Ilpo Juvander

Why I reverted back to stock rom from cyanogen(mod)?

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:24:00 GMT

This week I was fed up waiting for fix to battery drain that was happening with my mobile phone and since people had been telling that www.cyanogenmod.com had returned their phone back to normal I decided to give it a try.

First rooted my Android phone and then installed CyanogenMod 7.1. This version looks fancy and includes lots of cool stuff missing from stock rom. Much more customization that can be done for the phone and one important feature I missed from years of using Nokia: Profiles.

But, after playing with it I noticed couple of annoying things:

E-mails sent by our DotNetNuke were not showing up correctly. Text on those was constantly just scrolling down the screen when reading those!
E-mails from Hotmail account were downloaded as plain text, in my current Android version 2.3.5 there is option to download html version as well.
On e-mail client sync schedule was gone, so instead of peak/off-peak schedule there was only one schedule.
GPS was a lot slower to get a fix, it looked like it was missing the mobile network location feature
Sounds. At some point all that I could hear as sound was my main ringing tone. For all sounds. No way to get rid of that.

So when adding all these together, I decided to revert back to stock rom and continue with that.

Now when I have it rooted, I have removed all non-Android apps, disabled few system services to see if I get more juice out from the battery or not. I also found a tool called System Tuner to tune system settings and have since adjusted lots of parameters to save battery. I have since disabled Google Backup Service and others to see if that makes a difference on the cpu that Android OS is consuming on my device.

Note that I do not play games so cpu speed is not that important, I mainly use e-mail client, browser and Google Reader.

Search continues while waiting for Ice Cream Sandwich for my phone, due hopefully sooner than later.

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Category: Mobilephone

Visa requirements on Tour de Africa

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:02:00 GMT

As a series of post and things to clear out, collection of visa requirements for possible countries to visit from citizen of Finland point of view.

Morocco

No visa required for tourist trips.

Finland has official representation in the country: http://www.finlande.ma.

Mauritania

Visa is required and can be acquired through French embassy in Helsinki: http://www.ambafrance-fi.org.

Finland has no representation in the country, closest one is in Abuja, Nigeria.

Senegal

No visa required for tourist trips.

Finland has no representation in the country, but embassy of Sweden in Dakar is helping. Also same as for Mauritania from Abuja, Nigeria.

Gambia

Visa is not required for stays up to 28 days as tourist.

Finland has no representation in the country. Closest Gambian embassy is in London.

Guinea-Bissau

Visa is required, closest embassy in Brussels, Belgium.

Finland has no representation in the country. Embassy of Portugal in Bissau is helping.

Guinea

Visa is required, closest embassy in Moscow, Russia.

Finland has no representation in the country.

Mali

Visa is required, closest embassy in Berlin, Germany.

Finland has no representation in the country.

Burkina Faso

Visa is required, closest embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Finland has no representation in the country, Royal Dutch Embassy in Ouagadougou is helping.

Algeria

Visa is required, closest embassy is in Stockholm, Sweden.

Finland has representation in Alger: http://www.finlandalgeria.org.

Tunisia

Visa is not required.

Finland has representation in Tunis: http://www.finlandtunis.org.

For Vehicle

CPD (Carnet de Passages en Douane) is not required for the countries on my list except for Senegal and this requirement is only for vehicles older than 5 years. I can imagine why this is…

So for this purpose I do not have to contact Swedish Motormännes to get the CDP.

Summary

So it looks like that some of required visas can be acquired from Finland, but probably the place for the rest of those is again our friend VES visa-Express service in Berlin, Germany: https://www.expressvisa.de. I have used their services now for couple of years and have always got just perfect service in agreed time period!

Can highly recommend this company.

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Tags: Africa,CPD

Category: Africa

Category: Travel

Category: Visa

Summer of 2012–Tour de Africa

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:42:00 GMT

My original plan for 2012 summer was to do a short two weeks trip to Crimea, which was my target for this year as well, but missed it because I could not get into Abkhazia.

But as time goes by this evolved into a bigger trip and now target is to do a tour to Africa.

So theme for summer 2012 is Africa! And as usual, this will be a trip with my BMW R1200GS Adventure.

And not to make this too easy and comfortable, I will go via Nordkapp and then do an Iron Butt Ride Nordkapp-Gibraltar 72 on the way down. This means driving from Nordkapp to Gibraltar in 72 hours and in kilometers ~5550 km.

So before reaching Gibraltar, I have driven already ~7500 km from Espoo…

Once arriving to Gibraltar, I have usual two weeks of family vacation, this time near Malaga, Spain.

From here target is to drive western coastline down at least to Dakar in Senegal, might be even further down.

When coming back to Europe route is not that clear – yet. Current plan for the winter is to see if it is possible to go via Mali and Algeria to Tunisia and from there to Italy and back home.

Planned route looks like this:

Total mileage for the trip will be 20-25 000 km which means that I will have to carry extra pair of tires as well, not to mention extra gas tanks... Not new as this was the case last year as well…

But as of today, dates have been set, now it is down to see during the winter where and how far down I can go and which route to take back!

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Tags: Africa

Category: Africa

Video from a trip to Caucasus 2011

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 09:14:00 GMT

This is from Georgia.
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Tags: Caucasus

BMW R1200GSA with PowerCommander and dual O2 sensor for AutoTune

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:16:00 GMT

Already last year I was driving with AutoTune on my bike, but it was only with single O2 sensor. After dyno runs I took my bike last year maps looked like this.

