Dnipropetrovsk

After my smoky night I was glad to leave this motel and see some of Zaporijia’s sights. I think the motel owners were glad to see me go. Some establishments just don’t like their motorcycle guests I suppose. Not sure if my dusty bags and filthy motorcycle suit had anything to do with it.
I had a rendez-vous with my couchsurfing hosts planned in the afternoon. I would be staying with a family in Dnipropetrovsk and I was supposed to meet them in the afternoon. Plenty of time take it easy, but then again, I did not want to arrive too late.
I did some driving around in Zaporijia but not a whole lot of things to get too overly excited about. It just seemed like a big Ukranian city with broad lanes and everything spread out like crazy not making it ideal for strolling around, so I kept it to driving.

There is however one thing that I wasn’t expecting. I had read somewhere that in the 70ies that this city was known in the world to house one of the wonders of the world at that time. Indeed, this place is the home to a large dam, so large at the time that it blew any other dam out of the water (figure of speech) and was considered to be a major engineering wonder. And I am proud to say that I have driven across this engineering feat. There was also a big Lenin statue on one of the edges of the dam, but I forgot to stop. I was more interested in the artificial beach on the other side.

Now, as impressive as this dam is (well, I guess it has lost some of its coolness appeal over the years), it was very hard to get a good vantage point to take a nice picture of it.

After getting what appeared to me the best possible picture of the dam I set off towards my next destination, Dnipropetrovsk.
Again, this is not a city that will be on many tourists lists of places to visit. But for me it was a great opportunity to break up the ride to Kiev and you must always diverge from the beaten track once in a while. The city was also home to some buildings that I had seen in an architecture book that I wanted to check out in person.

Upon arriving I was greeted by the Dnipro river.

There are some new developments occuring in the city, which has mostly been an industrial city.

I arrived in time at my couchsurfing hosts but was struggling a bit finding their exact apartment. They were living in one of the big apartment blocks on the outskirts of the city who look all very similar and can only be identified by a big number on one of the building’s walls. I was at the right building but was unsure which exact door would lead to the correct apartment and what doorbell to ring. After a quick phone call I was greeted by the man of the family and he led me inside. It was a very small flat but I was immediately told to make myself at home. The lady of the house had prepared some delicious food that I had to eat for lunch. Their english was basic but we made use of modern technology to communicate. They had a tablet computer and google translate was doing overtime. The oldest of their two sons, age 12 also spoke some english which helped a lot as well.

In the evening we all went for a walk alongside the Dnipro river that slices through the city. There was a nice sunset that evening.

The next day I could join the dad on some of his work tasks. He was running an interior design business and today it was payday. One of his big clients had to pay and we were trying to get a hold of this client in order for the money exchange. I was expecting a signature and a bank transfer, but no, stacks of cash were exchanged.
We also visited one of the apartments in a new office building which was being decorated by my hosts’ company.

After receiving the money from one of his clients, it was time for my host to pay out his workers at his workshop where I got to meet these guys.

In the afternoon I went to take some pictures of those buildings I wanted to see and got some gifts for my hosts.

Old harbor building

The circus

Never completed hotel (due to collapse USSR)

Some cool cafe

In the evening we visited some war monuments in town, next to the war museum.

Of course, where there are war monuments, a church can never be far of.

and this concluded my 2nd and last night in Dnipropetrovsk.

Towards Dnipropetrovsk

It was time for me to say goodbye to Crimea and move on towards Kiev. Since it is a long way towards Ukraine’s capital I decided to make a stop about halfway in a city called Dnipropetrovsk. That of course if I could get there in a day.

So I said goodbye to my beach spot and my mosquitoes and started my daily routine. First up, some breakfast. I did make a brief stop at Feodosiya to look for some shop but could not easily locate a grocery store or a supermarket. I figured I would pass something on the way north so I quickly grabbed a snickers bar at the petrol station to kill that first hunger feeling.

I must say that the road was not the most scenic in the world. There were no big mountains to tackle, just straight roads through massive plains. The scenery never really changed. My original plan to stop for breakfast along the way did not really go so well. I didn’t pass any real towns until I reached a place called Dzhankoi. After driving up and down the main street I could finally spot a grocery store where I grabbed some yoghurt and some bananas. Or so I thought, I mean, I was pretty sure I picked bananas, but not so sure that the yoghurt was actually yoghurt. My fears turned into reality when I tasted my newly purchased dairy product. I had bought cream. Another lesson learned, it is not a great idea to eat half a bucket of cream, even when mixing with muesli, and pretend it is delicious yoghurt. You can’t fool your stomach.

I continued riding and the only scenic stop I made was at a salt lake.

There were no traces of water around, only the remaining salt. I took some pictures and even tried riding a bit on the salt, hoping that my attempts would brake some ukrainian speed record. But I gave up on that after finding out the salty sand was not as dry as I hoped it to be. Luckily I did not get stuck and wisely stuck to the shoreline.

I was not treated on any other sights after that besides the countless fields and fruit shops alongside the roads which seem to cause a fair amount of car accidents. Car suddenly decided to stock up on watermelons and brake hard to stop in time for their favorite street vendor, causing the unwary driver behind him to slam on the brakes and hope to stop in time. I only passed one accident, but it had happened just moments before I arrived since I could see some injured people being treated by an ambulance. I am sure there are many near misses on any given day.

