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Diary w/e 3 September
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28th AugustToday was a non-day for me. After enjoying my Turkish meal so much, I should have known there would be a price to pay - and so it was. A bad to non-existent night's sleep, and when I woke up properly I was in a bad way - I was going nowhere today, and the first thing we did was book an extra night in the hotel. I was feeling thoroughly rotten all day. I mostly slept (regular paracetomol, it felt like a nasty cold - the type men are reputed always to refer to as flu). Rich was left to his own devices, and apart from a brief foray into town to buy some food supplies for the journey tomorrow, I am not sure he did very much. It was only in the evening that things started to resolve themselves decisively in a downward direction, so at that point I diagnosed a stomach bug which might either cure itself or linger for several days. Not wanting to risk the latter, I decided to hit the Ciprofloxin, and tucked up properly at 11 with a Neurofen (and not much else) to keep it company in my stomach. So I missed the bright lights of Olgiy (though there was a nice disco blaring it out somewhere pretty nearby) and I wasn't in a fit state to write a diary entry (nor was there much to say, as you can see!) So that night I was mostly listening to the rumblings and thumpings (external and internal) while feeling very sorry for myself, at the same GPS ref as the night before. 29th AugustI either have a fantastically strong constitution, or Ciprofloxin is very clever stuff. Either way, in the morning I felt much better - the pain now confined to the midriff area - and ready to have a go at a border crossing, as long as there was a toilet within range. So Rich and I packed up, dropped into the shops for a few more supplies and went to the bank to change our remaining Togrogs into Euros - we wouldn't be needing them any more, we thought. We then had a trouble-free drive back up the road to the border, enjoying the views once more, and the sight of the big ol' birds. That was where the fun started (as it always does). Every border seems different and has different rules. We arrived at what we thought was the preliminary checkpoint on the Mongolian side to see a short queue of about 8 vehicles. That didn't look too bad so we pulled over to the back of the line and then I went to see if I could work out what was going on. I could see the proper Mongolian border post a couple of hundred metres away, and it seemed deserted. So I gestured to a guard who was lounging about to see if it was ok to drive over to it. He nodded, in a relaxed "if you want to" kind of way, so we did. The queue of vehicles seemed totally unconcerned as we drove past them. In the border post it was a bit spooky. There were no customers about, and about 20 smartly-uniformed Mongolian customs/passport people. After a slow start to the formalities, things rapidly became pretty simple. My concern about having no proof that we had registered our extended visa in UB (or that we had been deregistered, which was supposed to be a requirement, according to Lonely Planet) was completely unfounded. So within half an hour we were on our way up the road (about 5 km!) to the real Russian border. That was where our day started to go a bit wrong. We had inadvertently stumbled into a new game, a variant on the old TV "Jeux Sans Frontieres" (and every bit as stupid) - "Jeu de Deux Frontieres". We arrived at the physical Russian border at about 2.30. There was a queue of about 20 cars and buses, patiently waiting at a barrier in the middle of nowhere which was manned by two stern-faced Russian military border guards (with bayonets hanging from their belts, just in case you hadn't got the idea). We got talking to the occupants of the two cars in front, who were French (two couples in their 50's). One couple were in a Toyota Land Cruiser, the other were in a Citroen 2CV! They explained to me the rules of this new game we were about to play. First of all, you have to queue up to get into the Mongolian border system, which opens at between 9 and 10 in the morning. That can be quite a fight, as normal queuing rules do not apply. French ski lift queues are inadequate preparation. Then you do the easy bit (getting through the Mongolian system and reaching the Russian border). Depending on where you were in the Mongolian queue, it might now be any time between about 10 am and 2 pm. Then you have to sit in line while all the Russian vehicles go past as soon as they arrive and are waved through to the Russian customs post. Then occasionally you try to prevent other over-zealous tourists from barging to the front of the line (mostly Germans and Swedes, while we were playing the game). You plead with the border guards (whenever they come out from their nice warm hut, which is not often) to take your passports and vehicle registration documents, as that is the first step in the process of getting into Russia. Then you wait. And wait. Quite a lot of the time you wait in the cold