Monday May 19th 2008
At 9AM sharp we were-myself and Julia my interpreter- at custom office full of hopes that we get our car today so I can pick up Ami from the airport at 2:30PM.
We ended up in very small lobby with three offices with numbers on door. Few people were already seating there.
We waited to go to the first office which we were after about 30 minutes. Large size custom lady read the Julia’s hand written letter and made a phone call and that’s it. We are done with the first office. My hopes are now getting high. This is easier than I thought. Now we wait for second office. Which we got in after a bout 20 minutes. She read the letter and stamps it and we are done. Now we go to third office, which supposed to be the main chief’s office.
After 30 minutes we were in third office all nervous. He reads papers and speak to Julia in Russian and put his signature on the same hand written letter and we are off.
Now we go to some counter with lady with curly hair and some stuff –kind of artificial ball of hair stuck in her hair. She goes through papers and here the whole process starts – Russian bureaucracies. After about nerve racking 30 minutes or so she comes back and break the first bad news that our papers are not in order and we should go to Ferry’s office at the port.
We go to Ferry’s office and guy from that office makes some sarcastic comments about Russian authorities and gives us more papers with bunch of stamps –one of those paper was copy of Bill Of Landing with bunch of stamps on it.
We take that paper back to the curly hair lady and she examines it and says the paper does not have enough car’s information such as Engine number, Size of the engine, Chassis number and such. As in US our registration only has VIN number. In Russia they don’t use VIN number. so now they are asking some sort of log book. The alternative is to pay the custom guy and take him to the car and he prepares a document with engine number and other details such as CC, size of engine and serial number.
So we agreed and dispatched Alexi –custom guy- to the port. He arrives and calls us that he cannot get in car because border patrol has sealed the car with scotch tape and stamped it. He cannot break that seal.
Now it’s 2:30pm and we just have to wait to get hold of border patrol. I take off to airport with taxi which is about an hour away from the city. We got stuck in traffic and reached lat at the airport. Ami was outside nervous and almost in tears. Took Ami to Insurance Company and added her name. Insurance lady couldn’t believe when she looked at Ami that she will be driving. Talked Insurance lady out of charging us more for Ami with my broken English few words of Russian and reverse order for her.
We go to different hotel –cheaper one- and wait for better day tomorrow.
We hang around in lobby , used the wi-fi. At evening we walked down to a nice German Bistro for some great beer and German food.
Tuesday May 20,
With high hopes I and Ami woke up early. Didn’t bother for breakfast and waited for Julia. Julia came by and we hauled ourselves to custom office –amazing place. People hanging around, smoking and wait for their papers processed-nervous spacing perplexed and smoke more. Now I know why they smoke and drink so much. It’s the bloody system. I nearly went for a bottle myself on Monday night –but then settled for a beer from Russia. Today we pick up Alexi and take him to the port and wait for Mr. Border patrol guy who will untape the car. At around noon we tracked down both Alexi and border patrol guy and synchronized both to be at same place. We drove with Alexi –a fine young Russian man-who was amazed of our task. I took the opportunity and befriended with him talking about American movie and my Indian heritage which he seemed to like it better then my American citizenship. Suzi was parked in damp cement multistory car park on ground floor . right behind her there was a dog wondering around. I saw the flimsy looking a 2” wide scotch tape on doors with some stamp on it. Ha ha so this is what they call sealed by border patrol. Border patrol guy was short and chubby in full uniform , reminded me old Bond movie with those evil Russian officers. He looked impressive though. He came by I shook his hand greeted him in Russian. He seemed to like me and started taking the tape off. Few other guys showed up. Opened the hood and with special light we found that stupid engine number. Alexi made his report that the car was legal and was not chop job. After few jokes and chat with border patrol and other custom guy while they preparing a report –hand written.
