SEA OF JAPAN:

As ‘MV Rus’ surged through the bounding swells of the Sea of Japan, I lay deep in the bowels of that relic of Soviet charm, sweltering in the oppressive heat that radiated from the humming engine through the steel walls of my cabin, whilst brooding upon the loss of my bike and my options once we reached port at Vladivostok.

By now the bottle may have leaked or been smashed against the hull of some boat, but it may also still be bobbing along on the waves, ready to be discovered on some Pacific shore 200 years from now!

My voyage aboard ‘MV Rus’ was not wholly dedicated to funerary ceremonies and drunken lamentations. From the terrible service in the restaurant, the quite abysmal music, and being hijacked by a group of young

Aboard MV Rus

Vladivostok has an air of recession; to me it seemed a forgotten outpost, grey and dismal with bad weather and drunks. Despite this, the city’s very remoteness makes it a fascination – so many miles east of Beijing and yet it feels like you’ve stepped off a plane in Eastern Europe. It being a Sunday, I wasn’t able to properly begin my search for bikes and Tetsuyasu couldn’t release his from customs, so we spent the day strolling round the city’s various tourist attractions.

Vladivostok zoo had to be the highlight, although only in a morbid sense. The atmosphere they’ve created in there is certainly junglesque, or at least conforms to the common perception of what a jungle is like (in my own experience I’ve found jungles to be very peaceful places, especially when you’re in the search of wildlife). Entering the converted classroom your senses are bombarded with the nauseating stench of animal faeces and the wild racket of squawking parrots and screaming monkeys, rattling their flimsy homemade cages which are crammed almost on top of each other, forcing visitors into uncomfortably close proximity with nipping beaks and snatching fingers.

Vladivostok Station

Adding to the visual chaos was an artificial jungle canopy of plastic leafy branches, entwined between cages and thus filtering the already weak florescent light, filling the room with shadows and making it, along with the putrid smell and wild clamour, quite frightening to small children, and some young adults.

Among the zoo’s unfortunate inmates was a very sad looking fox, incessantly circling his 4 foot box, numerous owls stuck in such confined spaces they must never have spread their wings, and an especially miserable old alligator, who had far outgrown his bath tub home, complete with taps and a plug. There were also insects galore and snakes and tarantulas locked away with the most basic latches, free for anyone to open should they chose.

     Vladivostok

He clearly understood as he suddenly burst into laughter shouting, ‘No money, no home, no bike!’ beckoning his friends to come over and share the hilarious joke. Thinking that it could only improve my chances of a cheap buy, I energetically joined in the laughter over my apparently hopeless situation.

Sadly however, an affordable bike didn’t magically materialise, although a bottle of vodka did, as well as 200roubles (about £4) which was slapped in my hand with the best wishes to buy me a comforting drink. I tried to refuse it but the guy wasn’t having it. I went back into town bikeless, but full of the optimism given by a moment of friendship shared between strangers, and confident that even if I never found a bike, Russia would always be a marvellous experience.

Back at Hotel Vladivostok, my warm sense of optimism turned into red hot excitement as I saw two beautiful BMW’s with British plates parked in the hotel car park. Now, being one of the most easterly cities on the map, Vladivostok is often a final destination for many bikers coming from London. I prayed that this would be the case here and couldn’t help fantasising about riding across Russia on a BMW – it really would be the greatest stroke of luck. I couldn’t find either of the owners at the hotel, so I left a note on one of the bikes offering my services to ride either bike home, free of charge! I spent the rest of the day making a bad job of trying not to get my hopes up. Back at the hotel the receptionist said someone had left a note for me and, holding my breath, I skimmed over the words. They were going on to America – I knew it would be too good to be true! I consoled myself in the bar where I actually met the guys; they had such enthusiasm about their trip that I couldn’t keep wishing it was ending.

For myself, I needed to get moving for financial reasons if nothing else. I booked myself on the train to Irkutsk to continue my search there.

The Trans-Siberian Express had always appealed to me as quite a romantic and adventuresome way to travel, and it didn’t disappoint. After a few hours sleep (the train left at 4am) I made my way to the restaurant car for a late breakfast, and was immediately beckoned to join two fairly merry Russians, Rossov and Alexei. As a guest in their country, I was provided with a bounty of food and flowing supply of vodka as well as an even freer-flowing supply of rambling advice, warning me against the minefield of dangers that Russia supposedly poses towards tourists. ‘This!’ Rossov would roar, ‘is Russia!’ vigorously shaking his outstretched palms. ‘You not afraid?’ he would implore, ‘You think beautiful? You don’t know, you don’t know!’