Since my cream breakfast attempt had become an awful lunch I was still hungry as a horse and after a while I made a stop at a pizzeria alongside the road near Vasilivka to get my daily calorie boost.

Around 5pm I decided to call an end to this very mundane ride and decided to spend the night in the city of Zaporiziya where I was greeted by huge boulevards named after our great communist leader Lenin along with nice fountains and other communist statues. Not exactly a great tourist town from the looks of it. I tried looking for some cheap accommodation. First hotel I stopped at had 4 stars and I did not bother to ask for prices. Next hotel, 3 stars, alright, I will ask for some prices. It was a little bit over the amount I was willing to spend so I decided to continue my search. This is where I started to consult my gps for accommodation. This has not proved to be a great way to look for a place to stay since I have had many occasions where it has directed me to places that are closed, destroyed, burned down, or simply appartment blocks. But I figured luck should sooner or later be on my side.
I saw some bed and breakfasts listed on my gps and headed for the first one. Upon arriving it looked like a retreat for pensioned war veterans. I saw no welcome signs or any other indication that this was a welcoming place. There was only a big fence with a no entry sign that I had passed. Needless to say, I tried looking for another place. Again, consult gps. Now I end up in the middle of a residential area with huge appartment buildings. Again, I can’t find any sign of the bed and breakfast my gps directs me to. As I want to head back to the city centre I pass a motel and decide to ask for prices. It is a tiny bit cheaper than the hotel downtown and I decide to park the bike and get a well deserved shower. 460km done today. This is more than I really want to do on a hot summer day. Of course they give me a room that has served as a smokers room in the past. Don’t think you can ever turn a smokers room into a non smoking one. The stench will always remain. And I guess it also has its effect on the staff who are not the friendliest bunch I’ve ever come across.

Route followed

Tough times from Simferopol to Feodosia

Great, no rain today !!! Skies were looking clear, well, at least clearer than yesterday so it was time to pack my things and say goodbye to Simferopol. I was keen to do the enduro gps track I got from the fellow biker I had met 2 days before.
After filling up with petrol my bike and I were ready for some adventure, and oh boy, today it would deliver.
It didn’t take long for my trusty mechanical steed and I to reach the outskirts of town and soon we found ourselves on a little dirt track that slowly climbed higher and higher above sea level.
There were some really nice views to be had and not a soul in sight, except for a 4wd that I had passed at one point.

Since it had rained the day before I was expecting bad conditions, but it wasn’t bad at all during the first section of the track. Then however the road led into the forest and that usually spells trouble. You see, in a forest the wet ground takes longer to dry because the canopy of the trees blocks the wind from evaporating the soil. At least, that is my spin on it. And since it had really stormed yesterday, the track turned into a really awful pool of mud at certain points.

The tires I have on my bike have been worn quite a bit, so their thread is no longer ideal for muddy conditions (not that they are great when they are new, but still).
I get stuck for a fair amount of time in one track and had to resort to digging out mud with a branch, and trying to stick branches everywhere hoping that my rear wheel would catch some grip on the branches and drag itself out of this mess. I must have gone at it for half an hour or so but the adrenaline and sweat might have impaired my judgment of time.

Finally I managed to get out of the worst part of the mud but soon some steep descents were following. I can honestly say that going downhill on a motorbike whose tires are clogged up with mud is not something I set out to do at the beginning of a new day, it just happens, and when it does, it sucks. I fall down a couple of times, but luckily not at any speed worth mentioning and each time without any damage to the bike or its driver.
The forest makes room for open terrain and my spirits start to lift again. There are however still some deep tracks from cars that have driven on here and occasionally I sink into one of them. It is good when they go completely straight, you just keep following them, but when you don’t see that they actually make a sharp curve out of a sudden, this spells disaster and I take a fall once again. This time I had a bit of speed, but nothing bone shattering. The good thing about these wet and muddy conditions is that the ground feels softer to land on. But yeah, this track is taking its toll on me, I can feel that I am getting weaker and tired. Unfortunately this is not a time to loose focus.

Again the road starts climbing higher and higher and the track becomes littered with boulders. This is no terrain for a big motorbike and I feel blessed not to have one :).

After a while I reach the edge of the plateau where beautiful views await me

. I clearly have reached the highest point of the track which can only mean one thing, it will go downhill shortly.
I’m hoping that there are not too many forest sections to go through as I kind of reached my preferable daily limit of dropping the bike. Somebody must have thought the same way as the next downhill section was not at all in the forest, but that didn’t make it any easier unfortunately. I don’t have pictures of this descent, but you can trust me on my word that it was freakin steep and a fine mix between a thick clay underground making for a very slippery surface. Add to that a fine mix of huge boulders and you have a perfect obstacle course to try and maneuvre yourself through. Needless to say that my gps did hardly register any speed whatsoever. Also, the only way would be to descend, there was absolutely no chance I was going to ascend this incline if I came to a dead end somewhere. It all adds to the excitement 🙂

And after this dodgy descent there were again some forests. This time however the big mud pools decided not to join the party. And I thanked them for that. There were some more steep descents but this time no huge boulders to worry about, just the clay. But I managed to come down safely and was soon approaching sea level again. I must admit I had a sigh of relief and some sort of feeling of accomplishment that I made it out there without any damage. I took the bike to the beach to cleanse of most of the mud that had stuck on the frame near the chain. It was a thick layer of clay that would have made pottery artists scream of joy if they had the chance to work of it. If I had a spinning table I could easily reenact the famous scene of the movie ghost with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. I will leave that to your imagination.

