Lublin, Poland

After my night out in Lviv it was a fairly slow start to get back on the road. My breakfast turned into a brunch as I wasn’t the fastest this morning. I had parked my motorbike somewhere on the side of the road, and as I was eating I could see some parking guards approaching. They had a look at my bike and I was luckily just finished with eating so that I could run back to my motorbike and get going again. The lady shook her head in a ‘no’ fashion. I shook my head in an aknowledging ‘yes, i know’ fashion and I left the scene.

Today I would be heading back to the European union. There were a few options where I could cross the border. Would I be going towards Slovakia or stick to Poland? Slovakia would mean a bit of a ‘detour’ as I originally did not plan to visit this country. On the other hand, the region was mountainous, which would mean nice scenery. This would be a welcome change from the boring straight roads that I had been on the last few days. I could also opt for Poland and head for Krakow. Many people had said good things about this city. But again it was a bit out of the way according to my itinerary that I had plotted out while still in Belgium.

In the end I opted to stick to my original itinerary and went to Poland, skipping Slovakia, and also skipping Krakow in Poland. One can’t see everything. This is unfortunately true a lot of the time.

My destination of the day would be Lublin. But first another border crossing. I was expecting a bit of a crowd, and my expectations were confirmed by a very long queue of people. It was also extremely hot, so I did what motorbikes always do at border crossing, the skip the queue and try to make it as far as possible before reaching the gates. This worked fine and I quickly reached the Ukrainian control post. Now things got a bit interesting. When I presented my bike and my papers, the officer instructed me to get a stamp from customs first. Great, now where is customs. Turns out customs was another little shack that I had passed in the queue earlier on. So I had to leave the bike and walk back to the customs officer. There were many people just waiting in line to get some stamps and I did the same. Soon it was my turn and I could now get my papers and my stamp inspected by the border officer. He gave me another stamp on a little piece of paper and I could start making my way to the Polish checkpoint. There were two rows of cars, and like always, I wanted to go in between and cut in front of the line of cars. As I was maneuvering through I heard somebody whistle and as I looked back it turned out to be a Ukrainian guard. He wanted to collect the little paper with the stamp that I got from the border guard. Great. I could not make it all the way to the front of the queue so I had to wait in the sun, like everyone else. It took about 30mins before it was my turn to have everything inspected. I was starting to sweat as a pig. As I was waiting I could spot some of the people I went partying with the night before. They were on foot as they were hitchhiking towards Poland. The Polish official just asked if I had anything to declare and what kind of bike I was riding and if I had any problems with it. Pretty standard stuff. No inspection of my bags. He just gave my papers back and then I could go my way. After a few 100 meters in Poland I caught up with the partygang to say a final goodbye. They had no trouble hitchhiking and would try to find a new ride towards Krakow.

You can immediately tell that you are in the European union again. The landscape is dotted with ads and billboards everywhere. It is a little bit more lively. The roads were also in a better condition. Quite a difference from Ukraine.

I was hoping to get a bit of offroad action and my plotted gps track soon led me to a small forest. But it was not easy to find my way out of it. The tracks soon disappeared and I gave up finding my way out as it became to dense to ride through it. So I went back the way I came and stuck to the main road. The scenery did change a bit from Ukraine as well. There were more forests and a lot more villages that I passed. But maybe the highway in Ukraine just avoided a lot of small villages.

I had no idea where to stay in Lublin upon my arrival there. So the first tactic was to get wifi access and to find a hostel on one of the big hostel websites. This proved a bit harder than usual. I just could not seem to grab wifi access. After driving around for a bit I noticed a big field where a lot of jugglers and slack rope walkers were training. There were also lots of tents pitched on the field they were practicing on. And since I have a tent myself I thought I could give it a try and ask them if I could pitch my tent on their field. The whole area was fenced of and a security guard told me I had to go through the other entrance and not the one I had approached. Once I got to the official entrance I noticed that it was a circus and I didn’t bother to ask if I could camp there. I know I am a clown but this was not my circus.