During the last winter I decided to upgrade it to have two O2 sensors, one for each cylinder.

Both cylinders originally received same map and also compared to last year I also changed air/fuel mixture a bit.

On the way to Turkey we were two bikes, mine is 2009 and other one was 2007 GSA with slip-on installed with KAT removed (I have also Akrapovic 2-1-2 full racing exhaust + K&N air filter). When comparing fuel consumption there was very little difference, depending on the road some ½-1 liters for each 500 km so nothing.

Now after driving some 20tkm with these two O2 sensors installed I have now these maps:

So yes, there are some difference on cylinders, not much but there is.

Compared to last year, bike runs even smoother than before, especially when going slow on though roads.

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Caucasus Tour–Day #32

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:36:00 GMT

Easy day ahead as I was already in St. Petersburg, some 412 km from home!

Last night had been really hot, hotel did not have any air-conditioning and I had to sleep window open to get some sort of cooling.

Had good breakfast, no hurry anywhere and started packing again.

I had everything organized into small packages, so everything was packed and unpacked very fast. Opened only those that I needed.

Once done, checkout from the hotel and to the road again.

My shoes had been traveling here since I arrived Georgia first time. I had them inside the bags before that, but they started smelling too bad!

Zumo had a bit interesting opinion from the route that should be taken. It was showing some 1678 km home in Espoo from St. Petersburg! Somehow it did not manage to find direct route out from the city to Finland… Well, I just drove out using map on my head and to the road to Finland…

Traffic outside of the city was not that bad, only few cars going towards Finland, quite a lot of roadwork there as well.

Made one stop to refuel and get some fuel for me as well, just before the border.

There were also some Russian bikers, heading towards Germany and Switzerland. Spare tires and all. Guess they have not noted that you can get new tires for GS from Germany and even cheaper than in Russia. At Ukraine/Russia border these bikers were complaining about tire prices in Moscow.

Border crossing from Russia to Finland at Vaalimaa took only some 15 minutes, I just went to head of the queue, quick paper filling and forward. Finnish side was same, only that there was no paperwork, only show quickly passport.

And back in Finland!

From here it was still 200 km to home.

Made one stop on the way to get coffee and a cake. Finally some Finnish coffee!

Eventually made it back to home as well. Anne had cleared the parking place for me, was not going to drive bike to Halli today!

Total driving for the last day was 405 km in 6½ hours.

So total for the whole trip became 12711 km.

Now its time to get everything unpacked and washed!

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Tags: Caucasus

Caucasus Tour–Day #31

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 23:36:00 GMT

Day started early again, could not really sleep that long. Had to still wait until 08:00 to get breakfast in the nearby cafeteria.

Morning had started with rain so after breakfast needed to get some gore-tex under my trousers and jacket. It was pretty cold as well so CoolMax underwear changed to warming one. Welcome to north!

Once packed, I started driving out from the city. This was a mess as I did not have the city map in Zumo and had to just try to drive to where road was continuing towards St. Petersburg.

After getting out of the town I managed to take wrong road. Zumo had calculated fastest route based on Russian map I had on it, but it looks like this map does not have knowledge over if road is paved or unpaved and how big the road is.

Road looked ok in the beginning, but quite soon started turning into smaller and smaller until it was hardly a road anymore. Probably it would have still continued and I would eventually got into same spot, but decided still to go back and take the safer route once I took a look at last years track log that I had stored on my computer.

Road from Smolensk to Pskov is in pretty good shape. Once I refueled the bike I kept speed at 110-130 km/h. At one point I drove together with one Russian biker with Blackbird, he could hardly keep up with my speed on jumps, but came right after me when road was a bit better again.

Had to stop once to tighten right side mirror, I think this was not third time on this trip so I need to fix this a bit better once at home.

At one point I thought that police was stopping me, but instead they took the van from front of me.

One more refuel before arriving into St. Petersburg where I had reserved already an hotel. Not too many stops on the way there.

Driving was good, 805 km in 10 hours. Reason why I took this route was really that it is not that crowded as the main route through Moscow. All those big trucks are missing and there are only normal cars and trucks.

Total for this trip is now 12306 km.

Tomorrow would be arriving to Finland and home.

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Tags: Caucasus

Caucasus Tour–Day #30

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 23:18:00 GMT

Early wake up again and to the breakfast. Once I was packing the bike I started paying closer attention to what was parked next to it.

It turned out that there was a group of policemen from Hungary going into this Police Stellar Run held in Vladimir, near Moscow.

Lots of bikes!

I thought that as we had same direction, I should head out soon as when these guys enter the border, there is going to be a big mess!

On the way out from Kiev I did refueling so that I could get out from Ukraine. I also did try to buy some water to go, but as I had no local currency and – note this – at the gas station, they were not able to sell anything else but gas with credit card purchase! So no water, had still one bottle left from yesterday, that had last until I get to Russian side.

Some 300 km ride to Ukraine-Russia border crossing, road was pretty straight and almost in good condition all the way. Some road works, but not much.

At the border it all begun again. Saw just some 20 cars ahead of me so I thought this is not going to last long to get through. Well, it lasted.

There was also a group Russian motorcycles crossing the same border, so I went with them and we waited and waited.

Also the Hungarian policemen arrived after a while and entered their own queue. There was also other policemen with these same stickers in their cars going into same event. Must be a huge one.

Ukrainian side of the border took 2 hours! No idea how they can be so slow with this, last time year I ago when I came from Russia to Ukraine on this same border, it was just showing passport and forward. Nothing like this.