There was still plenty of daylight in the day so time for more exploring. I did notice the gps track would now simply guide me over the main roads so no mud or crazy descents to worry about. My next destination was a place called Sudak. The road leading to this town went through some hills so the occasional curve was present. At one of these curves I nearly hit a car. Or I should say, a car nearly hit me. I was perfectly on my lane of the road but the crossing car was going too fast and basically could not make it through the curve and had to come onto my lane. In the corner of my eye I could tell it was some young punk who was convinced he was going to be the new Ukrainian Michael Schumacher but it was obvious that he would need a lot of practice, preferably on empty roads. It really was a couple of centimeters, but I luck was on my side.

After a while I reached Sudak, but saw no reason to stop there, perhaps it were the thousands of beach going people and their inflatable swimming toys that put me off. On to Novi Sveti then. I had seen postcards of this place and it looked rather nice. But again, upon getting there the herd of people didn’t appeal to me. Can you notice a theme here?
On to Feodosia then… I tried following the track as closely as possible but at certain points I had to make a detour as some parts were no longer accessible for vehicles.

I followed the gps track past Feodosia and all to way to the very end of this previously recorded track.
This put me on the edge of a sandy cliff right about here
The sun was setting now and I was contemplating camping on this grassy edge of the cliff.

Would this be stable enough when it rained? I could easily picture some more land dropping off into the black sea due to factors of erosion. Somehow I didn’t want to find out and I drove back a bit to a sea level beach towards Feodosia that I had passed on my way to the cliff. I noticed people camping alongside the beach and I decided to find myself a nice little seaside spot. It was easy to find it, plenty of space as well, but plenty of mosquitoes too. There were so many of them that after putting up my tent my evening was just spent inside the confines of my little fabric fortress. I probably should have camped at the cliffs. There were no mosquitoes there 🙂

This was by far the most challenging track I have ridden. Any heavier bike than a 250cc would have been an even more struggle. Surely yesterdays rain had played a part but I was happy to have done it. The mosquitoes were probably disappointed as I can imagine I must have been smelling like a pig.

Rained out in Simferopol

The plan was to leave today and do some more Crimea exploring but after the girl owning the hostel told me about the weather forecast that sounded like a bad idea. They were predicting heavy rain in the afternoon. I tend to trust weather forecasts in foreign countries so I decided to stay another night in Simferopol.
I had an interesting conversation with the young girl that was running the hostel. She opened the place a year ago and was doing everything herself. This actually meant being on standby 24/7 just in case anybody would show up. Since she was basically doing it from her own appartment she had no keys to give to her guests. They had to ring the doorbell each time they wanted to enter the building. Needless to say, she was basically trapped in her own place all the time. Not exactly a dream job if you ask me. I tried convincing her that she should at least get some extra keys to hand out to guests so she didn’t have to be glued to the door buzzer all the time. I hope she succeeds in freeing up some time for herself.

Now extending my stay for another night, that was the easy part. The hard part would be to actually find stuff to do while staying another day. To say that the city has an abundance of tourist attractions would be an overstatement.
There is a museum and that was on the top of the list of places to visit. I was not yet raining so I was already beginning to doubt the weather forecast. In the museum they had an exhibition about the last Tsar of Russia. Most signs were in Russian so I could only look at pictures and guess what was going on. Well, some of the pictures had a little english explanation on the side, like ‘Tsar in Navy uniform’ or something similar. The longer texts were usually just in Russian. It was a really small exhibit and when I went to the natural history section of the museum I found out that my ticket did not grant me access to this section of the museum. But I already had a glance at some of the displays before an old lady wanted to check my ticket, and from what I saw I was not overly depressed of missing this part of the museum. I went outside and strolled around again, looking for interesting sights.

This is a massive government building

This is a wedding party

This is a square with a statue of Lenin

That is basically pretty much the interesting things I could discover on my second day in Simferopol. I am pretty sure that I am making it sound worse than it really is. There are after all some more museums in the city which I didn’t visit (partly on advice of my hostel).

After my leisurely stroll I could finally see the rain clouds roll in and oh boy, that weather forecast was spot it. It started pouring down like crazy and I was incredibly happy that I was not spending the afternoon on my motorbike. I had to take shelter a few times and my shoes were already getting soaked. I managed to pass an art gallery and checked it out in order to collect some dry time. I can’t remember the name of the painter whose paintings were on display but some of them I really enjoyed. After that I started walking back to the hostel, being completely drenched. I resorted to taking a bus for a short bit as the rain was simply too much to handle. Completely soaked I arrived at the hostel where I had a rather uneventful evening to spend since the place was empty. Lets just hope that weather clears up so I don’t have to spend another day in Simferopol. Not that it is a bad place, it is just lacking in the number of attractions.

Gates of Mordor – Yalta – Simferopol

It is still very cloudy in the morning. I feel like a gorilla in the mist. The tent is all damp and wet, not great conditions to pack it up but I have no choice.

But after riding a bit it gradually clears up.

