Bialystok to Bauska to Tallinn, and wrap-up

Stayed at budget hotel by a sports track in Bialystok. This turned out to be a good thing, because we were able to convince one of the track maintenance guys to fix the broken-off license plate with their welding apparatus.
Bialystok is not amongst the bigger towns in Poland, but worth visiting, i tell you. You just need to find the right places to go. A good place to start is the Tunnel Pub (ask anyone). We were even offered a personal guided tour of Bialystok the next day, but since the next day was way too hot to think about walking around (and our bikes were in the garage tucked away deep behind track-maintenance equipment) we decided to give that one a skip and take it very easy instead. Also, some level of weariness was to be detected after the previous night.
A new friend (Thomas) was also found from an after-hours bar at sixish am. It's good to have one in every town.
From Poland it was a relative breeze to sail thru 2 border crossings (PL-LT-LV) to a small 11-thousand people town called Bauska in Latvia. We did have plans to go even further but decided for a shorter riding day for a change.
From Bauska we were able to find also an open hotel (with the help of locals, of course), besides the big one (built 2 years ago) that was closed now. The financial crisis has hit Latvia hard.
Being Friday night and all, we wanted to see if something was happening, and something there was.
To get to that something, we first had to cross one magnificent pedestrian suspension bridge. It was dark already at that time, which made it even more interesting. And he two friendly local drunks that we met mid-way.
The something was a dj at a bar/disco terrace with way way too many kilowatts at his disposal.
Somehow we still managed to carry on conversation with some people who wanted us to see also the more beautiful aspects of Bauska before continuing our trip in the morning. These were the Bauska castle and a small wooden bridge, which will grant you one wish the first time you cross it.
Thanks again Inga and brother (name escapes me right now)!
We also got an open invitation to a Real Latvian Barbeque™ next time we're in town.
Sounds interesting enough, I think we'll surprise them some day and take up the offer.
On Saturday, we were however forced to continue towards home. Last stop was Tallinn, where we joined with a bunch of our friends having a bachelor party.
In Tallinn there were too many old friends to make new ones, but a nice Grande Finale was held nevertheless.
One last moment of arrhythmia was caused by police when we were leaving the small hotel (Nepi) in the suburbs of Tallinn. We had only ridden one block from the hotel when we were suddenly surrounded from three sides by two police cars and one motorbike police.
They must've been waiting for us for some unfathomable reason, because they were positioned in both of the small roads we could've used to ride out of the hotel. Still they only checked our papers, no other questions, no breathalyzer test and no need to accidentally drop large denomination bills on police cars to make it to the ferry.

So we're back home now, the sleep deprivation will soon be slept away and the swelling will someday subside. It's hard to get used to Finnish traffic laws again. Not that the laws are very much different in the other places, they are just not respected by very much anyone.
We made a new friends, good contacts, got good information.
We weren't robbed or hassled by anyone else besides the Ukrainian police (Let them be eaten alive by swine diarrhea dwelling maggots).
Ukraine will be visited again, even though it broke a lot of things:
- couple of bolts on Hese's XX's back rack
- battery housing (fixed w a bottle cap and some cardboard) and coolant reservoir and of Näätä's GSX-R
- undertail of Rami's B-King
- our faith in Ukrainian organized society (time for another reorganization, the orange one didn't deliver on it's promises)
- perhaps a couple of hearts (no way we take responsibility in any of that)

Next year's trip is already in planning. Time to do something different again.
The credit company willing.

