Cycling East 2.0

A travel takes you 'from A to B'. In my case more or less 'from Amsterdam to Beijing'. The picture, taken in Baba Halia's home in Berdjansk, shows another type of journey. One of regression, if such a thing exists. 'From asbestos to bulb'; one banned, the other soon to be.

Volgograd, 22 September 2009

It's 23:30 and I find myself in an apartment on the 8th floor of a flat building in Volgograd. Behind me on the couch sleeps Sergey, my couch host (in a way I've 'outcouched' him), in the room next door my father rests for a couple hours before we will go to the Central Station. From there he takes the train back to Rostov, and lateron tomorrow the plane back to Amsterdam. And at this desk I have the possibility to put some of my thoughts and impressions of the last couple of weeks on the screen.

A bit over a week ago I made it just before night fall to Rostov, Russia's fourth biggest city and the place where the river Don flows into the Sea of Azov. It was an arrival unlike any other so far. Here there were no hospitable strangers waiting for me. Here I would not have to get my bearings and find a place for the night. Here I would meet with a part of 'home' after two months of being "alone" (as you could have read, Germany, Poland and the Ukraine are densely populated countries with many welcoming faces). It was a strange sensation, going through this unknown place with the thought in mind of picking up someone from the airport. Probably the first time I've ever welcomed someone without knowing the surroundings of the meeting point. Rostov has street lights (unlike most of the places I have passed through), but I still don't have a clue about its structure or looks. The only thing I can tell you is that it's big. Really big. (Picture: small, really small road side shop I came across on one of the last days in the Ukraine. In the background you can see what must be the world's most incomprehensible traffic sign.)

At the airport a feeling of relieve came over me. It took me ten days with headwind to get to Berdjansk (where I last wrote you) and two more days of the same slackening wind to get to Rostov. Two times 130 kilometres; two days of working like the devil to make it before dusk. Which I didn't so I had to use the headlight on my cycle for the first time. Cycling in the dark takes twice the amount of concentration (as I mentioned before, most of the roads and places aren't illuminated), which is difficult to bring in when you're tired. And then there was what will probably be one of the most stressful border crossings of this journey: from the Ukraine to Russia. The Ukrainian customs officers welcomed me with a smile on their faces. "From Holland, you have narcotics?!", they asked laughingly. "Nope, unfortunately not...", I replied, which made them laugh even more. But then from one moment to the other the face of the officer in charge turned serious: "OK, open up." So I opened my bags and showed him the sweaty socks that were on top of my clothing bag and typical cycle foods that I had stored in my backpack. Luckily he didn't take a closer look at that, because the big lump of 'halawah' (or halva, a sweet made of sun flower or sesame seeds, nuts and lots of sugar) that I have does look a bit like a certain drug.
(Picture: the bathmobile)

On to the next checkpoint; a couple of officers behind a window. "Pasport", the main guy said grumpily, which I handed to him. You should have seen the look on his face when he saw the state of the tourist card that I had filled out upon entry and that had slowly but steadily eroded in my money belt during the month of cycling in the Ukraine. "What's this?", he asked. "What does it look like", I thought but did not say. "You see, 'velocyped' through Ukraine for a whole 'misiats'...", holding my money belt and shaking it firmly. "Hmmm..." he reacted, obviously out on making trouble so that I would get scared and maybe think of paying my way to the other side. Well, I did not plan to do that and even if I wanted to, I had spend my last hryvnia's on a tasteless 'Jacobs' and a candy bar, so apart from my lucky dollar bill (I admit it's stupid, but I got a bit superstitious on this travel) and a few euro coins, I didn't have any money on me. So I just smiled at him. He understood that this sweaty cyclist was not going to make his day, and after hesitating a bit longer (he was holding my passport firmly between thumb and index finger that had both turned white apart from the tips where all the blood had assembled, waving it back and forward) and a final attempt ("Desiat euro") he gave it back to me.

So I cycled to the Russians. The officials (spotless green uniforms with these typical green caps that widen from a tight fit around the head to a large pancake at the top) were taking their job serious and I didn't feel the unspoken (or spoken in case of the Ukrainian official) message of corruption. I passed the first check and waited for some time. There I met with Alexander, a German who travelled with his Russian wife Irna. By the looks of it he had to go through quite some trouble to get in, but the fact that he spoke Russian alleviated things. At one point one of the douaniers asked him to translate something to me. "Hast du etwas Verbotenes?" "Nein, uhh... nijet", I replied first to him and then to the officer. For a moment I thought of Oscar Wilde and his reply in a similar situation, when he traveled to the United States. "Anything to declare, Mr. Wilde?", they asked him, to which he replied: "Nothing but my wit and my intellect", or something like that. But with the language barrier that I was facing here, joking around was out of the question. Notwithstanding my denial, they came with their sniffer dog that sniffed all my bags. I think the dog would have liked a piece of the halawah, but luckily he didn't bark when he picked up its smell. (Picture: checkers at the market)

Conclusion: I made it to the airport on time. Cycledad would only arrive around midnight, so I installed myself at the spacious airport restaurant with its tiny assortment that I literally emptied out of salads and almost out of potatoes. Carnivorous cyclebeasts would have had more choice, but for me the options where limited. The soury cabbage was very tasty though (for as long as it lasted), and the fries with mayonnaise (Dutch will be Dutch) melted on my tongue. A 'kofe' and 'SSSR' ice cream (vanilla ice cream covered with chocolate) for dessert to finish this meal of Michelin star quality, and I rolled myself back into gate 1 where the plane from Moscow was expected to arrive. Coincidentally there was a bar next to it, so I sat down at one of the tables, ordered a cold beer and waited. A bit before midnight the plane arrived, and its passengers walked in and reunited themselves with those who were waiting. Two old ladies fell into each other's arms and cried. Than I saw an all too familiar face, looking somewhat confused. I jumped up and rushed through the crowd of people and saw the smile on my father's face after he recognised me. It hadn't been long enough for old lady's tears, but it's fair to say that it was an emotional moment. (Picture: the honeymobile)

To celebrate another bottle of beer was opened, and then dad's brand new cycle bags opened up to make way for an astonishing amount of goodies. New tubes, tires, and a plugging set, a pair of rain pants, gloves, power bars and mineral powders from a brand named 'Science in Sports' and a waterproof bag to protect my sleeping bag and mattress... Everything to make me 'winter-in-China'-proof. Not that my own preparation has been lousy (although when I read back I can understand that you might think so), but it definitely felt like a revision. So 2.0.

That night we slept underneath a couple of steel benches in a corner of the airport and the next morning it was cycling time. But for the first time with companionship.

***

And then it was 02:30, time to wake my father. We had a last cup of tea and cycled to the railway station, which is relatively close to where we are staying, but in a city that stretches out over 60 kilometres of riverbanks, places easily are a few kilometres apart from one another. At 4 the train arrived and around a quarter past 4 we had managed to make my father's cycle small enough so that the conductor of wagon 22 didn't say 'nijet' when we tried to put it on the train. At 4:35 we said our final goodbye. Perhaps it was the late hour and the tiredness, perhaps the perspective of a long and lonely road through Kazakhstan, but this time it was an old lady's goodbye.

Next track on the OST 'Cycling East': Radiohead's 'Electioneering', a song that gives me energy no matter how strong the headwind. I guess Thom Yorke meant it to be a critical song about politics, but to me there's something reassuring in the text "when I go forwards you go backwards, and somewhere we will meet". Tonight Cycledad will go 'backwards' with 900 km/h and tomorrow I will move 'forward' with 20 km/h, but somewhere we will meet again: