Home » Russia Mongolia » Travel to St. Petersburg and Mongolia (part II)

The train from Moscow to Byisk takes 63 hours and costs $40.My friend Vladislav D. and I prefer hard sleeper without separate rooms (platskartnii vagon). Our closest neighbor, a 16 year old girl fed us with food carefully supplied for her journey by her parents and told us a bunch of stories about her tough life. From Byisk we took a bus to a remote corner of Altay, village Yst-Koksa. The bus ride was 10 hours long and cost $8. After initial fight for seats the atmosphere in the bus became peaceful and friendly. Especially touching was the care which the entire bus took care of a straw hat of a young lady from the old believer village Mylta.

Travel to St. Petersburg and Mongolia (part II)

Alex Mumzhiu
2006-03-22 18:19:28

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Then I bought a second ordinary bike, which is OK so far.

Vladivostok is located on a peninsula between the famous Golden Horn bay and Amur bay. Golden Horn is very polluted because of the port. Amur bay is pretty clean. I bought a mask and dove not far away from the city beach. To my surprise I found an abundance of sea life. I found several gigantic oysters and tons of very big mussels. I took them to my hotel and boiled them. They were great! Local people don't appreciate seafood. The only sea food available here is salad from sea cucumbers, which they call kukomaria.

My dream was to continue my trip to Kamchatka peninsula on a merchant ship. There are no passenger ships between Vladivostok and Kamchatka. A couple days ago I tried to get on a ship. I was told "no way". They said, the merchant ships will not take passengers anymore.

Today I made a second attempt and used all my people skills, and hooray I was accepted. This evening I am leaving on a big merchant ship "Pacific Star" for a 5 day, $120 trip to Kamchatka.

Vladivostok Russia
Aug 24 2003 3 pm
Alex Mumzhiu

Trip to Kamchatka took much longer because of militaryexercises on our way. Most remarkable episode was my first experience in surgery. I successfully put stitchon the wound on the finger of my left hand, which was damaged by heavy ship door. Now it is OK.

Sept 2 2003 5pm
Petropavlovsk Kamchatskii Russia

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Olga Pavlova translated my notes in RUSSIAN. See them at: http://nnberg.narod.ru/mumzhiu/

KAMCHATKA

(This is my last report about the trip from Mongolia to Kamchatka, June-Sept 2003)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1. The most convenient Internet site to see my Travel Notes, bromptonbike, changed it's name to foldabikes. Look at it at: http://www.foldabikes.com/CurrentEvents/Story/TravelStories.html

2. My latest Trip ...