So my quest for wifi had to continue. I must have lost at least an hour and a half just looking for free wifi. But the person that perseveres finally wins. And finally I had my precious wifi and could look for a hostel. I noted the address and typed it into my gps and I was on my way to my accommodation for the night. It was a bit out of town but I was glad that the place was open, and upon ringing the doorbell and entering they told me they still had a bed available. Great. I started unpacking my motorbike and was soon approached by another guest of the hostel. It was a french man that was doing a big european trip on his bicycle. He asked if I would join him into town. I accepted the invitation but told him that I first wanted to get a shower. No problem, he said… ‘I will wait outside for you’. But of course when I wanted to take my shower it was already occupied so I had to wait. After a while it was my time to take the shower and I tried my best to hurry up as fast as I could so that my frenchie outside would not have to wait too long. But he did have a book when he spoke to me outside, so I guess he could kill the time by reading.
However, when I went outside to meet him, he was already gone. I must have taken too much time then. No problem. I went back to the room and noticed a peculiar smell. Well, a smell is a friendly way of saying that the room just reeked foul. I was trying to find out where the stench came from. Most of the 8 beds in the room were taken and I could see all the bags of the french cyclist. As I hovered my nose over one of the plastic bags of our cyclist I had found the culprit. He had a fleece shirt inside that smelled so bad that it filled the entire room. The plastic bag in which it was put was half open hence why I discovered it. So I decided to close the bag and leave the window open as much as possible, hoping to clear the stench.

It was now time to head towards town on my own. There were loads of people there. The circus that was in town was performing a few nights in the city.

The city has a few streets that compose the ‘old city’ centre which are nice.

There were flame throwers, some comedy acts etc all over town.

It was a pretty cool place. All the bars and restaurants were also crowded.

I just walked around, grabbed some dinner, took some pictures and headed back to the hostel before midnight.

And when you can’t find a toilet and are too drunk, just pee in a corner, but don’t be surprised if someone takes your picture.

When entering the room I found the frenchman already in his bed, but what also had returned was the incredible stench. He had left his plastic bag wide open again. Now, I am usually pretty flexible and don’t complain too much when something is not to my liking but this was just not acceptable for me. So I went to reception and explained my situation. Luckily the girl was reasonable and gave me another bed in another room. There were only 2 people in this room and at least no smell! I was happy again and could look forward to a normal night of sleep.

Lviv, Ukraine

After Kiev it was straight towards Lviv, in the western part of Ukraine. I will spare you the details of the road. To sum it up, lots of highway which stands for boring straight roads, not much variation in the scenery. Think fields and you covered 95% of my view. I did at one point try to avoid the highway and take some small roads to get some change from the highway but this would just take too long to get anywhere fast and soon I gave up and went back on the highway.

I arrived at Lviv around 5pm and checked it at a hostel right in the center of the city. Later that evening I joined some couchsurfers that were going out for drinks. It was a good night out. There some young guys from Lviv who had joined and one of them had quite interesting views on the educational system in Ukraine. He basically told us that getting a degree in Ukraine was useless and that universities don’t teach you anything at all (he decided to drop out). When some of us asked for examples on how he came to this conclusion he seemed to struggle to come up with something. He also kept going on about petty thieves / beggers that roamed the city and how he was certain that this was a local phenomenon and that no other place in the world could have a similar problem. It proved rather difficult to convince him that there were many places that suffered similar or even worse faiths. At a certain point I was just ignoring him as he kept going on about it.

As I was only planning to stay 2 nights in town I went walking around the next day to take snapshots.

Lviv is a very scenic place. Lots of old buildings that have remained intact over the years. However the city center is fairly compact which means you can see most of it in a day.

Because of its preserved historic buildings it is also considered to be a very romantic city with lots of people getting married here.

I went to a lookout on the top of a hill and just wandered around really, no particular goal in mind.
The lookout turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

What I noticed in Ukraine is that on every tourist spot they try to set you up with an eagle. You have young men with an eagle or other wild animals such as snakes, owls, possums etc just standing at a tourist spot and trying to persuade you into taking a picture with their animal and asking for money. Needless to say that I do never participate in such schemes. In the case of an eagle, they also bring it out of balance in order for it to spread its wings. How annoying, I think I will bring a huge pair of scissors next time to cut through the leather leash they have their animal attached to and set it free.

