Zarubina-Korea

Can't deny it was a bit chaotic trying to get on a boat to South Korea. First of all the ferry company staff only speaks Russian or Korean. Second point is that Customs has made all kind of funny rules – which aren't really that funny - in order to limit imports of used cars from Korea.


But, just like people in the Bible Belt insist, Jesus is The Savior. Even before the peak of our Serial Partying he had kind of gotten tired of us. And he knew who'd be suffering most if we didn't get out of there soon, but he actually was a quite helpful man to begin with. He called around and found out that our boat would make landfall in Zarubina just 170 miles south of Valdivostok, and that paperwork involving motorcycles going through there was not only a lot cheaper, but it also would take 4 hours rather than 4 days.


After the Holligong havoc had subsided, we went southeast towards Zarubina to get on the boat. Or so we thought. At check-in they had decided to stay in Vlad for another 24 hours, so we were sent back. Apparently the weather was too bad for the ship to enter Z.


Next day we try boarding again, but first we wanted to get 2 loaves of bread, majones, sausages, 2 quarts of cola and some pickles. Sounds easy, but in front of us in the queue is the drunkest drunkard I've seen for the last week (including, presumably, your mirror image). He takes his sweet time, hugs us when realizing we're Norwgian, and eventually gets aggressive and threatening because we are about to leave and shop elsewhere. We end up having to let him do our shopping, and leave the store with a gallon of beer, 2 ½ gallons of lemonade, a quart of brandy, 2 lbs. of crackers, 2 lbs. of cheese, 8 cucumbers and 2 lbs. of sausages. All in all four shopping bags of groceries.


When we were about to leave the drunkard gave us 3,000 roubles because we allowed him to pay for our food. Then his buddy showed up, locked him into the back of a van and took him away.


Getting through customs was easy, and 4-5 hours later we were on the boat. The trip on the sea went fine too, we had plenty of food and spent the evening with some cool Russians, doing it Russian style for the last time around. Sailing south along the coast of North Korea we could have practically walked to whole way, so many NK patrol boats were there, all lighted up and preventing people from entering Kim Jon Il's paradise.

Entering South Korea was a culture shock; in half an hour we had passed more traffic lights than in the past 6,000 miles. After a while we gave up on them, and feigned color blindness. We just rode through the intersections if the road was clear, and this worked fine.


From the harbor of Sokchon, where we entered, to Busan were about 300 miles, which equalled two days of riding, us having arrived in the late afternoon. As chance would have it, when it was time to camp for the night we came by SK's largest HOG (Harley Owner's Group) rally. We spent the evening nearby, and went to the rally next morning.


And never have I seen a more impressive collection of H-D stuff; H-D sunglasses, H-D boots, H-D toilet paper, H-D fringes etc. – just get a Webster's Dictionary, filter out everything but the nouns, put an 'H-D' in front of them and you'd have a list of what was on sale here. There were even H-D motorcycles! Just like the music business ought to give up on actually producing music, and just sue the living daylights out of anybody who downloads stuff illegally, H-D should just quit building bikes and concentrate on the gadgets. Seems to me most of the diciples go for that anyway.


BTW, we didn't see so much as an empty beer can at the rally, and concluded that we didn't really fit in. So after talking to some nice Koreans and Japanese, and snapping some pictures, we headed for Busan. Busan is the largest harbor city of Korea, with 4 million inhabitants, of which a few dozen speak English. So shipping the bikes off from here should be a snap.


Nice theory.



Det kan ikke benektes at det var mye kaos for å komme seg på en båt til Korea. For det første snakket fergeselskapene utelukkende russisk eller koreansk. For det andre har myndighetene visstnok laget endel morsomme regler, som forøvrig ikke finnes morsomme, for tollen i Vladivostok med hensikt å begrense import av bruktbiler fra Japan.

Redningen var imidlertid Jesus. Allerede før de verste hålligångene begynnte han å bli litt lei oss. Jeg tror han luktet hva som ventet om vi kom oss videre snart, dessuten var han faktisk en hjelpsom mann. Han ringte rundt og fant ut at båten fra Vladivostok også mellomlandet i Zarubina, 25 mil sørøst for Vladivostok, ved den Nord Koreanske grensen. Her var det mindre krav til stykklister, det var billigere tolldeklarasjon og prosessen tar bare 4 timer i motsetning til Vladivostok som tar fire dager.

Etter hålliångene hadde lagt seg satte vi kursen sørvesttil Zarubina og tok en stille kveld. Innsjekking var tolv dagen etter, men båten lå allerede til kai. Da vi møtte opp dagen etter ble vi sendt rett hjem, de hadde bestemt seg for å ligge på været et døgn. Været var nok egentlig ikke så ille i Korea, men det faktum at båten var så dyr å ta var kompensert med at båten var ganske sjaber så den tålte faktisk ikke så mye sjø.

