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Diary w/e 2 July
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26th JuneHullo Houston, we have a problem! We also now think we have a solution, but you never know... The day started well enough - breakfast not at Tiffany's, but at Ilnar's. He wasn't about this morning, but by pointing at random things on the counter, Richard ended up with a sort of "nearly sweet, nearly savoury sandwich" and I got a danish pastry that turned out to be a sort of Cornish pasty - very nice, but a bit unexpected for breakfast. We paid up our £3 or so, and headed off. Pretty soon, our problem manifested itself, though. We thought the brakes had been needing more strength to operate, and we now found that we needed to stamp with all our might to achieve a slow oil-tanker deceleration. This was not good - the engine feels like it will chug on for ever (I have definitively fixed the cutting-out problem with a bit of deft rewiring work to replace a loose crimped spade connector to the fuel pump, and we now have about 3,000 trouble free miles under our belt); but it's no good being able to go if you can't stop properly. We pulled over to a fuel station to fill up and have a think about what to do - driving was becoming increasingly hard. There was no leakage of brake fluid, and no sponginess in the brake pedal (quite the opposite), so we were convinced we were not about to lose braking altogether. But we still have nearly 3,000 miles to go to get to Mongolia, and that was going to be a very long and tiring journey at 40 mph! We thought the power assistance for the brakes had probably failed somewhere - either a problem with the servo itself, or some part of the ancillary gubbins (technical term). As we filled up with fuel, a couple of guys came over to admire the car - that happens quite a lot. We went through all the usual stuff about not understanding a word, but yes it is a "Lend Rovair", and it does take diesel (same word in Russian). They always say something that sounds like they are asking what on earth we are doing here, and we always reply "Kyemping, Mongolia", which generally gets the desired reaction. That happened this time, and after a few more admiring looks and comments, they went back to their work. We looked in our workshop manual on the laptop, which agreed with our diagnosis, and gave us a few ideas about which bits of metal and hose to look at and poke around ineffectually (as men do under bonnets). This we duly did, obviously to no effect. We then realised that the admiring guys were working on another broken down vehicle, and one of them was clearly a mechanic. With a load of comical gestures about stamping on imaginary brakes and not achieving much, and then pointing at the break servo, we asked him whether he thought we were right. He pulled a few tubes off expertly, put his finger over things and felt them and said he thought either the "vakoom" (the servo itself) or the "nazos vakoom" (the vacuum pump which provides the vacuum from the engine) was broken (Russians seem to make a cross from their forearms rather than run a finger across their throat to indicate this). He said it would need a "spetzialist" to fix it, and some new parts. He wrote down the name of a specialist imported car parts business in the nearest town (50 kilometers away) called Naberezhni Chelni and we decided to drive off their to try our luck. Before we went, he told us that the food was very good at this truck stop, and we realised it was lunchtime so we took an early lunch of random food - it turned out very nice, a kind of starter with thinly grated cheese, slices of meat, mayonnaise and cold vegetables, a bowl of really delicious chicken noodle soup and some pork steak which they beat with a mallet in the kitchen until it was thin enough to count as an escalope of something, plus "kartoffel free" (chips, it turned out) and a few other vegetables. All very nice, and we couldn't finish it. The whole lot cost us about £5 each, with a big bottle of water and bread thrown in. One of our friends had managed to ask us if we could, by any chance, give him any charge for his Nokia phone. We found that my charger worked for him (we had a mains inverter fitted to the Land Rover to give us 240 volt power for a few things). He was very grateful, and we got "chatting" - he was a Moldovan, who had arrived at the station in a big American made truck which had terminally broken down, and for some reason he was helping the mechanic and another guy fix a broken van. But nothing phases these Russian mechanics. They are used to making engineering miracles out of nothing, and he was actually rebuilding the entire engine of the van on the forecourt of this garage - we saw the replacement cylinder head he was going to use lying on the ground next to the van (and a huge pile of nuts, bolts and other bits of engine). We managed to ask how long it would take him, and he said about two days! As we drove slowly into the town, we saw a car repair place (there are loads of them everywhere, as well as spare part shops - they need them badly!) On spec, we pulled in to ask if they knew where the specialist parts place was. Our arrival drew the whole team of mechanics outside to appreciate our car. Loads of questions, no answers except "diesel", "Lend Rovair", "Kemping" and "Mongolia". They obviously decided our problem was a challenge for them. We couldn't undesrtand a word of it, but another man who was there picking up a car had some broken English and said his wife was an English teacher. So he rang her and got her to interpret for us! Basically the question was "we might be able to fix it, do you want us to try - three or four hours?" We quickly said yes and they started enthusiastically unbolting things under the bonnet, admiring the rest of the engine bay as they did. After a couple of