Top of the World to
Three days before departure date I get this email message that says everything the Visa guy was supposed to do, wasn’t going to happen. He claimed he could get us multiple entry one-year business visas for
After this history I was real nervous even that would happen. When we did get the passports back, we had to drive all the way down to
So with some more frantic scheming I decided we should be able to drive first to Mongolia, see what we want to see, then get another thirty-day Russian tourist visa, and head to Kazakhstan, and do the same thing again. Best I can tell, you can do this, if you let the old visa expire and don’t stay in Russia any longer than ninety-days in a one hundred day period. There is apparently a Kazak consulate in
Chow Middleton, chow Zulu and it was very carefully, Middleton had been planning a last minute escape for weeks I’m sure, out the door and into Rich’s chariot for a ride to the airport. Thanks Rich. We had a seventeen hour layover at the Inchon South Korea airport. It you have to suffer through that, it was one of the better terminals to do it at. Apparently it was voted to be the best airport in the world, and it was pretty nice and well thought out. Still by the time we hit Vlad we weren’t looking and feeling our best, what with the mother of all layovers and thirteen-hour jet lag.
Cabimafia
When you read the hotel blurb on how to find them, you got this idea there’s a transport problem at the Vlad airport, with plenty of warnings to don’t even think about talking to the taxi drivers as they’re all rip off artists and would try charging outrageous rates. First of all we had to deal with immigration and customs which took forever. One of our bags, because of its size, had to be checked but it did show up on the baggage pile.
Once we got out of customs, while in the immigration line we talked to a Mormon couple from Gilbert AZ, we were immediately hit up by the taxi skumsuckers, who wanted to charge us 3000 Rubles for a ride into town, which is about 50 kms. There are thirty Rubles to the Dollars so the way I do the math, that’s $100. Bus number 107 was said to be sixty, a no brainer. First of all I had to get some Rubles and when I tried the machine, it was outa Rubles. Not looking good. After a lot of searching about, I found another machine that coughed up some of the needed currency, but then there was the cabby problem.
Across the street from this slummy looking building was indeed parked bus number 107 so we ignored the cabbies, with their salivating mouths, when they saw our baggage pile. The bus schedule said it was to leave at five. So five comes along, up to then there wasn’t a sole around it so it was a little doubtful whether it was running, a couple of guys walk over to it. I quickly muscle our largest bag over to the open door. A whole bunch of nasty Russian sounds come out the door, motioning me to not get aboard. I was expecting them to start pounding their shoes on the dash or me. After forcing me off the bus, he starts it up and drives away empty except for the one passenger. He was obviously forcing people to use the outrageous taxis, one would presume for some kickback. I later heard the airport transport situation as mob controlled. I now eyed the taxis.
There was a Russian guy that seemed pretty nice so I asked him about the taxi situation. Had some English. He said he was a military officer. He agreed it was a bad situation, but also couldn’t seem to work out a solution. He did say that he had ridden bus 505 from Centro so knew it went into town, problem was there wasn’t any bus 505 around. Don’t recall why but bus 101 might go there too, but it had already left. The sign said the last 107 bus left at eight o’clock. The same sign said the that the invisible 101 bus should leave at 7:20. It was a matter of principle, but then again that one BAG was pretty heavy.
Eyed the cabbies some more. Most said no less that 2500R. One guy said 1500. I said 1000. Lots of nyets and head shaking. I decided that principle was slipping a bit and offered 1200. More nyets and head shacking. It was getting dark, Marisol was getting cranky, and the BAG was real heavy so I went for the 1500R. If we had taken the buses we would have had to change buses and haul the BAG about quarter mile uphill, as it turns out. Of course the guy piles in a local Russian Babuska, I’m sure she didn’t pay 1500R. Skumsuckers.
Jing Long is surrounded on all four sides by east block stuff, sort of in its’ own tenement square, so to speak. Keep in mind what you paid for this. I’ll guarantee you won’t complain about having a too soft bed at the Jing Long Hotel. Felt around the edges for pockets, you woulda thought there also were used for billiards. When we got there, the place was about totally empty. Some day’s later lots of Chinese arrived. Must have been 100% smokers.
Incredibly friendly Russian natives. Lots of smiles and incredibly helpful. And it’s true whatever you’ve heard about the Russian Women. Amazing number of incredible ones. I’d have to say its even way above
Saw two wrecks that had just happened on the way in from the airport. I think every day we’ve seen at least one. Traffic, for the conditions, quite orderly, but they do drive pretty aggressive. No bleating of horns and they do stop for the lights and let people across the crosswalks. Narrow rough streets though, and the most amazing thing, they almost all drive right hand drive Japanese cars and trucks. Most are apparently brought in used from
Vlad is kind of an odd place with massive east block buildings stuck all over the surrounding hills. Real real ugly. Nice and green but the east block architecture, pretty much ruins it. Lots of really nice old buildings along the main corridors. Wonder who owns them, as many appear vacant. Some are restored, hope they do it with rest, rather than demolish and east block the rest. Mostly looks like deferred maintenance on a massive scale. All pretty clean though, under the circumstance, and even in the big big market, down the street from the Jing Long, it doesn’t stink and little plastic blowing about. Better on the whole, in my opinion, than the
If you hung around a place like this in the
The other odd thing is there are these big water pipes that run everywhere. One at least is hot water and the houses are heated with it. Just outside of town are these three big smokestacks, which I presume is where all this water gets heated. I wonder how you’re charged for it? Odd.