Odessa, L'viv and Bialystok, PL

Odessa is a place where we go back to.
It's the atmosphere, the people, the weather and the people once again.
However we will think long and hard before deciding to go on bikes again. This due to two reasons; the roads and the police. The roads can get better, given time, but the police will need to be put down.
The roads took their toll on the bikes, we had to stop for several roadside repairs, and hunt for some bolts in a small town in the middle of Ukrainian countryside. Also one license plate broke off, which doesn't help in going unnoticed by the police.
We were stopped by them don't remember how many times. The most fucked up encounter with the police was just before leaving Ukraine. Claiming that one of us was drunk riding, they demanded thousands of Grivnas in bribes (200-300e). When refused to pay, and told that we want to take a blood test (instead of the most reliable blowing instrument that claimed 9,99o/oo) one of the police decided he should ride one of the bikes to the hospital. This police officer had probably never seen a bike in his life. And, he was drunk. The bike keys is were forcefully removed from him and things started heating up. Only when told that now we'll contact the Finnish embassy, they started backing down and finally settled for a bribe of 10e/officer. Fucking rat-weasel sons of rotten street fags.
The contrast is all the bigger when all the other Ukrainian people we met, were most helpful and friendly people. This goes doubly for bikers.
Extra special thanks once again to Kudja (most possibly spelled in totally other way) from Odessa, who went out of his way to help us in everything we could possibly imagine. I hope to see you in September.
From Odessa we took a very tiresome 13,5hr ride to L'viv, which might've been nice but we were too tired to enjoy it.
Yesterday, another 10 hrs (500km and an almost 2hr border crossing, even arrogant with lane splitting) to Bialystok.

Kiev to Odesa

Coming to Odesa was an unbelievably effortless affair. Woke up record-time early to beat the morning traffic in Kiev, and took the smooth 500-km motorway without police intervention!
A local lawyer instructed us that if you're done nothing wrong or a minor offense (like speeding) you're better off not trying to sort things out and be understood. Just stick to your language (don't even do English) and they'll probably let you go because it is just easier to shake down locals. If the offense is more serious, don't negotiate. Just make sure a 50 or 100 UAH note gets dropped in a police car or in a drawer in police office. Things will usually turn ok after the note gets found. Very understandable; wouldn't you be pleasantly surprised if you just happened to find a considerable amount of money at your working place, and wouldn't you just want to be very friendly to your customers after that?

All the bikes are in perfect running condition once again (thanks to 'Hooligans' stunts riders of Kiev) and to make things extra smooth there was a local biker guy coming to meet us at the city border and guide us to our apartment. The apartment is a big-job affair in the very center of things. Of course it has to be, there is still 8 of us. The girls took a night train from Kiev.



2 days in Odesa now, and spirits are high. Also two nights of dancing-till-shirt-drips-sweat-and-sun-rises-from-sea on Arcadia beach giant open-air disco. Some of the kuupelos there are not running only on Red Bull, their pupils dilated and their moves defying the traditional Newtonian physics.

Rivne and to Kiev and more unpleasantness with the authorities

Rivne (Rovno) is awesome. The Ukrainian roads are all paved by Michael J. Fox (a politically incorrect reference to Parkinson's) and it was raining all day but it's the people who make the place. Wanting to make sure we get the most out of Ukraine, calling their friends and arranging things for us. Even taking care of reminding us of our bedtime, so that we are in good riding spirits and conditions in the morning.

What is curious is that in the most downscale watering hole, 80% of the patrons were lawyers and then there was us. They assured me that Ukraine really does need that many lawyers because of the shitty laws.
Speaking of which, the Ukrainian police force is once again a bit better off, courtesy of MC Murskeat Lokit. This time there was a bigger show, threats of long time prisonment, a real judge, a court and a trial, but eventually things were taken care of with same kind of money than the last time. This made us lose 5-8 hrs and most of our faith in humanity.