hours, though, it was bad news - the nazos vakoom was definitely broken and they couldn't fix it. They needed a replacement, and they had not been able to track one down. So they tried a creative solution, plumbing the servo into the main air intake to see if it would give us enough of a vacuum in the servo to make a difference. Unfortunately no great improvement, so they had to admit defeat (having previously taken us to the cafe round the corner and paid for tea for us while they worked). Their pride was hurt, but there was nothing more they could do for us except recommend which big towns along our route might be able to come up with the parts. In the meantime, I had been having a parallel conversation by mobile phone with Rob at Liveridge (who had sold us the car and done the conversion work on it). He pretty much recommended exactly what they did, and when it was clear we would need the parts, he arranged for them to be couriered by TNT to the British Consul in Ekaterinburg, about 600 miles up our route. We will drive there slowly and make a proper repair when we get there, though we may have to wait there for a couple of days for the parts to arrive. The garage would not accept any money for their work, but we did manage to force our bottle of whiskey on the mechanics who had tried so hard. It was hugely appreciated and the whole gang turned out to wave us off. We were now way behind, so we needed to push on, carefully. This we did, crossing miles and miles of absolutely beautiful countryside - this is obviously the agricultural heartland of European Russia, and the landscape is huge - the horizon seems to be hundreds of miles away all the time; but it is all carefully tended and once you are off the main roads there are endless quite charming villages built in the vernacular wooden style of this part of Russia. We pulled up at another truckstop with a campsite sign, a bit like Ilnar's but not nearly as nice. We decided to move on and find somewhere wild, but not before we had attracted the usual admiring crowds (mostly Armenians, this time, apparently), who proudly told us the Izhevsk (the nearby town) was the home of the Kalashnikov machine gun, and both Prince Charles and a mad American professor had been down this very road, one in a car and one on a bike ride from Korea to Portugal. Then someone shouted that the football was on and we were dragged in with them to watch the end of Italy v Australia before we could head off to find somewhere nicer to camp. They were horrified at the amount of the fine we had paid the other day - they said we should pay 100 - 200 at the most! Everyone hates the traffic police - they were quite surprised the police aren't like this in England. We eventually found a spot to camp a few hundred yards off the road in the woods. So tonight we are mainly keeping our heads down at N.56º 52' 07.7", E53º 28' 02.3", a few miles north of Izhevsk, probably near the Kalashnikov factory. 27th JuneLast night there were a bunch of people who drove past us on scramblers which made us very tense as we didn't know if we were supposed to be camping there, or if they were going to shoot us with fresh AKs. We heard them stop a few hundred metres away, make a few noises and then they appeared to get wasted and drove home again at 4am. What a life to lead. Russia has generally been tense all the way through so far. You can't trust anyone not to steal your things, and you are always nervous of the police, not understanding the locals or just doing something wrong by accident and other bad things resulting... etc. The only rest you get is when there is no-one around for miles, which never happens because there are more Russians here than there are hot dinners/grains of sand on the shore/*insert appropriate cliché here*. Quiet day really. Did a bit of driving and found a place to stop in the woods next to the motorway (thought it was private, but we have had some kids come past already, and we thought we were miles from anywhere!). At least this stop doesn't have needles and syringes strewn around like the lay by we stopped in for lunch. Our brakes still don't work properly, we smell, everything is hard work, we can never relax, we don't understand anyone, my blood sugar is lower than a policeman's morals and we are 100 miles and a three day wait from getting the Landy fixed. Your turn dad: Good, I'm glad you've got that off your chest! One week done, only twelve to go! Tomorrow, the bright lights of Ekaterinburg and probably an enforced stay in a hotel for a few days while we wait for the parts. At least we think we can fix them ourselves (famous last words?) I think last night's disturbances and poor sleep is most of the problem, along with the heat and the ever-present flies and mossies when you get out of the car. Some of that can soon be fixed, then the rest won't feel so bad. The time zones don't help, either. Within 24 hours we have crossed two more time zones, and because we are so far north, it never really gets dark, so here we are tapping away in our roof tent at nearly 11 pm and outside it just looks like one of those English grey days. Today we have only covered about 200 miles, from Izhevsk to Perm (which, from our brief acquaintance, seemed to have very little to commend it, and to be a fitting model for the town which Chekov's "Three Sisters" were so desperate to leave) and then on towards Ekaterinburg. Generally the roads have been ok (60 mph possible in theory) but at one point there was a stretch of about five miles where it was little more than walking pace, with the heavy goods vehicles rocking and rolling alarmingly between the massive potholes. Our "military look" theory about not being stopped is obviously wrong. We were just lucky a few times. Today we have been stopped at one out of four or five checkpoints (more yesterday), and when the policeman seemed