I’ve been warned that friendly country cops turn aggressive as you near Moscow, demanding money after flagging down speeding motorists. In preparation for foreigners, they’ve learned to make commands in English: pay up or else. No one wants to find out what “or else” means. The only way to know for sure would be to call their bluff. In 60,000 miles of Third World shakedowns, the most I’ve surrendered is a pair of scratched-up Korean sunglasses in Peru. Despite numerous Russian speed traps, I am determined to maintain that record.
After the first straightaway, blowing off a string of lumbering big rigs, a lone highway cop holding a radar gun steps from the shoulder, pointing his red reflector paddle directly at me. I’ve been gambling all day, ignoring them, pretending not to notice, but my luck was sure to run out eventually. Although unarmed, the cops could have radios with them to notify comrades ahead of a belligerent speeder. This time there is no way around the man in the roadway — I rein the Beast to a halt.
As he fixates on the California license plate, I blurt out in rapid-fire English, “Howdy, how’s it going? Can you tell me how to get to Poland from here?”
He goes on the defensive. “Ni panimah.” I don’t understand.
I continue sputtering nonsense until he regains his footing, demanding “Documenkis!”
He points to the blinking red numbers on his radar gun and then growls at me.
“You!”
Showing him my watch I say, “Oh how interesting, is that a clock like this?”
He holds out his hand. Rubbing his thumb and index fingers together, he hisses, “Muneeeee.”
More babbling about Poland and pointing to the sky taxes his patience as I refuse to admit understanding a single word. Exasperated and convinced a shakedown is futile, he says in Russian, “Never mind just get out of here and slow down.”
I smile and say “Spa cee bah.” (Thank you.) His head whips around and with a glare of suspicion he says, “I thought you didn’t speak Russian?”
I cover my tracks with a big stupid smile, “Pree vee et, pree vee et, spa cee bah, spa cee bah.” (Hello, hello, thank you, thank you.)
Aware he’s been had, he reluctantly lets me go. His time is better spent squeezing speeding drivers of expensive German cars.
Descending from the Urals, a sprawling rural landscape erupts across the golden plains of European Russia, and finally there is sunshine. As the highway widens to four lanes, a high-latitude lingering sunset bores through my bug-encrusted tinted visor, directly into my retinas. Half-blind from the glare, I spot the silhouette of a distant motorcyclist riding at a casual pace. Traveling bikers on Russian roads are rare; this is my first since encountering a wandering German in Mongolia. Approaching him from behind, I smile mischievously as the raspy voice of George Thorogood fills my ears with “Bad to the Bone.” I slam the hammer down, spurring the Blue Beast onward, WFO. Flashing a left-handed thumbs-up, I roar past him at a hundred miles per hour, noting a Moscow numbered plate on a Honda Africa Twin, brother to the BMW Dakar.
While I roll back on the throttle, he takes the bait, tearing up the road from behind. Okay Ruskie, let’s see whatcha got. We embark on a white-line weave, slaloming through traffic over fresh-laid asphalt that feels like a river of black velvet. We fire up the highway for a heart-pounding hour before stopping to eat. Earlier, I swore this wasn’t going to happen anymore. I was going to ride sane, but it felt too good to quit. After today, I will not do it again. This time I mean it.
Eight Thousand Miles
September 10, 2004
Moscow, Russia
Federal Highway M-5 leads directly through rambling suburbs of triple-story gray brick apartments straight into the maze of Mos-cow’s protruding Gothic cathedrals and looming granite office buildings. Double-wide eight-lane boulevards lined with exclusive stores are jammed tight with expensive European cars. Exasperated drivers tediously merging into the slow moving parking lot dull their senses as they tap their steering wheels, staring into space. A lone motorcycle rider in the drizzling rain can only inch along with the flow and hope it leads somewhere warm. Here, money, power and prestige throb like a spreading cancer ready to consume willing souls. Moscow, a city with more billionaires than anywhere else on the planet, devours innocent fortune-seeking country folk as though they were beluga caviar. And wandering foreign bikers on a budget don’t fare much better. Posh hotels near Red Square are 500 bucks a night. Fifty buys a stinky 10-by-10 cubicle five miles out, on skid row. This city is merciless — like a fish out of water, I flop on the outskirts of a buzzing beehive of promised riches. And even the small Moscow restaurant meals cost 10 times what they do in Siberia.