right by the barrier (along with a crowd of other players) just to make sure you don't miss some important event in the game. Every now and then a border guard appears with some papers in his hand and invites a lucky participant into Russia. But the order in which the invitations are issued is nothing to do with your order of arrival at the border post - no, it is determined in accordance with either random chance or some secret rule known only to the Russians. But apart from the "Russians always get immediate priority" rule, there does seem to be a "Kazakhs come last once everyone else is done" (i.e. never) rule. Tourists get dealt with somewhere in the middle. Then, at 6 pm on the dot, the Russian Customs post shuts down and all vehicles left at the border are required to return to Mongolia, back through Mongolian Customs and rejoin the queue, this time for tomorrow. Your Mongolian exit stamp is crossed out by a Mongolian border official with a small sigh (he does this dozens of times a day) and you are let back into Mongolia with a minimum of formalities. But now the significance of the short queue which you passed earlier in the day becomes clear. It has now grown to about 20 vehicles, and you simply have to join the back of it so that you can play again tomorrow. Two of the French people we met were already on the second day of this game, and they came back to Mongolia with us this evening to prepare for their third attempt tomorrow. We are comparative beginners, having only had one practice run now. The tricky bit tomorrow will be to gauge (when the queue starts to move in the morning) whether to stop by the barrier - meaning that we will be guaranteed first slot the following day - or to have another go and see if we have rolled a double six this time. There are also a few local rules which foreigners cannot use. For example, if you are friends with the Mongolian border guards, you might be able to drive around the queue at the start of the day - which then puts you at the front of the line of hopefuls at the Russian border post. So we got back into Mongolia (on our single entry tourist visa, which we had already used) at about 6.15 and rejoined the queue for tomorrow's round of the game. We joined the French for a consolatory drink (our Bushmills and their Pastis), then ate boots with them in a cafeteria by the border post, and they discovered there were some beds there in a dormitory for £1.20 a night (plus an extra 10p if you want a clean pillow case), so we are sleeping there tonight with two of the French people. It will at least be warm if, as looks likely, it is pretty chilly outside. We spent quite a while chatting to the French (there's not a lot else to do while you are waiting). They are quite interesting characters, all in their fifties. One of the wives is really quite ill (I suspect one of those really nasty wasting diseases) and did not say very much. But her husband Claude is a real laugh. They come from the south of France betwen Toulouse and Perpignan. He produced the Pastis (which he explained is alcohol-free in spite of the 45% marking on the bottle - that apparently refers to the proportion of medicine in it. They recommend it for upset stomachs) and also a bottle of red wine to go with the boots in the cafeteria. He and his wife had already had two failed attempts to cross the frontier. Whenever he was feeling optimistic about getting over the frontier, he said he could almost smell the Cassoulet (a sort of casserole which is the local speciality where he lives) and he was always laughing about something. The other couple were much quieter, but even more interesting. Henri and Eveline came from northern France and drove everywhere in their 2CV. They even slept in it. They had taken it pretty much everywhere and they had some great stories to tell. For example, once when they were in the Moroccan desert on their own, they got bogged down in soft sand in the bed of an old dried up river bed. The only way they could manage to get out was to largely dismantle the car - the great thing about 2CV's is that they are very light and very easy to take to pieces. So they removed the bonnet, boot, doors, seats, most of the rest of the bodywork, until they were left with what was pretty much an engine on the chassis. Then it was sufficiently light for them to be able, by a combination of driving and lifting, to get it clear of the sand. The nearest hard ground was about a kilometre away, so they had to carry most of the bits of car that far before they could rebuild it. Apparently this business of dismantling 2CV's is very common in France. There is even a championship for it. The rules are that four people have to dismantle a standard 2CV down to the very last nut and bolt (even taking the engine and gear box completely to pieces). The record is apparently 29 minutes! Then they have to rebuild it, start it up and drive around in it - and the record for that is 1 hour 30 minutes. So tonight we are brushing up our French and hoping tomorrow will bring a change of luck in round two of this new game. All at GPS ref 49º 36' 24.06" N, 89º 27' 58.36" E, altitude 2,291 metres. 