No we go back to custom with the gang to get our permit. I started making plan that I and Ami would start first thing in the morning our Journey toward Phoenix, AZ. Julia agreed that we should take the car today and stay one more night at hotel. At custom we waited for Alexi to approve the report and hand it over to custom lady with funny hair. We waited and waited and waited . after few cups of coffee from machine – 30 rubles each- we got the news around 6PM that car cannot be released as there is a luggage inside and we have to make yet another list. They blamed it on the ferry who made a mistake not detailing out what we have inside the car. It says “Tourist Luggage”. Julia makes some arguments, go to different offices with no avail. The solution is to take back Alexi’s and pay his fee and inspect every single item and make a list.
Wednesday May 21
Woke up on crisp morning hoping to get our car today. So we make arrangements to pick Alexi up and take him back to the port. Alexi being a nice guy -probably hates the system - agrees to help us out with food items which he will ignore them and not put on list. So we pile up all the food and hid it behind the car under some cement block where the dog was roaming free. I brought my duffle bag with me so we pile up some food in there too to smuggle it out later. We took all three bags, roof bag, emptied out on dirty parking lot for Alexi to see it all. Some of them were laughable items –such as toilet papers, V8 juice which I offered them and didn’t like it. –who likes vegetable juice anyway. There was duty free carton of Kent cigarettes. I purposely took it out so Alexi can see that’ his eyes widened with delight. He asked me if I smoked I replied back that I just started after this custom process. I offered him couple of packets and he accepted them with great delight. My purpose of bringing the cigarettes is already working.
After Alexi made a great detail list by hand, translated everything in Russian. By this time we were joined by Mike a fine young man from Magadan (Misha Russian name –Julia’s assistant)Mike started helping Alexi and both made gestures with some laughs and some nodes at my items- thinking these people must be thinking that Russia is backward and one cannot get these stuff here in Russia. Off-course where else can you get full size Planters Dry Roasted peanuts – I will miss this later. We have toilet papers –that made them all laugh. Heat and eat camping food. They were amazed with Fix-o-Flat puncture pressurized cans technology. They thought wow America is a great country. By the way I will regret those fix-o-flats later on my trip. Baby wipes made them burst out of laugh, when I told them it’s for Ami.
The gas lighter for camp fire was amazing thing to see. Anyway after the report with our hopes high we drove back to custom office . This is it, we have everything they can ask for. There is nothing more they can come up with. I made a sarcastic comment to Julia that now they may ask us to weight every item and value it and we all laughed. Well we play the musical chair game again at custom office and guess what at about 6PM we got the clearance of car but not the luggage. Mr. Chief decided to give this idiot American a hard time. So he made a rule change and now we need to get a special company and list out the value and special codes for all these items before they can be released.
I said ha.. ha.. I knew it. This is where Ami started throwing tantrum. We all sat down in broken chairs watching all custom officers and good citizens of Russia chatting and smoking to death outside including Mr.Chief. Julia was all confused and I was in blank mode – where there is void and no thought comes up.
Later Julia saw a young girl smoking outside whom she knew and asked her to help us to prepare the list. She agreed to meet us around 10PM at her home after the work. This will cost us around 10000 rubles and still not sure that it will be acceptable. How do you code used under wares, t-shirts. We made few phone calls to other shipping brokers.
Thursday May 22.
