The Story Of The Russian Immigration Police

My newest article in my Chasing Summer series is out, and it is the aforepromised article on our encounter with the Russian immigration police. Enjoy it!

 

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The Story Of The Russian Immigration Police

My newest article in my Chasing Summer series is out, and it is the aforepromised article on our encounter with the Russian immigration police. Enjoy it!

 

Posted via email from Unleash Your Adventure

Beer In Samara

Our days were spent in the fair city of Samara enjoying the use of free wi fi at the hostel. With the temperature hovering at 40 degrees Celsius (sometimes 38, but sometimes 42), even without our full gear I was afraid of doing a witch of the west impression. Add to that that we had also been almost a full week without Internet, and staying inside and having an internet day was not the worse of fates for us. ;-)

 

The early evening however, when everything cooled down, meant that we could venture about in comfort and enjoy strolling along the Volga river,

 

appreciating the church (which overlooked the parking lot where our bikes were parked)

and we could cool off with beer! Beer that was purchased at one Euro per liter, and was injected straight into our 5 liter bottle that awaited it, allowing the beer to complete the bottles reason for existing:

 

 

And making someone else incredibly happy as well:

I never saw him that happy again until his girlfriend arrived in Novosibirsk!

 

Me, I fell in love with the salty stringy cheese, that the German is seen above enjoying, that at first he had to push down my throat, me the entire time screaming about how disgusting it looked (and the fact it was just hanging there in the stall did not go far to endeavoring its case). One taste however and I became a cheese fiend!  Going so far as to snap at fingers that tried to pull a stringy piece of love off for themselves!

 

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JK Hostel In Samara, Just The Coolest Hostel Ever

Our ride into Samara was not planned. We had thought it would be better to stay at a pension or the like in the town prior to it, as we hoped to be able to avoid the traffic of another major Russian city. But the people of the town laughed at us when we asked for Internet. (Literally, we asked like 10 people, 3 ran away shaking their heads, 2 looked horrified at the prospect, and the other half laughed). Even the nice guys who gave us tea leaves they had just collected in the part, (insisting a little too adamantly that we were not to smoke them, just drink them) told us that if we needed internet we were to go to Samara.

Tea leaf family:

The traffic was as bad as anticipated, worse in fact. I wanted to grab a picture of the city sign for my friend Samara, but I valued my life a little too highly to stop. I also discovered I had no idea how to work Russian roundabouts, and the fact that Russians also have no idea how the round abouts worked did little to put my mind at ease over my inadequacy.

 

A quick search at an Internet cafe turned up JK Hostel, the one and only hostel in the city. They also had Internet, it was good enough for us. Turned out to be one of our best discoveries in Russia.

 

We pulled up in front of the door (a rather scary looking door in all honesty, that promised nothing good inside) to be greeted with a cry of “ Are you a friend of Peter??? Will you be staying with us?” Turns out that there was a Dutch biker staying there, and the overlap was pure coincidence. But what Peter had discovered and we were about too was Samara's best kept secret.

 

Through the dodgey door and up the creepy stairs led to a hostel of absolute luxury. Everything was brand new, the dining room and kitchen amazing and the bathroom had a shower that I did not want to come out from.

Not your normal hostel shower:

Dining room:

But perhaps the best part were the owners themselves. A wealth of information on where to find the best beer (next post), and best restaurants in town, rather than feeling like we were paying guests I felt like we were staying with friends, except friends who did not mind when you spent the entire day on the Internet.

 

Creepy door but coolest hostel owners ever:

 

 

If you are in Samara, with or without your bike, I can not recommend this place highly enough! And they are biker friendly!!!

 

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