to be trying to extract a bribe for failing to drive on a blazing hot sunny day with headlights (which aren't required in Russia anyway, we believe), the "dumb English, don't understand a word you're saying, old chap" line worked a treat and we were waved on out of sheer boredom. I think it has been 30 degrees or more for a good chunk of every day since we left England. That can't help. Richard says it hasn't been that hot all the time, and his empirical proof is that he doesn't agree with me. This is going to be a tricky one to resolve. The battle between his feet and the rest of the world continues. The Slippers have not made a re-appearance, despite being quite definitely dry now. I think they were a bit hot (they certainly smelt it) and so the trainers came out instead. Unfortunately the corrosive power of The Feet has proved too much for them and they have fallen to pieces, so we must buy some properly made Russian footwear when we get to EK - perhaps a pair of T34's. In the meantime, I am chemically assured of a good night's sleep, my face being about 6 inches from The Feet. At least they keep the mossies away. At least I'm not all smelly, sweaty and hairy... It's definitely disappointing that we are being held up for a few days, but maybe there will be a silver lining in the form of a bit of rest and comfort all round. Tonight we are mostly in contemplative mood at N.56º 54' 59.5", E57º 34' 13.3" in a forest about 140 miles short of Ekaterinburg 28th JuneShort version - a slow 140 mile drive to Ekaterinburg, where we are now checked into a hotel for three days to await our spare parts. About 3,500 miles from home. No hurry today, so we had a lie-in, a leisurely breakfast (in bed, for Richard) and then headed off at around 1pm. We hadn't been able to get enough of a signal to download the update last night (hardly surprising, as we were right in the middle of a very thick forest) - we hope this doesn't mean that we are now getting out of the range of GPRS networks (which will mean that our mobiles will only work as phones (and not as an internet connection any more), and only that for part of the time, so we will have to use the rather more expensive satellite phone connection to download updates). Better rested, and with a slightly cooler day (a little bit of cloud about, not quite so hot and humid - around 28 degrees - even a bit of a breeze at times) we were in good heart as we bounced back through the forest to the main road and back on to the Ekaterinburg highway (well, road, anyway). We then had a pretty uneventful drive to EK itself. Our "Lonely Planet" guide gave us a few options on hotels, and we ended up booking into the Hotel Sverdlovsk, right opposite the main station. 1,300 Roubles a night for both of us (about £25). No fenced-off secure parking, but we are parked in an area right in front of the hotel where they actually watch all the vehicles (so they say - and there are lots of blokes standing around with uniforms, pens in their pockets, stern expressions and walkie talkies, so perhaps they do, especially at the price we paid - 300 Roubles (about £8) per day). Our room is definitely a couple of notches down from the one we had in Vladimir - the bathroom looks like something from a rather grotty unrenovated 1930's house, with no plug in the basin (we found out why - if you plug the hole with a sock to do your washing and then let all the water out at once, the plumbing can't cope and you get an overflow situation all over the floor!) The shower looks like something I have made myself (and if you've seen my attempts at DIY, you'll be horrified) and I haven't been able to bring myself to look too closely at the toilet yet - though at least we have our own! The English-speaking lady on the tourist information desk was really helpful and called the local Land Rover dealer for us to see if they might have the part we need. The answer was that they didn't, and it would probably take them about two weeks to get it! They would be happy to fit our part for us when it arrives, though, if we want. We said we would probably be ok doing it ourselves, but we would contact them if we have a problem. We did see a few posh Land Rovers on the streets - nothing hard core like our Defender, just a few poncy Discovery 3's - and lots of posh adverts for Range Rover Sports and Jaguars, which seem to sell ok here to a certain type of clientele - we have seen loads of black BMW X5's, Toyota Land Cruisers, VW Touaregs, Disco 3's and other big 4x4's, all very shiny and with blacked out windows.... We have the all-important registration stamps on our immigration cards, so we are completely "legal" again. This is not to say we weren't legal before, it's just that the rules are so complicated even the Russians don't understand them. Basically you need to be registered somewhere at least every three days, or be able to show that you were in transit for the period between your stamps. For us, that would involve a lot of difficult explaining (though maybe "Kyemping - Mongolia" would do it!) We've had our first showers for four hot sticky days, and we have been able to get our handwashing done and hanging up to dry. We are almost presentable examples of homo sapiens again! I do worry about how habitable the tent is going to be in a few weeks' time, though! EK is a really busy town. It was a bit like driving through any big city in Britain (except that the road signs are a bit harder to read). 