4th April 2016, 12:03
| #106 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Quote:
Tees 'Hum Dono'  I see lot of fishing rods placed on the Chirpy Bridge? How does it work? You pay and use or you fish and give the fish for frying  | |
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14th April 2016, 09:30
| #107 | |
| BHPian  Join Date: May 2014 Location: Chicago
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Quote:
People drop the hook and then tie the rods down, when they see some movement they pull the hook out and put their catch in the bucket filled with water to keep the fish alive or in a big utensil to see the catch for frying ;-) | |
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14th April 2016, 09:36
| #108 |
| BHPian Join Date: May 2014 Location: Chicago
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Day 25: Istanbul to Trabzon (Turkey) Non-Stop to board Ferry to Sochi (Russia) [Written By Akhil] We tried to wake up early, well we tried. We both still could not digest the fact that we indeed were going to cut short the Turkey stay and will have to reach Trabzon to catch the ferry in time. Whether the ferry will leave tomorrow was still uncertain, but missing the ferry meant we would had to forget about Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan!  Aarti quickly made a list of absolutely "To-Do" things in Istanbul before we started for Trabzon. It wasn't a big list i.e. To visit a Salon and do breakfast in a local restaurant. While she alone was witness to the services offered by the Salon i can vouch for the breakfast, it indeed was great and we did not miss on the dessert (Baklava) and off-course the Turkish tea ;-)  Restaurant was quite close to the hotel, so we got back in, did checkout, moved the stuff into the car, bid good bye to the hotel staff and in no time we were back on the road. By the time we left it was already noon, which essentially meant we would be reaching Trabzon by next day morning only if we drove non-stop for 1000+ KMs.   Istanbul is a crowded place, and that soon hit us as we were trying to enter the Asian side of Turkey. After spending few hours to get out soon we were happily cruising at greater speeds, thanks to the smooth and potholes free roads of Turkey.  I barely saw any cops or speed cameras, even the tolls were unmanned and i could see the amount displayed on the digital screen adding up every time we crossed the booth. Good thing is that we never got those bills ;-) Missing cops/speed cameras, smooth roads, and darkness of the night are good enough ingredients for a passionate rider/driver like yours truly to push that accelerator a little harder (if you know what i mean), and by Shiv's grace we managed to reach Trabzon by 3 AM traveling at the speed of 110 MPH ;-) Aarti had by mistake (yes she makes mistakes) booked the hotel in Trabzon on a wrong date, but the staff at Hotel Novotel was kind enough to accommodate us without a fuss. |
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9th May 2016, 17:47
| #109 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Quote:
Me, running out of patient  | |
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26th May 2016, 10:19
| #110 | |
| BHPian Join Date: May 2014 Location: Chicago
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Quote:
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26th May 2016, 10:36
| #111 |
| BHPian Join Date: May 2014 Location: Chicago
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Day 26: Ferry from Trabzon to Sochi, Russia [Written By Akhil] We woke up praying to Shiv that the ferry does leave today. We were still not sure because we had no tickets, not even sure if there was any ferry leaving today! All we had was on contact whom Aarti was in touch with over the email and an address he gave us to come over once in Trabzon, around 9 AM. There is no point worrying on an empty stomach, so we treated ourselves to the breakfast that Novatel was serving. Moment of truth was finally here i.e. 9 AM, so we put everything in the car and started towards the address we had from the email. It was pretty close to the harbour and 10 minutes drive from the hotel. So, here we were in front of the address which would tell us if the ferry was on schedule or not. Both of us parked the car and walked into the shop, and were greeting by the gentleman who was in touch with us over emails. That gave us some confidence and soon he introduced us to the Captain of the ship as well. All was going well and then he inquired us about who all were traveling and about the car, they told us the fare and it all came down to $400.00 including a cabin for 2 individuals and parking space for the car. However, the Captain was still not sure if the ferry would leave the shore as they would wait for a certain number of passenger before making a decision. So, the ferry leaves every 2 weeks on a Wednesday, and their sales office in Trabzon is located at Alfa Gate (A