Cont....

It's morning, very needed sleep.



Our hostel is mint, it's right on Nevsky Prospekt - the main drag in st petersburg. Main drag is the right term to we sat by the side of it last night watching the full spectrum of society race their respective forms of transport down the strip. From woman on horseback to kids on the back wheel of their 50cc scooters, to pimps and pushers in hotrod corvettes and ferraris. This place is like the wild west.



I briefly mentioned the insurance in the last post. None of our insurance is valid here at all. In russia it is sensible to buy 3rd party insurance in case you take someone else out on the road - a very distinct possibility. The border people said we could buy it at a petrol station and when we rocked up there 50m from border control, there was indeed a buxom russian insurance sales girl in the lobby. She had no english and my now fluent russian was still a bit rusty yesterday!!! We managed to get to - yes they did insurance, and it was 500 roubles, about 15quid, but they only did it for cars - bugger. We tried plans B and C to no avail, I phoned Rosa in Real Russia's London office and she spoke to buxom russian, but it just confirmed what we already knew - that we were scuppered. But many thanks to Rosa for trying. Then Mike phoned the british embassy, they said that they had had a similar query a couple of days ago, but were ultimetely useless. So we made a pact to be careful and we hit the road.



It also means that our bikes aren't covered for theft. Our hostel has a locked compound. Which is cool but when I asked Alexander whether they had any problems he said 'I don't, but you might'. So we might be coming home on Aeroflot yet!

We're hitting the city today, we have to see the hermitage, some palace and the Church of the Spilled Blood. Although to be fair we walked past that twice last night from a distance so it feels like we have done that to death.

Uri gave us the name of a biker bar we we might try and find later on tonight.

Cheers



Simon

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