Russian side with all paperwork and advice for fellow Hungarians for filling up the paperwork took only *normal* ½ an hour and finally I was able to drive forward.

Once I got on Russian side, I started looking at Zumo a bit more carefully and the route it had on it. This was going via Moscow now and that was not on my original plan! Started playing with the route while driving and turned out that I needed to take out Europe map and leave only Russian map to active, otherwise Zumo would always do recalculation and go via Moscow to Finland! Europe map includes these major roads from Russia anyhow, so better to take that out and leave only the one that I really need.

Last year I did not have this sort of issue so this must be now some new software version that came few months ago to Zumo.

Drove without a stop to Bryansk, quick refueling there and forward. Road from border to Bryansk was quite jumpy, but for GSA not a big issue.

I drove this exact same route last year, only in opposite direction. From Espoo to Kiev without stopping for a sleep. As I now had extra kilometers behind me, decided already when leaving Kiev that I will do one or two stops on the way and not even try to do the same.

After Bryansk I started looking at hotels in towns, but those that I had originally planned had none on the way, so I headed towards Smolensk which was a bigger city.

Once I got to Smolensk I started just asking for a hotel from everybody and eventually got it narrowed down to few blocks where there should be a hotel and finally even found one.

Not a cheap one (3800 RUB + 100 RUB for parking), but was not really ready to do extra work to find cheaper one, time was already past 9 pm.

Hotel looks fancier outside, but inside the rooms it is just and old Russian hotel, clean and works well for my purpose. Included even Wi-Fi which works! Only issue I have is the time for breakfast, it starts at 8 am. Well, I get a bit more rest this way.

Shower and quick walk around the hotel to find place to eat, nothing found really. There was one fast food place in the park, but all was in Russian and could not find a person to translate that so left that place.

In the park next door there was all park benches in use, young people were just sitting there and drinking beer (pussikaljaa).

Ended up in a local store and just bought some water and a sausages to go.

Looks like I’m going to have an issue with my right hand, the insect that bit me in Bulgaria has caused more issues than I thought. Whole hand is red, swollen and it hurts quite a bit. Up until now have had zero issues like this, so I guess something was expected to come. Should still not limit my driving…

Today driving was 764 km in 11½ hours, tomorrow hopefully is a bit faster as no border crossings!

Total for whole trip is now 11502 km.

It is still ~1200 kilometers to home, so one more stop on the way. Last year I drove from Espoo to Smolensk in 16 hours which is a bit too much right now.

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Caucasus Tour–Day #29

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:25:00 GMT

Days are starting to look alike… wakeup early, breakfast (if any), packing and engine started for a new day.

Breakfast was excellent on this Bucharest hotel, first time after leaving Belek to get eggs & bacon as well.

Driving through Romania was excellent, first driving towards Constanta some 100 km two lane highway and then moving to smaller roads.

On the way towards Moldovia something flu into my right sleeve and bit me. Did not bother to investigate what that was, just pressed the part to kill it! It must have been a big one as there was blood coming through my jacket…

One stop on the way to Moldovia to get fuel so that I would not need to do that in there, safer to refuel in Romania where I knew how things work.

These were also everywhere. Bigger, smaller, full, empty…

Border crossing at Glati-Giurgiulesti from Romania was easy, small queue so it took still some 20 minutes. Moldovan side had little more things: First normal passport check and then customs. Customs wanted some 2 euros for me taking the bike into their country. Or customs wanted 1 euro and bank 1 euro as well…

At the border the man who checked the passport was guiding me to the right direction, drive some 2-3 kilometers and I’m on Ukrainian border crossing. Of course I was not going there as I planned to drive through the country via capitol Chisinau.

Roads were mostly in quite bad shape, jumps all over and while all roads were paved, they had not been redone in years.

On the way there were also lots of drinking places like this. I was not going to taste that, but I guess some locals do…

Chisinau was quite a big city, drove through that according to what Zumo guided and it went smoothly.

Then started again the fun part as I had not done my homework on this.

As driving towards Ukrainian border, there was a police checkpoint which said something about customs. Ok, they did not bother me or anybody else so forward.

Next just before the bridge, there were soldiers standing with guns. They did not move either so forward.

Still nothing was ringing in my head on this one, I was just driving happily.

Then came something that looked like a border. Had to wait in the queue for some time before getting to the border crossing.

There were three booths that I needed to visit: passport check, immigrations and customs. First two were fast, had to fill immigrations paper and hand it over. Customs took ages. They did not really know what to do, needed to find some numbers, I filled two copies of same common blanked that is everywhere on these countries, only difference on this was that it had colors and everything on one side.

At this point I did not look at the front of the paper and did not think again that why is this paper done when leaving Moldova?

It took an hour to do this customs document for this man. I did not want to think what would happen if there would have been more people on this queue as I was… For citizens of CIS countries this was not required, they just passed to passport check and moved forward.

But eventually this was done as well and I started driving.

It did not take that long until there was a next stop. Now I thought that hey, Ukrainian border.

But all they wanted was to check passport, took out immigrations paper and asked some questions about my guns, drugs etc. etc.

At one point there was a man asking about the country stickers I have on the bike. And he asked where is the Dniester Moldavian Republic sticker? Then it hit me. This was going through THIS and I had not been on the Moldovian exit border…

Ok, no problems, I was still moving forward.