I encounter a very steep descent. There are large rocks everywhere on this steep hill. It is one of those hills where if I go down, there is not a chance I can get up again. As I descend, I notice another enduro rider waiting at the bottom. I make a stop and he greets me. He is wearing full protective gear and even a neck brace. This guy means business. He tells me that there is a gate if I want to make it back to Yalta. He says something about police and just offering some money to them to be able to continue. Oh boy, where have I ended up now.

I am very wary now as it appears that I have been riding somewhere where I shouldn’t have been. But hey, this other biker is here, so I guess it can’t be that bad. It is awfully quiet in the surroundings. Because there are so many tourists in Yalta, I was kind of expecting a crowd here since the scenery is awesome. I pull up to this little gazebo thing and again, the views are impressive.

Time to head back to Yalta. It is a tiny road that leads me back towards ‘civilization’. I only pass one kind of house and a dog starts barking, so there are people that live here. The road swerves all the way to the bottom of the plateau and now I see it on my gps. It also indicates a barrier on the road. Before I approach it I turn of the engine and roll myself just far enough not to be noticed. I can tell someone is guarding the barrier. Crap. Is this the police that I have to bribe? I wasn’t really feeling up for it so I decided to head back into the plateau. There is another town I could reach, at least, that is what the gps says, and from looking at the map, this side has no barrier. So upwards I go again. I again pass the house and again, the dog barking and this time accompanied by a man who gives me the look of death and starts waving his fist. Ooops, he does not seem pleased / impressed at all. I just give a little extra throttle and soon he is just a speck in my rear view mirror. So I continue to the other town that should get me out of this mess. The road is really quiet. I only cross one car. And as soon as I think I have reached the other town, another gate. Locked shut and lots of people waiting on the other side. One lady, who apparently is the gatekeeper is again not pleased to see me. I explain her that I don’t understand what the problem is and kindly point to my gps as it clearly states no presence of a gate. She is not buying it and calls either her business partner or her husband who shows up a few minutes later. Again, not greeted with friendlyness I try the same tactic as the lady. He whips up his phone and starts calling a number. From what I can tell he is calling someone to ask what to do. I think they are discussing the option of calling the cops, but I get the impression that the cops would not bother to come out here for just a biker who has been tresspassing the area. He hangs up the phone and tells me to go the other way. He will not let me pass. I even pull out some money, but no go. He won’t accept. He does open the gate for some cars entering the what I now think is a park of some sort. But he closes it soon after they are all in, and no way for me to get out.
Great, so back to square one. I decide to head back to the steep hill that I descended when I started early in the morning. If I can achieve getting up the hill again, then I am home free and don’t have to go back to the first gate. Since yesterday I could squeeze through some boulders to get into the park, I suppose this is my easiest way out again.

When I arrive back at the steep incline, it seems nearly impossible. It reminds me of those videos you see on tv where motorcycle riders try to tackle a hillside to get as high up as possible. This was extremely similar. I decided to take it slowly and see if my little mule could get to the top.
First attempt, I think I made it half way, or that is what I want to believe. I come to a halt, and the incline is too steep that I loose balance and get catapulted of my bike. I literally start running downhill before falling and a little tree breaking my fall. Not cool.
I really want to get to the top of this thing, so I decide one last attempt. Again, halfway, not more and almost the same result. Dropping the bike and struggling not to end up on the bottom of the hill. This is not working at all so I try to look for an alternative. Perhaps I can swerve around it. The hill is basically a cone, perhaps I can just follow it’s contour and swerve around it reaching the top. I go exploring on foot. There is a little footpath, that is the good part. But it is so narrow that it is too risky to try and come this way. If I stray from the little path, my bike could end up somewhere on the bottom of the hill, just like it did with my previous two attempts, so I call it quits.

I see no other option than to head back for the first gate, the one I sneaked up upon. On the way I start practicing my innocent tourist look that is genuinely unaware of where he is driving and how he got there. Again, I pass the house with the angry man, only this time he is busy entertaining a few people that have entered the ‘park’. Finally I make it back to the gate, and this one is a proper gate, the castle kind of gate, a proper stone wall with a wooden door in the middle.
It is a rather large lady guarding it and it is time to show her what I have practiced. So I pull my innocent tourist card but she won’t budge at all. She starts shouting stuff which I can’t understand. It must have been 5 minutes that I have been trying to persuade her to open the gate for me. I have one final trump card and that is to offer some money. Nope, she wont accept, but she finally heads towards the gate and eureka, she opens it. Many thanks are sent her way and I am finally out of Mordor.

I can now finally get something to eat somewhere since this parks food options were limited to some hand picked berries which I know nothing of so I don’t even try them, afraid of picking the poisonous kind. What better place to find something to eat than in Yalta. It is really busy and I already get annoyed with the place before I even get there. Not a good sign.
After eating something I really have no further interest in exploring the place. It is that tacky.

So I decide to continue back inland to a town called Simferopol. I checked online to see if they had some cheap accomodation options there and it seems they have one hostel. Time for me to check it out.

Upon my arrival I have a bit of a hard time finding the hostel which basically is an apartment in an apartment block that someone transformed into a hostel. Two rooms with some bunk beds and that sums it up. The kitchen and other facilities are basically shared between the owners and the guests. Not that I complain. Just stating the facts.

I post a message on the local couchsurfing forum to see if anyone is interested in joining for a drink later that night. And some people reply. After grabbing some snapshots on my way to the city, and after some eating I meet up with them and we have a night out into town.