Nevertheless, we're in Kiev now. The sun has shined on us all day, temperature around 30C, it's been almost unbearable to be dressed in thick black leather, and ride (slowly) these black potato fields that have road paintings on them.
The wifes and girlfriends of 3 of us flew into Kiev on Sunday. So now we have attractive women with us who also speak the language. That can never be bad.
Kiev shows promise, too. After arriving here, it took all of 25 seconds for a biker guy to come and offer his help in finding whatever we need. His help will come in handy, because one of the bikes need some fixing. And that is what these ppl are good at. Fixing things.
Some of the necessary parts will be shipped from by bus from another town, some parts will be sourced from a local stunts-riding team.
Today we went to a private tour on Obolon beer factory. It took around 15 calls to bypass the General Managers secretary (thid brewery doesnt do tourist tours) and then we were invited.
And impressive factory it was, huge amounts of hops, barley, water and yeast go in at the other end (and little solid bits of plastic and glass; they'll turn into bottles) and all kinds of great beverages come out from the other. In the meanwhile, the hundred or so 400000 - 600000 liter tanks store the golden stuff at 1C.
There has been around billion liters of Obolon made. Calculate the cubic root of that and you will learn that it amounts to a cube where each side is one kilometer long.
But remembering that every liter of beer will make you urinate at least the same amount, it is no wonder the river Dnepr runs so wide.

Sorry this blog entry took a while to air, internet connectivity has been scarce.

And greetings to all the great ppl we've met, including Alexander, Neko, Genie, Dimitri, and the 6-weeks(?) old kitten named Eric.

Warsaw, PL to Rivne, UA and how not to bribe the police

After an intense sleep-over in Warsaw we arrived to Rivne, Ukraine yesterday.
Ukrainian border formalities require the normal Soviet-style stamping of irrelevant pieces of paper. This takes surprisingly long for such a trivial task (it's not like they even understand what it says on the vehicle registration papers), and therefore the queue to the border was something in the order of 5-6 hrs. We didn't feel the queuing really applied to us, what with us being such cool guys and everything. So we lane-splitted our way straight to passport control.
Maybe some day i'll try that queuing thing, too, people must like it a lot since they do it in such great masses.
Second contact to Ukrainian officials we got in some nameless town, which we were passing thru. They were a bit upset about our speeds and habits. There was a lot of posing around and general reprimanding. Things took a turn for the better when told that we don't really need all the protocol, and a 50€ note was casually dropped into the police car as they instructed. So in fact it was the police car that got bribed, not the police.
Later we learned the going rate is 5-10€, but decided not to find the police and ask for our change back.

Rivne however seems nice enough, and we'll stay here for another night. A large beer costs 1€ in the most upscale discotheque (bottle of vodka is 5), and a room in the biggest hotel is 40€ a night. And the girls in the nightclub seem to have left their intestines home, there is no other way they would fit into those dresses.

Warsaw

We got to where we wanted to be this midsummer eve. At least in geographical sense. So we're in Warsaw now, and it is 9.30 pm.
All of Poland was wet today, but we only managed to catch a couple of drops ourself.
Riding here presents some challenges. There is always a bmw of a Merc trying to overtake you, no matter what your speed. Leaving them as dots in the rear view mirror (which is only a matter of a small twist of the wrist) will only make them make more fucked-up overtakings when they catch you. And the road paintings as well as road patches are as slippery as. (I'll leave the rest to your verbal imagination, which i trust to be better than mine).
This is Midsommer Eve now. Most of you know what that means for a Finn. There is the kokko, the sauna, and some vastaanpaneminen (controversy) which will eventually and hopefully turn into vastaan tuleminen (universal love).
Tomorrow seems like a good day to go to Ukraine.
Prove me wrong, my little wompats.

Lift-off

It's on again. The Motorcycle Club Murskeat Lokit is on the road.
This time the turning point will be Odesa, Ukraine, by the Black Sea.
At this moment we are approaching Gdynia from the Baltic Sea.
Left yesterday evening, and will return in a couple of weeks.
Plan is to get to Warsaw today, but there seem to be heavy rains throughout Poland, so we'll just see where we end up.
There are 5 of us on board, equipped with generous amounts of electronics. One of which should allow you to track our movements on the map in realtime on the right side of this page.
If Odesa is good, we might open up an electronics shop there and stay for a while. The heap of gadgetry should support us for a month or two.