I remember I remember
I'm breathing today, the month of may
All the burning of leaves I'm not hearing a sound
My feet don't even touch the ground
Paul Kelly
(in my head on the Ulan Ude to Chita road)
The last one's the hardest.
"This guy's a complete asshole" (me the shithead)........"careful they've got cameras and microphones everywhere"(Ron the careful)............."he's still an asshole"............"true but"
Our last border crossing Mongolia into Russia.......just one more. We've had a great run at borders, all paperwork correct and our sunny attitude and the right amount of dumb confused looks and being Australian has worked a treat, till now. We breezed through out of Mongolia patiently waiting for things to be hand written in lined books and carefully noted in a laid back no stress atmosphere. We line up at the Russian side and await to be let in through the gates in blocks of four or five vehicles. We clear the first section for passports and fill out the little departure form . We then head over to customs to organise the customs form for the bikes and off we go. The guy first determines we can write....erm yes ok smartarse. He then hands us the forms which are in Russian and disappears. We put our names on the easy bits and wait. When he reappears he gets annoyed at us for his own mistake and finds one form in English and wants us to do two duplicates on the Russian ones with no errors, and then disappears again. We do our best but after he arrives back any mistakes he finds he wants signed and dated.....but wait, he then doesn't like the way we date things and round and round we go blah blah blah.......... as I said......"this guys a complete asshole"
(At the two former Russian border crossings one typed out the forms for us and the other allowed white out all over it!)
Ticking the Lake Baikal Box.
After spending a couple of hours clearing the border and staying overnight in Kayakhta we headed up through Ulan Ude to Lake Baikal. After riding up the eastern side past Gremyachinsk we attempted to scope out a camp site. We were staggered by the amount of garbage everywhere. The lake is beautiful but seems ultra popular with what infrastructure for garbage management there is totally overwhelmed by the number of campers. We headed back after one night lakeside on a Saturday morning and there were a huge number of vehicles heading into the area for the weekend from the Ulan Ude direction. Hopefully they'll get it sorted as it's a truly beautiful spot.
Just scoot across Siberia and tick the Vladivostok box.....hmmm still "a long way there"
After clearing the Ulan Bator traffic quagmire the scenery all the way to the Russian border was quite pleasant.
After dealing with the border pest we grabbed a hotel in Kyakhta just over the border. The hotel owner was a gem and ran us down to an ATM and then to a restaurant for some borscht in his battered Lite ace van with compulsory cracked windscreen. This church was just down the street from the hotel.
This is borscht and macaroni with a tasty meat thing. You enter a restaurant, scope out what others have in front of them and point to order. Hilarious fun!
Kyakhta was a little gem of a town with all wooden buildings and a warm friendly feel.
The road from the border to Lake Baikal was a ripper with lots of curves and scenery.
This is a long drop toilet which....erm...has lost it's drop....more of a low pile overflowing toilet. Ron didn't even get in the door and took to the woods as.....unfortunately.... most people do here.... everywhere.
After we cleared the rubbish it was a most pleasant place. Shalom and Beth found us after breezing through the border no probs....hmmm Took a swim to tick the "swam in the deepest and most ancient lake in the world" box. Tick.
It was goodbye to Beth and Shalom at Lake Baikal. Shalom is heading back round to Greece through Russia and Beth is heading past us to Vladivostok to head home to the USA. It was wonderful to meet and travel with them and both Ron and I wish them farewell and safe travels for the future.
HOW LUCKY IS THIS!
