Leaving Lithuania…

Leaving Vilnius... The clouds hung low over the city...

The biggest thing on my mind when it came to getting to Warsaw in Poland, was having the Big Fella serviced… Looking after the bike is as important as looking after myself, as without each other, there can be no fulfillment to our dream of taking each other around the world…

Marijampole was where I was heading, but took a longer route to get there to experience more of the countryside...

Perhaps it was my imagination, or perhaps it has been the rainy conditions I have ridden in lately, but I began feeling sluggishness in the acceleration, and a change in the note of the engine…

Maybe knowing that my tyres were on borrowed time has had me riding a lot slower and that is why I am hearing a different sound from the engine…!! The usual growl of power seemed absent, and in its place was a less confident and rougher noise…

Or maybe it was just Big Fella letting me know that he was getting fed up running on old oil… Either way, the message was coming through loud and clear…

Early morning starts haven’t been as smooth as they usually are, and this morning, there was a bit of “throat-clearing” before the Big Fella came to life…!! For a second I thought the battery had died on me, but then the engine turned over and relief flooded through me… It was another reminder that my friend needed a bit of TLC…

Just as I was about to leave the Europa Hotel, Heiner Kranz, a German, working in the legal field, came up and after introducing himself, we got talking about journeys and trips that we had made and were still planning to make… He was very interested in what I was planning over the next few weeks to get myself and the bike to Turkey, and he mentioned that he had taken a large group of lawyers on tour there…

Early morning in the village of Trakai...

When I mentioned that I was going to try riding through the western section of Belarus to get into Poland, he became quite animated…

“No, don’t do it…!! You will not get in under any circumstances…!! I tried a while ago, and on the Polish side they told me to go back, as I was wasting my time… I had to ride over 100 kilometres to the Polish border north of Belarus…! I too was hoping I could cut across a small section of it to shorten the distance into Poland…”

His face had such a look of concern on it, that I knew I would have to take his advice seriously… Sometimes you get the feeling that the people giving you advice are just passing on second or third hand hearsay that they had picked up, but in Heiner’s case, I knew immediately that my plans for a quick, “under the radar” sortie into Belarus were dashed…

He then gave me some details of places that I should rather visit and urged me to ride down into the National Park that straddles the Polish and Belarus borders… “It is really beautiful there, you will enjoy it if you can make the ride…”

The sun came out and shone down on the road leading through heavily forested areas...

We shook hands as his taxi arrived to take him to the airport, and he has subsequently emailed me on a number of occasions to give me further advice and clear up my confusion on the strange statue I had seen in Riga, the one with the Rooster on the cat on the dog on the donkey… It’s about a German fairy tale known as the Bremen Town’s Musicians…

Great meeting you Heiner, and thanks for the information and the advice, much appreciated…!!

The clouds hung low over Vilnius, as I made a slight change to my route, but still planned to ride south through the countryside near the Belarus border, avoiding the main highways as much as I could…

I passed abandoned farmhouses like this one... Evidence that many Lithuanians have given up farming and moved into the towns and cities...

An hour after I had left, I rode out from under the clouds and into bright sunshine… It was still cold enough however for me to keep my rain gear on, and the heated grips on the bike functioning… The well paved road led through a thickly forested area where plenty of warning for deer crossings had me scanning the bush on either side of me in an effort to get a glimpse of the elusive beasts…

At Birstonas, I stopped for a short break and a cup of coffee....

The proprietor gave me a complmentray meat pie to go with my coffee, while she and her co-workers stood around the bike pointing out all the flags to each other...

Near the little town of Birstonas, close to where the Nemunas River makes a big loop, I stopped to have a cup of coffee ant a quaint roadside inn…

The three woman who ran the place, spoke not a word of English, but made every effort to understand what I wanted, and even gave a complimentary meat pie to go with the coffee I had ordered…

I sat under a bright yellow umbrella in the courtyard, scanning my map of the Baltic States and wondering if I should try and make a run through the Russian province of Kaliningrad…

It lay directly west of where I now sat, and would add an extra 200 kms or so to my ride to Warsaw, presuming they would let me across the border and give me a transit permit or visa to ride the 150 kilometres to the Polish border at the Gumbinska road that ran south into Poland…

There was only one town or village along the route and this concerned me more than a fruitless ride to the Russian border…

Little church in the country...

This mansion is in the process of being built... I wondered who would come and stay in such a large house, out in the middle of nowhere...?

I decided to think about it while I rode on towards Marijampole, where I would have to make a final decision, as the road here split south going directly into Poland or continued East towards Kaliningrad…

I rode across the bridge over the Nemunas River and continued through the farmlands of Eastern Lithuania, enjoying the ride and taking in all the farming activity around me… Much of the countryside lay under water, and I recalled reading that Lithuania was a “swampy country”… There were large areas of standing water on either side of the road, and my windshield and visor began collecting hordes of mosquitoes that met an untimely (but well deserved death!) on them…

We rolled on, through the villages on Asiukle and Margava, then through Meskenai and Patasine, and just before we entered Marijampole, the Big Fella hit the jackpot… In his own mind anyway…!! The odometer read “77777”, and he figured that this counted for something…!! Reckoned I should given Southern Sun or Sol Kerzner a ring…!!

I took a photo of the instrument panel, promising to do what I could, patted him a few times and sat thinking about a run into Russia again…

Just outside the town of Marijampole, the Big Fella hits the jackpot...!!

My heart told me that I may never have the chance to ride in Russia again, but then, as a gentle drizzle began settling over us as we stood there, my mind clicked in and common sense prevailed… I did not have a visa, and if I managed to talk my way into the country, what would happen if I couldn’t talk my way back out of it…? Visions of having my bike and all my gear confiscated flashed before me…

Also, if I was turned back from the border at Kybartai, it would mean two hours of wasted time to get back onto the A5 leading to Poland… And it was now beginning to rain again…

There are a few ways of spelling of Warsaw...!!

I kicked the Big Fella into gear and somewhat reluctantly, turned south for the Polish Border…

GBWT 2010