1.4 million people live here, after all. It is regarded as pretty much the capital of the Ural Mountains, and the gateway to Siberia beyond. This is where the Tsar and his family were brought after the Russian revolution in 1917 and executed. A lot of armament manufacturing was brought here during the second world war, and not surprisingly EK was another city that was closed to foreigners until the 1990's. It had a very bad reputation for gang warfare etc in the early 90's, but that seems to have calmed down now (apparently unlike Chelyabinsk, down the road a couple of hundred miles, a place we have carefully avoided!) After all that history, Rich and I will go take a look and form our own opinions over the next couple of days. It's now Wednesday, the parts aren't expected until Friday at the earliest, so we are just going to have to make the most of being "City Break" tourists here. After we had done our household chores, we went out to explore a bit of Ekaterinburg by night on foot. We ambled back towards the centre of town, looking for a likely eating place. The streets are very wide and the traffic is very fast and furious - in at least four lanes, most of the time. We found our way to a little park by the river, where we bought an Iced Tea and an Iron Brew at a kiosk - we tried to slide open the display cabinet for the drinks, only to find that it was locked and operated by remote from the kiosk - you normally have to pay before the cabinet is unlocked for you to take what you have bought, but the owner stretched a point and let us take before paying. We then walked across a footbridge over the river to an Italian restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet, which gave us a really nice meal, though it was not cheap - about £30, of which £10 was the bottle of rather average Chianti (the cheapest wine on the menu, and discounted by 50% from the list price!) We were really pushing the boat out, and we must not get used to such luxury! There was another spectacular thunderstorm while we were eating, and the streets were drenched by the time we came out (though it had stopped raining). We were struck by the number of people wandering around clutching bottles of beer - young men and women both; but never in groups of more than 4 or 5 - not really threatening, and not rowdy. The biggest crime we saw (apart from some very dodgy driving) was extremely poor taste footwear amongst the young women - impossibly high heels or wedges in awful colours, often combined with inappropriate stringy type ties winding halfway up the calf and unreasonably short skirts. Though we walked back to the hotel through some fairly seedy streets at around midnight, we did not feel particularly unsafe, and there were plenty of folk about. Then we watched a bit of Russian TV in our room - including Russian MTV, badly dubbed bits of Baywatch, 24, ER, Russian Big Brother, Sex in the City and some Richard Gere film which Rich gave up trying to understand after about half an hour. Ali G even made a brief appearance! Tomorrow, the priority is to introduce ourselves at the Consul's office and check there are no problems with them (we have had no reply to the email we sent them), then buy Richard some new shoes to replace those already dissolved by The Feet. Hope the car is going to be alright parked out the front! Talked to some English stoner traveller types in the hotel lobby, it was very good to hear some English voices. The hippy type from "The Young Ones" was here. Tomorrow I'm on the look out for a pair of Dunlop trainers, we shall see how lucky I am. We'll have to find them quick, because pretty soon there won't be any soles left on my current shoes. I'm thirsty. I'd love a bottle of water right now... OK, I got you some from the nice lady who sits by the lift on our floor of the hotel. Only 50p for a nice cold 1.5 litre bottle. The main problem was the walk - our hotel corridor is just like something out of "The Matrix" - it's about a 100 metre walk to her desk in a straight line between about 50 doors, along a thin strip of very old carpet nestling on a bed of worn lino with holes in it, under rather nasty strip lights. And we aren't even near the end of the corridor! Tonight we are mostly sitting in our hotel room hoping the car won't be broken into at the Hotel Sverdlosk, Ekaterinburg. No GPS fix, I'm afraid, because GPS doesn't work indoors and I can't hold it far enough out of the window without attracting unwanted attention... Hooray for Google earth! You can even see our car parking space at N 56º 21' 22.2", E 60º 36' 21.16". 29th JuneWent to the Consulate in the morning to sort out the delivery of our replacement parts. It went fine and we are on for a delivery tomorrow (if we can find the TNT office to sign some forms to get the parcel released from the airport!) Initially there was a bit of a wobble because of security concerns about unexpected packages arriving at British diplomatic establishments, and the fact that they had not received our email telling them who we are and what we had arranged. That was soon smoothed over and the Consul General was very helpful. We followed that errand with a shoe hunt for me, and after scouring half of Ekaterinburg for Dunlops, I came away with some pretty cool rugged Columbia things which aren't too bad at all. Bought socks from what used to be a big Soviet public centre (mostly grey concrete) which is now a sort of department store. Well that's enough about my uninteresting and frankly irrelevant footwear. Hear hear. We were lucky because the weather was a bit cooler - overcast to start with, only really warming up in the late afternoon when the sun broke through - quite muggy all day, though - another sweaty one, especially with all the walking about we are doing. Mind you, musn't complain after more than a week cooped up in a Land Rover, with another 8 straight days of driving to come soon. Lunch consisted of a visit to a very slow fast food place and some pizza topped almost exclusively with dill. So that was a bit weird, but hey they had a decent toilet, and good toilets are like gold dust around here. And continuing the snappy vehicles theme, we saw our first Humvee today (black, and with blacked out windows, of course) and also a Range Rover Sport (same paint job