Times are tough when the only welcoming sight is a MCDonald’s. At least the menu is familiar. Drooling with anticipation, I find the best way to order is pointing to pictures of hamburgers that never look like that when they arrive. As I stammer out a few Russian phrases, a surly waitress and impatient crowd confuse my order, and I wind up with a gooey glob of muck and cold French fries. Never mind, I’ll soon be with friends.
I have a local contact number buried in my email address book that’s normally easy to access. Most everywhere else in the world, Internet cafés are easy to find, but in Moscow, real estate prices have made gold shops a better value. In the country, people want to stop and talk; here, they are always in a hurry, hustling somewhere with money on their minds. It’s a maddening merry-go-round with the desperately hopeful scrambling to reach for an elusive brass ring. Suddenly, I miss the muddy roads of Siberia. Russians should be careful what they wish for.
Adios Russkies
September 12, 2004
Ludza, Latvia
Other than advertising banners, the only color I see in Moscow rises from the courtyard of Red Square. Riding into downtown, the onion domes of St. Basil’s sprouted upward like candy-cane mushrooms above pea greens and mustard yellows. Against the backdrop of aging edifices, they were so bright and shiny that for a moment they seemed fake.
Yet beyond this, what was missing most in Russian cities was color. Pulsating boulevards packed with black European prestige cars muscling among dark gray Japanese SUVs mirrored the somber mood of Moscow. It’s rare to spot a red, and you never see yellows. This lack of color reflects the weather and amplifies the dreariness of Soviet architecture — gray blocks of stone that match the overcast skies and sunken spirits of the inhabitants. It’s easy to pity their circumstance, as only a fortunate few will ever profit from the overnight fortunes, while the majority will just work harder and harder to keep pace with inflation. Seventy years of being told what to think and do by a monolithic Soviet government has left them in a creative vacuum, still reluctant to dream.
A local biker, Mikhail, had offered to show me the city by following his car. In this kind of gridlock, driving is less hassle than riding, but it still takes an hour to cover a mile because the traffic is too tight to white-line. The choice was to creep a few feet every other minute in the cold rain or creep in a warm car full of cigarette smoke. After a day of the latter, it was hard to decide which was worse.
Red Square, the focal point of the Russian ride since Vladivostok, became the finish line for this leg of the journey. It was like reaching a magic kingdom, looking for some special knowledge or enlightenment that never arrived. Still, Red Square marked the finale of a two-month ride into the mystifying wonderment of Russia’s cultural and geographic diversity. Rich in history and stunning in design, from the Politburo to Lenin’s Tomb, a Westerner can only stand in awe at this symbol of a once-forbidden territory.
At the Moscow BMW dealer, the Blue Beast was revived with a new chain, sprockets and brake pads. Cleaner than a hospital ward, the service department was a half-block long, and the brightly lit showrooms gleamed like upscale jewelry stores. All prices were in Euros.
Yesterday morning, while I set up for a photograph near St. Basil’s, Moscow police in armored
trucks had swooped in to clear traffic. A Chechen terrorist bomb threat was closing down the city. Main boulevards were sealed and vacant except for the warbling of emergency vehicle sirens echoing among the imposing granite buildings. Already packed and prepared for the road, I said goodbye to Mikhail and caught the M-9 for the Baltics.
Three nights in the capitalist enclave of Moscow was enough. Seven days ahead of an expiring visa, the steady irritation of plastic stents had turned into knee-buckling pain, pushing me toward an earlier exit. A 400-mile melancholy sprint to Latvia was all that remained of a sojourn never to be repeated. Since landing on Russian soil two months back, it had been a 6,500-mile odyssey across seven time zones and through mind-boggling extremes. Russia is not a vacation destination as much as an exercise in discovering what you can stand. As you leave your tracks across its face, it weaves its way into your soul.