Then came third stop. This was now finally the Ukrainian border. Simple, no issues and fast forward. They just wanted to hear how the bikes sounds like…

Next was 80 km driving to Ukrainian Kiev-Odessa highway. These kilometers were in pretty bad shape, cars were not driving more than 60 km/h, I was passing them by with minimum of 100 km/h… These roads are made for GSA!

Once I got to the highway, some 300 km to Kiev left. One stop between to refuel, had issues with language, lady on the desk did not really understood what I asked. Credit card did not work, I had no Ukrainian money, but euro worked. Only thing was that she put amount as 30 EUR and I got fuel for that. Not full tank. But, I got euros back! Usually on these cases they give local currency back, but not in here.

Rest was easy, just following other cars again so that they would show were the radars are and there were many of those. Without this approach, for sure would have been caught by one of those!

Found hotel easily, parking in front and sun was just about to go down. While I was unpacking the bike, started hearing Finnish talk. There was a group of men from Finland spending their time in Kiev, had been spending last 3 days more or less alcohol related activities and were now about to go out to eat. Was really tempted to go with them… but decided to stick to the hotel. Tomorrow would have been destroyed if I had done that…

Todays driving was 948 km in 13 hours and I spent probably 1½ hours or more on these borders.

After this day total is now 10737 km.

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Caucasus tour–Day #28

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 06:53:00 GMT

Day started early again, quick packing and as I was totally full from yesterdays late dinner, no breakfast at the hotel.

When checking out there started this man at the reception mumbling something and once I got paid, he started dragging me out to the bike and with the bike forward.

Then it hit me: They had been during the night watching the bike that it was so dirty, that it needed a wash! There was other man outside washing cars so he took me there with the bike and immediately he started getting the insects out (there was plenty of those from last evenings ride!).

Bike did not come totally clean, but better as all the mud went pretty much away so now it is better looking when coming back to Europe.

After wash, refuel and 1L of juice down the throat as breakfast.

I had reserved a hotel from Bucharest, which was some 1150 km away from Tosya.

Driving felt good again, was a bit late due to this washing operation.

After driving a while I started thinking how lucky I was last night that I stopped at this hotel. Road just got worse, more road works and rest of the road that was still left would have been really horrible to drive during the dark hours! Good decision.

After some 170 km I came to the Ankara-Istanbul highway, drove thorough the toll gates as I did not have the card to pay and there was nobody to sell those!

After some 300 km, quick stop to drink on the way to Istanbul and just before Istanbul refuel again.

On the way I saw at least dozen of GSA’s in groups of 2-3 bikes going towards Ankara. What a good bike!

300 km later I was in Istanbul and by the toll gates wondering what to do now! Still no card, but here was a bank to purchase ones, so started looking at those option. Soon there was a man asking do I have an problem and I said that I needed a card to get through. He was some sort of manager of the place and got other man to fix me a card. Minimum for the card was 50TL, as I had no Turkish money left, paid 25 EUR for the card.

Back to the road.

Three accidents on the road around Turkey blocked the traffic quite nicely, but I just drove behind some local scooter and went through quite nicely. No need to stop even once!

After Istanbul again excellent highway driving with speed of 150 km/h. Official speed for the motorcycle would have been 100 km/h (for cars, 120km/h)…

At the border there was some queue on Turkish side and I happened the pick the lane where there was trainee and it took ages to get through.

Finally managed to get pass him and to the Bulgarian side. Here I got to the head of the queue again and needed to open the bags again, this I think was the second or third time. He only wanted to check that I’m not carrying any human’s in the bags! So no need to empty those, just open. GSA’s side bags are so big that a child can fit those, right? Man at the border was talking perfect English and made jokes on the Bulgarian highways, that they took 300MEUR to build the road, but forgot to build it… and that to find my way to Bucharest, just follow the bad road…

Next stop after this was the road tax booth. After waiting there few minutes, lady at the booth started waving at me and I went ahead of the queue again. Once I got there and asked what it was, she said that no tax for the bike! Ok, fine, to the road again.

Funny thing is, that before this I have had to pay the tax twice when I have been in Bulgaria… Go figure…

On Bulgaria started perfect small little road. I had no issues with that after driving highways for hundreds of kilometers. Road was in quite good shape and I could easily keep up 100 km/h.

I had minor issue with fuel, it looked that I was about to run out of it so I had been looking a place to get more now for 100 km or so. In these small villages that I was driving through there were not really places to get fuel with credit card. But then there came one bigger village Nova Zagora so I just put Zumo to find gas station and hoped that it was big enough to work with credit card. And it did. Needed only 30L so I still had good reserve…

This route from Edirne border crossing was one of the best 260 km to Veliko Turnovo I had driven this trip. After that I got a bit bigger. From there I also got my new driver in front of me, Romanian car which obviously had been here before and new the road and where the police was with the radar. Outside of these areas, 120- 140 km/h and when police was at sight, nice 50 km/h!

Bulgaria-Romanian border is by the river and over the river there is the Danube bridge. When I got there, I saw huge traffic jam. At the same time there was also one Romanian couple with Kawasaki and I just glued into their tail and followed through the cars them to the front of the queue.

It turned out that bridge had only one lane open, other one was under repairs. We waited and chatted there for probably ½ hour, he said that he had met me year ago in Romania or Bulgaria as well, but hey, can’t remember everybody… All knows monkey, but monkey knows nobody…

When bridge was cleared, I drove first and on the Romanian side the border crossing was really easy, no need to stop the bike! And there is still the passport & customs in place…

In Romania it looks likes dogs are a bit more stupid than in Turkey and other places, I saw at least 6 dogs that had been hit by a car on the way to Bucharest. And that was only some 60 km away!