Gate) of the Port (Google Map URL) Email: info@pirireisshipping.com Contact: Bahadir Mobile: +90 543 894 1461 (International Call) 0543 894 1461 (Domestic Call) Passenger Ticket: $120.00 for Seat & $150.00 for Cabin Car Ticket: $500.00  So, the ferry leaves every 2 weeks on a Wednesday, and their sales office in Sochi at: Sochi-Kiyitour Kurortniy Prospekt St. 50 Htl. Sochi Floo - 3 Telephone: 609702, 620221 Their headoffice is in Athens, Greece: Ruzvelt 18120 Koridalos, Athens, Greece      They told us to come back around noon, we were a little relaxed now and thought of grabbing a quick lunch in a nearby mall and kill some time as well while we were at it. We found a restaurant serving food similar to Subway, i dint like it much but there were not many options so we were just glad that we ate something familiar :-) It was almost noon, so we headed back to the harbour. We parked the car close to the ferry, did final checks in terms of what stuff we needed to keep out and what stuff in the car. Finally we got the news that the Captain has given a go ahead to the scheduled departure, we both were elated. Our journey had been trouble free ever since we left London and we glad that things had been working out, sometimes at the last moment but no complaints as long as it works ;-)  Aarti is the registered owner of the car, so she was asked to park the car inside the ferry. It was not as straight forward as car was supposed to be taken inside in reverse gear :-p  Finally she did it and stared checking out the ferry. I was still out and waiting for to clear the passport control. It was almost evening but we were glad that we dint had to cut short our journey and go back to London. Eventually, all passengers boarded the ferry and ferry left the port. We checked into our cabin which had stacked beds, and it was not bad.   I decided to get some stuff out of the car and was surprised to notice that cars safety alarm was on. I switched it off, took my stuff and came back up. I however, had this intuition and went back to check again and it was on again! My guess is that the alarm was going off because car's sensor was experiencing movement even though the car was locked. So, i disconnected the battery and locked the car as dead battery in the morning was the last thing we would want.    We were carrying some fruit for the journey, so we had some of it, enjoyed the view from our cabin window and decided to sleep off as we were going to dock early in the morning at Sochi port. We were really excited to be in Russia finally :-) Last edited by cooldudesunny : 26th May 2016 at 10:37. |
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5th October 2016, 12:38
| #112 |
| BHPian Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Bangalore
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5th December 2016, 17:58
| #113 |
| BHPian Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Beautiful journey Akhil and lovely presentation, you appear to have had a pretty smooth uninterrupted ride across Europe but the readers of your log have not been so lucky !! Come on man finish the job we all want to know the rest of it.  |
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6th January 2017, 10:32
| #114 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Quote:
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28th January 2017, 11:44
| #115 | |||
| BHPian Join Date: May 2014 Location: Chicago
Posts: 71
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Few days back i realized that its been more than 2 years since we finished the trip but i am still at day 26 here at Team-Bhp! Even my kid turned one last December :-D Thank you for the patience lovely people, one of the resolution this year is to complete the blog. So, lets get to it  | |||
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28th January 2017, 12:13
| #116 |
| BHPian Join Date: May 2014 Location: Chicago
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Day 27: Arrived at Sochi (Winter Olympics) & Unplanned Moscow Visit [Written By Akhil] The ferry from Trabzon was indeed comfortable, atleast i had a sound sleep. When we woke up, the sun had already started to turn the morning sky orange. We had our breakfast i.e. the Bananas we were carrying and were really excited as we were not at all sure if we would be able to get this ferry to begin with! Boarding this ferry essentially meant that atleast now we can complete our journey till India, offcourse subject to everything else working out for us as well :-) We left our cabin and walked towards the ferry deck area, Aarti met her UK friend on the way (another British on board). From the deck Sochi skyline was clearly visible and that also meant we were dot on time. We enjoyed the morning breeze and the sunrise, clicked few photographs and went back to the cabin to wrap up all our stuff from the cabin and set it up in the car. I also had to reconnect the battery which i had disconnected last night