The nylon shell-suit is alive and well in living in the Eastern-bloc countries of Bulgaria and Romania. I’ve never felt so bang-on-trend!

April 15th - Border crossing between Romania, Moldova and Ukraine was a nightmare – had to go into Moldova twice, and got stung for a Green Card the second time. Stayed in a state-run hotel in Izmajil in Ukraine. When we booked in, we had to choose our breakfast for the following morning – “you may have porridge or one egg or one omelette, and tea” said the receptionist, and she wasn’t joking.

April 16th – thanks to Vlad for recommending the correct Black Sea Hotel in Odessa. Apparently the other one has wall-to-wall “working ladies”.

Caption 1: The famous Odessa steps.

April 19th - Road from Odessa to Mykalijiv had to be seen to be believed, given that it’s an “M” road. Sheila’s Yamaha o ff-road school certainly was a good basic grounding of off-road riding and this completed her training (I hope). Thanks to Sacha, Dimi in Myklajiv for finding B&B, and for their hospitality.

Caption 2: Dimi, Sacha and the boys outside Freedom Bar, Mykalijiv.

April 20th - Police around Melitopol and Mariupol are bad (for that read corrupt) souring the feel of the country completely. If it wasn’t for the help and friendliness of the people, we could quite easily hate this place. But on balance, we’ve met more nice people than bad.
April 25th – across the border to Russia. Again fleeced by the police. I think foreigners are an easy target, especially since they take your passport off you until you pay them. We’re getting cuter though – used up our Ukraine hyrvnia instead of our roubles, and Sheila is now the money-holder – it would seem that women aren’t expected to carry any money (how little they know!). Roads are good though, so we made some good mileage.
April 26th – Volgograd for another cultural interlude. Went to see “The Motherland calls” statue, which is absolutely awe-inspiring. We were both speechless, and it was such an incredibly moving place, with the “Eternal Flame” and loads of other statues. We’re the first ever guests at the hotel we found, so they’ve been amazingly helpful.

Caption 3: "The Motherland calls", Volgograd - stupendous, enormous, gob-smacking.

Caption 4: The Eternal Flame, Volgograd

April 28th – Russia/Kazakhstan border crossing took a few hours – these people don’t have a rush in them. Once we’d got in, almost every car beeped and waved at us. And every time we stopped, we got a crowd round us, and people wanted to take pictures of the bikes (and us occasionally).The country is just enormous swathes of nothing – just scrubland, and the odd really poor road. I thought the previous eastern-bloc countries were bad – these are infinitely worse. We passed the road-crew who were obviously the maintenance team – probably for the whole country. There were only four of them, and they had no tar, or lorry, or roller. Just a bucket of stones.

Caption 5: This sight took us by surprise...

April 30th – longest, hardest day yet. Had camped at a truck-stop the previous night, in the middle of nowhere (so it was free), but 4 blokes turned up at 1 in the morning to take pictures, we think. But they managed to push over both bikes, waking us both up. And nervous for the next 5 hours. The Kazaks are very nosy and pushy, but don’t have a bad bone in them, I don’t believe. They were very apologetic, and wandered off quite sheepishly. And then we had a really tough day, on pot-holed roads, and tracks, and I don’t mind telling you, it brought me to tears at one point. But we got through it together.
May 1st – got to Aqtobe in North Kazakhstan, the furthest inland we can get, looking at a map. It's their equivalent of Labour Day here, so everyone out promenading in their Sunday best.

Communication may be sporadic from now on, but we'll do our best when we can.