Whole night I couldn’t sleep. I was full of good and bad thoughts. Finally early hours I was able to sleep with thought that next morning we will make an effort to get the car out as we already have a car permit. Worst comes to worst we will leave the stuff behind. There was special note on permit which says in Russian only car no contents. Thursday morning Julia called and immediately we both agreed that we should go to the port and fool those people if we can. We had an hour before we meet Sunil. Julia came at 8:30 we drive to port and get the car. We arrived at port about 8:30AM. Office was not opened so we walked to other office to pay for parking fee for Suzi for extra days. With receipt and permit in our hand we were first at the window. I made them laugh with my broken Russian words while Julia handed over the papers and kept both officers busy talking and distract them so they won’t read that infamous note. I handed them the keys and after few minutes we saw Suzi at the gate. I jumped in Suzi , handed over the another paper to get keeper and drove off before they realize. We were all excited and drove to Hotel. Where I and Ami repacked the car, paid off Julia. Well we lost all the food behind the car. Well someone is going to enjoy Health bars, V8 juice, Planter dry roasted peanuts . I will miss those. We drove around in morning traffic, filled up with first Russian gas –octane 92- we left at 11AM. All excited . After few miles we got our first police check. Nervous as a hell I handed them over the papers. They all carry famous Russian machine gun. Looks very intimidating. He said something I couldn’t understand. We converse little –none understood other . made some gestures and he waved us back in traffic. What a relief. So these are the check points people are talking about. I have heard that we go these check points a lot. And it’s all pure luck and depending on mood of militias (police) .
Next 4 days are going to be hell.
Friday May 23rd - Khabarovsk
After 6 police check points, all nervous situations. But then we figure this is going to be norm so might as well deal with it. Most of them are just curious, getting bored and need to talk to someone. At one point one of the young looking militia stopped us, couldn’t understand any of my papers except insurance cert. send me to the boss-big guy with machine gun and mouth beaming with gold teeh. First time we saw a guy with gold teeth-we shall see more of these later on-went through all my paper, asked for a passport, read each and every page. I don’t think he understood any of those. Called for Ami and saw her IDP and was amazed how young she was to drive through this treacherous road. Another plain cloth guy with whole set of gold teeth and Bahama shirt with huge cross hanging on his chest joined , made some jokes and sent us on our way. We hit our first gravel road patches –not just small patches but 30-40 Km long patches. Drivable to 20-30Kmph. Anyway it was long drive –it seemed that way- about 550 KM. we reached Khabarovsk around 11PM. Had a difficulty finding a hotel. Ended up in center of the town and found a very expensive hotel . here they charge you for Marriott and you end up in Motel 6 room. But it does include good breakfast. Parking separate and forget about the internet. Went for Korean dinner and went to sleep hoping for better roads next day. Woke up under a leaden sky started journey back to tracking the famous notorious road to Chita –our next destination-almost 2200 Km away.By the way Khaborovsk is the town where Tsar sent an expedition team to find Alaska and claim it for Russia. It’s a lovely town with soviet era buildings and some modern constructions. Cross the bridge over Amur River paved road called M60 –not the British motorway-just single lane, maximum speed 60 KM if you can handle it as it is ridden with potholes and ditches which will sent your car flying with sparks. Suzi has a lot of weight on roof and inside and we have a long way to go. By mid day we made it to Birobidzhan with start of beautiful looking road, pure bliss and we blew off a check point. Now we learn the trick. When you come near the check point don’t look at them just look ahead and ignore. What they do is they stand on side of the road with black and white baton by which they wave at you to pull over. I can see them in mirror that he is still looking at us. But I don’t think they are equipped to chase in old lada. Only time we got pulled over when we were stuck behind some cars and trucks. They see this silver thing with foreign number plate and think hello.. hello what is this then. After about 20Km of pure fun and enjoyment our luck will soon change. I did read somewhere that Russia has goal to connect east-west by road by 2008. I say lucky me they did it. Go Putin spend that petro dollars. Well that wish ended soon and we hit the gravel at 90KM an hour. Suzi screeched with hard break and squeak and we started cussing . we came down to 10Km per hour for rest of the day , wide 6 lane