30th AugustRound 2. A chilly start to the day - glad we were inside last night, though unfortunately not a lot of sleep due to snoring French people, extraordinarily uncomfortable beds and worry about how many groundhog days we were in for. At least the grumbling stomach was keeping quiet. After perhaps an hour's sleep in all I finally gave up at 6.30 and went out to the car to make sure no other early risers could jump the queue. Over the next two or three hours, about another six or seven cars turned up and mostly took their place at the back of the line - though one car with Kazakh plates drove straight up to park right next to the jeep at the front, next to the barrier! There was a bit of manoevering in the queue, but mainly to make it harder for newcomers to butt in. Finally there was a flurry of activity around 9 am as four UAZ jeeps appeared from nowhere and shot round the back of the building by the first barrier and headed straight up the road to the Mongolian Customs post. That seems to have been the first (and hopefully only) "local rule" queue jumping of the day. About an hour later the queue started to move and before long we were in the Mongolian Customs post, where our exit formalities today consisted of a glance at yesterday's exit stamp. Then quickly up the 4 km road to the Russian border post, where we arrived around 10.30 pm. And so the waiting started. There was a trickle of Russian cars and lorries past us, and around noon the first car came through in the other direction. We were car no. 13 in the queue, and the queue initially seemed to be reducing by about two cars per hour. That meant that if we were lucky, we could hope to get through the system some time around 4.30. But then things started to slow down, and though the trickle of Russian vehicles continued, the actual queue stopped dead for nearly two hours. If things continued at that rate, we would be spending another night in Mongolia, though at least the guards had taken our passports and car papers, so we had registered on their radar. Encouragingly, they also had a scribbled note of our registration numbers on a small scrap of paper, showing they had registered the fact that we had already been there the day before. A load of other French appeared - there seemed to be some kind of safari club who had made a trip to Mongolia together in their 6 or 7 cars. And then a couple of Germans appeared in huge four wheel drive camper vans. They were all initially incredulous when we told them about the rules of the game, then started to get used to the idea as they just sat there and waited. As lunch time arrived, things seemed to grind to a complete halt, and it was starting to look as if all our worst fears were to be realised. So in desperation I gave Kevin Lynch a call (the Consul General in Ekaterinburg) on the sat phone to see if he could get anything done about our plight through the British Embassy in Moscow. A whole group of us also tried invading Russia - we strode boldly through the barrier and over to the shelter where we accosted the guards and generally tried to impress them as to just how keen we all were to enter their lovely country. Where Napoleon and Hitler had failed, we achieved some limited success: if we understood his words and gestures, the guard was saying that there would be a big movement of tourist vehicles through the barrier at 2 pm. By 2.30, nothing had happened so a whole group of us re-invaded, and the Russian guard showed us his watch, which said 1.30 - he had meant 2 pm Russian time, not Mongolian. Shortly before 2 (or 3, depending on your time zone!) he suddenly reappeared with a batch of passports. He called through the two French vehicles and one of the big German trucks (!) We began to wonder if we had slipped through a crack somewhere, but after about ten minutes he came out again and called us through along with a couple of others. We grabbed everything, threw our remaining lunch in the back of the car and shot through before he changed his mind. We then drove to the Russian customs post - which, to our surprise, was a good 20 km further down the road, on the edge of the Russian village of Tashanta. To our great delight, the road instantly turned from rough gravel track to reasonably smooth tarmac the moment we passed the barrier. At the customs post, the whole group rapidly reassembled and after an initial pause, we all worked our way through the immensely puzzling paper chase that is the Russian entry system. One of the French counted no less than 15 separate processes we had to go through, involving giving or showing some piece of paper to somebody and getting something stamped back in return. But we were deliriously happy - they could not send us back now, and however long it took, we would get through the system today somehow. At last we were on the final check - a Russian soldier had a look in the car and then looked quizzically at me and said "Narcotics? Vippons?" whilst making a machine gun noise. I reassured him I was neither smuggling drugs nor