I didn’t really do much else in Lviv. Although a nice place, I didn’t find it all that very exciting to be honest.

At least the police was trying to keep an eye on ‘things’

In the evening, some of the people I had met the night before went out again and I joined in on the fun. It was a good night out. We first went for drinks at a regular cafe and afterwards we went to a bar where in order to get inside you had to knock a door and say a secret pass-phrase in Ukrainian before you were allowed to get inside. The theme was basically that of the Ukrainian freedom fighters where you could even dress up as a Ukrainian partisan member. Supposedly only Ukrainians could enter this establishment where folklore Ukrainian songs were sung and the beer flowed in vast amounts. It was all a bit of a show really, but the atmosphere was good.

After this we were still interested in what the nightlife scene in Lviv had to offer. We had a few addresses for nightclubs. At the first one we arrived it was free entry for the ladies in the group so they went in to check if the place was pumping. But they soon came out and told the rest of the group that it was empty. Saved us guys from paying an entrance fee.

The next club we had on our list was harder to find. First we walked in the wrong direction. After a while we realized our mistake, but then found out that the place no longer existed. Great. But there was a little bar next to the address that used to be the place and there was a bit of a crowd there so we decided that this would be our home for the night. This is also the place where I saw some of Ukraine’s hipsters.

We stayed until the early hours and afterward the place had shut we stopped at a Mcdonalds on the way back. As we were sitting outside there were 2 men that came and sat next to us on some steps close to the fast food joint. We were a bit wary at first but they seemed to be friendly. None of them spoke english. Luckily one in our group understood Ukrainian but we all acted as if we couldn’t understand anything.
The two men asked if we understood some french. Yup, some of us do. And they tried remembering some of the french they had learned at school. We couldn’t really make out what they were saying in french either. They would say a french word, and then they would argue in Ukrainian with each other before trying another french word. The person in our group that understood Ukrainian later told us that the 2 men were trying to come up with something nice to say to the girl that was in our group but that they only remembered stuff like ‘table’ and ‘cheese’ and were not convinced that this would impress the lady very much. I think they are right.

Kiev

A short stretch of boring road to ride until I reached Kiev. I was going to meet up with a friend from my hometown who has been living in Kiev the last couple of years. But I arrived a day early, so we could not meet up on my first day in Kiev, so I went looking for a hostel to spend the night. First place I went to was fully booked. If I had come 5 minutes earlier, then I would have had the last bed at this place. But no problem, they contacted another hostel and soon I had myself a bed to sleep in, closer to the center of town.

Since I had arrived pretty early in the city I had the whole afternoon to start exploring.

It was starting to get cloudy and soon after I reached the city center, the rain clouds treated me with tons of water. Not exactly ideal weather to stroll around. Most people were prepared, I however was not and fled to underground.

So I headed back to the hostel to get acquainted with the other guests. There was an american actor who was shooting a movie in Belarus but had visa issues and was trying to sort them out in Ukraine. It was interesting to hear his story as he was explaining that he could speak Russian like a native, and that is what got him the role in the first place. He was playing a scientist in this movie. But then on set, the director got mad at him because when he pronounced some strange scientific terms in Russian they could spot he was not a native speaker and so had to kind of change the script a bit so that he would become the ‘foreign’ scientist.
Another guest of the hostel was a scottish guy that wanted to learn Ukrainian but was upset with everybody in Kiev because most people here only speak Russian. There areactually not that many places where people will actually speak Ukrainian. The majority of people speak Russian. But then movies in movie theaters are syncronized in Ukrainian. Very confusing indeed. Anyhow, if you want to speak Ukrainian you should not visit Kiev for that, and that was exactly what my scottish friend found out (you should go to a city called Lviv, which I will visit as well).