road but full of sharp rocks, holes, ditches and you name it. Hard pack dirt road. We hit everything and every type of road one can imagine. My point is that back in old times defectors, criminals, political activists and anybody opposed to the system were sent to this area-Siberia - for punishment-and punishment still going on by letting them drive on this road. There is no other road to Chita. M60 all the way to hell. It was pure torture but we did our best to enjoy. Around 8PM we decided to call it a day. We drove about 450KM which was great. We pulled over side dirt road and went in woods away from the road to camp for a night. We pitched the tent. Prepare the dinner and tried to go to sleep . the daylight was up all the way to almost 11PM. We must have dozed off around midnight and woke up around 2:30AM to rain drops on tent. Well it rained like a hell. Lightning, thunder and pitch dark. Scariest place. Tent started to leak with water so we decided to spent the rest of the night in car. Beaten alive by mosquitoes all over. Around 7am , we broke the tent packed it wet and started the journey. Back to bangs, squeaks and hisses from our mouths –not to forget nonstop cussing. How can a superpower country, who sent a first human to space not have a road which can connect the entire country. How is that possible? We had so many questions and almost no answers. The road is busy. We see all these small basic Japanese cars toyotas, hondas zooming pass us at 40-50km an hour. How can they do this. It’s amazing to watch these people. We decided to call them modern day samurai. They travel in packs. One good thing about this driving is that you are free to drive anywhere on the road. Oncoming traffic can find it’s own way. Non stop dust, which hangs around on the road, visibility 5 feet. And you see 5-6 small yaris and Honda fit zooming by from both side of Suzi. The cars are now brown dust colored square boxes. They looked like Italian Job driving. Weaving all over the road. It’s an amazing to see this. We enjoyed this part. They looked at us know that we don’t belong here. We were odd one. These people do the business this way. They come to Vladivostok where ship full of Japanese car manufactured for Japanese market –because everything in car is Japanese- drive through this route to west and sell these cars. It must be profitable or why they would risk 3-4 days of torturous drive like this. They will wave at us asks few question such where we from and what we doing. They just couldn’t believe and shack their heads when we tell them that we are on holidays. But these are nice people. We liked them a lot. We made some friends on way. Young man named Andrei from Omsk driving subaru saloon. Sergei driving Honda Crv and towing toyota yaris behind. They each gave us 10Rubble with best wishes as souvenirs. This was the best part of this journey –meeting nicest people.I came up with quote and told Ami and she liked it. “World is full of nice people, one has to go out and meet them” –Arun Patel , May 27 2008. It’s amazing to meet these people. No language needed. We all admire each other doing this trip. We see each other with great respect. One big regret though which we will suffer during the whole trip is not being able to learn Russian or read Cyrillic. Why didn’t Saint Cyril – a Greek genius, who invented this language -stayed with Roman Latin? Those drivers wanted to tell us so much and so did we. But it was all good fun. Ami made a comment that these guys and us are like that little ditty we heard about Hare and turtle race. In this case we are the turtle. As we meet again at the café, where they are drinking, smoking and having few laughs. We also met this amazing Japanese guy named Naomi on a bicycle. He is travelling to Portugal by bicycle. Now who is the craziest. We met in middle of the road with cloud of dust and spent time talking about his other experiences. Broken English but we understood well. He has travelled, New Zealand, Australia on bicycle. He has travelled whole Europe, US and Canada on Ducati motor bike. He has been to Arizona on middle of the summer rode through monument valley. We took each other’s photos, exchanged hugs and departed. By the way this is the only guy I passed in 4 days. We met up again same day in a café, where we were resting over Borscht (Russian soup with beat, cabbage, potatoes and small pieces of meat). He joined us for lunch. He was bitten by mosquitoes on his bold head. We went through his photos of all over the world trip and gave us his address and open invitation to visit him in Japan. He has lovely wife and daughter. I bought him a beer and samosa looks like pastry filled with vegetables. He also gave a lucky charm-small bag on a string form Japan which is hanging in Suzi, but warned us not to open the bag. I regret so much that I did not bring any souvenirs form my country. Oh well lesson to be learned. Again I cannot emphasis here that the world is full of nice people no matter who you are or where you