and glass) being driven by a couple of teenage girls. We then visited the Military museum. It was very good, there were lots of old guns, bombs, mines, flame throwers, knives etc. Everything you expect from a museum really. There was even a section about Gary Powers and the American U2 spy plane that was brought down near here during the Cold War in the 1960's - including his flying suit and some bits of his plane. Also lots of stuff about more recent wars - Afghanistan and even Chechnya (which is still happening now). A bit weird to see obviously recent photos in a war museum! We had to leave our bags at the entrance with the nice old lady who took our admission money (30 Roubles, about 70p each). She assured us she would watch them carefully (or maybe she was just pointing to a fly in her eye). They contained the laptop, and many of our most precious possessions, so we took a deep breath before leaving them with her. When we got back, she was fast asleep, luckily with the bags next to her. We picked them up and tiptoed off. I'm not sure she even woke up... Got back to the hotel, washed some clothes and slept for a bit while dad sorted stuff out with TNT for tomorrow. Then it was about time for dinner. We eventually found a place (the best ones in Lonely Planet were nowhere to be seen) and ate an extremely overpriced spaghetti carbonara. We have to find a decent place to eat tomorrow or I'm going to get angry. We asked for an espresso to top off the meal, and it arrived, full strength, in full sized cups - by our estimates, their must have been at least five normal espressos each in there, so we are not expecting much sleep tonight... There really does seem to be a shortage of decent restaurants around here. We have pounded the streets and they hardly exist at all. It doesn't seem to be part of the culture here to eat out, though everyone drinks, both in bars and wandering around the streets (mostly bottles of beer). Empty bottles are left in huge numbers all over the place every night - generally carefully stood up on a kerb stone or in the middle of a pavement. Given this habit, we were surprised the streets are not awash with empty bottles and broken glass - until we spotted the subtle ecological balance this morning. The young people spend all evening drinking beer and leaving the bottles lying around, then in the morning the old people quietly tidy them up and apparently sell them off for recycling. Result - comparatively clean streets and everyone's happy. There's a moral there somewhere... And it is: "Drink a lot of beer on the streets because it is good for society." On the way back from the restaurant, after a lot of walking all day we decided to take a caffeine-charged ride on the Metro back to our hotel. Quite tricky, but we managed it without incident once we worked out the name of our station, and that the loose change that the ticket office lady gave me included two tokens that looked like coins to put in the barriers to let us through. A flat fare of 9 Roubles (about 20p) gets you anywhere (mind you, the number of places you would want to go is pretty restricted). Interesting fact of the day - the area is so rich in minerals that when they were digging the tunnels for the Metro, they struck gold - enough to pay a good part of the cost of construction! Can't see that working for the Midland Metro extension... Rich has a plan for learning Russian. It involves watching Russian TV as much as possible when we are in the the hotel, in the hope of learning by osmosis. Mr Bean is very good, because it involves no language at all, except that he now knows the Russian for "End of Part One". I've forgotten it. Dad worked out a new plan which should get us to Ulaan Baatar in time for the Nadaam festivaal. It aall depends on this vaacuum pump aarriving tomorrow of course. We shall see how that paans out. We aall know how good Russians aare with bureaucraacy... Apart from the bureaucracy, the main drawback is that the plan involves an average distance of over 350 miles per day for a whole week, on roads which we don't know much about - but which we suspect are a lot worse than those we have seen so far. Oh well, we're having a glass of whiskey now so all that seems to be bothering us is getting to sleep. What a nice feeling. Still no GPS fix. No matter how far out of the window I hang the blasted thing I can only get one satellite. You can see over half of the sky! Global coverage my [anatomical detail omitted]. But I dare say the Hotel Sverdlovsk hasn't moved much since last night. We are thinking of having timed races down the corridor, though - we need to leave our room before dawn if we are to get to breakfast on time. We have photos for those who don't believe us!! Tonight we are mostly buzzing with caffeine at exactly the same place as last night. At least our car has not been broken into... yet! We did see a Land Rover Defender 110 (our model) in a music video on MTV at breakfast. Apparently they are quite desirable around here... 30th JuneAn up and down day. First, we needed to get to the TNT office on the edge of Ekaterinburg early to sign some kind of contract and declaration entirely in Russian - hope it's not important! It was needed in order to get our spare parts released from Customs. This journey was an epic in itself. First we tried asking a taxi how much the fare would be. In a fit of righteous outrage, we stomped off to the bookshop to buy an Ekaterinburg street map, determined to drive to the place ourselves. We duly found a map (price £1.50) and set off after studying likely routes, etc. A journey of about 4 or 5 miles across the city, should have been a snip. I could have sworn we bought the map from the map section and not the humour section in the bookshop, but it was very "funny" (when we showed it to the TNT people, they described it as "abstract", which I thought was