Outside Moscow, modern highways are smooth and well-maintained. The westbound M-9 lacked the aggravating speed traps and annoying military checkpoints that had plagued the other side. Clearly, authorities feel security threats come from the disgruntled Far East and Southern Caucasia. Battles are brewing as mineral-rich, poverty-stricken regions tire of fattening European Russia. And it appears that greed will soon overtake common sense.
At the border, with documents in hand, there are still potential complications. A missing stamp, incorrect signature or bureaucratic snafu could delay departure for days. Trapped in an endless shuffle of paperwork for the simplest of tasks, workers still locked in a Soviet-era mentality are afraid of making decisions. Frowning border officials study my visa and importation papers, conferring with superiors by telephone. More stamping and grunting ensues, while those behind me move ahead. Meek smiles and a continuous “Spah cee bah” conceal my aggravation while I vacillate between fury at the nonsense and pity for the perpetuators.
EASTERN EUROPE
The Baltics
September 14, 2004
Czech Republic
Once past the last Russian border guard, Latvian immigration officials stood ready with welcoming smiles and polite requests for my passport and insurance card. Thirty seconds later, after a souvenir stamp that I requested, they waved me on. Once in the EU, for U.S. citizens, visas or importation documents are no longer necessary. From here to Turkey, at every frontier, it’s just a flash of a passport while only slowing down. Meanwhile, on the Latvian side, there was a line of parked commercial trucks stretching six exasperating miles, awaiting entry into Russia.
Cultures and conditions varied greatly across Russia, but former Soviet republics are like different worlds. Freed from the bruising yoke of communism, the standard of living has risen as national identities have been restored. The Baltics offer a quaint orderliness with a Scandinavian flavor. Meandering country roads wrap around neatly trimmed farmland and cottages with white wooden church steeples peeking over green grassy hillsides. In timeless harmony, horse-drawn hay wagons share the road with modern diesel rigs.
There’re no speed-limit signs or radar traps and nary a cop or soldier in sight. Latvia and Lithuania are so small that by the time it was necessary to refuel, the Polish border had appeared. As the weather had warmed and the traffic on single-lane roads under construction was so heavy, it was better to sleep late and ride all night. You don’t see much traveling like this, but it’s a faster way across Poland to Germany.
The Czech Republic is a well-kept secret for motorcycling. Fresh asphalt roads slice through thick-forested scenery with plenty of quaint café stops for delicious local food at half the cost of most of Europe. Czechs cook like the French, organize like Germans and greet like Mexicans. Avoiding touristy Prague, I stop in a medieval stone block village just on the outskirts. Podebrady, population 15,000, is an orderly town plucked straight from the last century, with prices to match. Twenty bucks a night for a mini-suite, color TV and a desktop computer with free high-speed Internet. I have tomorrow slated for my hospital checkup in Munich; otherwise, this would have been a nice place to linger.
It’s hard to miss the rigors of traveling in Russia but easy to miss the Russians. Who can ever forget Russian hospitality and those unique translations? “Glan vot do you call zee fly zat dreenks blahd?”
Temporary Downtime
September 21, 2004
Stadtisches Hospital, Munich, Germany
Arriving in Munich on Friday too late to see the doctor, I’m just in time for the Munich Motorcycle Show, the largest of its kind in the world. A hundred thousand riders from around Europe converge on the International Trade Center to view the latest motorcycles and high-tech gadgetry. Nearby campgrounds for bikers include hot showers and tent restaurants with overhead pipelines to giant containers of stout German beer. But swelling kidneys make it hard to walk, and it is apparent time has almost run out.