form.Every time I passed rain, dust and bad road which is frequently I thought about Naomi. I and Ami kept thinking about him on whole route that what must he be going through. Just a bicycle with food on one side and other stuff on other side. To be honest, he gave me the strength to go through this trip. Now I am seating in comfortable hotel room and wonder where and how Naomi is? God Bless him and give him a strength. Every Kilometer was an accomplishment. We prayed hard. As they say there are no atheists on turbulence plane. We even saw Russians pray every morning before they start the journey again. Make that cross sign on their chest. This must be the only place in the world right now where God has been prayed hard. The Russian admire us for doing what we are doing and we admire ourselves not thinking through this. Ignorance is bliss. Well at least we didn’t come across any bandits yet. Everybody wants to get out of the hellhole soon as possible.As we learned later on that these samurais carry 5-6 new tires and one spare wheel in their car. No camping. Just pair of clothes and few bottles of Vodka. This trip will justify the vodka drinking binge. We saw our first sign of Chita 1950Km. Ok that should be no problem. Piece of cake. This 1950 turned out to be 19500KM with gun on your head. Our first puncture showed up half way on rear left side tire . We were so proud of ourselves that we have driven so well that we have not had any punctures yet. People who have done this trip warned me to be ready for at least 5 punctures. I never prepared myself for that as I am not mechanical person. We do have tow spares though one being a donut wheel which I am sure wouldn’t work here for more than 10Km. It was actually quite a surprise that we hardly saw any car breaking down or changing tires on first half of this race. But this all ended soon . second half of the race where we saw more people changing tires and opening the hoods. LED light for low pressure showed up on dashboard and here comes the nightmare which came true. I kept looking at the dash board whole trip with corner of my eye as if I am so afraid that something has to light up soon. No modern can handle these roads. This must be the only road in the world –I think- where you can test your vehicle for shocks, tires and every joint of the car on how well it is built. It was fun to see when those Japanese cars pass you and watch their tiny wheels doing rain dance on gravel. This got to be hard on tires and shocks. Ami loved that. I was more worried about shocks than tires as we don’t have any shocks. We parked on side of the road and heard hissing noise and soon tire went flat. I pushed two cans of fix-o-flat and nothing. Changed the tired in the end and started the journey looking for a tire shop. There were enough gas stations along the way but not too many tire shops. After asking around few samurais we kept going further praying hard again. As we don’t have any spares and fix-o-flat is not working. Few hundred kilometers and we got that Low pressure light again. This time the tire on rear right was low. We filled with air and back on road. We pushed ourselves hard to keep driving without any break and use the long day lights. We drove till 9PM and after that we find a gas station and slept in car. Second day we found the tire shop and explained the guy who didn’t really care about the business. He seemed tired with his life. Small shop with two rooms, one dedicated to business while second one is for home with single dirty bed and sink. By the way we were asking wrong question. We wanted to buy a new tire. Well it turns out to be that they don’t sell new tires only used ones and none of them are the size we need. They are all small. Finally with one guy’s help he explained the mechanic that we may need to repair the tire. I figured that out and before he change his mind I brought the tire in his shop, giving him only option to look at my tire. He opened the tire and found a gallon of white liquid (fix-o-flat) he kept starring at it thinking how the hell white water got in to this tire. After few minutes he got his composer back and emptied out the liquid, found a one inch long cut and sand it down clean. Added a patch and filled with air. Ready to go for 300 rubles ($12). Next day same routine, bouncing car, squeaking, all the noise you can think off. Only thing is that now the engine may come loose and fall off. Spent another night at gas station. Next morning it was quite chili, suzi showed us 39F and low pressure light again. I saw the rear right wheel which I filled previous day was flat. Now I had a spare so I changed the tire and after examination found a nail stuck in there. Took it out and fountain of air squirted out. Ok this is good we have not started yet and there got to be a tire shop in this village. Drove around the village and found a tire shop. As it was 6am it was not open. Asked the café lady who showed me his house. Few rude knocks on door and young man opened the