We are now in Khabarovsk in Russia. It was a long ride from Vladivostok with the road conditions not what you would expect for a major highway. There were long stretches of road where the bitumen was nonexistent and others where you wished there was no bitumen because the potholes had the traffic down to less than 30kph and the stretches where you could get any speed on had the police out in force, I managed to get pulled over once, but when they found out I couldn't understand them they waved me on. When we left Vladivostok we were about 30 Ks out when it started to rain, it then rained most of the way to Khabarovsk, 770 Ks away. We have found the Russians to be very helpful and generous, on the way up we stopped at a roadside cafe looking for accommodation, when we couldn't speak to the lady behind the counter a lady sitting close by heard us and asked if she could help as she knew some English, she asked for us but there was no where to stay. She then offered to help us order some food, which we gratefully accepted, what we didn't know was that she paid for it as well! She had left us to eat and when we went to pay for it we were told it was taken care of. Because we couldn't find anywhere to stay we found a place to camp off the highway near a paddock, we were fortunate that it had stopped raining for a while and didn't start again until we left the next morning. We didn't set up camp until midnight so it was a latish start the next day and with the temperature around 7 degrease along with the rain we were thankful of a nice warm place for lunch and afternoon tea. Each time we have wanted food we have been lucky to find someone that speaks some English or they have had a menu with pictures in them, I was very proud of myself when I ordered a coffee with milk.
Getting our bikes through customs had been a bit of effort, but thanks to Vladimir from DBS Ferries and his friend Roman a customs broker it only took us three days to get the bikes released. We were in Vladivostok for four days though because it was a public holiday on the Monday when we arrived. On the Monday night they had fireworks over the harbour, but we were unable to see then for the fog and it was quite funny because they kept setting off the car alarms and I think just about every car in town has a car alarm! So we spent four days walking around town and found it to be a very Russian type of place, much like the movies portray.
From here we will be heading towards Chita and think it may take us about a week, depending on road conditions, though progress has been a lot slower than we thought so far.