I went to have dinner with them and some other guests that were at the hostel and we made plans to go out during the evening. Unfortunately that didn’t really happen so I went out with the Scottish guy and a Belgian who had arrived at the hostel and we went exploring the city. It is always very difficult to find a good place in town to go out to, especially if the staff at the hostel really don’t go out that much and can’t recommend places. We did have a name of one place and the address as well, but we didn’t manage to find it so kept on strolling along until something interesting popped up. There was a very small pub that we peeked into, but a closer look revealed that we would be pretty much the only guests. In the mean time our Scottish fellow tried asking for directions in Ukrainian and again, he was confronted with the fact that nobody speaks Ukrainian in this neck of the woods. Perhaps it was his Scottish accent? Who am I to tell 🙂

After a while we heard some dance beats and ended up at this arena shaped place where at least 4 clubs were trying to grab customers from each other. The techno beats were coming from all directions and this feeling was even more enhanced by the circular arena that reflected the sound and contained it. Must have been a nightmare for soundtechnicians. But the crowds were definitely coming and going. The clubs looked rather posh and none of us were really dressed for the occasion so we opted to sit at a terrace to do some people watching. And well, on that front, we could not have picked a better location.

The next day I was going to meet up with my hometown friend in the early afternoon. This gave me some time to visit the open air war memorial before catching up.

This part you had to pay for which kept me from visiting it.

But most things were free, I like free

Also a lot of communism inspired statues, and this while nice Russian or Ukrainian propaganda music was being played through speakers in the background. Very creepy 🙂

But of course, instead of looking down the barrel of a gun, you can sit on it.

After this I got to meet my buddy at his apartment which had some pretty sweet views.

A lot of time was spent just chillin’, grabbing stuff to eat. Just relaxing really. But there was time for some water fun as well. We went tow surfing on the Dnipro river which was good fun.

But unfortunately I caught him in a busy time and partying in town would have to be postponed until another visit to Kiev. But it was all good, since after the towsurf session I didn’t have much juice to get loose anyhow. After having visited my friend I was planning to stay one last day to see some more sights and take some more snapshots.

Shoe model

I did a lot of walking around since it was now a nice and sunny day and I also visited one of the islands located inside the river. They had a lot of fitness equipment out in the open, kind of like Venice beach in California. But it was sooo crowded and I didn’t even dare to take pictures. The equipment looked very old and worn out, like some of the men operating them. But yeah, too much testosterone to my liking. I wonder if this has an effect on mosquitoes that feed on the bodybuilders.

Towards Ukraine’s capital

It was time to say goodbye to my great hosts. It was time for some pictures of the kids with my bike and of the whole family actually.

The lady of the house even prepared me a lunch for the day and even provided a lunch box and utensils. “Don’t bother returning it, keep the box” is what she said. Such friendly people!!

After I obtained some tips on which road to take towards Kiev I was soon on my way. There were multiple options since you can basically choose which side of the river to follow towards Kiev. There are a few places where you can cross the river but they are spread apart over long distances, so you have to choose wisely.

There was one building in Dnipropetrovsk that was still on my list of places to see. It was a music hall in one of the cities parks.
Unfortunately it was closed, so I could not get inside. But it looked peculiar nonetheless.

Just before noon I was well on my way in the direction of Ukraine’s capital Kiev. The road took me through some industrial town in which I didn’t stop and over some bridges.
Actually my host had given me some tips on places to visit, but I didn’t write these down, figuring that I would remember them in my head. Well, needless to say that that didn’t really work out so well for me. I guess the toxic fumes from one of the cities I passed through were causing some minor memory loss.

I had some lunch in the middle of nowhere and I continued driving afterwards without really stopping to see any sights (remember memory loss). It was just one of those ‘drive all day’ days where you just want to cover as much ground as possible to reach a certain destination.

It was a pretty long journey and I didn’t actually reach Kiev. I stranded at about one and a half hour drive from the city. I parked my bike near a forest on the edges of the river and made camp there.

Of course there was the obligatory litter at my campsite for the night. Not the most exciting day thus far, but I covered a lot of ground so I could reach Kiev in the morning.

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.