Blogs from Vladivostok, Far East, Russia, Europe - page 3

Po 6 mesicich na ceste se blizi konec naseho putovani po byvalem SSSR, jehoz velka cast probihala na uzemi Ruska.Musim rict, ze Rusko predcilo veskera nase ocekavani. Priroda a lide naprosto super. Najezdili jsme 35tis km bez vetsich technickych problemu. Ve Volgograde jsme menili chladic, nesly nam sterace/ nikdo nevi proc/, nefungovaly blinkry/prodrel se dratek/, nesel tachometr a neradil se ct vrty rychlostni stupen/opet zlomeny dratek/, uvolneny kontakt na starteru zpusobil, ze jsme parkrat nemohli nastartovat, ulomil se predni tlumic. V Kazakhstanu se menily nektere casti podvozku z duvodu opotrebenosti a ve Vladivostoku probehne celkove vetsi udrzba. Tyto technicke zalezitosti nam vzdy pomohly odstranit lide z Delica clubu. Diky jim jsm... read more

'After a 3 hour flight we were last ones off the plane as Steph had to see the end of the film she had been watching, much to the annoyance of the rest of the passengers on the flight who were waiting on a bus. The bus then turn right and drove all of 50m to the terminal before we headed into the free for all of immigration (only 2 lines open). Other than that we made it into Russia without any problem. Fortunately we had arranged a transfer into the city, as its quite a way from the airport, and after settling into our hotel, had a look round Russia. At this point, the absurdity of what we were about to do started to hit, as we struggled to find a restaurant in the rain ... read more

Vladivostok can be translated to "possess the east" and is a port city on the pacific and the end of the Trans-Siberian rail line. It houses the Russian pacific fleet in the golden horn bay and was closed off to foreigners during the Soviet era, reopening again in 1991. It is sometimes called the "San Francisco of Russia" due to it being on the ocean and the hilly area on which most of the city sits. The city is the midst of a construction and development boom with a couple of bridges, several large scale hotels and new roads in the works for the APEC summit the city is set to host in 2012. I arrived by train in the afternoon and had arranged to couch surf with a local there called Dimitry. Couch Surfing is ... read more

Well the first hurdle was that my BRAND NEW big toothpaste was dismissively thrown in the bin at Tullamarine airport. Oh crap, why didn't I remember that old liquid/gel restriction thing. The flight in cattle class to Soeul, Korea was comfy - not. In-flight entertainment took a dive back to the cave age with no personal consoles, just one big ol' screen up front. Only one decent movie was shown, the second one I had grit-eye too bad to watch and the third one was a Korean movie with english subtitles too small to read plus I had a melon-head in front of me so couldn't see past. The stop-over was first class though. I was put up in the Hyatt Hotel near the airport and got a free dinner in their restaurat. Also enjoyed the ... read more

Por fin llegamos a Irkutsk, tras pasar una noche horrible rodeados de un grupo de borrachos que no paran de beber y charlar en toda la noche. Con los ojos aun legañosos, salimos de la estacion y a los 5 minutos aparece Luiza, nuestra anfitriona en la ciudad. Los padres de Luiza son uzbekos que emigraron a Rusia antes de la desintegración de la Unión soviética, y tanto ella como su hermano Timur, nacieron en Rusia. Llegamos al bloque de apartamentos donde viven, nos sorprende lo nuevos e inmaculados que son, acostumbrados al tipico bloque sovietico. La escalera esta repleta de plantas, Luiza nos explica que su madre junto a una vecina son las encargadas de convertir la escalera en este simil de jardin botanico :)) y mas tarde su madre me asegura orgullosa que su ... read more