Hello. This blog is a long one – so beware! It’s been an interesting and rewarding week. After Vilnius, we continued our journey north towards the Latvian border and (still in Lithuania) made camp opposite a beautiful lake in the Lithuanian Forest. It was located a few hours drive north of Vilnius and possibly our prettiest camp spot so far. The following morning (Saturday 26th) we ventured north towards Latvia. Unfortunately we thought we had over-slept as our phones were reading 9.45am when we got up (lazy bums). Unknowingly we had crossed another time zone and were now GMT +2. On the downside it meant we were much later getting on the road, as we needed to make it well into south-east Latvia by the end of the day, so we could have a rest day (Sunday) and be close to the Russian border for a Monday morning crossing. The Lithuanian roads northwards mainly comprised single tracked lanes through woodland, rolling farmland, and with the occasional beautiful lake thrown in. The further north we drove however, the more drier the landscape appeared. It looked like the Baltic States were in drought. We crossed the border into Latvia early evening on Saturday and was greeted by the border town of Daugavpils. It was a serious looking place, and looked very Russian and not very cheery. It turns out that south-east Latvia has a high Russian population, and Daugavpils in particular is almost completely Russian (according to my trusty D.K guide from Jennifer Hoyle. Thanks Jen!). The roads declined as we drove north-east through Latvia and soon our bottoms were leaving our seats more often than not! It was a weary day, and the sun was starting to go down before we could find a good place to park up for the night. To be honest, I wasn’t sure we were going to find anywhere decent. Most of the roads we had seen in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia were raised higher than the surrounding ground level – which is basically sand. In some places – the sand is water logged, so the road is obviously higher due to flooding. I am decided that the Coal of the future is being formed in these countries, as a lot of it looks swampy, with the tree roots sat in the water. Maybe another Pontypridd will be founded in 300 millions years time ;p Also – what we had seen so far of Latvia made me feel a bit uneasy. It looked like the back of beyond and very deprived compared with Lithuania. As luck would have it though, we settled on a spot next to a newly dug lake, which had its own picnic bench and even a bin! Ed spotted it as we were on route to Ludza (the last Latvian town before the border). We camped up for the night and hoped for sunshine again on Sunday. Sunday was our rest day, except we took the opportunity to do some washing, as we had two whole weeks worth of dirties!…. There was a stream running into the lake, so Ed collected water and we used the truck as a makeshift washing line. The weather has been glorious, so we soaked up the sun while our smalls were drying, and had a well deserved chill out after all the bumpy roads (since Warsaw). Later when we were cooking our tea outside, a car pulled up alongside us and a Latvian chap got out. He shook Ed’s hand enthusiastically and smiled at us both. He didn’t speak much English, but he wanted to know what the Truck was (the make) and where we were going. After Ed answered his questions he disappeared back to his car and we thought that was that. A minute later however, he came back with a bottle of beer and gave it to Ed!. ‘Latvian Beer – Welcome to Latvia’, then he shook Ed’s hand again and was off! We couldn’t believe how generous he was, and wondered how many times that was likely to happen in the UK if a Latvian Motor Truck was passing through…… Also my earlier feelings of unease about the area of Latvia we were in, dissolved instantly. The following morning (Monday) we drove to the Latvian-Russian border. I was really nervous as this was the first time I had crossed a proper border. We made sure the truck was ship shape, apart from our slightly damp clothes strewn everywhere from the previous days washing….. We arrived at the Latvian side of the border at 9.30am, and it would be 1.30pm until we were finally allowed into Russia. The Latvian side was pretty straight forward. About a mile before the border, we had to pull over and collect a document which had our vehicle registration on (printed out by the guard) and lots of spaces for ‘important stamps’. We needed five stamps in all. One each for entering and leaving Latvian space, one from security, and two from customs (for food / belongings etc.). It took a while, but it was just a case of being pushed from pillar to post, plus on the Latvian side, they weren’t that interested in what was in the truck – they just took a quick peak without getting inside. The Russian border guards were a bit more exciting. There were two of them. Young lads, and we weren’t sure if we were amusing them, but they seemed to be joking and laughing a