rather nice). Combine that with very heavy traffic, extensive roadworks, diversions, etc and strange local rules about one way streets, giving way to trams, etc etc (as well as being stopped by the police and having to do the "don't understand" routine) and it took us just over an hour to find the TNT depot, which was in a small but smart office block hidden at the back of the biggest and ugliest tower block estate you have ever seen - it put the old Castle Bromwich estate by the M6 at Birmingham in the shade. By this time, Rich and I were being icily polite to each other. One thing we noticed was that Russian cars have a habit of breaking down. In our various criss-crossings of the city today, we have seen at least 8 or 9 cars (and a couple of buses and other goods vehicles) broken down in the middle of the busy traffic. The driver usually gets out, lifts the bonnet and calmly starts to work on a repair while the traffic flows all around him. Nobody does anything as rude as toot a horn at him (indeed, we have only heard about 3 horn blasts all the time we have been here) because it is a problem most of them have experienced from time to time. We conclude that if you want to fade into the background in EK, all you need to do is lift your bonnet and start fiddling under it, whatever car you are driving. The TNT people were very helpful. After copying my passport, my immigration card and seemingly every other piece of paper in my possession, and asking me to sign my life away in Russian in three places, they explained that the parcel was at the airport and their customs agent would now be able to get it released today. We could either wait for them to deliver it to us at the hotel on Monday (!!!!!) or we could go back and get it ourselves (a repeat of the journey from hell) later in the day. We chose the latter. Oh, and the sting in the tail was that there would be a $75 charge from the Customs agent! We asked them to draw a better route on our roadmap for our return journey - it went completely round the other side of the city! To calm our nerves, we arranged to call in to see the Consul General, Kevin Lynch, on the way back to our hotel. At his request, the police allowed us to park our grimy Land Rover right outside the front door (they share the building with the American consulate, so that was no mean feat!) and we then had a very pleasant hour or so with him, exchanging useful information and DRINKING ENGLISH TEA WITH MILK. This is the 50th country in which he has served Her Majesty! He had made enquiries for us about any security issues along our planned route, gave us introductions to the Ambassador and another diplomat in UB and offered to help us with accommodation etc on our way back in September, if we stop in EK. We felt really "at home" for that hour! Many thanks, Kevin. When we can, we will upload a photo of the three of us, together with the Queen and Prince Philip (on the wall, of course) in our pictures section. We also thought it would be nice to have a picture of Richard with the car right outside the US consulate, but as soon as I took it, the police jumped on me and made me delete it while they watched! If they hadn't known about our close friendship with the UK Consul General, I dread to think where I might have ended up! So back to the hotel for a bit of a rest (bad night's sleep last night due to caffeine induced frenzy). Then out again to brave the EK rush hour traffic to get our spare parts. Richard had been asleep, and I awoke him gently thus: "Rich, with any luck in an hour's time we will be clutching our parts in our very own hands." No wonder he gave me a rather odd look. But it was not quite that simple, of course. This is Russia. After an hour's drive back across EK, we arrived at TNT to be told there had been a delay at the airport. There were unfortunately only three customs officers working instead of the usual seven, which meant that our package might get held up until Monday. After a very positive conversation with Julia at TNT (why is it always the women who speak English? Rich and I could not work out a non-sexist answer), the picture changed to this. Their Customs agent (his name, appropriately, was "Kostya") would call in all the favours he could and stay at the airport until our package was cleared and would then bring it personally back to the TNT depot to hand to us. The bad news was that this was unlikely to be before 8pm (later changed to 9pm). Rich and I certainly couldn't face yet another game of dodgems through the EK rush hour, so we simply stayed put and waited. We had missed lunch and we agreed to break out the emergency last resort pot noodles. Unfortunately the plug-in 12v water heaters (which were always a bit dodgy) did not really boil the water, so we ended up with tepid crunchy pot noodle soup in the car park as the week slowly closed down around us and a horrible feeling of "stuck in EK for another three days" enveloped us. That was our low point. Then, to our surprise, it all happened. Kostya appeared with our package shortly before 9pm, and we decided to try and do the repair ourselves there and then in the car park. To cut a very long story short, by 11.30 (thank goodness for the really long evenings!) we had carried out our repair and got the car going again, WITH PROPER BRAKES!! Hallelujah! We hit a few snags, and at one point it looked as if we might need to sleep in the car on the spot until we could get outside help. But finally (after a visit from a local Land Rover nut in his 110 Defender, with his wife and son, asking if we needed any help and telling us about the 4x4 competition in Irkutsk this week) we did it and felt very pleased with ourselves as we packed the tools away and decided to celebrate in town with a meal. After ruining their nice clean toilets getting armfuls of oil and grease off, we had the best meal we have had in EK, thanks to a recommendation from Kevin Lynch. As we were tucking in, a couple of girls came to our table. They had heard the English and wanted us to settle a bet - one thought we were Australian and one thought we were German (we couldn't be English because they could understand us!) After we had disabused Tanya and Julia, we had a very enjoyable chat in English about all sorts of things. They had just finished their last exams of the academic year in public administration, so they were out to celebrate. Their English was excellent, and it was a real privilege to give them an opportunity to practise with us. But then bed called, so tonight after finishing this we will be mostly raring to get on the road again in the morning, from the same location as last night. 