Monday morning at the hospital, halfway through presurgery tests, alarmed doctors direct me immediately to bed with orders not to move. Both kidneys are congested and on the verge of shutting down, as the spaghetti-like, soft plastic stents designed as drains had formed crystals of their own, blocking the flow of urine. During the subsequent surgery, instead of being able to simply slide them out with forceps, they had become attached internally and were not responding to the doctor’s pulling and tugging. When one stent nearly snapped in half, my doctor told me later that he was minutes from slicing me open to retrieve them. After the two-hour procedure, the doctors discovered more kidney stones and an infected prostate causing more backup. My simple outpatient testing morphed into a four-day hospital stay.
Assuming the first visit was only for an examination, I had left my tent setup at the city campground with three thousand drunken Australians celebrating Oktoberfest. Time was so critical, the doctors told me that all we could do was leave my bike in the parking lot with a note requesting not to tow. The good news was that this is the most advanced urological center in the world, overseen by the doctor who invented lithotripsy, the process for smashing kidney stones using ultrasound. Professor Chaussey and Dr. Hasner were surprised anyone had made it this far with two calcified stents inside them. After convincing them that there was no returning to California, the staff began bending rules and modifying regulations to meet my hurried travel schedule.
After a second procedure of lying immobilized and semiconscious while shock waves pound at mineral deposits, I wondered how much more I could stand. While in the most humiliating posture a man can imagine, an electronic chiseling pulse jolted once a second four thousand times on each stone. The treatment was so intense that they could only work one kidney per day. But I am already fed up with needles, anesthesia and just lying here when I now feel good enough to ride. A screened urine search for stone fragments has been fruitless, signaling the need for more ultrasonic jackhammering. There were numerous blood tests to monitor infection, and it was boring being constantly connected to a bottle or machine. Yet everyone tried hard to make me comfortable, understanding how disconcerting it is to be in the hospital so far from home. Word spread about my website, so hospital staff studied my journal entries and reported back their opinions. But overhearing constant chatter in an unfamiliar language just causes more longing for California.
A few people from home considered me foolish to have attempted this journey with such questionable health, but the Palm Springs doctor never told me not to go, only that it would be difficult. Competitive athletes, especially those in the combat arena, are always injured. We’re often too injured to train, let alone fight. But we do anyway. For every judo match, one or both combatants are taped up with sprained joints or cracked ribs. I figured it out once — there were only two weeks out of a year when we are not injured in some way. That’s the mentality, and although there is a price, it’s the only way to win. A line had to be drawn — either it was time for me to continue on this journey or become locked in a cycle of postponement. There’re always reasons to procrastinate, but if you ac
cept one excuse, you’ll wind up accepting them all. Any of us could die of cancer tomorrow. But if you carry on like you have six months to live, maximizing every moment, you’ll appreciate life more.
As planned back in California, my best friend Brad arrives next week for the ride across Turkey. A Canadian living in the U.S., Brad is like a brother to me. He’ll rent a bike in Germany with a drop-off in southern Europe when I head east. Negative rumors from fellow travelers state Iranian visas for Americans are still questionable, so plan B may go into effect. Whether I turn right or left at the Mediterranean now depends on religion and international politics. One direction leads to Middle Eastern deserts, the other to snowy mountains on the Anatolian plateau. Either way, it’ll be nice to be back on the road again.
Gypsies
September 30, 2004
Munich, Germany
It’s been a hectic two weeks — camping three nights at the bike show, three more with Oktoberfest drunks, three in the hospital and three in a fancy hotel visiting with my cousin Kjell here on another business trip. The doctors gave up on the last 10-millimeter kidney stone because it hadn’t responded to shock waves. It’s now too big to move and an issue better resolved next year in California, when there is more time to deal with it. Because of internal complications, they’ve slipped in another temporary plastic stent and told me to find a urologist down the road to remove it in 30 days.
“What if I’m in Africa?”
“That should be okay, there’re doctors there.”
So the time bomb ticks, and to stretch my travel funds, I return to the more affordable medieval magic of the Czech Republic to wait for Brad. At the moment, he’s likely gliding at 500 miles per hour 30,000 feet over the Atlantic, twitching with anticipation. In a few hours, we’ll be jumping up and down with bear hugs in the Munich airport, then rolling for Romania.
One More Day Everywhere Page 9