Arrived in Russia - At Last !

Day 69 Thursday  9^th June 2011 

We entered Thursday very quickly as our Wednesday only lasted a couple of hours or so before we crossed the International Date Line. The in-flight map showing the plane’s progress indicated that we were flying over Russia, Magadan in fact, and I watched its slow movement south along the Russian coast and a painful moment as it passed over Vladivostok giving us no choice of getting off, it’s almost like missing your stop on a bus except in this case we knew in advance it was going to happen.

We landed at around 5.30 am in Bejing and we were surprised that the level of foggy smog around and also at the humid temperature of 22 degrees celcius at that time in the morning – sticky hot. We left the plane and headed towards the international flight transfer desks which were unmanned – now we were stuffed because the only other way was through immigration but we couldn’t go that way because we did not have a Chinese visa. Seeing our worried little faces a very helpful official told us that our connecting flight was from a completely different terminal, Terminal 2, accessed only by a bus outside the airport. We explained that we had no Chinese visa but he said it was no problem and, much to the envy of our fellow queuing passengers, he took us to a separate cubicle where we were ‘processed’ and much to our surprise our passports were stamped with something,  presumably some sort of temporary visa, which allowed us to leave the airport – we were actually in China – Wow !

We found the terminal shuttle bus (thankfully most of the signs have English translations) and we were soon on our way through the Bejing streets on quite a longish journey to another airport building a few miles away where we (eventually) found Vladivostok Air check in tucked away in a little corner. 

Waiting for our Vladivostok Air flight in Bejing

 The Chinese check in girl was obviously a trainee and her mentor sat beside her as she tried to match our names against the roster. She had to type out our boarding cards and she was gently guided by her teacher as to which type key to press as she was obviously used to Chinese characters. Our Russian visas were scrutinised carefully as was our little red Chinese Immigration stamp and after much Chinese talking between them the boarding cards were finally handed over giving just an hour or so to wait before our flight was due to board at gate 9. I went to the toilets for a refresh and a change of clothes and a bit of deodorant  whilst Mark nodded off in his waiting area seat. When I got back he dusted himself down and went to have a quick look at the board because there was a flight to Kiev leaving from our gate. He returned from the big screen with the news that in less than half an hour they had changed the gate number and we had to retrace our steps back through the airport to the new gate number which gave us just a quarter of an hour or so before we were called to board our Vladivostok Air flight.

The advertised 2 hour 55 minute flight actually took 2 hours 15 minutes and was my first time in a Tupolev aircraft. The air hostesses were all very nice and polite and the whole affair was handled much the same way as it used to be in the UK not like now where all the trolley dollys seem to act like bored shop assistants and just try and go through the motions. The Russian flight crew were very attentive and spent far more time making sure everyone had what they needed than ever their UK counterparts would.

We touched down in Vladivostock at around 2.30pm and a frantic exchange of emails with Yuri Melnikov (our customs clearing agent) before we left Vancouver had us wondering if he was going to be at the airport to meet us. Had we had wifi at Bejing (you can only get free wifi if you have a mobile phone – I gave mine to Gina to bring back to the UK as I didn’t expect that I would get much use out of it  in Russia) we may have been able to get Yuri’s response which I later found out was “Yes he would be there but may be a bit late”. Well, our flight had arrived early and not knowing that he was going to be late we waited for about three quarters of an hour before deciding to make our own way into the city some 45 kilometres away.

Arrived at Vladivostok

Vladivostok airport

KNACKERED ! -  41 hours on the go

We already knew via Yuri that a taxi would cost around 2000 roubles (about 100 US dollars or £65 to me and you) but I had done a little research before we left Canada and there was some hint of a number 107 bus at just 60 roubles for the same journey (that’s about £1.30) – quite a difference. After consulting and memorising the right phrase I asked a Russian policy guy where the bus stop was and he answered in Russian but thankfully pointed towards a small building in the distance giving me some idea of what was being said.  I had also noted the bus times and there was one due shortly at 15.50. We pushed our way through the taxi touts and got to the bus stop where a dingy building with broken windows displayed several bus timetables and right there at the top was our 107 bus with a 15.50 departure time.

Another guy waiting was able to speak a few words of English and he stopped us getting on the number 7 bus to Artem which would have left us nowhere near our destination. The 15.50 didn’t turn up until it arrived with its later counterpart at 16.50 – it transpired that the 15.50 had a problem and we would have to go on the 16.50. I had taken the precaution of writing down the hotel name and address in Russian Cyrillic thinking (correctly as it turns out) that if I needed to ask the way it would be better to show it written in the native language rather than some unrecognisable english latinised version. I showed the driver my piece of paper and pointed to the question in the phrase book (also in Russian Cyrillic) asking if the bus went near the street where the hotel was. The “Da” response was good and I pointed to another bit in the phrasebook which asked him to tell us when we got to our stop. “Da” was the answer – so we were sorted.

On our way from the airport we could see for ourselves all the roadworks being carried out in readiness for next year’s 2012 Pan Asian conference – the whole of Vladivostok and surrounding infrastructure is undergoing huge construction projects in order to step up to meet the demands of this important upcoming conference. We also saw the 20km tailback going the other way to the airport and wondered if Yuri was stuck in that jam on his way to meet us – pangs of guilt riddled me as I wondered if we should have waited at the airport and what will Yuri think when he gets there after spending 3 hours in a traffic jam only to find us not there.

As it turns out our stop was the last one anyway at the train station – end of the Trans Siberian Railway that runs east from Moscow for some 5,750 miles and a journey that takes around 8 days to complete. The little lady conductor on the coach (who smelled a bit)  pointed up the hill and waved her arm in a several forward motions indicating that we should just keep going and going uphill and we should get to the hotel.

Off we went through the busy rush hour streets going uphill with our heavy bags (glad we didn’t take suitcases – we only had shoulder bags which allowed us to avoid checking in luggage on the flights and put us ahead of queues as we didn’t have to wait for our baggage). On the way up the hill I used my bit of paper with the hotel Cyrillic address and asked a lady for directions. She put us on a different road and along the way I kept asking different people, showing them my scrap of paper, until a lovely lady took us under her wing and actually walked us all the way to the hotel – we wil;l be eternally grateful to our saviour.

Check in was no problem and we were soon on our way to our room on the 11^th floor which we were surprised to find had its own en suite shower and toilet (our booking led us to believe that we were to have shared bathroom facilities) and an extra special bonus for us was free wifi in the room (again, the hotel shows that wifi is available in the lobby area only). Views across the bay (when the fog lifts) were excellent and a far distant mountain range some 50 miles in the distance may well be the Chinese border. The first thing I did was check my email and was horrified to see that Yuri was expecting to meet us at the airport. I sent an email apologising profusely and explained that we hadn’t been able to view his email by the time we left Vancouver.

Sunset view from our hotel window

We drowned our sorrows at the bar with a couple of pints of beer which, die to lack of sleep over the past two days, went straight to our heads.  Time for bed – we were gone before our heads hit the pillow !