gun running, and he could see the state of the dust-covered heap in the back of the car, so he was prepared to take my word for it. And then we were waved off - we didn't even have to pay a bribe to the man at the last barrier to get out! So at about 6 pm we had finally finished our two day game of border chess and were free to start our drive back through Russia. After being penned in for two days, we just wanted to get some miles under our belt, so we drove for two hours before stopping at a small roadside cafe for a quick meal after calling in at a petrol station (we saw the 2 CV parked outside, so the idea was not unique). We decided we would drive on until we found somewhere good to park up near the road for a night's sleep. The area of Russia we were in was breathtakingly beautiful. After a few miles of plain immediately following Tashanta, we were rapidly climbing into the mountains of the Altai Republic. While the light lasted, we could see the beautiful alpine valleys we were winding up, and the fantastic snow-covered mountains all around us. It was all too rocky and steep to offer any obvious easy camping spots near the road, so we kept driving. Then the sun set (spectacularly, of course) and it became harder to spot potential camping spots. Eventually, we decided not to bother with stopping at all. In spite of our lack of sleep the night before, we were both in good shape and keen to make progress, so we did just that. So no GPS ref tonight as we carried on driving right into the night... 31st August... and indeed through it. I took the night shift from 11 pm and to my surprise I stayed very alert right through until around 5 am, when I started to feel tired. In that time, we drove right across the Altai mountains and most of the way to Novosibirsk (which we had reckoned on taking us nearly two days to reach!) The road was extremely good, and largely deserted. But during my shift, I passed two big accidents, both of which were clearly less than an hour old. That was enough to keep me very alert indeed! We knew this road was in a sensitive military area, and the weird red lights in the sky every few miles (endless huge aerials, I assume) gave it a slightly unreal feeling. Also, the police checkpoints were all manned and operating even though it was the middle of the night. The first one we met looked slightly different from normal, and it is lucky I decided to stop properly rather than the usual tactic of just slowing down to walking pace as you drive through. When it looked as if we might not stop, a cop started waving frantically at us with his luminous stick - it turned out that at this checkpoint, every single car had to stop and give its details to be written in a big book (which probably nobody ever looks at again). Our papers satisfied them, and we were still close enough to Mongolia for our route plan to be credible, so we were on our way again after ten minutes. But then for the rest of the night, I was pulled over at every single checkpoint - well, if it's 3 in the morning and you're a bored traffic cop with nothing to do, you probably would, wouldn't you? So I got back into practice at explaining how I was a stupid foreigner with no Russian who was driving to England and can I go now please? At one point, I was driving through a deserted village at about 2 am and I had slowed right down because that's what you're supposed to do (60 km/h limit in towns) and we weren't in a race. Suddenly, from behind a building, a traffic cop strode out and flagged me down, with his mate standing next to him holding a speed gun. How unlucky is that? But my luck held, because although I was probably slightly over the limit, I was going pretty slowly and he was in a good mood. So I just got cordially invited into the control post and again had all my details written up in a big book while the policeman asked about us and what we were doing. So now I know that "home" is "dom", and that's where I'm going. He also knows that Rich is my son and is starting a mechanical engineering degree in England in three weeks' time, so we can't really afford to hang about. Overall, he was really a pleasant guy and very chatty, and it didn't matter at all that his mate was standing behind me with a machine gun slung over his shoulder. He waved us off and (I think) wished us good luck and off we went into the night. We stopped here and there for fuel (loads of 24 hour petrol stations along this road, the M52) and the odd bar of chocolate. Then at 5 I moved across into the passenger seat and Rich took over. I started to say something then woke up an hour and a half later on the outskirts of Novosibirsk. We managed to negotiate our way through the Novo rush hour (miserable grey rainy English weather) and follow the signs for Omsk. I had been fretting about the engine - now that we were on tarmac, most of the weird suspension and transmission noises had disappeared, and I could hear how rough and unhappy the engine sounded. We had planned to give it an oil change soon anyway, and now we decided to get it done as quickly as possible, especially as we