door grudgingly. There were already few samurais waiting at the shop. As I got this young man out of the bed, so I go first. He cleaned the nail hole and inserted a small glue thread and fix the puncture for $2. Good to go. Back on road again. On road we saw more tires changing then first half. I guess the tires gives up after first 1000KM. they all had cheap tires as I stopped by them to converse and now I know why they carry 5-6 new tires as they use this road side shops just to put those tires on rims and carry on. By the way these samurais all wear sandals with socks. No shoes. They help each other out and stopped in line for one. At one gas station this young man named Sergei waved me in told me that this is a last gas station for 250km and we should fill it up. Only God knows how he knew us. He became our friend. Took some photos and invited us to his house when we pass his town which is way after Chita. I noticed that all gas stations have babushkas seating behind small window, all locked up. She pushes a wooden box where you throw your money and tell her which number. She pushes some button and pump starts. By the way pumps are old so just putting a nozzle in tank will not start the fuel. You have to hit small button or sort of lever. I had a hard time with this. Every time at the pump babushka has to announce in PA to push the button or lever as I couldn’t understand and kept pressing the nozzle. I am sure she is saying in loud voice that “push that freaking lever, you moron”. Second thing about gas station is that when they have an assistant to fill it up for you. They will shake the car and get as much gas in the car as possible. They will even lift the car to get in the last few more drops. I literally plead at them to stop and finally after few litters on tarmac they will stop. If you ever get bored with your life and feel like testing your car. Please do come to Russia. It’s fun. So two days of nonstop of gravel, rocks, dirt, ditches filled with water –which turned my silver car in brown box with only windshield with half moon area clean. The skill is to find a better track does not matter where it is. It could be on side dirt road or through some forest or oncoming traffic or whatever. We learned that skill soon. And hold your ground. Don’t lose your spot no matter how intimidating those Russian kamaz trucks look in your rear view mirror. By the way those Kamaz has some impressive look. They remind me the truck driven in Terminator movie. They will all pass. I think just us and Naomi are the only slow drivers on this road. Those samurai make look so easy. They drive like they are driving on real motorway. Totally effortless while I am seating close to the wheel watching every rock, hole and ditch with my four eyes. Literally reading the pattern on rocks. Even though we hit some deep potholes and rocks. It sounded like the rock came through canon. Suzi took some serious beating. Well it’s a pretty straight road but we did get lost in a small village on detour as there are no signs. We ended up in some scary looking place where the life has stopped for years and people have turned in to zombies. Lots of scary stares and we realized we don’t belong here. If they chase us we couldn’t drive any faster than 10Km anyway. Finally found gold toothed guy who showed us way for 20 rubbles bargained down from 50. So here is the rule again. If you don’t see any samurai in next 10 minutes passing you , you are on wrong road.But I got give it to these Russian people. What they tolerate of their government. At 4th day we made a decision no matter what but we must reach to Chita which is still 450Km away. Now the roads are getting from worst to -is there any other word in English. Slow going. But we heard that just 140Km outside Chita there is a paved road. That was enough motivation for us. To hit the paved road before night fall. We found this young man named Andrei (one of the samurai) who befriended us couldn’t speak or understand English. But we were like old school buddies. We stopped after few hours to stretch made some communications. We gave up on trying too hard explaining each other. We followed him all the way to Chita. Yet another encounter with nice people. Finally we hit the paved road and we stopped, starched and I kissed the road, he laughed and we hit the 60Km first time in 4 days. Well road is paved but now it’s not even so car bouncing all over. Contents in my cheap roof bag are jumping all over with gas can, propane tanks banging on roof. At midnight we arrived in Chita, Andrei flag down a militia to help us find a hotel named Panama City. Andrei still has to go another 600Km to Ulan-Ude. But he came all the way inside Chita to make sure we find the hotel. I offered him some money and he laughed it off. I insisted that he should by some vodka on me and he showed me two bottles in his car and offered a shot. What a wonderful bloke he was. I will always treasure these people for their generosity, kindness and willingness to help.