mardi 29 mars 2016

Odessa

Day 28: odessa

Here  are a few pictures of Odessa. We really enjoyed the city, it has really nice buildings and good views of the sea. It is also good for Kim and Leila to practice their Russian, as everybody seems to speak it here. We also enjoyed great food, mainly bortsch with sour cream. Kim and Leila took some Russian lessons and we walked a lot around the city, Except for Kim who tried not to use his knee too much. He even took the cable car to go back up the famous odessa stairs (see picture), which costed 10 cents !

We now have our ferry ticket, which should leave tomorrow evening from a place 20km south of the city. The guy at the office was really funny, speaking a king of English-German-Russian mix, but really easy to understand !

Now we are ready for two days at sea. We should have enough books, Russian practice exercises and hopefully good food and a lot of time to sleep and relax.

We should be in Batumi on the first of April !

lundi 28 mars 2016

Transnistrie


Day 25: chisinau-tiraspol: 75km
Day 26: tiraspol-kamianka 50km
day 27: kamianka - odessa: 50km
My name is Moritz and I am the third cyclist to go on this adventure. I finally joined Leila and Kim in Chisinau on saturday. Leila and Andrée-Ann picked me up at the airport and helped me to assemble my bike. Kim has still a problem with his leg and took the train to Tiraspol. He also visited Bender.
 Fortress.  Since I left Switzerland on Thursday evening and spent the whole night in Moskau I was a bit tired. But the sunshine in Moldova and the fact that I am now on the voyage motivated me greatly. Soon we arrived at the Transnistrian border, where grumpy policemen and women checked our passports and asked if we brought any guns with us. Then they gave us a receipt and we were allowed to stay in Transnistria for exactly 24 hours. Close to the border there were many monuments and we felt like they were built to make a good first impression of the country. However, the road was very smooth and there was not much traffic. People drove very carefully, all in all a nice country for cycling! 
We arrived at six o'clock at the "Go Tiraspol" hostel that is run by Dmitri. Earlier that day in Moldova we met the brother of Dmitri because he was driving on the same road as we were and Dmitri had told him to look out for us. We already felt very welcome. Another cyclist called Sasha joined us for a few meters in Tiraspol. Sasha and I tried to communicate but the language barrier was too big especially while cycling. Dmitri just wrote us that Sashas a friend of him. So if you go to Tiraspol definitly sleep at Go Tiraspol!!! Andrée-Ann and Leila went then to change money and to buy some apèro. Transnistria has its own money and there are no ATM in the streets. We then met Dmitri our host and had a little chat with him. He recommended us a place to eat and showed us the way. The restaurant even had a menu in english and the waiter also spoke a bit of english. After a tasty meal and some local beer we went home to sleep. 
In the morning Kim left early for the train to Odessa. The other three of us went for a little sight seeing. We visited the parlament and some monuments. Most impressive was the local food market. Lots tasty things to buy! Since our "visas" were only for 24 hours we had to leave at lunch. Dmitri cycled with us to the town exit and we took some photos. Before we left Transnistria we wanted to buy some aple with our left-over money. We had 16 Transnistrian rubels left and I a women was selling apples on the side of the road. I gave her the money and wanted to buy three apples only. She then started to pack a huge sack with apples. We then tried to explain that we couldn't take all those apples with us and we give her the rest of the money as a present. We still took many apples with us. They are actually very sweet! The we left Transnistria and got the "Gun-question" asked again. All in all Transnistria is a nice country and people are very friendly. Definitly a place to visit!
After Transnistria, cycling in Ukraine was a bit overwhelming. There was much more traffic and drivers were not following the rules strictly anymore  The road was also in a poor condition and there was a lot of litter even more than 200m away from the road, which made finding a clean camping spot kind of hard. But we were actually happy with the place we found in the end and really Enjoyed the extra hour of light due to the time shift. 

On the following day, we rode the 50 km to Odessa in about 3 hours so got there early enough to enjoy a borscht for lunch.

We ll tell you more about our stay in odessa in a following post.


Castle in Bender.