lot, and were quite jovial. We had to fill out a form (basic passport and visa details and dates of entry and exit in and out of Russia). We then took this information to a security desk. A stern looking Russian man typed our details onto his computer, scanned in our visas and passports, and then stared at us for a slightly extended amount of time to make sure we were the persons in the passport. This was not a good time to laugh….. Then – the two jovial guards wanted to look in the truck. A small audience of even younger looking guards also appeared – they were obviously interested. I would soon come to learn (when we finally started driving through Russia), that Russian men love their trucks. The amount of times someone over took us and craned their necks back to look at the front of the truck has so far been endless…. Lol. A British Truck is obviously a rare and odd sight to the Russian eye. So Ed went inside the truck with the two guards. They looked in all the cupboards. It made me laugh as only a couple of things drew suspicion. 1: Ed’s fishing rod; probably because the case it is in makes it look like a large knife, or gun!; and 2: The fact that Ed only had one beer in the fridge! and he didn’t even buy it, it was from the lovely Latvian chap! Hehe…. “only one beer, this man can’t be trusted’….. is probably what I would have heard if I could speak Russian. After all that, we had to go through Russian customs and fill out some forms – ending up declaring nothing. No-one spoke any English at this border, and it was a lot smaller than we thought it was going to be. To be honest though, it wasn’t too bad really. We got to Russia with a whoop whoop and smiles. Ed purchased the motor insurance on the other side for £80 which would cover us for 7 months! Then we had lunch just meters from the border and finally drove into Mother Russia after 3pm. Truck after Russian truck. Ed was in seventh heaven. We made good miles towards Moscow and then pulled up on the Motorway layby with other HGVs for the night and in celebration, Ed enjoyed his Latvian beer. I had also attempted to start learning how to pronounce the Cyrillic, as our map was ALL Russian and even Moscow was MOCKBA (a ‘c’ is pronounced as ‘s’ and a ‘b’ is pronounced as a ‘v’) – just in case the satnav did us an in-justice. The most annoying was the bloody satnav was in English, so didn’t match the Russian road map, so I had to hastily try and translate some of the town names when the road signs popped up to make sure we were going the right way. After the border crossing, we now had a hell of a drive the rest of the week. We had to drive east to Moscow, then south-east to Astrakan which was our next destination (near the Kazakh border). All to avoid the mental Ukraine. So from Tuesday afternoon to Friday afternoon we have covered more than 1200 miles of Russian road. None of the roads are numbered either. Whilst transiting the Russian land-mass, to be honest, there have not been many sights to see (well lots of Russian Trucks for Ed). However, we have seen a few grass fires. It looks like drought in northern Russia too. We also ended up in Moscow rush our – which was hilarious. People in Russia tend to drive either really old cars (mostly Ladas it seems) or spanking new ones. On this particular day, a few old ones (and there was more than one) had broken down on the Motorway and people were out of their cars casually fixing them in the middle of the road! Also, one highlight of being on the Russian equivalent of the M25, was that we saw a sign for ‘Moscow Centre’. Unfortunately that was as close as we got to the Kremlin, as we just had too much driving to do. Reason being, is that if you are in Russia for more than 5 days, you have to register somewhere (or this is what we have been led to believe), so we wanted to transit sharpish. Plus any time sightseeing would mean eating up our time in Central Asia. So on we went. The landscape for the majority of the journey through Russia has been flat and sandy, similar to what we left behind in the Baltic. The scenery did however seem to get better the further south we got, though oddly, the weather got worse the further south!. We passed an invisible line about 100miles south of Moscow, and then our 7 full days of complete unbroken sunshine was replaced with rain and cloud….. reminded me of home. The roads on the whole were pretty good, but there were some horrendous bumpy sections. We took the M6 all the way to Volgograd. There were traffic cops all over the place and for the first few days we couldn’t believe that they hadn’t pulled us over. Our time came on Wednesday afternoon though. A dead pan traffic officer pulled us over. ‘Documents’. Luckily we had everything in one place for such an eventuality. Even more lucky, it was all over in a minute and we didn’t get fleeced. On the whole, all the Russian we have spoken too have been amazingly nice (mostly at fuel stops, plus I did buy some honey on the side of the road which tastes