Hello,
little late but at least. I am writing this from library in Magadan where we arrived last Friday.
We started our trip on 20th of April when we flew from Kansas to San Francisco. There were some issues on the Texas airport and some flights were delayed and we were lucky that our connecting flight in Denver was not canceled. It was cheaper to buy two tickets one from Kansas to San Francisco and second from San Francisco to Seoul.
We stayed in the airport for 12 hours in San Francisco and just camped in the arrival hall where I firstly used the big teton sleeping bag. The flight to Korea was not bad , little bit long but not terrible. We stayed in Korea for four days and found some good apartment in central Korea for 30 dollars. The apartment was really good and we enjoyed the stay there. I also arranged the Mongolian visa in Seoul which was a little bit of challenge as I had only one day to arrange that.
The flight to Vladivostok was on 26th of April, all went good and we went to hotel in the center of Vlad. The car was still not in the port but it made it on 28th. The custom broker in Vladivostok has everything arranged and he is quite famous as everybody uses him (Yuri Melnikov). The formalities were really fast and he told me that I broke the world record. I can't tell you what my feeling was when I saw my cruiser in one piece in the container.
I did put the tent together made couple of things and went back to the city where we stayed for another three days. We had to get rid of all not needed stuff and we just gave them away to people (luggage, clothes etc.). We loaded the cruiser with food and water and went ahead. The traffic in Russia is crazy and me as novice driver (driving only five years) had problem in the beggining. I can say that Russians are crazy but good drivers. I had to modify only one thing which was the tent cover which I gave to one guy to change the zipper location. Now the tent cover zips very easy.
We went from Vladivostok and kept going for whole day then we camped in the nature. For the first time we had to sleep in the tent and annex. As we went to brush our teeth we saw a fire started just 100 meters from our site. The fire got more and more aggressive and it was already night. We packed all the stuff in five minutes !! and just lef the tent open with kids inside. The fire was actually getting closer on multiple directions and were getting little bit worried. Well we survived that night with having locals visit us arguying with them as they thought that we started the fire
Next day we camped near Chabarovsk and we still kept going , after Chabarovsk we went to Birobidzhan which is Jewish autonomous territory. We were getting closer and closer to Chinese border and all radio stations were in Chinese, most of the time we were having lunch in Kafes where kids were eating well and I got a lot of borsch. Just after 300 km outside of Birobidzhan our daughter got bitten by the tick. We knew that we were in the tick zone with some aggressive form of lyme and encephalitide infections, unfrortunately for some reason it is not possible to get vaccinated in US. We had to return to Birobidzhan and get the tick analysed in laboratory for infections and got kids vaccinated. The vaccinatin is pretty expensive but worthy. Now we know that the tick was not infected. I got couple of bottles of permithrin from US , immediately I soaked most of the kids clothes in it to be more protected.
After Birobidzhan we kept going north on the Amur highway. The traffic was not so bad as we were travelling in festive season (May 1 till May 9 nobody works). We reached the Lena highway reaching Yakutsk , the number of cars was lower and lower. Yakutia is nice place and the beggining is with very nice hills. I was surprised how cold it was, camping in the tent was still fine as we got the good tent and also warm sleeping bag. Unforutnately I left the water outlet outside and it frozen and broken the water gun we used for shower and cleaning. Now we have water but can't control the flow
We passed cities of Tynda , Aldan and Tommot. The roads in Yakutia are really bad sometimes even terrible. Had couple of earlly miss situations which were scary but other then that it was fine. We were not traveling in night most of the time going really slow. Kind of funny when we were passed by Nissan Micra going 80kph on those bad roads.
We reached Niznij Bestiach which is on the other side of the Yakutsk, everybody was saying that it is not possible to cross the river. I don't know why but I completely missed this, the river when we arrived to crossing of Aldan was completely frozen with unstable moving ice. People waiting for five or ten days and nobody knows when the river will clear. We decided to get back to Niznij Bestiach and try to fly to Magadan. Fortunately I got some contacts in motorcycle club of Magadan and they arranged everything. The government of Yakutia is now keeping the cruiser in their garage, kind of strange feeling giving your keyes in the middle of Russia to someone you see for two minutes. The ice even reached the crossing of the river Lena to cross to Yakutsk. We were trying to catch the hovercraft over the river and listening to the guys talking which was is the best to not crush into the freezing waters is not cool. We boarded the hovercraft with four other Yakuts, all of them hunters. The way over frozen river was interesting and sometimes I was asking myself how crazy it was.
Reached the other side of Lena we were met with local motorcycle member who took us to the airport. We still didn't have the tickets as we did not know if we make it to Yakutsk in the morning. Fortunately we got the tickets and we went to the gate. To my surprise we were the only passangers in the plane which was 35 years old Antonov 26. Even boarding the plane was funny , kids were joking that the plane will not take off, everything was falling apart and even the mechanic was going around the plane with hammer fixing stuff (not kidding).
That's it so far, we are here in Magadan without our cruiser, we took with ourselve just couple of things as we did got rid of luggage. Our flight back to Yakutsk is on May 27th, then we prepare for the journey back and Mongolia.
All I can do is stand back and applaud! To start by purchasing a Cruiser in October to going from Kansas to Prague via Russia and Mongolia less than a year later...major congrats to sticking to the vision and making it happen!