The conversation went on in this fashion throughout the second bottle of vodka, but between Alexei showing me a bullet scar in his leg, and Rossov leading me outside the car to privately warn me not to trust Alexei, I never got any further explanation of why Russia was so dangerous. Feeling the effects of the vodka, I thanked them for the food and drink and declared that I was going to take a nap to sleep it off, but would meet up again around 8 to buy them some beers in return.

A few hours later, still dozing away, I woke up to find a very pretty train stewardess standing at the end of my bed, motioning for me to come with her. It was still a while before 8 but, as she couldn’t speak any English, I guessed she’d been sent by those guys to bring me to the restaurant car. As it happened, however, we went straight through the restaurant car and on into first class where I was bizarrely ushered into a spare cabin and greeted warmly by another pretty stewardess sitting waiting for us. As she closed the screen door behind the three of us, I was trying to work out if I was still dreaming. Not wanting to disturb my state of blissful bewilderment, I decided not to try to discover why I was here, but rather just sit back and simply see what happened.

After a few seconds of embarrassed smiles, the second girl, Nina, leant in towards me, and with a look of intense earnestness, asked me if I’d like to take a shower. Slightly taken aback by the apparent forwardness of this suggestion, I stuttered a good deal in reply, trying to work out whether it was my imagination or if there were some serious extras implied in this offer of a first class privilege. Now, if there’s one thing that travelling has taught me, it’s that when in a foreign country, you must never allow an experience to pass you by. I soon recovered enough coherence to answer a clear ‘Da’.

Just as I’d answered, a sudden fit of giggles overcame the two girls, who seemed to be truly shocked at their own boldness. Nina, the girl sitting opposite me who was able to speak a little English, managed to recover herself in a short while to ask me if I would first like a cup of tea. Again surprised at the order of the questions if nothing else, I nodded and they both exited the room, leaving me to further reflect on this strange and wonderful situation I had suddenly found myself in. The tingling anticipation was at once disturbed, however, by Rossov and Alexei who barged into the cabin having noticed me through a crack in the door which had been left open by the girls. Having continued on the vodka since I’d left, they’d spent the last ten minutes prowling the corridors in search of me to join them. Now that they’d found me, they were demanding exactly that.

Trying to placate two very drunk Russians by explaining that I was kind of busy at the moment and could they please get out of the cabin right now is not easy at the best of times, especially when Rossov’s limited understanding of English seemed to deteriorate by half with each bottle of vodka. With Rossov yelling at me to follow him to the bar and with me urging him to go and I’d join him later, Nina came to see what had caused the commotion and was not best pleased to find the cabin had been invaded. There followed a heated argument in Russian between Rossov and Nina, the gist of it I think being Nina ordering Rossov and Alexei back to third class and them feeling very indignant that I was allowed to stay in first class, when I only had a third class ticket like them. It didn’t last long anyway; hearing the loud voices, a much older and more senior stewardess turned up on the scene and promptly turfed all three of us out of the cabin, and marched us back to third class.

I think that Nina and her friend may have also got in trouble as that was the last I saw of them. I spent the night over yet another bottle of vodka (these guys really kept up the Russian vodka drinking stereotype) with Rossov, who repeatedly congratulated himself on having ‘saved me’ from the perils of those Russian girls, adding in his usual rant, ‘you don’t know, my friend, you don’t know!’ I suppose now I never will.

Irkutsk is the nearest city to Lake Baikal, the largest and deepest lake in the world in terms of volume of water, holding a staggering 20% of the world’s freshwater and clean enough to drink. In the winter you can race specially designed motorbikes across its vast frozen surface, with nerpa seals swimming a few feet underneath your wheels, while in the summer various coastal towns turn into quaint little summer resorts for Russian weekenders.

I went down to Lvisvyanka, a lakeside fishing village, and breathed in the wholesome atmosphere on a little pebble beach with Russian folk music and a picnic of traditional omul (dried fish). Any visit to Lake Baikal comes with the challenge to actually swim in it. It’s beyond cold; when you jump in the water feels as though it could just as easily be boiling – your body just recognises that it’s in agony. I managed about 5 seconds amid much screaming and thrashing about.

Lake Baikal

Back in the city, I continued my search for a bike but without much success, only finding a few overpriced scooters for sale in a corner of a supermarket car park. The biking element of my trip, which had been the everything of my trip, felt as though it was drifting away into the realms of wishful-thinking.

In a rainwater bath in Omsk

IRKUTSK-OMSK:

As I gazed out of the train window at the Siberian summer landscape of pretty, flowered meadows and endless white barked forests, my frustrations of being bound to train travel, having known the freedom of biking, intensified. The vast open landscape seemed to mock me in my sweaty bunk, congested with bags and bedding and people shuffling about all around me. I was also used to really feeling every mile that I travelled, and now, the knowledge that I was covering hundreds of miles unconsciously while I slept, filled me with a strange sense of shame.

End of Part 1…………