Hotel was a mess to find, Zumo guided me to right neighborhood, but it had a bit old map as it was trying to force me to drive one way lanes… So took a while until I found how to get to the hotel that was on my sight…

But eventually I did.

Todays riding was 1143 km in 14 hours, including two border crossings.

Total for the trip is now 9789 km.

As seen on the map, I’m starting to move towards east again… Next is Moldova, Ukraine and Russia. Home is getting closer and closer, only some 3000 km to go!

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Category: Motorcycle

Category: Travel

Caucasus Tour–Day #27

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:15:00 GMT

This would be the day that I would enter Abkhazia!

Could not sleep well, room was all too hot and no cooling on it. It had a fan, but did not really work and yes, I did try that.

07:00 I had bike packed again and started driving towards Ingus River Abkhazian border crossing.

On the way stopped on one mini market to buy more water as I still had some Georgian money and continued.

Georgian side of the border, no issues either. They did a bit wonder what am I again doing in there, but no real issues with it.

Abkhazian side, language border was there again. Same man that yesterday denied access looked at me and the papers and pointed at me and Sukhumi direction and then he pointed the bike and crossed his hands. Couple of these made it quite clear that I could enter, but bike not!

Very interesting.

As it was very early, I just gave up and decided to go back to wait for 1½ so that Abkhazian Foreign Ministry opens so that I can give them a call and ask what this now is.

Waited, waited and I was the amusement of locals on the Georgian side of the border, everybody was coming and talking something, asking how much is the bike etc. etc. so time went fast.

At 9:30 started calling the ministry, but all I got back was some Abkhazian language which I did not understand at all. After couple of retries I handed over the phone to one of these locals and asked what this is and he answered something that I meant that number is not accessible.

Hmm – decided to give Sakke a call and ask if he could try as well, but he just got ‘Network Error’. So looked like no calls were getting through to Sukhumi!

Some ½ hour later I decided just to quit and started Plan B. Drive around Black Sea via Istanbul.

Was really disappointed.

Driving was not good, could not really concentrate. First 200 km to Turkey border was really a pain.

Border crossing was simple, 5 minutes operation. Just went to the front of the queue again and straight through.

After driving some 50 km on Turkish side, made a stop for drink and to think. After that things got a bit better, 100 km later made another stop to refuel, drink some Ice Tea and was my head and hands.

That was the final trick. After that everything was good again and I got to the mood that yes, I will do this and just drive around. First stop for a night in Istanbul which was some 1500 km away from Abkhazia border crossing.

Driving, driving, not much else. Stopped second time to refuel and once more to drink. It was hot, over 30 degrees, even when the night came.

After driving hour or so in the dark I was ready to find a hotel. Driving in dark is not that much of a joy, roadwork's were still all over the place which made it even more interesting…

Mostly road was in excellent condition, some police radars on the way, but I used locals to drive in front of of me again and as they seemed to know these places no issues with police today.

9.30 pm I finally managed to find a decent hotel in a city called Tosya, a bit pricey but ok.

Quick shower and food. It turned out that in the hotel there was a wedding, so they brought the food into my room. Not bad.

Driving for this day was 937 km in 15 hours, which included 3 hours that I was standing and waiting at the Abkhazian border.

Total driving after this day is now 8646 km.

Sorry, no pictures from today.

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Caucasus Tour–Day #26

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:53:58 GMT

Finally got to sleep, no noise coming from neighbors and air-conditioning was making sure that temperature was ok whole night.

Yesterday I was a bit wondering about this Yevlakh or Azerbaijan way of drinking beer: together with beer they took cheese, some sort of smoked cheese, quite salty but good. Had a hard time to keep beer level to two only…

So, wakeup again 6:30 local time, breakfast at 07:00 and then starts packing again and bike started ~7:40.

Note where the bike was parked for the night! Those were the ones they were using last evening…

During the night I had made decision not to go to Baku, although these two guys were really pointing the way to me.

BTW in Baku you don’t have to go to school to get drivers license, you can just buy one!

I had set my target to drive through northern border crossing, Postbina (Balakan-Lagodekhi) and started driving towards that.

Last night I had discussions around this with two locals and their thought was that this route is very bad, jumpy etc. etc. So I thought that yes, this route is exactly for me, no more that boring straight line driving with good paved road.

It turned out to be just perfect for my GSA, I could easily keep 100-110 km/h and nobody was passing me, except when going through towns. There I slowed to normal speeds again.

On the way I made only one real stop to buy some water and as before USD has good power in this country. After asking twice, I could by water with USD, so managed to get by Azerbaijan without exchanging any money!

Water stop and my new best friend who insisted on coming to the picture as well!

And once my GPS did not have very accurate, just in case when I was not sure of the direction, just stopped and asked where to go. I had notes again from the route, so easy to point out where do I want to go.

Yevlakh to Postbina border crossing was 180 km driving which I managed to get by in less than three hours, including stops and once waiting two trains to pass some 15 minutes.

Border crossing was to best this far, there was no queue – or there was, but I just happened to get to the front of the queue. Border crossing was under reconstruction, new one was not yet finished and old had some road work. Both border crossing were really easy. On Georgian side they were a bit wondering why I’m coming in for the third time in three days…

After entering Georgia I started looking at possibility to either get some local currency or buy gas with credit card. Turned out that after driving some 50 km there was one station that accepted card, so full tank and on the way again.

