Helsinki
Friday, July 25, 2014 It is good to be in Finland. Probably the easiest border crossing we had on this trip. While sitting in our car, with the engine running, we handed over our passports to the immigration officer. Thirty…
North to Finland
Wednesday, July 23, 2014 We left Moscow and immediately faced a traffic jam due to a small crash. Ten kms further we slowed down again due to excessive traffic. After 90 minutes we had travelled less than 10 miles. Then…
Leg 4: East and Central Asia
April – July, 2014 On April 17 we joined Kuipwagen (Marijke and Coen) and Ivor (Kim and Vaughan) in the Northern Laos border town of Boten, to cross into China as a convoy. Twenty nine days later we reached Erenhot,…
Moscow (Москва)
Sunday, July 20, 2014 The short drive from Tula allowed us to enjoy the afternoon in Moscow. We headed straight to the Red Square and the Walls of the Kremlin. From here we visited Saint Basil’s Cathedral before walking along…
Tula (Тула)
Saturday, July 19, 2014 Day 3 of the drive to Moscow. We had a slightly shorter driving day than the previous two and were able to d a little sight-seeing. Along the way we stopped at Leo Tolstoi’s residence. A…
Voronezh (Воронеж)
Friday, July 18, 2014 Another big driving day north along the M6 and then the M4. The scenery definitively improved with massive sunflower fields and the occasional pine forest. It really felt like we were returning to Europe. And while…
Volgograd (Волгогра́д)
Thursday, July 17, 2014 We woke up to find that we still had a front license plate. It had not been stolen during the night! Big day of driving as we head North to Moscow. This was the first day…
Caspian Sea
Tuesday, July 15, 2014 After the whole police episode was over, we drove south from Astrakhan towards the Volga Delta. Our original plan was to wing it and find someone with a boat. The receptionist at our hotel had given…
Astrakhan (Астрахань)
Monday, July 14, 2014 The drive from the Kazakhstan border to Astrakhan was pleasant enough. As we drove through the Volga Delta area we could already see many more birds along the roadside. Turned out that there were two ways…
Goodbye Kazakhstan, Hello Russia
Monday, July 14, 2014 Had a leisurely breakfast and departed to the Russian border with expectations of good roads. We were very disappointed to find we had shocking roads the entire way. The boring desert scenery combined with the relentless…
Beyneu and Atyrau
Saturday, July 12, 2014 Once we crossed the border, we still had 85kms of classic Kazakhstan roads to negotiate before we got to Beyneu. And by “classic” we mean terrible. At one point we had to stop and fill up…
Crossed into Kazakhstan
Saturday, July 12, 2014 Crossed into Kazakhstan. Very long day and several hours spent at the border. Uzbekistan turned out to be one of the unexpected highlights of our trip. Now we were on our way through Kazakhstan and onto…
Nukus
Friday, July 11, 2014 The drive to Nukus was quite uneventful. We made the journey in just over 3 hours. The fuel we picked up in Khiva was working, but, Sterlin was grumbling a little under heavy acceleration. So, we…
Khiva
Wednesday, July 9, 2014 The drive from Bukhara to Khiva was 430 kms through the Kyzylkum Desert, a journey that ‘the one that went before us’ took 10 hours to complete. So we woke up early, had a massive breakfast…
Bukhara
Monday, July 7, 2014 Pleasant enough drive to Bukhara, except the cop who leapt out of the bushes to pull us over. Apparently we were speeding, although we had no idea that we were. The chat was friendly enough, and…