One of the people I met knows an enduro motorbike rider that has driven all over crimea on his motorbike. He joins for some drinks and gives me a link to a site where I can download some gps routes that he has driven. He persuades me to try one track in the next days, saying that it is really great. So I download it and keep it for further reference. He assures me that no gates will be stopping me this time 🙂

Baklava – Yalta

The town of Baklava was home to a secret submarine base. It was hidden until the 90’ies when it became public knowledge. Of course I wanted to visit this place.

The little town lies in a nice little bay.

Of course there are plenty of tourist traps.

I had a quick stroll before I went ahead to the ticket office for the submarine base. Now, it is an understatement to say that they don’t have english tourists as their main clientele and all signs are therefor in Russian making it very confusing for me. They have 3 different tours. They each follow a different path and visit different areas of the submarine base. They also have different starting times, from what I could tell. I wanted the middle option, not the longest, not the shortest. But for the life of me I could not figure out when it would start. So when it was my turn to order the ticket, the lady made a big sigh and refused to make any effort to communicate with me in English. She was not friendly at all. Not surprising since she was stuck in a tiny ticket booth in the summer sun. On top of that she was a very heavy individual which would probably mean that sailing the sweat of her armpits would make many sailors abandon ship. Anyhow, I tried to point at her sign, saying route two (I know two in Russian, so that was not the problem) but she yabbered something back to me. I just gave her the money, but no ticket in return. So I was clueless. The people behind me didn’t seem to want to help me either. So there I was, willing to pay money, yet, unable to get what I wanted. She just could have given me any ticket and a time, and I would have taken it. But no, she made no effort at all. So frustrated I left without a ticket. Screw that, I don’t need to see your stinkin’ submarine base… was what was going through my mind.

Ah well, can’t see it all can we. There are some mountains surrounding the bay, and it looked like there was a little track running up to one of the hills, so I decided to have a look. On the top you had a really nice view of the surroundings which made up for my lack of a submarine base tour.

I continued the dirt track and was soon on my way towards Yalta, a major tourist town in Crimea. Before getting there there was a nice monastery in the hills that attracted many visitors.

Yalta is best known for it’s ‘crows nest’. A tiny little castle that someone built on the edge of a cliff.

It even made the cover of a national geographic magazine issue.

I was however not very impressed with it at all. Too many tourists, and the castle is pure disney land material. Nothing real historic about it and well, let’s be honest. It is small. Sometimes size does matter, and when talking about castles… it matters.

Basically it is a tourist trap. There are tons of souvenir stands on the way. It is the only place where you have to pay for parking alongside the road. I still doubt if the parking officials are official and not some random guys pinning a badge to their shirt and printing some tickets on their home printer.

On to the next item to see in Yalta, at least for me, and that is the Druzbah holiday centre. A rather strangely looking hotel that I find rather cool. I had a swim at its beach.

But of course, very considerate tourists that want other tourists to experience what they had to drink earlier on. How kind of them…

Now, I did not visit Yalta itself. It screamed ‘tourist trap’ from all corners of the town. So I left it for what it was. Some things are better left to the imagination anyway. The area surrounding the town is basically mountainous. You have a plateau that suddenly ends and before the land touches the sea, you have all these holiday towns. So I decided to head for the plateau. The road was nice and twisty and many hairpin curves where necessary to make it to the top. There I noticed some massive radio telescopes that I wanted to check out. Unfortunately a big sign saying ‘no entry’ so I had to rest my quest.

I had passed a small settlement at the top of the plateau that had a few restaurants. I decided to try one out. Luckily the menu came with pictures and I pointed at the grilled skewers that looked mighty delicious. The girl asked me something but I did not understand. Then she made the sound of two animals… Oink oink… or Meeeh meeeeh. AAaah, pork or lamb. I replied… Meeeeh meeeh, and so my order was completed.

The food was very basic but very nice indeed. But definitely overpriced for Ukranian standards. It is obvious that they expect tourists from Yalta visiting and having lunch or diner there. Ah well, can’t blame them.

I saw many dirt tracks leading away from the main road, so I decided to go explore a bit. There were some rocks and a sign blocking entry to one of them, but hey, I can’t read russian or ukrainian. I’m sure it says no cars allowed, but dirt bikes, just squeeze through and enjoy…sort of.

So off I went and soon I was rewarded with stunning views on the edge of the plateau. But it was damn chilly. Lots of wind that would make walking on the edge an even more risky business than it already is when there is no wind at all. But stunning.

I think this is Yalta, or it could be the next town.

It was getting dark fast and I decided to look for a place to camp. There was noone around and there were plenty of places to pitch my tent. I wasn’t too late either because before I knew it I was amongst the clouds. What looked like a lovely sunset turned into fog as soon as the sun had set.

Sevastopol

I leave my campspot with only my tire tracks as proof that I was there and head out for the most western point of Crimea.

It is a rather touristy place. Lots of tents and campers parked alongside a very small stretch of beach. But no appartments or anything. It is still rather primitive looking, which is not bad of course.

A bit further south of the point is a radar base and I see military personnel on scooters rolling by once in a while.

There are also some nice cliffs to be seen.