1st JulyThe day we finally left Ekaterinburg. After a late night of doing last handwashing, etc, we fell into bed at the hotel Sverdlosk for the last time. There was still no plug in the basin, the drainage was just as bad and we discovered a new excitement - a wall light which was plugged into a socket by a dodgy extension cord with a small switch in it. The switch crackled and spat merrily when Rich tried to turn it on, and when we decided it would be safest to unplug it from the wall socket, the plug stayed put - and the socket came out of the wall! But none of this worried us when we woke up at 9.30 and went down for our last dodgy breakfast. This time, I managed a few pieces of hot boiled sausage, some cold cooked potato and some rather unusual mixed vegetables, which had been first lightly boiled and then fried in what tasted like butter. The first time I have had fried brussel sprouts for breakfast, and hopefully the last. The tapioca with yoghurt (for that is what it turned out to be) was a comparative relief after that. Rich found some meringues and wisely stuck to them. We gave the Land Rover a bit of care and attention, right in front of the hotel. Not a sign of any oil leaks from where we had bolted the new vacuum pump on, I think we can count that as a success. We topped up half a cupful of oil, checked the other levels and the tyres. All ok, we loudly slammed the bonnet and started her up. We set off through the Saturday lunchtime traffic in EK, and finally found our way to the main Tiumen road. The brakes were working perfectly and the engine was running very smoothly after its enforced rest. We were on the lookout for a supermarket to stock up with drinking water and some other fresh supplies (we had been warned against the EK tap water - apparently it has lots of rather nasty heavy metals etc in it). The first big warehouse type place we stopped at on the main road out of town had the word "Hypermarket" in its title, in cyrillic script, and Rich thought he spotted loo rolls stacked against a window. So we were hopeful. But when we got inside, we realised the loo rolls were in fact wallpaper - we had stumbled into a Russian version of Homebase - and very big and snazzy it was too. Of course we were unable to resist having a good look around, and after I had refused to buy a hatchet and a few other dangerous implements, we finally saw a universal joint for our socket set which might well come in useful, so we bought that. Even in Russia, it's very hard to walk out of a place like that without adding something useful to your toolkit! We had only driven another mile up the road when we saw another big warehouse with pictures of bread on the side, and we thought it worth trying a quick U-turn across the dual carriageway (it's what they all do over here) to go and have a look. Sure enough, we had struck gold and after about an hour we were on our way again with all sorts of goodies. We sat contentedly munching Russian jaffa cakes as we drove along, after scoffing a whole loaf of really delicious warm brown bread between us. The chocolate went in the fridge for later emergencies. A pretty uneventful day after that, really. Just miles of driving - only about 300 actually, because we wanted to limber up with a fairly gentle day after our long break. It was also our introduction to Siberia proper (having crossed the rolling Ural Mountains on the way into EK - Rich was very disappointed there were no Alpine style peaks, it all looked a bit like the South Downs but bigger). We were struck by how flat the landscape was. Still lots of forest (though less dense here so far than we have seen elsewhere) but loads of flat open land - some under cultivation but mostly just meadow, with some shallow looking (but quite large) pools (not pooles). The same big skies and distant horizons and long straight roads (generally not bad quality mainly single carriageway today, with quite heavy traffic near the bigger cities), but a feeling of far fewer people about - much bigger empty spaces on the map between villages, and we are starting to have to think about keeping our fuel topped up. It definitely has a very different feel from Russia west of the Urals - more wild and uncharted. We have been seeing signs to Omsk for a while (at last, a name I recognise!) and we also saw our first sign to Novosibirsk today, 1,553 Kilometres. Russia is nothing if it is not big. By my reckoning, we now have "only" 3,600 Km (or 2,250 miles) to go before we reach the Mongolian border. So we are now around two thirds of the way there, and it's not even taken us two weeks! Our route today took us round the city of Tiumen, about which there is very little to say except that it did actually seem rather more up to date and less run down than many places we have seen - oh, and we had another of those thunderstorms there; a bit different this time because there was very little thunder and lightning, but some rather heavy hail. Then on down the road towards Ishim before turning off up a forest track and setting up camp a few hundred yards off the road in a large