Day 9 Monday July 7th mileage 1900 Pokov 60 miles east of Moscow

Last night we had a funny experience at the restaurant. After ordering starters and main courses nothing came after the starters. The waitress who had taken our order and served us at one point was in tears though I have to say it was not from us. We think she must have had an argument with someone else and decided just to give up. Anyway we reordered and eventually four main courses arrived though we could not identify what anyone had ordered. The food was ok so in the end we just shared it out!

After about 2 hours on the road we stopped at a fairly decent sized town called Rehv to change money and buy SIM cards. We got a much better rate than we had from "dealer man" at the border.

Geoff went and talked to two phone card shops and after a long time we eventually bought one unlimited (bizlimit) data sim card to allow us to send photos and videos back home. It wasn't until we had bought the card and plugged it in to allow access to google translate that we could ask all the complex queries about topping up, call rates etc.

Then on some more and we went around The Moscow inner ring road which was an interesting experience it like a combination of the M25 and the north circular. Hectic and fast with drivers wanting to cut in on both sides. We established that ricin all together two up front abreast and two immediately behind abreast is the best combination for fending off aggressive drivers who want to take your place.

At one point Dave dropped a bottle of beer that had been given to us by
"persistent man" and it hit the Tarmac and after rolling a short distance the top came off and the plastic bottle took off across the three lanes of the ring road like a rocket, much to the amusement of us and the adjacent drivers.

Video of Moscow ring road

Eventually stopped at a place called Pokov about 60 miles east of Moscow and after having trouble locating the hotel that Tomtom was telling us existed we were befriended by a young boy riding a small dirt bike. He was interested in our bikes and when we asked where the hotel was he volunteered to show us the way ( about 100 yds from where we were). On arriving at the hotel he then asked (demanded) 50 roubles for his trouble. We paid him because we are all big softies.

We were greeted by a very pleasant woman who offered us a single four bed room which we gratefully accepted.

Here is a photo of the room in the morning carefully censored to just show part of Franks underwear and his left leg!


Then it was showers, and off over the road to a rather nice restaurant where again we were greeted very pleasantly by a young waitress who served us our evening meal of soup then main courses. This time the food that arrived could be easily identified as what we had ordered!

Tried to take a photo of us leaving the restaurant, but a combination of too much beer and an inability to manage a camera resulted in the following!!


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