like rocket fuel). Ed has had plenty of attention as most Russian men want to talk about the truck. One such man (south of Moscow) was really helpful when Ed enquired about the roads to Astrakan. First we thought he was saying ‘No Kazakhstan’! which was a bit worrying, but Ed explained we were going to Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan. He said the roads were pretty bad….. Also our most amazing Russian encounter has been a Taxi Driver from Volgograd called Vicktor! We had wondered why our stupid satnav was trying to divert us into Ukraine to get to Volgograd when we could see that the M6 from Moscow would take us there! It was trying to make us go 1800miles! Lol! Well, when we got to Volgograd, we saw the most mental lorry restriction sign ever (see attached). Basically we couldn’t drive into Volgograd! Bugger! Ed pulled over in front of the massive restriction sign and then Vicktor spotted us and made eye contact with Ed. Ed got out (Vicktor didn’t speak much English). After about 25 minutes of not understanding each other, Ed agreed to pay Vicktor some Roubles (£25 worth) so we could follow him along the lorry route, through Vologograd, while avoiding the restrictions. He got in his taxi and lo and behold, Vicktor was a saint. He traversed us through Volgograd and we could take in some of the sights, including a giant statue of Mother Russia, and the River Volga itself, which we drove over. It took about 30mins to escape the city, and both of us could never have found that route on our own. Even more lovely, Vicktor took us to a supermarket once we were out of Volgograd, so we could stock up on food before the Kazakh desert. Thanks Vicktor. You were a star. He gave us exuberant hugs and smiles the whole time too. Away from Volgograd we followed the River Volga to Astrakan – it was 260miles of the most desolation I have seen so far. Open landscapes of sandy nothingness, with wispy grass, the occasional tree and a glimpse now and then of the Volga and her tributaries (where there was significantly more greenery or reeds). The towns looked like very poor communities, cows were all over the road (which I loved) and the road was bumpy the majority of the time. We managed to find a decent enough pull-in (where there was a few trees) and later on in the evening a few HGVs joined us for company which was comforting. This was Thursday night. Today (Friday) we made it to Astrakan, which is really quite an affluent place considering the 260 miles of deprivation we witnessed getting here from Volgograd. There is a mixture of Russian and Kazakh features in the faces we have seen, and neither Ed or I, have drawn attention to ourselves walking around. No-one looked at us twice. I have made it to McDonalds to download the blog. Yes they have one…… and it’s the only place we can find wifi, and then Ed and I are going to wander around Astrakan. Tomorrow is Saturday, and we are going to make sure we have full cupboards of food and a full tank of water before we drive to the Kazakh border. We are considering just spending the whole weekend next to the Volga enjoying the sun and ironing out the cricks in our necks before crossing into Kazakhstan on Monday morning. It should hopefully take us 2-3 days to reach the Uzbek border, but it depends on the speed of the border crossing and the roads. All being well, we are hoping to be in Khiva (Uzbekistan) by the end of next week – and finally enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the Silk Road. Hopefully there will be wifi there too. One of the funniest things, is that the bumpy roads made all our milk in the fridge turn to yoghurt! (eeeww). Also I have managed to not wash my hair for at least three days at a time (with the help of dry shampoo), and one day Ed had a button shaped bruise on his bottom because of the roads. We have burned 1,150 litres of diesel so far (and it’s gotten cheaper the further south we have driven; now only 50p a litre!) and so far we think we have covered about 3,300miles (we think) but the KM has broken on the truck unfortunately…. We hope all is well in Blighty. Until the Stans…. Lots of Love Ros & Ed.
2 Comments
The Crockers
5/3/2014 10:23:36 pm
It's finally hit home what you're up to! Leaving the western world and heading out in to the wilderness - I'm very jealous although I did get to drive a blue mustang in Seattle last week! It's great to hear how helpful people are, really gives you comfort that despite the nonsense on the news, most people are actually just nice! Looking forward to the next installment - all very well written floss - colour me surprised :)
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Lucy
5/6/2014 07:09:39 am
Thank you for the wonderful writing Ros. Love reading about your daily doings. You're a plucky pair! XX
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AuthorRos: Both Ed and I will be updating the diary blog as much as possible! WTS. Archives
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