when we were waved aside by a cop...we parked and showed him our car papers, having no idea what he was saying. Turned out he was saying 'step into the office' so G went, nervous...I waited, nervous...G thinks the cop did not know what to do with him. Papers were in order, he had not been drinking, so they told him to leave.
There was construction all the way to the airport, about 70km north of the city. Then we started seeing signs to Khabarovsk, and all we had to do was follow for 800km.
The countryside was a bit like Kent - lots of rolling hills, patches of trees, quite pretty but vast! The roads are awful in places, really pot-holed, and in the dirt roads of the construction areas cars seem to make their own tracks through. At one point there were 5 cars behind us, all going north, and all abreast.
Managed to order coffee from a kiosk by saying 'I don't understand russian, two coffees with milk please' and got 2 cans of hot coffee! Had black bread and cheese sarnie. Our front indicator bulb had blown in Korea, and we wanted to fix it before we had to turn left in front of a cop. There seem to be hundreds of car repair places by the road, I guess they get lots of custom from the terrible road conditions, and we went into a Kamaz repair shop. 'I don't understand russian' and I held up the bulb, the man smiled and took it and after lots of rummaging appeared with the replacement! And we now know 'bulb' is 'lampachka'.
Then more driving, who knew Russia was so big? A random Russian man helped us at the next gas station, and we bought beers for later. It began to rain, and by about 5 we started looking for camping spots. At around 7:30 we pulled into a truck stop with cafe, told the lady running the cafe 'i don't speak russian' and handed her a piece of paper with 'may we camp here', 'Da, da,' and she pointed so we set up. The loos made it rather whiffy but it was good to stop.
We had dinner in the cafe, with a friendly grey tom-cat. I ordered soup and sausages, and ten minutes later we were served chicken stew. It was delicious, wish I knew how to order it again!
Went to bed soon after...so nice to sleep in our own bedding & pillows.
Left Vladivostok today! We checked out of our hotel at about 8am, then had to find a gas station...I had the map and directed us the wrong way at our first turning. Argh! Traffic here is bonkers. So went to the gas station the scenic way, showed a piece of paper with "60L" to the fierce-looking lady in her cage and off we went!
We eventually (when I say 'we', it was pretty much G!) found the road out of town so headed north. It was a grey, overcast day and with all the cars and trucks belching fumes it's easy to see why Vlad is such a polluted city. There are three great chimneys to the east, burning coal to supply the entire city's hot water, which is then piped to every building.
The roads of Vlad are either full of potholes, or under construction. So it was pretty slow going. We had just approached a construction detour when we were waved aside by a cop...we parked and showed him our car papers, having no idea what he was saying. Turned out he was saying 'step into the office' so G went, nervous...I waited, nervous...G thinks the cop did not know what to do with him. Papers were in order, he had not been drinking, so they told him to leave.
There was construction all the way to the airport, about 70km north of the city. Then we started seeing signs to Khabarovsk, and all we had to do was follow for 800km.
The countryside was a bit like Kent - lots of rolling hills, patches of trees, quite pretty but vast! The roads are awful in places, really pot-holed, and in the dirt roads of the construction areas cars seem to make their own tracks through. At one point there were 5 cars behind us, all going north, and all abreast.
Managed to order coffee from a kiosk by saying 'I don't understand russian, two coffees with milk please' and got 2 cans of hot coffee! Had black bread and cheese sarnie. Our front indicator bulb had blown in Korea, and we wanted to fix it before we had to turn left in front of a cop. There seem to be hundreds of car repair places by the road, I guess they get lots of custom from the terrible road conditions, and we went into a Kamaz repair shop. 'I don't understand russian' and I held up the bulb, the man smiled and took it and after lots of rummaging appeared with the replacement! And we now know 'bulb' is 'lampachka'.
Then more driving, who knew Russia was so big? A random Russian man helped us at the next gas station, and we bought beers for later. It began to rain, and by about 5 we started looking for camping spots. At around 7:30 we pulled into a truck stop with cafe, told the lady running the cafe 'i don't speak russian' and handed her a piece of paper with 'may we camp here', 'Da, da,' and she pointed so we set up. The loos made it rather whiffy but it was good to stop.
We had dinner in the cafe, with a friendly grey tom-cat. I ordered soup and sausages, and ten minutes later we were served chicken stew. It was delicious, wish I knew how to order it again!
Went to bed soon after...so nice to sleep in our own bedding & pillows.
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