As I pull over I notice my bike behaving strangely, more specific, the rear end. The problem is easily spotted, a flat tire. I try pumping it up again but after 5 minutes it is flat again.
Two motorbikers that happen to be there as well make a stop and ask me if I need help. They came from Kiev and are on a short holiday. I don’t want to burden them with helping me as they are on their holiday. Nope, I have got the tire changing covered. I look for a spot in the shade as temperatures are creeping higher and higher. Not ideal conditions to change a flat, but the views are pretty nice.

Again an army officer on a scooter passes. He must have more top classified stuff to do so offers just glances instead of help.
The tire is changed quite fast, a new record for me, only 45 minutes. I grab some breakfast from a little shop and head back to the town where I got pulled over by the cops as this is the nearest place to top up my fuel tank.
The next ‘major’ town I pass I start looking for a tire repair place. First shop I enter only deals with selling car tires and redirects me to a bicycle/motorbike store. The man tries to find a new inner tube that fits my rim after he gave up trying to find the leak in my flat inner tube. I just prefer to fix up the one I have instead of buying a new one, but he apparently dissagrees.
He offers me a cheap chinese made inner tube, or he can get me a proper russian made one by calling one of his suppliers. However they are both not the exact sizes for my rim, but they should work. I decide to leave the shop and rather have my tube fixed than replaced.
I pass several Kazantip signs (a techno festival that is pretty popular and attracts plenty of people from all over the world). So this town is the event location. They are still preparing for the festival which starts on 30th July. I am contemplating of going. Will have to decide pretty soon though.
I continue to Sevastopol. My rear tire lasts the entire way (running with my spare front tire sized inner tube) so that is good to know. I did over 200km with it at normal speeds without any issues.
The first hostel I stop at looks closed. I try calling the number on the front door but no cigar, nobody answers. Alright then, let me find another one. After scoring some wifi I quickly find another hostel and a cheap motel. Since hostels are cheaper I will try to find this place. The do,’t specify a street number but it can’t be that hard to find right? After about an hour of looking I gave up. This place is impossible to find, or so I thought as I read a review from another guest who actually found it and complained in her review that it was hard to find. Please lady, next time put in your review how you found it to safe other travelers know how to get there. The motel then. On the way I find a tire fixing shop so I stop there first to get business taken care of before taking care of pleasure. As my Ukrainian / Russian language skills are close to nothing I use a kind of combination of words I know and in this case sounds. I know the word for motorcycle…motosikel. And then I just point at my inner tube and make the noise a tube makes when it goes flat… Pssssst.
The guys in the shop laugh at me but they understand and the tube is fixed in 10 minutes for 2euros worth of Ukranian currency. Sweet.
The motel is actually next door but they inform me that they have no vacancy. Bummer.

I fill up with petrol and ask the gas stop boy if he knows cheap acommodation. He points me back to the hostel that I visited first when arriving the city. I head back to this place hoping someone is actually there this time around. I call the number on the door and this time I am lucky. The owner shows up 5 minutes later as he lives in a building nearby.

After a very necessary shower I head out towards the beachfront with one of the other hostel guests where I try to have a good bite to eat. Since I don’t know any good places to eat we end up in this tourist trap where the food is of subpar quality but the prices are at an upperclass level. Funny how that works in tourist places.

The next day I got in contact with Sasha, a friend of the hostel owner who is a motorbike rider who knows a little motorbike shop where I can get my oil changed and my repaired flat tire installed again on my rear wheel. Appartently a lot of mechanics in Sevastopol use bad quality engine oil and my hostel owner does not want me to end up in one of these shady places. So he called his friend Sasha cause he knows a good place.

I end up in a large area of storage units of which one is actually a motorcycle garage. The guy has been servicing Harleys and other bikes for years and he is a cool cat that has no problem doing the work I need done.

Sasha shows me his storage unit where he has his own little workshop. He is a photographer and makes photoframes out of scrap metal by welding bits and pieces together as a rectangle. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I can’t say anything bad about his workmanship.

In the mean time my bike is already on the bike lift and it is getting an oil change. After that we install the rear tube again.
I get a lot of respect from the mechanic because he knows what a pain it must be to ride long distances on a 250cc bike. A very nice guy. After this pit stop I am ready to head back to the hostel and do some pc work (backup pictures etc) after which I can explore town again.

I visit the waterfront and the big communist statue overlooking the bay.

It is very hard to see on the picture, but the beach is not the cleanest place in the world.

The statue is absolutely humongous and is used as a skateboard spot by the local skaters.

You can see the skaters under the statue

And since some of my friends wanted some more examples of the female population in Ukraine, I had to of course oblige.

And back to more important stuff, the touristic sights.

Towards Crimea

The next destination would be Crimea, thats how they call the peninsula that is sticking out in the black sea. It was actually quite a long and boring ride for the most part because you just have to traverse plains. Kind of reminded me of crossing the plains in Canada.
At one point I did pass an airfield and it had become a final resting point for a whole bunch of helicopters, both civilian and military.