were both still in reasonable driving shape. Novosibirsk's top feature is described by Lonely Planet as "the overnight train out", and we were hoping we might drive on through the day to reach Omsk. So on the edge of Novosibirsk we found a sort of car neighbourhood (lots of repair shops, etc) and pulled over to buy a load of good oil, which we then took to a garage next door and asked if they could do an oil change for us with it. They said they could, so within 5 minutes I was driving the car over a huge inspection pit in a proper garage where a proper mechanic changed the oil and filter very professionally while his mate quizzed us in good English about the car, where we had been and what sort of oil we generally used in it. While we were there, I asked the mechanic if he had the special tool to check the gearbox oil level and he did - and, miracle of miracles, it was still full and in good condition! So for less that £10 we had a full oil change, clean hands and no problems of getting rid of the old oil and filter, as well as checking our gearbox oil. A result! It had also given the car a bit of a rest, but the transformation when we drove off was incredible - all the weird engine clatter and other noises had magically disappeared, and the thing went happily about 10 mph faster. So now we were in really fine shape, we thought. The journey to Omsk passed pretty uneventfully. It is a very long, straight, boring road (about 400 miles) but as the day went on the clouds rolled away, the sun came out and it turned into a lovely late summer's day. Things had changed subtly since we saw them nearly three months ago - there were now piles of hay drying in the sun here and there, and some of the trees and marsh plants had reddish or brownish tinges to them where before everything had been luminous green. Autumn is coming! We stopped for lunch after about 100 miles of this, then pressed on, dreaming of the comfortable Hotel Tourist in Omsk. We got to Omsk itself about 6 pm, and we were on the home straight, negotiating the Omsk rush hour traffic towards the hotel, when it happened. All of a sudden, just as we pulled away from some lights, there was a horrible grinding and clunking noise from under the car. I immediately pulled over, we got out and it rapidly became obvious we had a big problem with our naughty rear left wheel again. It was making all the noises, and when we drove round the corner into a quiet street and jacked the back of the car up, the rear wheel was up to its old wiggling trick again. We whipped off the wheel, and checked the hub nut but it was still in place - so that meant we had probably destroyed our wheel bearing. I had noticed some funny noises but had put them down to uneven road surfaces - on the very last stretch of the road into Omsk, where they were laying some new tarmac, I had commented to Rich that it seemed strange that the new road had already become slightly corrugated, before it had even dried properly! Now we knew better. It was all very frustrating - the wheel had taken us about 1,000 miles in a day, and it had chosen to collapse when we were about 5 miles from a comfortable hotel and a very inviting soft bed. But there was nothing for it - we started to unload the tools and see what we could do about it. The usual gaggle of kids on bikes rapidly appeared. They were very friendly (indeed we have been struck, on both our visits, by just how friendly almost everyone in Omsk seems to be) and the first thing they did was give us a bag of tomatoes (home grown, I think), for absolutely no reason. We got out the manual and turned to the section "Rear Wheel Bearing - Inspection and Replacement". We had glanced at that briefly before, and we knew it was a difficult job, which you really need to do in a workshop with the right tools (in Haynes Manual parlance, it is a "Four Spanner Job" - where degree of difficulty is measured on a scale of 1 to 5 spanners). We also had a worry because when we had taken the spares pack out last time, we had been looking for wheel-related things and though the spare wheel bearings had been in there, we could not see any sign of the new seal which would be needed. Anyway, we were starting to get to grips with all this in a tired and befuddled sort of way, taking the wheel off and dismantling all the bits around the hub, and we are both thinking to ourselves "what we really need now is a proper car mechanic". Well, this is Omsk, so of course the kid on a bike who lives 20 yards down the road has a Dad who is an expert car mechanic (it must be his job) and his Dad roars straight out from his tea and takes over. He can't stand to see a job like this being attempted by amateurs who clearly haven't done it before a thousand times like he has. He quickly gets to the heart of the problem, nods happily at the new bearings, and asks about the new seal, pointing at the mangled old one. He has not a word of English (slightly surprising, in fairy tales, the godmother usually speaks the lingo) but he is obviously saying "what on earth is the point of bringing new bearings and not a new