because of the alarm. In no time we were at the dock, ship captain finished the formalities and asked us to deboard along with Dhanno. Russian customs were rather welcoming and friendly, they were not too pushy about the insurance as well and instructed us to get one once we are on the road. Here we met Can Gonen, who is a Russian businessman and was returning from the bike trip from Turkey. As per the latest, he and 3 other friends of his are planning a cross country and will be crossing through India as well. He offered me to join them and i would have loved to as i want to do Leh/Ladakh on bike, but that is not going to be a part of their Itinerary as they will be outside the window when the roads are open so i might not. BTW Aarti will be doing their Indian Itinerary and for the connected countries as well. Their trip is being documented by the Turkish TV Channel. We said good bye to the custom officers and Can, entered the address for the hotel into the GPS and we were back on the road. On the way we were also looking out for the directions that custom officer gave us for the insurance office, however with everything in Russian and majority population not speaking/understanding English it was turning out to be quite an ordeal. Android "World Lens" app came to the rescue and we were able to find a bank which had insurance mentioned in the banner outside their office. I walked into the bank but none of us could get to the point, we decided to continue without insurance and take help from the hotel staff once we check in.  Reaching hotel was not difficult, however since we were checking in quite early Aarti had to request them if they would give us the keys! Staff was indeed very helpful and after a wait for 30 odd minutes we were handed over the keys. Once we had the room, hunger started taking control of our bodies. Aarti found some hotel online and we started walking as per the GPS directions, once we arrived at the location all we could see was a deserted place with no clear entrance. Since it was a new place and language was a big issue, we decided to give this location a miss and continued walking in one direction. After walking quite a while, we found a nice looking french restaurant and our hungry bodies walked right in. The waitress was a nice young lady and she spoke english as well which was quite a help in understanding their menu. We ordered our meals and gobbled it quite quickly. We thanked the waitress and came back to the hotel. We were really glad that the ferry happened, and after we had soaked in this feeling an our tummies were full; Aarti was back on her favourite task i.e. planning out the day, what else to eat, what to visit and so on. She checked the prices for return flight to Moscow and was surprised to find out that they were really cheap, we actually looked at each other in disbelief trying to understand why we never had Moscow in our itinerary! She booked the ticket for next day morning and we set out on foot again to find the same place for dinner. This time on exploring a bit we found another entrance which was going to the basement. We followed the stairs and there it was. It had nice ambiance, food was decent too. We sat there for a while, planning how our day in Moscow was going to be and what all we need to cover once we were there. After enjoying the meal we came back to the hotel, asked the receptionist to book a taxi for our ride to the airport, packed our bags and called it a day. Last edited by cooldudesunny : 28th January 2017 at 12:14. |
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29th January 2017, 00:04
| #117 |
| BHPian Join Date: May 2014 Location: Chicago
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Day 28: Flight to Moscow and Exploring this Magnanimous Place [Written By Aarti] Initially we planned 7 days’ road trip in Turkey but due to last minute Turkey-Russia ferry booking, we reached Sochi before our pre-planned date. So, I booked round trip flights to Moscow considering we got 2 extra days in hand. We were lucky to find USD 150.00 round trip tickets online so we booked it and were in Moscow next day. Welcome to Moscow – It is a busy city comparing Sochi which is a very relaxed & laidback city. People are much nicer and friendly in Sochi (wait till you read this). As we stepped out of the Airport and hired Airport taxi, our journey of Russian experiences started. Our Taxi driver was a Tajikistani who asked USD 50.00 approx to the Hotel. Oh man!! What a car ride it was. Seriously we felt as we are in some roller coaster ride from Airport to Hotel, This guy was probably the worst driver I have ever came across. He was not ready to listen to us. He played loud Uzbeki music, kept smoking while driving and was far beyond the speed limit. As soon as he saw the traffic on road, he actually started driving on footpath and believe me, he actually drove on footpath for roughly 15 mins and kept driving till he crossed all the traffic on main road. We