Arrived in Ulan Ude yesterday from Chita having spend another couple of days on the road. Discovered not long after leaving Chita, in fact just after leaving the internet cafe where i did my last email, that my steering head bearings are on their way out. A quick call to dad and being as resourceful as he is swung things into motion. Much appreciated dad and i know how much time you have already spent on this problem. Also thanks to glen mcdonald at Kawasaki Aust...

Left Blagovashensk lunchtime on 4th june. Spent the day of the 3rd not feeling well at all, very dehydrated from the banya, i guess beer doesnt help either! I was taken to a local mechanic shop and we repaired 2 of the bolts that hold on my topbox which had both sheared (retapped them) and also welded on a couple of struts to stop it happening again. Good as gold again. The bloke who's shop it was is a biker too and would not accept any payment, lucky i had a gif...

My Birthday! Wow what a day, a fantastic day! First thanks to all that have sent messages, i have read them all and will not be able to reply individually because time on the internet here is not real easy to find... Anyway i have been riding with the 3 other aussies from melbourne and we left Vladivostok on 29th may in the afternoon. While riding through town on my way to the bank to get cash for the trip i was in the rain and heavy traffic and my bike stopped,...

Finally managed to get the motorbike. After many many days of trying it all happened yesterday evening about 6pm. The paperwork was like nothing i have ever experienced before! Just for cusoms alone we handed over more than 100 A4 documents, all of which had to have official stamps and be approved by many different people. We made about 6 trips to the other end of town to the customs office and about double that to the office of the shipping agent. In the end we...

Still in Vladivostok! Cant get out! Well, there have been dramas with the arrival of our ship from Sth Korea. It took about 5 days extra, the international arrival dock was full so it went to the fishing dock first. Then we were waiting on documents from our shipping agent to take to customs. We need to get those documents stamped along with details of exactly whats in the container to pass through the customs inspection which can take a while. We then need som...