seal?". We agree helplessly. I ring Rob at Liveridge, and he is a bit surprised we don't have a new seal, but his best stopgap suggestion is that we might either find a local seal with the right outside diameter and cut the inside hole to fit, or we could probably manage without the seal altogether until he sends us a new one at Ekaterinburg, as long as we drive carefully and refill the bearing with grease every few hundred miles. In the meantime, the mechanic is seemingly saying the same thing, and writing "2,000 km" on the road with his finger - so he obviously thinks the greasing interval can be a bit longer. Anyway, I leave Rich and the mechanic (let's call him Oleg - I have no idea of his real name, but this is Omsk, so it has to start with an "O", like Olga) "chatting" and I have a total clearout of the spares box. In the bottom of the water pump box I find the missing seal! This immediately galvanises Oleg into action. He has already removed the old bearings from the wheel hub, using a variation on Rich's technique - he sends his son to get a big length of steel tube, about 7 cm diameter and 40 cm long, which he then uses as a sort of chisel (with our hammer) to bash them out. He asks us if we have a vice which can be used to press the new bearing races into place - and laughs out loud when we say no and show him the small vice we carry. So he gets his son to fetch a big lump of wood, which he uses to bash the bearing races part way in (wiv the 'ammer, of course) before he finishes the bashing with his length of steel tube. I flinch with every blow, fearing the new parts are going to be irreparably mangled before they are even in place. I ring Rob with the good news and cancel the extra courier delivery of new bearings and seals. He reassures me about how tough the bearings are. Oleg hammers away merrily, Rich watches and learns. Finally Oleg has the new races in place and Rich covers the new bearings themselves in grease ready for fitting. Then it only takes a short while to reassemble the hub, put it back on the axle, refit the naughty brake calliper, re-insert the drive shaft and flange and put the wheel back on. In the process, Oleg uses an extra twist of the hub nut to make sure the bearings are pressed all the way home, and he nods with understanding and (did we imagine this bit?) approval at the thread-stripped hub nut with our hacksaw cuts - which, glory be, actually goes (and stays) back on the axle. Oleg says the job is finished and he is going back for his tea. He absolutely refuses to take anything for his work - finally, because his hands are too greasy to stop me, I am able to shove a large amount of money into his pocket as I say "Spaseeva" over and over again. Rich and I are clearing up the mess and the kids are drifting away after their English lesson when Oleg's son appears from the house with a bucket of warm water and soap for us. We clear up, pack up the car and gratefully wash up. Then we start up the car and of course the new bearing works soundlessly. As we turn round and drive off, Oleg has appeared out the front of his house to wave us off. What a star - Rich and I still can't believe how lucky we have been. In the meantime, I have rung the hotel and managed to reserve a room for us, so all we have to do is get there. We are tired and it takes rather longer than it should, but eventually we get there about 9.30, check in and have a shower before a quick meal in the bar and collapsing into bed. We plan to sleep a lot tomorrow and then head off to Ekaterinburg (another very long schlepp) the following day, starting early. So tonight we are mostly inspecting the insides of our eyelids in huge comfort, whilst trying to work out how much luckier we could possibly be - at GPS ref 54º 58' 46.15" N, 73º 22' 24.94" E, altitude 45.1 metres - mysteriously a few hundred feet from the GPS ref we had the last time we were here - can anyone suggest why? Have they moved Omsk a bit to the left since we were last here? 1st SeptemberA lazy day! We slept in until last call for breakfast, and made it into the restaurant with about ten minutes to spare. It was the most fantastic spread - though, as usual, it had its slightly weird elements. It turned out we were sharing the hotel with some big league ice hockey team, and there was clearly a special breakfast laid on for them. You could have roast chicken if you wanted, along with pasta, eggs, sausage, cheese, bread (including one bread roll which turned out to be a rather nice bready fish pie when I bit into it) and all the other more usual stuff. Rich dug in and filled his boots, I was a little more restrained. The only thing that was missing was a proper cup of tea or non-instant coffee. After that, we were so worn out, we went back to bed for a bit. We slept a bit then fiddled around with website stuff - I had spotted the hotel had a wifi facility, so we hoped we could do a major website update, download a load of photos, etc. It took ages to get it all ready, and what with that and all the sleeping (and moving rooms at midday), it was suddenly 6 pm. We then took