> A most interesting account. Thanks for sharing it. However, it didn't
> modify this wimp's general intention to do long rides only in the "first
> world".
You've ridden quite a bit in the first world. At some point you will
run out of new places to ride
.
> Your name looks Dutch, but I assume your citizenship is US.
Correct.
> Did you decide it would be better not to be seen as from the US?
It didn't seem to make a huge difference. Some of the places we were
riding through did not have many tourists. Hence, some were curious
and asked the same types of standard questions touring cyclists get
elsewhere (1) where are you from? (2) where are you going?... If we
were asked the first question on the street we would answer in Russian,
"Netherlands". We would get some reaction, and sometimes a comment
about the World Cup [both Netherlands and Ukraine were playing in the
tournament and it was a big event].
If we were asked further, we would explain that well we're Dutch but we
live in the USA. When checking into a hotel, we would also avoid that
confusion from the start since they had our passports.
On occasions when we said USA from start, it wasn't a big difference
than saying we were from the Netherlands. What did seem to make some
difference was an ability to at least speak enough Russian to have a
basic conversation. My brother's Russian is fair, mine is more basic.
On some occasions where I was by myself, folks would get a little
frustrated as we tried to communicate beyond the basics.
On the whole, I found the Ukrainians and Russians to be quite friendly
and helpful for touring cyclists. Once or twice, this was unwanted
attention from someone who had too much to drink, but most cases it was
very helpful.
--mev, Mike Vermeulen