View from the castle in Bender.
Lenin statue in Tiraspol.
Old sowjet boat in Tiraspol and many fishermen as well
This night I slept well protected.
In front of Go Tiraspol hostel with Dmitri.

Davai Tiraspol!


Sadly we had to leave...
Entry to a village.

One of our food-stops.

Very smooth roads in Transnistria.

Sunset at our camping site

Earlier that day we saw a woman selling fish from a waggon like this one.

War monument in Ukraine.
War monument inTiraspol.

Sign in Tiraspol.

Monument in Tiraspol.

vendredi 25 mars 2016

Iasi - Chisinau

Day 20 and 21: iasi 
Day 22: Iasi - Ungheni 57 km then ungheni chisinau by train 
Day 23 and 24: Chisinau 

We finally have our passports thanks to our mum and DHL!! As Moritz couldn't join us before the 26th, we had decided to have them sent to Iasi. It was not so easy to find their office, Leila cycled across the whole town and industrial zone to get them but luckily they were here :) So we enjoy the new freedom to leave Schengen ;) We spent 2 days in Iasi (pronounced Iach)  just resting and hoping Kim's knee would get better. The city is nice but rather quiet and there is not that much to do. However, the hostel (named bicycle hostel !!) was very nice. Brand new and with a very friendly staff. We could even play Catan. 

On day 22, we took the road again to reach Chisinau. However, as soon as it went uphill, Kim felt some pain again so we decided to cross the border and get to the closest town, Ungenhi to catch a train. The border crossing was easy, the guy even spoke french. Finding the train station (more precisely, a counter to purchase a ticket and ask if bicycles are allowed) in Ungheni was not that easy. And it would have been almost impossible if we hadnt spoken some russian. Seems everyone speaks at least some russian in Moldova. The ticket to Chisinau (100km, 2.5 hrs)  costed only 1$ per person. We were told to ask the train staff about the bicycle and it was no problem in the end. Except that the train was pretty high so lifting bicycles to 1m is not so easy. We met a very nice moldovian jazz musician who spoke french on the train. The train was empty and only had sleeping wagons! Quite surprising for a country that is crossed in max 6 hrs even on the slowest train ever... We arrived in Chisinau at 8 pm so it was already dark and pouring rain. We drove on the sideways for safety but there were holes everywhere, sometimes filled with a lot of water making driving at night even more freestyle. We couldn't find the hostel we wanted to go to at night so we went to a nearby hotel. 

After having moved to the hostel (which was really impossible to find at night, it did not even mention the name on the gate...),  we went looking for an english speaking doctor and ended up at the brand new International hospital Medpark. Kim could see a doctor straight away and after 20 min it came out that he had to take ibuprofene for 10 days and stop cycling for a week. Could have been worse as we have planned 4 rest days anyway (2 in odessa and 2 on the ferry)  so he will only have to take the train to get to Odessa. We spent the afternoon walking around the city and its market (it feels a bit like africa, the auto station is similar to a taxibrousse station !) and met really nice people at the hostel. 

The highlight on day 24 was the visit of The Milestii Mici wine cellar which gained the 2007 Guiness World record for the largest wine cellar. Its a really fascinating place. They turned a limestone quarry into a wine cellar. About 2 million wine bottles are stored in 200 km of underground tunnels! During the day it also turned out that Andrée-Anne, a traveler from Quebec, is going to drive Kim's bicycle to Odessa. So she can have a try at cyclotraveling and Kim doesnt have to worry about taking his bicycle on the train :) 

So the plan is now for Kim to leave on the 7:30 train to Odessa, stop in Tiraspol and discover this crazy place. In the meantime, Andree - Anne and Leila will pick up Moritz from the airport and they will all cycle to Tiraspol to meet Kim. On the next morning Kim will jump back on the train to odessa while the others will drive in one or two days. We ll keep you updated! 

PS: sorry the pictures are randomly displayed but it takes forever to reorganize them. ..  We hope you won't get too confused.
Passports !! 2 months later we finally have them again and they now have a beautiful Iranian visa inside ;) 

Iasi 

Cycling again!! But not for long...

Park in Chisinau 


Chisinau market 



Ungheni train station