were gobsmocked but stayed quiet. And then came the traffic light where he finally pulled his car to the main road. If anyone knows what song it is, please do drop in a comment :-)   As we reached Hotel and as he was taking our stuff out of the car, he suddenly hiked the fare by some odd USD 20.00! We were in no mood to pay extra and conveyed that to him. To be honest we were bit scared too as the whole look and feel of the car including the driver and all the phone calls he made to his friends while driving in his local language where he was mostly yelling, gave us an impression that he may have a gun in his car too. But anyways we told him that we do not want to pay more as we are giving you what we agreed. Some how he agreed and left. Phew!! Finally we were in the Hotel. We booked Courtyard by Marriott, Kazan which was very close to Kremlin hence explored Kremlin all day. We booked cab from Hotel to Saint Basil’s Cathedral and walked around that area. There are endless things to do in Moscow but we only covered Red Square, St Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow Kremlin, Kremlin walls and towers, GUM department store (Exceptional building and the most expensive brands you will get here) and of course, visited Moscow’s Metro which MUST NOT be missed.      While we were roaming round Red Square, i got super excited (as usual) and wanted to do a bunny jump in the air. Well Akhil always challenges me to do my best as i am honestly bad but if you see picture below, even you will agree that i did reasonably well. Isn’t it? Offcourse, that jump did not come easy! If you look closely, you will see my phone popping out of the pocket? Oh yes! I shattered the phone screen. So to put things in perspective, first mobile incident happened in Greece and second in Russia. Akhil was amazed thinking that i was still holding my phone and its neither lost or stolen!   After spending some quality time in Red square, we google searched for Indian restaurant and decided to dine there. We hired a cab and guess what another bad cab experience in Russia was waiting for us. We hired licensed cab and gave him location address. It was nearly 15-20 mins drive from Red Square and we knew it would cost us roughly USD 10-12.00 But as soon as it came to money he started asking for RUB 3500.00! And that was it for me. I was pissed off as I could see every taxi driver is trying to rip tourists in Russia. I asked him why he was not using his taxi meter and he had no answer. He started shouting so we decided to call police. He finally agreed to charge USD 15.00 and left. Gawdd! It was not fun at all but leaving all the bad experiences aside, we enjoyed yummy samosas, chai and fabulous Indian food.     The plan was to enjoy Moscow’s luxury at a leisurely pace but I think I have to accept the fact that Leisure and I don’t go hand in hand many times. When we got back to Hotel, I went to take a nap while Akhil was working from hotel lobby. My mind is always planning what happens now, so i pulled out both of our passports to plan our next country i.e. Kazakhstan. While looking at Akhil's Kazakhstan visa i saw something which neither of us expected. Within 5 minutes, I walked fast towards the lobby holding Akhil's passport. I called him and pointed towards his Kazakhstan visa. I asked him to look at Kazak’s visa expiry date, and you should have seen the colour on his face! His Kazakhstan visa was expiring same day when we were soaking Moscow’s luxury at our leisurely pace. Yes, which means today was the last day we could have been in Kazakhstan! Let me get you guys to understand the gravity of the situation.. We were 1392 kms far from Astrakhan (Kazakhstan border point) while our car was parked in Sochi which was again 1100 kms away from Astrakhan. Wohooo!! You know that goose bump feeling which has little extra stress in it. Thats what i was feeling, and Akhil was literally shitting bricks :-p  It was already 8:00 PM in Moscow and we had no direct flight to Sochi available same night. With no other option we went to sleep hoping to get first flight next day. We knew some serious adventure was awaiting us around the corner! Did Aarti & Akhil reached Kazakhstan border on time? Did Aarti & Akhil completed their journey as planned, or they had to take a detour? Stay tuned for our next blog entry.. ;-) Last edited by cooldudesunny : 29th January 2017 at 00:29. |
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30th January 2017, 12:38
| #118 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: London to Jammu: With a Range Rover Quote:
 , please don't delay further. A nice closure to get me hooked for the next part! | |
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2nd February 2017, 11:29
| #119 |
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3rd February 2017, 13:14
| #120 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Jan 2017 Location: Hyderabad
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