RTW East to West: Vladivostok - Seoul on Crack...

We arrived at 9:30am back at the ferry terminal to meet Svetlana and retrieve our bikes. The process today was just as efficient as yesterday and 1.5 hours later we were led to the warehouse garage and our bikes. Links, Ltd. is worth the price of admission. Yuri had been my contact in the planning process and Svetlana our speedy and efficient handler here in Vlad. Both fantastic and made the process seem very easy - which I'm sure in actuality is not. They also set us up with the required liability insurance needed to travel through Russia by motorbike. There are many steps to clearing foreign goods into any country and local knowledge is important. Yuri and Svetlana showed that they are pros and made everything look very easy. I would highly recommend using their services to anyone importing a vehicle into Vlad. They Rock!

So we geared up and got on the bikes to run 100 yards back to the ferry terminal to have a coffee and breakfast and say farewell to Adbang and June. They were anxious to get on the road as they were on a tighter schedule than us and would not be staying the additional night in Vlad. The coffee is very good in Russia! You actually have the option of no cream or sugar unlike Korea where it tends to be automatic - or maybe we just never mastered the proper way to order. I had hamburger type patty topped with a sunny side up egg and a side salad of tomatoes, onions, cucumber and bitter lettuce for breakfast. It was delicious! I think I will like Russian food.

We then hooked up with Ilya #2 who is a member of the Iron Angles Vladivostok chapter motorcycle club. We we were to follow him to their clubhouse where Mark was going to do an oil change on his bike and we would get to hang out a bit in their clubhouse that we had heard so much about from other motorbike travelers coming through Vlad. The ride to the clubhouse was a bit of a nightmare due to the crazy heavy traffic, super hilly roads (think San Francisco), and blazing hot sun. When you are not moving on a motorcycle and geared up in the hot sun it is miserably hot. The gear is designed to vent you while moving, but traffic was at a standstill so no venting was happening. We actually had the machines shut off and were slowly coasting and braking downhill for at least 45 minutes. If this had been an uphill section it would have been pretty bad - especially for me with a BMW dry clutch and marginal skills in stop and go traffic - most of my riding is in rural Colorado where traffic is minimal and you can choose your stopping points pretty easily to not be on an incline. I did not want to fry my clutch on the first day in Russia. After the coast downhill we did have some stop and go on inclines and experienced the full on Vlad riding experience. The Russian drivers were better than Koreans, but overly aggressive and less obedient of general traffic etiquette. Ken described it accurately as "Seoul on crack" - and Seoul was no picnic.

About an hour or so later we arrived at the Iron Angles clubhouse. Ilya showed us true Russian hospitality and made us feel like members. Ken and I hung around the clubhouse while Mark changed his oil and did some other routine maintenance on his KLR. Ken and I have shaft drive BMW's so have a whole different set of maintenance requirements and had just taken care of them at Stoney and Nicole's in Seattle only about 500 miles ago - so we were pretty much good.

Ilya #1 met us at the clubhouse a couple of hours later and guided us back to our apartment. We later went out and toured th university on Russian island and enjoyed some dinner together. We got back to the apartment and popped the bottle of Shariz that Mark had carried for 16,000 km from Australia. We said goodbye to Ilya and settled in for the night excited about heading north to Siberia.

At the ferry warehouse garage getting the bikes.