clearing, screened from the road by trees. The news of our arrival soon spread amongst the local insect population, and we had our first proper experience of Siberian insect life. It is pretty spectacular. The flies have been on steroids and the mossies have been on irritation courses. They thrive on Deet, and citronella candles and mossie coils just serve as homing beacons for them. In the end, after cooking dinner in a mounting cloud of insect life, we bolted up into the roof tent to eat and have an early night - at least they can't get us in here! This time he stopped writing before three in the morning, so I have a chance to say something... but of course he has already said everything anyway. I'm sat watching the sheet lightning going on miles away up in some really high clouds (I can only just hear some of the thunder) it is really impressive the way clouds appear to flash orange in the sky. The wind machine has finished writing etc so now it is time for it to sleep. Don't forget to check out our new 'Guestbook' thing on the site. But if you actually want to get a message to us, it is best to email, since it is easier for us to pick up emails than it is to look on the interweb. Happy posting, So tonight we are mostly keeping our bare flesh away from the mesh of the tent - where the mossies are queuing up outside for a takeaway. This exciting spectacle is all taking place at N.56º 29' 56.4", E.67º 06' 59.8" 2nd JulyThis was heading towards being a thin day for the diary until this evening. We got up around 9am, and took a rushed breakfast, dodging the bugs which rapidly discovered us in force when we opened the tent. We packed very hastily and headed back to the road through grass which came up to the windows of the Land Rover; it was a bit like sailing across a sea of grass. Then we drove. We followed signs to Omsk, and eventually we got there. The only notable features of the drive were a hasty stop for lunch and our longest stop yet with the roadside police at a checkpoint. They wanted to look at all our papers and see a few random bits of our load (the videocassettes took their interest for some reason). Eventually they were ground down by the "nye panymayoo" line, and let us go without any problem. We also drove through some more big rainstorms (no hail this time, and far fewer bolts of lightning). The day had started cloudy, overcast and COOL, but soon warmed up and boiled over around lunchtime. The roads were pretty much empty (it's a Sunday, of course) and we were able to keep up a steady 60-65 mph all the time (overtaking the few trucks on the road was quite easy on the long straight single carriageway roads). Fuel is less frequent, but still absolutely no problem to get hold of. The price has been creeping up, though - now around 17 Roubles (38 p) per litre, when we have seen it as low as 13 Roubles further west. The landscape has been much as before with huge forests in the distance but quite large clearings along the road. We did not want to go beyond Omsk this evening, but we wanted a good shot at doing Omsk to Novosibirsk tomorrow in one go. This meant stopping in Omsk and, much to Rich's delight, staying in another hotel away from the bugs. The first hotel we tried was the Mayak recommended by Lonely Planet, but they were really snotty and unhelpful - no rooms. We are now checked into the Tourist Hotel, in a quite reasonable 7th floor room overlooking the river - very nice. The interest really started while I was sorting out the hotel and Rich was Land Rover sitting. When I got back, he was deep in conversation with Olga (from Omsk) and her friend Vladimir (from Moscow). We had been spotted and were invited to join them for a drink as soon as we had checked in and freshened up. We did so, and ended up in a riverside bar eating plov (savoury boiled rice with beef and sauce) and shashlik (kebabs) whilst drinking Siberian beer (then Brahma Beer!) and conversing in a rich mixture of English, German and Russian. Olga gives private English lessons and Vladimir works for a meat concern with interests all over Russia. We compared Russian and English beer and weather (6-9 months of winter here, when it falls to as low as -40 degrees, then 3 months of summer when it can go as high as +40 degrees - quite hard to decide whether to take a brolly or a fur coat out with you in the morning!) No wonder the locals were all taking the opportunity of a Sunday evening dip in the river that runs through the city - there is a big beach which gets really busy. Pop music and "big theme" discussions also featured. We took our leave of them about midnight (not late by Russian standards - it was still light, and we had skipped another time zone today, so we are now 6 hours ahead of home). We may well meet up again when we are on our way back through in early September. Omsk seems a much bigger and more cosmopolitan place than Ekaterinburg, even though they are roughly the same population size. It has some quite elegant architecture and boulevards, and of course it is favoured by a large river running through it. And at least two of the people were very friendly and welcoming - thank you, Olga from Omsk! Now we are back in the comparative insect-free luxury of our hotel room (they even had air conditioning in the foyer!) at the Tourist Hotel in Omsk which, for those of a scientific bent, is to be found at N.54º 58' 46.3", E.73º 22' 23.8" (to the nearest 42 feet, apparently). We are also safely about 70 feet off the ground and apparently out of range of most of the insect life - hooray! Just a little reminder - we are still hoping to raise a lot of money for the Acorns Children's Hospice in the UK and the Christina Noble Childrens Foundation in Ulaan Baatar - those of our readers who have not quite got round to opening their wallets yet, please do so!
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