Blogs from Far East, Russia, Europe - page 4

I met Grigori in a hostel in Vladivostok(far east of Russia). Actually i was planning to start my hitchhike trip from Vladivostok to the west but i had not so much hitchhike experience in far east of Siberia till i met Grigori. Grigori had lot of hitchhike experience. So special about him was that he always hitchhiked and traveled without money (He maked distance of 10.000km hitchhiking without money)! So after i asked him to hitchhike together to Khabarovsk 870km far from Vladivovstok. After that time our adventure was started. By the way Grigori didn't know any word of English in Vladivostok. (some guys on the hostel helped us with translate). After a week he started to speek with some basic english words and sencences:) We started our hitchhike trip in Vladivostok to Khabarovsk 870km. It ... read more

On my last full day in Vladivostok I went back to Russky Island and found a couple more new birds. One of them popped up on to the top of a bush while I was trying to re-find a shrike (it turned out to be a brown shrike and not a bull-headed shrike as I hoped) and my immediate thought was “reed warbler” but of course there were no reeds anywhere for miles around. It was actually a thick-billed warbler, which is in the same genus as reed warblers but lives atypically in woodland and scrub. I don't know if it's considered a “good bird” to get (all new birds are good to me) but I was pleased with it. The other bird was more surprising to me. I was hanging round the beach waiting for ... read more

I found some birds today. When googling yesterday trying to find if there was a tourist information centre in town (there was, in the marine terminal building) I discovered that last year the Russians had built a whacking great bridge across to Russky Island, which is why I couldn't find the ferry building because now people get there on the bus! The bridge isn't hard to miss: it's so big that it can be seen from pretty much anywhere in town. I went to the tourist information centre where, seeing it's a tourist information centre, the lady at the counter only spoke a little English (instead of none). Poor lady couldn't understand half of what I was trying to ask her, but I did discover which stop the buses to the island leave from and which ... read more

My proudest moment in Vladivostok has been negotiating my way around the local bus network without speaking a word of Russian. I am probably more proud than completing the Trans-Siberian. The journey only costs 30p and the buses have curtains. They are also tiny and if I have the seat over the wheel arch, even I can rest my chin on my knees. The tiny bus does mean that I get to observe my fellow passengers. One thing I have noticed is the high number of people with bunches of flowers. At least five on the single decker bus. I have also noticed several 24 hour florists accross the city. Are florists really offering such a vital service? Apparently so, if you need a rose at 3am come to Vlad. That said the flowers that the ... read more

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