Mystery Meals
Lots of food stalls around but all in Russian so don’t have a clue what is inside the pastries. Mystery Meals. Sometimes pretty good, other times you get a lot of the major food groups like grease, clorestoral and sugar, all in one.
Hit the customs building and started the paperwork to get the container. Really nice folks, they assigned me an English speaker to help. Took all day but finally got my two temporary import certificates and bought insurance at a little office building near the customs building. Cost about 3600R for one month for both the van and bike. Bit pricey but ya have to have it. Things were looking real good to get the container on Friday, until we were walking out of the building and they mentioned that Friday was a Russian Holiday. Crap, that meant waiting till Monday.
We ran into Tolly’s wife in customs and I mentioned I’d tried to call him several times, but his number didn’t seem to work. He called me and when I called him back, over the weekend, it did work. We agreed to meet at the train station on Mon. When we met he took us over to shipping company office to get us started on our quest. If I recall correct we picked up our Original Bill of Lading and took it over to another office of some company that assembles all the paperwork. We then had to go back to Customs, the same Customs office it turns out, we had been to on Thursday, to get a stamp. Then back to the assembler office with this BOL and off to the bank. Paid something like 36,000R, which was somewhat more than I expected. No idea what all the charges are for, but the ones I knew about seemed to be correct, just lots of more new ones. Seemed all pretty honest, but who knows?
No Americans
Then it was down to the port entrance, which turned out to be just below the Customs office to get the container. Was told I would need to pay an entrance fee, but when I gave them my passport to get it, they handed it back and said Americans can go into the port. I sure didn’t like this as it would mean somebody else would unload the container.
Gave the van keys to the Assembler Company guy and he called and had another guy come and help him. Waited well over an hour, at the entrance and no Van. Finally the guy drives up and said they had everything running, but were hung up at another customs search point, in the dock area because my BOL didn’t mention all the personal articles in the van. I had wondered about this when I got the BOL from the shipping guy in
Drove back to the hotel, after stopping and straightening some things, because I had left our bags there. When I got back to Jing Long, and got to looking, noticed the license plates were missing. Not good as I can’t imagine getting through police checks or border crossings without plates. They made a pretty good effort at trying to steel the one of f the KTM but rusty bolts and Loctite saved that one. Also tried to force the lock on the toilet side door, apparently to no effect. Emailed Rocky to see if he could shake some out of the Globe DOT office. Wasn’t sure what I could do, if I can’t get some replacement plates. Just for good measure I emailed a guy we kinda know in the office. This also causes a bit of a time problem as we need to get to
Propain
I’d been looking at the food stalls, that do cooking, to see how they do it, as some have told me there’s no propane available, and others say it is. Talked to some people in one stall and they showed me a tank they claimed was propane. Fitting of course looked odd. They said a truck brings the cylinders around. So there’s definitely propane available, at least in Vlad, but then there’s the fitting issue.
Asked Tolly and he gave me the phone number and address of a place near Jing Long that was supposed to have propane. After some searching around and asking, finally found a place on a back street that indeed sold propane. My idea was, if I could find propane, maybe they would have a tank fitting. Only thing they had was this big acetylene looking regulator with what appeared to be a fitting that would fit a propane tank. But of course they didn’t want to sell me just the fitting. They sent me back to a place on the main drag, that I had already been in, but everything there had looked like water fittings. Of course communication was real hard but some other customer there heard my problems, and spoke English, so translated to them as to what I was wanting. Lots of nyets and head shaking but he says wait a minute, when he was done there was a place up the street that sold propane and might be able to help me. He gave me a ride there in his car but the place was closed for lunch. The guard out front said they didn’t have anything like that. My savior says he probably didn’t know what he was talking about so wait till they open, and he took off. Another nice Russian.
No Fitting took me inside, even though they weren’t open, and deposited me at secretary’s desk, with secretary. I charaded again what I was looking for. She dials her cell, and after awhile, out trots a guy with English. Said they had an engineer that would fix me up. There was a propane regulator there, with a fitting on it, so I showed him what I wanted. He gets out a box of fittings and hands me one with a hose barb on it. I was hoping for threads but just couldn’t make them understand I didn’t want to go directly into a hose so figured I’d work it out from there. Asked how much? They said, “gift from
I’ve been seeing only these really large tanks so asked what size tanks are available. One he mentioned was
Boris came to the van yesterday and, if I understood him correct a package is due to come to the Jing Long on the 22nd. My assumption is this is the plates. So, if that is correct finally can get outa
If this is true that will leave only fifteen days to get to
Till next time,
DZ
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