Neste dag er det klart for nytt forsøk. Rett før havna stopper vi for å proviantere til sjøreisen. Handlelista er enkel; To brød, majones, russiske pølser, to liter cola og 4 agurker. Gjennomføringen ble ikke så enkel som handlelista. Foran oss i køen står det fulleste menneske jeg har sett den siste uka. Han bruker år og dag på å kjøpe alt mulig han ikke engang skjønner han handler.

Litt etterhvert ser han oss og begynner å snakke til oss. Da han skjønner vi er norske gir han oss en klem og fortsetter å handle. Etterhvert gir vi opp og er tur tur ut for å finne et annet sted å handle. Da blir han agressiv og begynner å handle for oss. Da vi forsøker å si nei blir vi truet med juling om han ikke får handle inn for oss. Da han er fedig har vi 4 liter øl, 10 liter limonade, en liter brandy, en kilo kjeks, to brød, en kilo ost, 8 agurker, og en kilo pølser. Det hele fyllte fire bæreposer. Da vi skulle reise ga han oss 3000 rubler som takk for at han hadde fått spandere mat. Så kom kameraten hans og låste han inne i varerommet på bilen sin, og kjørte han bort.
Tolldeklareringen gikk greit, og vi var på båten i løpet av 4-5 timer. Reisen gikk også fint, vi hadde nok proviant og møtte noen hyggelige russere som vi slo ihjel kvelden med, på russisk vis for siste gang. Vi seilte langs Nord Korea nedover, men vi kunne like godt vandret tørrskodd ned på de nordkoreanske kystvaktbåtene som lå med all belysning tent for å hindre uønsket besøk til Kim Jong Il’s paradis.

Korea ble et kultursjokk. Iløpet av en halv time hadde vi flere lyskryss enn på de foregående 10000 kilometrene. Vi bare ga opp etterhvert og innbillte oss fargeblindhet. Var det klart så kjørte vi, og det fungerte bra.

Fra Sokchon hvor båten la til og ned til Busan er det rundt 45 mil, noe som betyr to dagers kjøring da en ikke får reist før langt utpå ettermiddagen. Tilfeldighetene ville ha det til at da det var på tide å campe kom vi over Koreas største HOG-treff. Vi tok kvelden i nærheten, og reiste innom treffet dagen etter.

Jeg har aldri sett en mer imponerende samling HD effekter. Det var HD solbriller, HD-pusseskinn, HD-boots, HD-dasspapir, HD-frynser fra flere bølinger bøfler, HD chromepolish og *ta en Oxford-ordbok og filtrer ut substantivene og legg til HD foran så har du en liste over HD-tingene man kunne få kjøpt og folk hadde på seg*. Det var til og med Harley Davidson motorsykler der! På samme måte som at jeg mener musikkbransjen burde slutte å lage musikk og heller tjene penger på å sakesøke folk som laster ned ulovlig, kanskje HD burde droppe motorsykler og heller satse på effekter. Det kan virke som effektene er hovedinteressen til mange i menigheten uansett.

Vi så forøvrig ikke en gang en ølkork på bakken fra kvelden før og trakk konklusjonen at vi ikke passet inn, så etter at vi hadde tatt litt bilder og snakket med endel hyggelige koreanere og japanere dro vi til Busan. Byen er koreas største havneby, og huser snaut fire millioner innbyggere, hvorav over et titalls koreanere snakker engelsk. Å fikse shipping herfra skulle være en smal sak, trodde jeg.

Zarubina is a small village 250 kilometers south-west of Vladivostok. As customs in Vladivostok is a calamity you save about 4 days and 500 dollars on taking the same ferry to Korea from Zarubina compared with Vlad

The infamous, expensive and bad "New Dong Chun Ferry" that transported us. When seeing the standard on the "New" ferry, I wonder how the original was.

Zarubina by night, nice place in Kim Jong Il's backyard

The only vehicles daring to go with the ferry was our Danish bikes, and one forklift from Finland. Vehicles from the cruel north just laugh of fear.

A long ferry ride goes fast with russian friends, these guys were from Kamchatka, the famous bear-hangout in Russian Wild East

Customs finally cleared in Korea

Heil Kim Jong Il!

At HOG Rally in Korea. The most important with bikes for Koreans was that they were either the biggest, or the most expensive. HD was very popular in Korea.

"I had a flat tire just at that spot, of man I was pissed off! It was the fucking darkest moment on the trip"

Find two faults on the HOG Rally picture. Mark the envelope with "Major Error" and send to King Croesus. The first price is a pair of wool socks that was used on the first leg from Norway to Korea and was denied into the US by the homeland security