the laptop down to the lobby bar and did the update - it all worked pretty well (if expensively!) Next on the list was food, so we headed out to a Lonely Planet recommendation, the Journalist Restaurant (about ten minutes' walk) it's a very cool place with live piano music and everything! Strangely, the LP guide referred to it as the "Restoran Zhyrnalist", so they are obviously very familiar with it. It had a quite extraordinary menu - do you fancy some "De Luxe Liver", for example? Most of the livers we had come across in Russia seemed to have had a pretty hard life, so we gave it a miss. Anyway, we had a rather good meal - this would be our highly recommended restaurant in Omsk - and then Rich headed off to meet up with Olga (who we had met when we here in June). I went for a jolly good wander round Omsk at night, and I have to admit I found it a really pleasant place. There were loads of young folk around (a real baby boom generation of late teens/early twenty somethings) and they were all just having a good time - no big drunken crowds, just groups of up to about a dozen enjoying their Friday night on the town without looking to threaten anyone. Or maybe I'm just too old to attract aggressive attention these days? Anyway, it's good to see the the old favourites still get a mention - Lenin, Marx and Gagarin all together on this street sign. I wandered back to the hotel and fiddled around waiting for Rich to get back - he knew we were leaving at 8 am sharp and had been reminded of the need to avoid over-indulgence in alcohol and get a good night's sleep. After a while (including watching the end of a badly dubbed Pirates of the Caribbean - still as much fun as ever) I fell asleep, at the same GPS ref as last night. I however was sitting in a bar on the river front having a good chat with Olga, and then somehow I was sat with Olga and a couple of Russian guys (one of whom was called Stas) around a fire on the beach. They were both very decent 40-something blokes and had come to the river for some soul enriching night time fishing. They loved the simple English saying 'gone fishing' (translated by Olga) I could tell without translation that it neatly encapsulated the idea of the whole activity for them. Stas read my palm - apparently I have one younger brother (correct) and I will have two boys and later a younger girl who will be an 'accident' but who I will like the most... so anyway. I ended up becoming Stas' brother or something and drinking 'some' vodka Russian style i.e. a double shot followed by a piece of bread and a bite of a tomato. It's not bad after the third try, but I don't think the taste is the point. Dropped Olga off at a taxi and said goodbyes, then Stas insisted we buy another bottle of Vodka and finish it together. By this point it was about five in the morning and any ideas of sleep that I might have had had gone out the window. Never underestimate the persuasiveness of a drunk Russian: "I really have too sleep now" (throbbing in head and very heavy eyelids) "NIET" (grabs by the arm and sits you down) "But..." "NIET" "OK, adun Vodka - ADUN" (adun = one) "Da da da" (pours a generous glass and looks very happy with himself) And so the cycle continues until the bottle is finished... 2nd September...so I was sat drinking Vodka around a fire on the beach in Omsk with some Russian fishermen until the sun came up. At this point I decided that as I could now "drink like a Russian man" and I REALLY needed to get to bed, I had to leave and I continued walking despite all the shouting and gesturing to the contrary, so Stas came too! He (just about) managed to walk up the road and ended up accompanying me to the door of our hotel room! I said goodbye to a very sad looking drunk guy and collapsed into bed with half an hour to sleep before we left. So that put an immediate end to all plans to reach Ekaterinburg today. I decided as soon as Rich got back that the only thing we could do was sleep in until late morning, check out as late as possible and then see how far we could get towards Ekaterinburg with just me driving. So that's what we did. Rich sort of guided me out of Omsk to the main road (using our route into town from a couple of days ago - we remembered how difficult it had been in June to find the right road out of the place and we weren't taking any chances). Then he just sat in the seat next to me and chatted animatedly while I drove. Our first refuelling stop was just outside Omsk, and I was accosted by a really enthusiastic Russian who wanted to know everything about us and the car. Were we American? Was the car? How many cylinders did it have? Was it really diesel? How many kilometres per litre did it do? Was it a turbo? Where were we going? Where had we been? My head was spinning with all this, but I think I kept up. He came from Novosibirsk himself originally, so was really impressed with the Mongolia thing. And he couldn't believe we were doing the round trip from the UK. Once I had filled up and we were going, he seized my hand and pumped it violently as if we were very old friends who had just met up