Note to me: They did have some issue with the credit card reader, so I need to check that they did not double charge me on this time!

Road was in perfect condition until Akhmeta, this is when normal people would have selected the easy route towards Tbilisi, but I was determined not to go to Tbilisi and instead just go over the mountains again!

And yes, this was fun move. Again unpaved roads tens of kilometers, full of rocks, sand and cars. Really enjoyed again! Almost dropped bike once, but managed to get hold of it just on time so no damages this time…

Short stop to drink and take pictures after I came down from the mountains. And to fix bike again, right side plex holder had gotten loose and I needed to tighten it. Second fix for the bike on this trip!

But once I got down from the mountains, highway opened again. From Tbilisi there is two lane almost like a motorway, half done but in good condition so speed was there again. Towards Kutaisi there was mountains again and road was full of turns, ups and downs and that slowed me down again.

When approaching Kutaisi I started calculating again, clock was not that much so why not to drive directly to Sukhumi? According to Lonely Planet book there was no really good hotels in Kutaisi and I hate nowadays these B&B places, no quiet moment to sleep on them! Hotel is usually much better option when you want really to sleep.

So, towards Sukhumi I go after refueling in Kutaisi. Now I would have enough fuel.

Last 200 km it had tried to start raining all the time, few drops every now and then but still, no real rain. Road was sometimes wet so it had rained earlier, but lucky for me, not when I was there!

At Georgian/Abkhazian border, Georgian side was plain simple police taking a note on who I was and how long I was planning to be at Sukhumi. And forward.

When going towards Abkhazian side, road was in really bad condition and there were also soldiers watching who was passing there. And when I got there, mess was waiting.

Nobody was talking a bit English and I have still not learned any Russian! No idea what was the reason, but they denied me from entering Abkhazia and as it was quite late already, decided that I will surrender and go back to Zugdidi and find a hotel for a night.

So now I have thought it over and tomorrow is a new day and I will retry to enter Abkhazia very early with hopefully better luck! If still no luck, I start just driving via Turkey back to Finland!

So, todays journey was quite full and long, 725 km in 13 hours.

After today, total is now 7710 km.

Now some sleep and tomorrow new try with Abkhazia!

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Caucasus Tour–Day #25

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:33:00 GMT

Night was quite restless on this B&B in Dilizhan, there were lots of people still up until 1 am and noise was accordingly… Could not sleep and next driving day was already running through my head. It seems to be an issue now to get into sleeping mode from driving mode, no way to get speed stopped on me!

At 6:30 alarm went off and I started packing and carrying stuff to the bike. I also noticed that it was raining quite heavily and thought I take rain gears and put them on when leaving.

Breakfast was all ok, some sausage, fried egg, bread & usual stuff.

During breakfast it looked like rain had stopped, I decided to put rain gears still on, just in case.

Well, did not take long after I left when sun was shining again from blue sky, so first stop was just after few kilometers.

Driving through Armenia was really an amazing experience. Views were just breathtaking, I really enjoyed full 130 km to the Georgian border!

Made a stop just before the border to spend last Armenian money on fuel, but could not spend all of it…

Once on the border, everything went smoothly, did not really spend any time on it. On Georgian side they decided to ask my drivers license, EU version did just fine, no need to show my international ones which I still had from last year with me.

Drove some 40 km on Georgian side, as I had planned the route on my memory, tried to take a shortcut, but first one ended up on the river bank and I had to turn back. On next crossing I asked from local man advice and it seemed that I was on the right track on that one.

In the correct crossing there was actually quite new gas station and police station, if I remember correctly.

This shortcut was partly in terrible condition, and the road that is visible in above was under construction with almost done, so that part was really fast to drive!

Georgian border was again no brainer, I ended up in front of everybody and went through in 10 minutes.

Azerbaijan side was another story. Unbelievable hassle all around, no queue and they had this amazing 2-3 booth system: You handle passport on one man, he asks some questions like how old bike was, then he handed over the passport to other man inside same booth, but on separate window. This man does again something and once done, he again asks to sign very familiar looking Russian custom document with all same stuff. Only difference really is that I needed only to sign this one, they did all the other stuff.

Once this was done, I needed to pay some 30 USD for something, if I understood correctly it was for some sort of transit permit for motorcycle or insurance. God knows.

After paying this 30 USD, I was handed out passport and the documents with stamps and all and I thought ok, now I’m ready and started walking towards the bike. At this point the border police (he called him self ‘Meine neu bäste freundin’ – hopefully not…) and took the passport and other papers and handed over them into the 3rd booth.

Again this man was doing something, took ages and then he shouted me and gave the papers back. No idea what that was.

Border too still only 1 hour, which I think

Anyhow, now I had cleared me into Azerbaijan and started driving towards Yevlakh, which was going to be my next stop.

Started slowly, road was in excellent shape and once I got a bit further there was lots of road works, they were building new two lane highway, probably all the way to Baku.

During one of these I happened to bypass a car in round about from wrong side and of course at this point there was a police patrol in watch. So they waved me to stop and asked for my drivers license. There was also another man with them and they had really heated conversations with him, so at one point this policeman just gave my drivers license back and waved me to continue! Go figure, they still continued this debate over whatever, could not care less!

Somehow when I stopped, there was also some other people stopping as well, so sometimes I just used them to take a picture over me…

This was the above picture takers car, some restaurant owner at Ganca, he invited me to eat n there, but it was a bit too early for me. Should have stayed in Ganca as originally planned for this to work better.

