From Toyama, Japan to Vladivostok, Russian Federation - June, 2001

The ship departs every Friday from Fushiki port at about 6 PM, to arrive in Vlad about 36 hours later. Departure from Vlad to Fushiki is on Mondays.

You are expected in the port before 2 PM for loading, which is done very professionally. Your bike will be on one of the decks and you can reach it any time during the pasage. (The ship hauls over 100 cars and a good amount of scooters, bicycles, tyres, washing machines etc). FKK visited us on the ship to hand over our tickets for the crossing. We never mentioned to FKK that we have a sidecar attached to our motorcycle and paid for one motorcycle only. Nobody had a problem with it. We were never asked to pay the loading fee in Fushiki.

The crossing is more like a mini cruise. Food is quite good, the cheapest cabin has a desk and a chair, an electricity point for European style plugs. The shower is small but hot and good. These cabins are for 4 persons, but when there are not so many passengers on board you will get your own room.

We arrived in Vlad at about 9 in the morning on Sunday. Unloading did not start untill about 2 PM, after the ship was cleared by customs. It is good to keep a survival pack with all necessary things with you, because our bikes were put in a warehouse (restricted area) after they were unloaded and it was not easy to get to them once the door was locked. First you have to go through customs with your hand-luggage. (Be sure that the declaration form that was issued on the ship is stamped on both sides). You can leave stuff in your cabin and you can even spend another night onboard the ship (US$ 10), but you have to turn in your key at the info desk for customs reasons and from the time you go through customs and the time the ship is cleared (about 2 PM) you cannot return to your cabin.

The ship docks right in front of the customs building, in which also a good internet cafe is situated. To clear our bikes we needed to go to room 110 with our passports, the declaration forms which we had to fill in onboard the ship and the bill of lading, which was given to us by the captain.

We were warmly welcomed by Sergei and Dimitri from the Iron Tigers, but found out that it is better not to use their translating services when dealing with customs. Reason for this is that if there is a problem, it is better if they cannot explain it to you for the simple reason that they will solve the problem themselves, instead of making you solve it. One of the customs came to the warehouse to check the numbers on the bike and stamped the declaration form. After that everything else was delt with in room 110. You get a pink and green paper and you have to pay something around 50 roebels tax.

It took us 3 days to get our bikes, the main reason being that we arrived during independence day and although everything was open, not a lot was done."

From Chris Lockwood:

"If you are going to Vladivostok get your tickets from FKK Air Service in Toyama near Fushiki port (phone:0766-22-2212, fax:0766-22-7456, E-mail: fkk-...@toyama-net.com) or United Orient Shipping & Agency 03 (3249) 4412 in Tokyo.

FKK http://fkk-air.toyama-net.com/ (home page in Japanese only) seems to be the better way from experience of travelers visiting in 2001 and Japanese riders going to Russia. United Orient wouldn't give a straight answer on the schedule. One-way fare in yen for 2001 was 27,300 yen + 11,000 yen motorcycle fee. You may or may not have to pay the $10 loading and unloading fee.

In Vladivostok, you will go through customs for yourself (person only), then go get the papers for the motorcycle (pink and green form). You go back to customs and do the formalities for the bike. Natasha is the lady to talk to in customs (she speaks English). One rider was given an extra night on the ship for free because his bike had not been unloaded by the end of the work day.

Also, tell customs you will want to stay longer than your visa. They may make vehicle papers for such. It is a real pain to extend the length of stay for a vehicle. Visa extensions are very difficult. Vehicle extensions are just about impossible. Leaving the country and coming back again would be a lot easier.

When leaving Russia again., tell them a low price if they ask how much the value is. There may be a charge of point-something percent of the value of the vehicle. Mika was charged in Vladivostok. Peter wasn't when he left to Estonia.

The link to Chris Lockwood's site http://www2.gol.com/users/chrisl/japan/information.html