WHEN THE ROAD GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH START DRIVING

A SOLO DRIVE BETWEEN VLADIVOSTOK AND ST PETERSBURG ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN HIGHWAY, THE THIRD LONGEST IN THE WORLD... MAKE THAT MORE THAN 10,000KM, OVER 12 DAYS, 10 HOURS AND 50 MINUTES

- Suresh Joseph

WITH THE DAWN of 2016 came a yearning to do something daring and difficult. In February 2016, I read an article about the 10 longest highways in the world and the Trans-Siberian — the third-longest — caught my eye. I started thinking, “This is something that has not been attempted before from India. Why not try and do it?” The Trans-Siberian Highway stretches over 10,000 km from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg, across multiple time zones. The difference in time between the two metropolises is seven hours. I decided to start from Vladivostok because I would gain time travelling from east to west, which would help me with more daylight hours for the long stretches I intended to do daily. I completed the trip in 12 days, 10 hours and 50 minutes, logging a daily average distance of about 850km

GETTING STARTED VLADIVOSTOK June 3

I WOULD NOT BE able to start without car insurance. You can get it from vendors who sell it from cars at vantage locations. Andrey, my contact in the city, took me to one such ‘car office’. They represent multiple companies and hence, it is easier to shop around for the best policy. After a lot of talk and checking documents the young man suggested that we go to the insurance company office as the car I had was registered outside Russia.