In Ganca I had some detours, some once I had set my mind that hey, Azerbaijan has done a very good job with road signs so clearly marked, road somehow vanished.

But quite soon I found the road again and rest was easy riding. 225 km from border to Yevlakh.

At Yevlakh I started chasing hotel, but found none by driving so next stop was to ask locals. First stop brought results, one guy with Lada started driving me towards a hotel. Once we got there, it was closed… so to the next one which was fine, got bike inside the hotel, price was reasonable 25 USD (yes, no need to change money) and dinner 10 USD. Room had also air-conditioning which was pure plus. Hotel is at GPS location N40 37.095 E47 08.023.

I got to the internet first time on the managers room, second time from two locals who were working for one Finnish company and had an office there as well so they let me use that as well.

Good service!

Todays driving was total of 401 km in 9 hours, including two border crossings.

This brings to total of 6985 km for this trip.

Tomorrow is wake-up at 6:30 am, breakfast at 07:00 am and then starts driving again!

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On The Road Update 19.7.2011

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:36:00 GMT

Jee, it is raining! Start of Todays journey in hour or so once I get breakfast which was agreed 7...

19.7.2011 4:36:37

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Caucasus Tour–Day #24

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:38:00 GMT

This day started with alarm ringing at 6:00. Yesterday evening I was way too tired so started writing yesterday blog post in the morning…

At 7:00 everything was packed and I was about to do checkout from the hotel. Had to wake up the receptionist, he was coming for the payment in his panties… I believe I was the only guest in the hotel… I guess no breakfast for this morning as cook was not there…

Got paid and started packing the bike when it started raining. While I took the rain gear out and was about the receptionist came as well and started dragging me straight to the kitchen. He offered me tea with lots of honey and break also served together with honey! Ok, got breakfast after all… While eating all this, rain had stopped so packed rain gear in again and left the hotel.

When driving out from Akhalkalaki I looked at gas station that they had Visa and MasterCard logos on them. Drove into one of them and started asking how about getting tank full with Visa, but answer was not with my Visa! It needed to be some local banks Visa to work… So instead of that I just spent my last Georgian laris – all 10 of hose – and got 4.44L of gas.

And started driving towards Yerevan.

After I had driven few kilometers, it hit me: while packing and rain and tea distracted me, I forgot to tie down right side top case! Reached to it and it was not there anymore! So quick turn around and after one kilometer I saw it on the side of the road, what a luck! Nobody had even driven over it…

Note to me: always tie down everything outside of aluminum panniers. I had tied down my shoes, they smelled really bad to be put inside anything anymore, but forgot the other case…

So, towards Armenia again.

On Georgian side of the border I stood few minutes in queue of few cars until border police came and said to me to get into front and into the border zone. Lucky me.

Quick check of the passport and bike papers and I was out from Georgia.

On Armenia side again queue for few cards, again I was waved to the front of the queue. After looking into my passport without Armenian Visa border guy was asking for it, I was simply saying I’m Finnish citizen and should be getting the Visa from the border, he showed me to the Visa guys.

Filled in paper for Visa with my details and that was that. Charge was 3000 local, which I did not have and ATM by the border was not working they pointed me 100 meters towards village with exchange for money. Quick run for it and exchanged some 40 USD and got 14680 local. Back to Visa guys and I got back the passport with Visa in it.

Next stop was again the passport check, no issues on that anymore.

After passport check there was again this weird health examination. They took my passport, wrote something from it and asked where I’m going to stay. Answered Hotel Yerevan and that was that.

I was in Armenia!

My plan was to drive directly to Yerevan and then see how far I would be at that point. In Leninakan I was somehow reading Zumo weirdly and took almost wrong road to Yerevan. Not the one I was planned, but after asking from dozen of people during the next 25 kilometers “Yerevan and pointed forward” and when all of them just said “Da” I thought I was still on the correct route!

It turned out to be road to Yerevan, but took a bit longer but probably better road as the planned alternative. Suited me well.

Once in Yerevan, quick stop for money.

And refuel just in case.

As things started looking good and I found quickly my self out from Yerevan and into correct road (two lane highway towards Sevan) I started doing calculations. Around Lake Sevan was ~300 kilometers and as I had time, why not go around it as well?

This was perfect choice, road was in good or excellent condition all the way except for few kilometers with really bad parts, but I was well on schedule.

Quick stop for water purchase:

Right after water I noticed that SPOT was no longer blinking. So time for battery change. Wonder how long it was out?

I reached my target town Dilizhan ~18:00 and once I was on the town center asking for directions to hotel, there was a man running towards me and asking in good English if I need an good B&B hotel? Of course I needed and as it was just one km away and equipped with garage, all was set.

This hotel turned out to be listed in Lonely Planed book as well, Magnit B&B. Room with dinner & breakfast was 16000 local which is ~30EUR. Not cheap, but close enough for my budget.

Roads are in pretty good shape, expect for areas around villages. It seems as if somebody else is taking care of the roads between villages. Road signs to villages are almost missing or is they are, they are not there when you would need them. Best would be to prepare yourself with a good updated map (our map is with Harri… so I’m going with Zumo only…).

When driving around lake Sevan, I could mostly keep 100 km/h, local drivers not so I did not need to check if somebody is passing by me! Road is just excellent for GSA which is THE bike for this type of area.

Everything is now set, early start again tomorrow morning.

Todays driving was 532 km in 9 hours.

Total for trip is now 6582 kilometers.

Now just need to plan for next couple of days, I’m now ahead of original plan for two days.