for the first time in twenty years, wishing us luck on the road. Omsk. I might come and live here.... I drove for 328 miles, and the longitude reading on the GPS ticked slowly westwards as the sun shone down from a (mostly) clear blue sky. It was nearly as warm as when we were last here - but there were differences: the combine harvesters were out (usually operating in squadrons of three or four in huge fields of wheat) and many of the trees had orange tinges to their leaves. We had bought a few provisions in a supermarket on the way out of town (including our first fresh milk for about three weeks!) and we didn't stop for lunch, we just picnicked as we drove along (on really good fresh bread, cheese, etc). As evening approached, we decided we would pull off the road and camp - we hoped the insects would be a bit less active than in June. First, we stopped at a roadside transport cafe and ate fried chicken and mashed potato - not great cuisine, but filling - and we have hardly seen chicken for many weeks, so it was a nice change. We are beginning to get the hang of these places. Rich used to avoid them like the plague, but now he is quite happy to go in and mix it with the truckers, ordering whatever we can and seeing what arrives. We pushed on and then spotted a likely place another twenty miles or so down the road - a track leading off around a wood half a mile off the road. We followed our noses and found a really nice clearing around the back of the wood where we have parked up for the night. The insects are still there, but they are definitely feeling a bit more tired and a couple of squirts of Deet and a mozzie coil are keeping most of them at arm's length. Rich is over his hangover now and is reorganising the car yet again - if only this behaviour were transferable to the home context... I am sitting OUTSIDE typing this and drinking real tea made with fresh milk. So mostly things are looking pretty good here at GPS ref 56º 29' 49.93" N, 67º 03' 21.56" E and I am really rather looking forward to a nice simple night's sleep in my tent tonight. 3rd SeptemberGood night's sleep in the tent - nice to be back in the simplicity of it all. We had a slow start (we didn't have too far to go today, and no point in arriving in Ekaterinburg too early). Rich did some more repacking on the van, and decided to give it a bit of a spring clean as well - cleaning all the Mongolian road dust from the more obvious places in the cab, etc. We refitted our rear view mirror (we might need it now!) Then after a lunch of cheese and tomato sandwiches we got on the road about 1.30. Everything seems so much easier this time, coming back through Siberia when we know what we are about and are much more relaxed about everything. The insects are all feeling a bit tired, but whilst they are not causing us the problems they did on the way over, they are still irritating enough to keep us moving. Then a day of driving, through increasingly heavy traffic. It looks as if the residents of Ekaterinburg have all been on weekends away in Siberia and are coming back with us. Rich notices a few more "decent cars" rather than trucks and Ladas. We stop at a car spares shop for some grease, and my gestures cause hilarity amongst the ladies who are serving. But we eventually get what we want - and drag ourselves away from all the other things we could have bought (a complete new engine and gearbox for some sort of car for about £500, for instance). Eventually we find our way into Ekat and get to the hotel. It is the swankiest place we have seen for a long time. It was apparently once described as "Russia's only five star hotel east of Moscow" and Rich is enjoying looking around the little luxury goods boutiques in the foyer. Hopefully we will be able to use their WiFi to download this diary update. Kevin Lynch's office booked us in here, so we get the British Consul rate (I hope it is a SIGNIFICANT discount!) There is a message from Kevin on the desk when we arrive, to say he is back from the country early and could meet up with us this evening if we arrive in time. Unfortunately we didn't quite manage this - so we will meet him for lunch tomorrow as originally planned. We showered and then headed straight for Il Patio, the really good Italian restaurant we finally found on our last day here last time around. After a real blow out which left me gasping for breath (and falling asleep as soon as I got back to the hotel) we headed straight back for some rest (and to enjoy the luxurious facilities). With Jeremy Clarkson on BBC World, it felt quite homely! Couldn't quite get used to the idea of aircon, though. I suspect it is quite a long time since anyone washed their smalls in the huge basin in the bathroom here, but I'm not proud, so I am now all kitted out with clean clothes - though in this place I still feel pretty scruffy! So tonight we are hitting the Tums/Rennie for the first time in a while, and enjoying the most comfortable beds we have seen in ages - all at the Atrium Palace Hotel, Ekaterinburg, GPS ref 56º 49' 41.05" N, 60º 36' 52.50" E, altitude 105 metres. |