I finally reach the peninsula and start heading west. My gps indicated that I was about to hit a stretch of off-road terrain so before hitting that I decide to fill up with petrol in the last town before the dirt road. The road goes uphill a bit and reaches a crest and of course my speed is a little too high and and the bottom two policemen are pointing their speed gun at me. I let off the throttle but of course the damage had already been done, I had to pull over.
It was a fairly young officer and he looked at my license plate and quickly found out that Russian would not be understandable to me.
‘Speed, too high’. ‘da, da’, i replied in my best Russian. I started grabbing my international license and handed it over to his colleague, an older policeman. ‘Stay Ukraine?’ was the next question thrown at me. I told them I was a tourist.
The older policeman kept looking at my license and he must have been thinking about all the paperwork that had to be done. He looked at me, pointed at my bike and waved his hand, signalling that I should just continue. I could sense that the young officer was flabbergasted by this gesture. He kind of looked shocked, as I was clearly speeding and I would get away with it. Well, I didn’t need a translation to get that message, so I just quickly put on my helmet amd took of for the nearest petrol station. I did say thank you a few times 🙂
After filling up I also grabbed a bite to eat since I already had my mind set on wild camping for the night.
The dirt road took me along the north western coastline of the peninsula.

There were little inlets everywhere and people were camping wherever they could put their tent. Some spots were busier than other.
I just found a place where I could be by myself so I would not be disturbed nor disturb anyone else.

Clearly the place I had chosen had been chosen before as some nice folks simply left all of their garbage there.

I have traveled to many places in the world and it is always the same thing. Stupid idiots leaving their garbage everywhere, this makes me so angry. I never leave anything behind, i take my rubbish, put it in a bag and throw it in a trashcan. And I am on a motorbike, it is not like i have loads of room to store garbage, but I do it. Nope, there are still people who think that garbage gets collected in the remote wilderness simply by putting it in a garbage bag.
Seriously, it is hard for me to list the scenic spots I have traveled to in this world without encountering someone’s rubbish. It will only get worse I am afraid. Sigh.

Odessa

I was contemplating whether I should move to a hostel. I checked one out in the morning but the building was being renovated and I decided to stay another night at the capsule place.

I went for a walk along some of odessa’s beaches. There was a little amuzement park on the way.

It was crazy hot outside so many people opted for an afternoon beach session.

This girl came on a horse

Does the sign say ‘No pigs allowed’ ?

When I was doing my working holiday visa in Canada I met Tanya. She is from Odessa and we met up in the evening. It was good to see her again and she showed me around the city, telling me a bit about the history of Odessa and giving info about various sights. She had worked a few times as a guide so I got a little private guided tour.

This seemed to be a favorite skatespot, police don’t seem to care

After this we grabbed some dinner and her boyfriend joined us for another stroll through some parts of the city. Later Tanya and I went to a beach bar that was apparantly a new hot spot in town called ‘True Man’. They had some cover bands playing and their repertoire existed mainly out of classics from the year 2000. Mostly rock songs. Not exactly music to wake up my dancing feet but the crowd seemed to love it.
Some friends of Tanya joined as well and it was a fun ending to my first proper day in Odessa.
The next day I was invited over at Tanya’s place for lunch. She was actually packing her bags as she was leaving for a trip with her parents. She also would combine this with a hiking trip in Georgia with some members of the hiking club she is enrolled in.
They were going to hike 16 days in the Georgian mountains. Pretty hardcore stuff, carrying around 25kg on your back, hiking through the mountains. Makes my ride feel very comfortable.
In the afternoon it was time to say goodbye to Tanya. I headed back to the city where I would join a couchsurfing meeting that was going to…’tru man’, the beach place I went the day before with Tanya.
Ah well, it might be a different band playing. It was a pretty big group of people that made it to the bar. Earlier at lunch I also met one of Tanya’s friends Eliza and she also joined the cs meeting so I got to see her in the evening again.
It was a different band playing, but again covers from the year 2000, rock… Again, not something I really dance to, but again, the crowd seemed to love it.
Luckily Eliza helped me and another guy to get a cab that would take us back to our respective accomodation places. Without her help it would have been quite the challenge as Tru man is not exactly close to the city. My second Odessa day had come to an end.

My last day was spent strolling around and snapping some pictures.

This is a famous chair in town that people queue up for to have their picture taken sitting on the chair

Even the dog looks into the camera.

By the way, Ukranian girls love to pose for a camera. They make sure their hair is correctly placed on their shoulders and do all kind of model poses. It is very Ukranian. I have never witnessed this before in any other country that I travelled to.

Apparantly Odessa also like Apple so they constructed a little monument for Steve Jobs.

Not much to talk about my last day really except for the lady that sat next to me at a bench in the evening. She started talking to me in Russian and after I made clear that english would be better for me she made an effort and started having small talk. But when I decided to head of she joined me. At first she directed me to a place where lots of motorbikes were parked which was nice of her, but not really what I wanted, I just wanted to go back to my hotel. She asked if I would walk or take the tram. Well, I usually walk, but since I had the feeling she would follow me I said I would take the tram, hoping that this would put her off from tagging along. Nope, she kept walking next to me. Hmmm, this was getting really awkward. I told her ‘Me, go hotel, you?’. Well, she kind of said hotel. Then I just grabbed my phone and told her I was going to meet my friend and that she was not someone I wanted tagging along. Finally she got it and she took of. I don’t know if she was a little bit crazy or not, but I didn’t really want to find out 🙂
My time in Odessa had come to an end.

Goodbye Romania, hello Ukraine (skimming Moldova)

Communicating was not easy with the man that helped me change my tire and offered me a place in the garden of this house since none us spoke the same language but some information could be exchanged such as the age the good man, 41
He tried asking other things but I could not figure out what he was trying to ask. Very annoying but yeah, not much to do about it except to learn another language.

