Update: Sun 01:10

Saturday, 01 October

I have a plan for the remainder of the trip: charge down to the Crimean peninsula then back to the UK. I'll cover a few bases en route: the countries I can go to that I've not been to before (Ukraine and Moldova); I'll have gone top to bottom of Eastern Europe; the route back should be mostly along the E40 (our favourite road?); and it'll add just under 5,000km to the trip bringing the total to around 62,000km. Not quite 40,000 miles but another couple of weeks which should be about right.

I started the day with a run down to the Genocide Museum in the former KGB building in the centre of town. The bit I managed to see (before realising I was late for checking out of the hotel) was largely about the Lithuanian resistance to the Soviets then the Germans during the war (thanks to a German-Soviet non-aggression treaty) then the Soviets again.

You would think that if you have an ideology or a Grand Plan then surely to goodness you must recognise that it's fscked up if you have to go around banning other ideologies and freedom of expression to make yours work? Anyway, the upshot is that Lithuania had a hard time of it for several decades with large numbers of people deported to gulags across the Soviet Union. Curiously, the Lithuanians managed to pack a decent number of cameras and film and they have plenty of very well documented photographs demonstrating life "abroad."

There's lots of photos of the partisans and plenty of notes about how the hoped for support from Western nations did not materialise. A good job we stand for freedom from oppression, as some of those in Syria today, might concur.

I raced back to the hotel, pumped the rear tyre back up and headed off to Poland which was a lot further away than I thought. I then charged down the road and decided to stop here rather than face an hour or so in the dark on the lookout for a motel or to reach the next place identified on the GPS. Not only have I gone back an hour but I'm heading south so the day's end draws nearer sooner.

The main road from Lithuania heading towards Warsaw was groaning with cafes and motels but much like Russia, once you're on a non-capital road the density of amenities drops dramatically. There's still plenty about -- lets say a motel every 30-40km (the same as in the UK?) -- but much less than the 3-4km (it felt like) on the radial trunk.

Reception was unmanned but I found someone who confirmed they had a room but when I asked the price they said they'd get a colleague. He took a while to appear and promptly announced that he had to garage space. OK. I only wanted to know how much a room was.

150 Zloty (EUR30? -- I don't know what the exchange rate is) seems about right. I was then told to put the bike down the slope leading to the (basement) garage. I think he wanted the car parking spaces out front to be clear as they seemed to be setting up for a big do.

It turned out to be a wedding so I gave up any hope of getting some food and trotted up the road to a fast food pizza joint the GPS had in its database. Not too bad followed by a couple of Lech beers over the road in the bar. Following the earlier NTNON quote I was hugely tempted to ask for a Leech or a Letch but resisted and in the end tapped the pump while mumbling Lech.

Currently at lat/long: n52 26.012 e22 52.279

Pensjonat Cezar, Siemiatycze, Poland