Entries about khabarovsk

Day two of riding saw us leave our hotel in Khabarovsk about 0830 and ride 695km to Blagoveshensk, the administrative capital of the Amur Oblast of Russia. Blagoveshensk is on the border with China with only the Amur River separating the city from its southern neighbour.

Again, to plagiarise Lonely Planet

"Blagoveshchensk is where modern China comes grinding up against provincial Russia, facing as it does the Chinese city of Heihe across the massive Amur River. The cultural weight of its giant neighbour can be felt throughout this modest, clean and tidy place – Chinese restaurants, street signs, tourists and business people are ubiquitous and it's fair to say that the city looks far more to the south than it does towards Moscow."

We did not schedule a lay-over/sightseeing day for Blagoveshensk although we had planned to walk over the bridge to China but....alas..... our information was not correct and the bridge we planned to walk across is still under construction!

John

David

Steve

Unusual decor in our hotel in Blagoveshensk

OK, I know I am bald. Even though she did not speak a word of English, the lady in the electrical goods store in Khabarovsk made it very clear that she thought it was very funny when I asked (via Google translate) to buy a hair-dryer...

We got soaked to the skin on the ride from Vladivostok.

While laundry service took care of our wet clothing, an urgent solution was needed to dry our boots and gloves.

My solution .....

Bloody brilliant if I may say so myself. It worked a treat!

What a beautiful city, very picturesque with wide-open tree-lined boulevards.

Lonely Planet sum it up well; "The Far East’s most pleasant surprise, Khabarovsk boasts a dreamy riverside setting, vibrant nightlife, lots of greenery and boulevards lined with pretty tsarist-era buildings."

Situated on the massive Amur River (home to the Amur River Sturgeon you can see in our earlier aquarium post) Khabarovsk is a far cry from the dreary congestion of Vladivostok.

Due to massive flooding along our planned route, we ended us staying here three nights instead of the planned two while we waited to hear that the roads through the Tulun region had re-opened. Apparently 15 bridges were washed out with 9m of flood waters along the route.

Fun lunch at V-drova]] pizzaria (sorry Luca, Al Volo is still mt favourite pizzaria)

Sunday dawned wet when David, John and I loaded our panniers onto the bikes and headed north towards Khabarovsk.

Julia, Oleg, Michael and Mary (J.O.M.M.?) had been staying with Oleg's brother in the northern outskirts of Vladivostok so they had taken the Delica home on Saturday night laden with all their luggage plus two sets of spare tyres and various other bits and pieces we three could not carry on the bikes. There was no point in them driving back into the city this morning so we had made plans to meet them along the route; the only stipulation being that they leave after us and always be behind us as our support vehicle.

Many of us have, at one time or another, watched one of those videos that keep popping up in our news feeds with titles such as 'WORLDS WORST DRIVERS CAUGHT ON TAPE". If you have, you probably noted that most of the footage seems to originate in Russia. OMG, now we see why. Russian drivers simply seem to love tempting fate - if they aren't downright suicidal. The results of two crashes seen today add to one seen yesterday, not bad for our first two days on Russian Roads.

Following is a selection of images from today's 750km ride, 90% of which was in the rain. We were all soaked to the skin by the time we arrived at our hotel in Khabarovsk.

The three riders stopped on the roadside coming into Khabarovsk to download directions to our hotel and figure out the best way to get there when a young Russian guy riding a BMW R 1200R pulled over to see if he could assist. He later told us he thought we were locals when he first stopped but when we spoke English he offered to lead us to our hotel. His English was pretty good.

We arrive at our hotel in Khabarovsk

We were all very tired at the end of what had been a pretty hard ride in testing conditions so we retired to our respective rooms for the night (although John admitted the next day that he had gone next door to the hotel and got KFC for dinner. Americans! David and I elected to get room service).

Mum, can you tell little brother to tidy our room!

The next morning we split into three, John went off sightseeing with a local friend who owns the only two Tesla in Khabarovsk, JOMM went and met some friends of Oleg's from his school days here, and David and I went to breakfast with our new Russian friend, who put his details into my phone as "John Khabarovsk" - the guy who led us to our hotel the prior evening. He picked us up and we went to a nice cafe, he even insisted on paying and would not take no for an answer.

David and 'John Khabarovsk' at breakfast.