I could finally see properly where I had stayed overnight.

Some of the woodwork on the side of the house

The settlement where I had changed my tire the night before.

House that the man who helped me was working on.

The tire had lost a bit of pressure overnight so it seemed so I inflated it a bit more before taking off again.
The next town, Focsani would be about 50 km away. 20km would still be on gravel. Alright then, lets see how my tire would hold. I went very slow on the gravel, don’t think I made it past 25km/h but it worked fine. It might have been a bit on the flat side but I wasn’t exactly hanging horizontally in corners at my cruising speed.
At one point I had to cross a river. It did look fairly deep but I could see no alternative way to cross so I made some speed and went for it. Well, that was my morning shower for the day as I was completely wet from the water splash I created when entering the water. A very cold one at that. It was deeper than I had guesse. But now I had reached the paved roads again and it was a comfortable drying session. At the first tire repair shop I went in to have my inner tube fixed. It took 4 patches to get all the holes covered. That nail had done a lot of damage. Nothing I could have done with my little patch kit I had in my repair supplies. It cost about 10 euro to get it fixed. I then asked if I could install it again since he had a tire changing machine. No problem except that he had no easy way to lift the bike. We found a solution using a jack and some wooden logs to support the swingarm. We managed to get the job done and my original inner tube was back in place, like brand new.
It was now time to head for the moldovan border. The mountains where definitely behind me and it were plains all the way until the border.

I did pass another Decebal statue.

The flatness of the surroundings

The romanian officer at the border took his time and asked if I allowed customs to search my bags. “Of course, be my guest”. He then walked to the customs office but they were clearly not keen to do so, so I could go.
Next Moldova. I was helped by a lady who wanted proof of insurance. I did nkt have it and I asked if I could buy it at the spot. She laughed at me. She also told me I look better without a beard. She talked to some of here collegues and then I could do the following. First go to customs, then pay some taxes, and then get a green card (insurance paper) about 5 km in the country, while they kept my passport as bond. Alright then.
So I had to drive 5 km without insurance to this little shack on the side of the road. It had a single computer, a little desk with a chair and a bed. I asked for a green card and the man wanted to see my passport, of course that was at the border office. I showed him my Belgian id card and told him to use the information that was on there. Luckily the computer program he was using accepted the id number and after what seemed to take ages and paying the healthy sum of 2 euros I had now insurance for two weeks of Moldova explorations. However I was intending to give Moldova the tourist treatment many people give to Belgium and that is…passing through. So, what can I say about Moldova after having spent an hour and a half there. Its roads are bad. The towns I passed didn’t scream the words “stay and visit me”. But the young guy who helped me at the petrol station was friendly and could speak some english.
Some of my Moldovan highlights…
A rest stop.

Some monuments highlighting aviation supremacy.

A busstop along the road

After this brief excursion through Moldova, I had now arrived at a tiny border crossing. The Moldovans took their time but after a while I could continue to their Ukranian neighbours.
There I was helped by a fairly attractive border lady who knew a fair amount of english and started asking questions. Of course the most common one where they ask why I am traveling alone. When telling that it is rather difficult to find someone who can join she suggested I tried the internet. Right, saddle me up with a complete stranger. Not saying it could not work but chances are slim. I should have asked her if she would join me next time. She was also interested to know which drugs I had with me, so I had to open my bag and show her my medicine cabinet. There was a dog nearby but I think it was just a stray dog instead of a highly trained illegal substance sniffer. Her collegues were joking around a bit and not long after I could pack my things and continue.
The landscape was simply put…plain(s)

The drivers I saw coming at me seemed to be drunk cause they swerved from one side of the road to the other. It wasn’t long till I realised that everybody was trying to avoid potholes and not small ones. I’m sure that if you stopped at a few of them and looked down, that you would see lions and crocodiles, ready to tear you and your vehicle apart should you manage to tumble in.
It is pretty full on driving these roads. On a few occasions my suspension had to do overtime and like we all know, overtime sucks.
The region I passed through was also sparsely populated. I hadn’t seen an ATM so I had no money on me in case I wanted to stay somewhere that didn’t accept cards which was very likely in this area.

I was hoping to reach Odesa, my first stop in Ukraine. I have a friend there who I wanted to see again after meeting here three years ago in Vancouver. She was planning to leave on holidays on sunday so I wanted to hurry (it was now thursday) so I could catch up with her again.
After a while and more pothole evasive manouvres I managed to see the black sea for the first time.

Black sea on the right of the picture

The smell was anything but pleasant, but the flies seemed to enjoy it very much.

The first bigger place I passed was some kind of holiday destination as everybody was in their swimgear with towels and inflatable water toys. Not exactly the place to find cheap accomodation in case I didn’t continue to Odesa.
I was keeping an eye out for an ATM but could not seem to spot one. It was now starting to get dark. Luckily it was now only a short ride to Odesa. The accomodation options seemed plentiful although they were all big hotels and they looked pricey. I decided to try one that looked a bit cheaper but when I asked for the price it was similar to the price of a room in Belgium. The hotel staff suggested to try one of their partner hotels. I tried locating it but could not find it. Somehow I reached the railway station area, and that usually means cheap but not always the best accomodation options. I saw a big sign advertising a room for around 15 euro and went to have a look. The room was tiny but clean enough for my standards and since it was now half past 10 I decided to end my search.