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On The Road Update 18.7.2011

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:01:00 GMT

After hard day riding some 500 km arrived at Dilizhan and got to hotel - which does not have Wi-fi...

18.7.2011 17:01:46

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Caucasus Tour–Day #23

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 23:19:00 GMT

Day started at 6:00 – or actually a bit earlier as could not sleep that well… still yesterdays driving was still a bit too high in my mind… Quick breakfast, getting bikes out from garage to the front of the hotel, packing and everything was ready again.

Italians left just few minutes earlier, but I could not catch them anymore… guess they are riding much faster than I…

First leg was to get to the border, some 322 km riding. Did not really stop on the way, I almost did to refuel before the border, but no gas station suitable by the road. All gas stations were in the village next the main road and entrance to that was on the road going to the side. So, thumbs up that I either get money on the border or credit card works…

At the border I spent only some 20 minutes, some queuing but everything went very smoothly. Just normal border stuff, no filling up papers, just checking passport and bike papers.

So then I was on Georgian side.

First thing was to find place to get more fuel and after looking some stations, here at Batumi all major credit cards worked at the station, so no issues on that.

Quick refuel and continue towards Akhalkalaki. Found road pretty easily, Zumo had basic bigger roads at some level so reading road signs and following that brought me to the correct place at Batumi.

At first road was really excellent. First 50 km or so was newly done nice road going by the river banks, everything looked too nice.

I did have the helmet camera on, but videos follow as soon as I get home to faster computer and network connection.

Edit 8.8.2011: Video found in here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRJ6evwix5Q

During this first part all issues I had was animals on the road. Lots of cows and dogs that were just walking or standing on the road.

And then it all begun. Road turned into something that was not actually road for the next 100 km, but muddy, full of big rocks, holes and water crossings (reminds me Tajikistan last year… but this was even worse). So this turned into sports exercise for me… but then again, this was all expected and was what I was hoping to get.

This stop was on the highest point at some 2000 meters. After this it started going down to one kilometer.

Stop in Akhaltsikhe to get some local currency, ice cream, more water (had consumed some of that during the last 100 km) and confirm that I was going into right direction as Zumo had lost the track again.

On this ATM it was possible to withdraw in dollars as well! I chose Lari’s.

Last 50 km was again best road ever, newly done and I got the speed up again before arriving in Akhalkalaki which was ~220 km from Batumi.

When driving into Akhalkalaki I saw road signs to Turkey, did not even check in advance but it looks like there is a border crossing nearby as well.

After driving around couple of times, I found probably the only hotel in town and it had also parking behind the hotel in locked place.

Hotel was quite recently done (or redone), but all in so Russian style…

City itself is pretty dread, hard to imagine how people get by in here.

After walking around sometime went back to hotel, quick dinner in there as there was not other decent place open at the city and I was ready for a sleep.

Note for the future: Don’t put sweaty shoes inside plastic bag for a day or two, smell is starting to be irritating!

Todays driving was 567 km in 10 hours. From Batumi to Akhalkalaki it took 6 hours almost constant driving.

Total mileage now 6052 km for this trip.

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On The Road Update 17.7.2011

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:09:34 GMT

Now in Georgia, visa works for fuel in here!

17.7.2011 12:09:34

This is biker heaven, roads are excellent and the views! Time to enjoy!

17.7.2011 13:10:08

Last 50 and coming 50 km have been real adventure riding! And have not used much other than first and second gear ...

17.7.2011 15:01:01

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Caucasus Tour–Day #22

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 23:49:00 GMT

Day started early, alarm went off at 5:30 am. Quick packing and engine was running 6:20 am and long way towards Black Sea was ahead.

Plan was to ride from Antalya to Samsun or even further depending how everything goes.

I had not really checked the route in advance, had just put Samsun as target into Zumo and that’s it.

When approaching Egirdir where I had been year before, I started looking closer the route and decided that Zumo can go where it wants, I will follow the signs towards Ankara. It started selecting some really weird routes which I was not so keen on taking right now… but good thing in Turkey is that all road signs are really clearly marked so Ankara signs started already in Antalya and once I got into Ankara, signs to Samsun started! Could not be better.

Roads were all the way either good or in excellent condition, some road works, not too much.

First leg I did was ~515 km without a stop, just before Ankara. Quick stop to drink and refuel bike and on the road again.

Second stop came a bit earlier as it started showing some signs of rain so decided to put rain suite on after some 200 km riding. Of course, this was just a short shower and then it stopped… Did not bother to stop earlier so next stop was to refuel again, this time tank lasted ~490 km.

Took of also rain suite as rain seemed to go always some hundred kilometer ahead, which was good for me.

After Samsun I had set target to drive to Trabzon, but as the road through coastal cities was a bit slow, I decided to stop at Giresun, Zumo found a hotel from there so I was sold.

Hotel had also garage just around the corner and while parking I noticed two other bikes in there, from Italia. There was a couple staying at this same hotel.

Their plan was to head towards Iran, interesting to hear how this goes! Had also late dinner with them.

So, todays driving in total was 1184 km in 14 hours:

All in all total for this trip is now 5485 km:

Tomorrow at minimum I should be in Georgia, hopefully quite close to Armenian border. Plan is to get some more speed and leave resting days behind and concentrate on driving!

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On The Road Update 16.7.2011

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 12:19:33 GMT

Todays first leg 513km in 5.5 hours non stop. Minimum of 468 km to go. Stopped to water me and refuel the bike. Driving is good!

16.7.2011 12:19:33

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