Ok so you've got a buggered tyre and three and a half odd thousand K`s to go. It's not getting any worse after the patch up job in Ulan Bator but the reality is it could turn to shit and leave me stranded in the middle of Siberia. We head back to Ulan Ude after Lake Baikal hoping to either find a tyre easily or just keep plugging (literally!) on. We're riding through the city centre and spot another motorcycle traveller but he spears off in another direction. I vow to find some wifi and find a bike shop when the same guy returns. Its Eric a Canadian on yet another BMW 800. Turns out he's on a Compass Expedition tour to the road of bones and there is a whole posse of Aussies, Canadians and Yanks coming along within the hour....with...some DR650's and possibly some spare tyres . Whaaaat......yep....so I'm standing in Ulan Ude in the middle of Russia just near the biggest Lenin head statue in the world desperately needing a tyre and if I wait about forty minutes an Aussie registered land cruiser with a trailer load of tyres will pull up right in front of me. So I wait.....and an Aussie registered land cruiser pulls up and an hour later I'm lunching at Churchill's Irish bar nearby with the rowdy Compass mob now the proud owner of a new dunlop 606 knobby, not ideal but will get me out of trouble.....awesome.
The Compass Crew
Compass Expeditions are an Australian based company doing expeditions all over the world. I think this one started out with maybe thirteenish riders on their own bikes doing a very similar route to us but finishing in Magadan instead of Vladivostok. They must be doing it right because this was a pretty happy bunch of individuals with only weeks left on their trip and about ninety days behind them. They were mounted on several GS1200's, a Triumph tiger, heaps of various BM eight hundreds (as usual) and of course a couple of DR650's. Now it stresses me just herding Ron along every day so I take my hat off to Mick one of the company owners and head wrangler for this tour for keeping this crew of strong characters smiling. Mick graciously invited us to join them as we were following a similar route till Skovorodino and so we did. Mmmmm they had food, and I didn't have to plan....just follow along.....and they stop for lunch.....with food....and a trailer with all their gear in it....and food....oh and tyres.... and a kitchen tent. Now there were I think two sixty seven year olds there doing the trip, one with his wife pillion so come on guys and girls, no excuses, sell the camry and the golf clubs, auction the block in Victor Harbour, buy a GS1200 and give Mick a ring before you turn sixty eight! Ron and I thank the Compass gang for their hospitality and humour and I admire every one of them for committing to a memorable adventure....it doesn't matter how you do it.....just that you do.
Ulan Ude sports the worlds largest Lenin Head in the world at 7.7 metres and forty two tons. (thanks wiki) Tried for a photo but an even bigger/fatter head got in the way.
Aaaah the food tent.......aaaaah nice
Precious the DR parked next to Blain from Canada's trick 800GS. We camped up with the Compass crew for a night and swapped the compulsory central Asian toilet stories!
We said bye to the gang at the Skovorodino turn off where they headed upwards to Magadan. We were only together a couple of days but formed an lasting bond.
OK this doesn't quite fit the above story but I love this stuff. This is at a truck stop between Ulan Ude and Chita. It was a little ripper two door with a vee four in the boot and in great nick. Had a sign language chat with the proud owner who showed me the original log books. He pointed to one twenty K's an hour on the speedo buuut I dunno. Pretty sure it's a ZAZ 968m which if you knew that already proves you may need therapy or to get out more....like me!
Siberia so far
"Its along way there" yep that's Siberia. Countless kilometres of forest line the road with slopes that go on and on, up and up till you peak and look over yet another vista of foggy valleys and more and more endless kilometres. You wiggle your numb butt cheeks side to side as you grind out the kilometres through the endless green passage dotted with fuel stops that guarantee yet another six hundred K of numbness. Fierce storms of thunder and lightning brew in the humid afternoons occasionally setting the forest alight and sending motorcyclists scrambling for sweaty wet weather gear in the sticky warmth.
Home feels to be in sight and its magnetic pull grows stronger every day......
The Siberian forest...cool and wet in the mornings, hot and humid in the afternoons with much of it showing signs of bush fires and SHITLOADS of bugs, mossies, nats etc!
Sage advice from Tim on the Compass tour....spray your ass with repellent before you crap in the woods......amen.
Vistas of foggy valleys and more and more endless kilometres.
I'm sitting in a railway station, got a ticket to my destination
On a tour of one night stands, my suitcase and guitar in hand
And ev'ry stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one man band
Homeward bound, I wish I was, Homeward bound
Simon & Garfunkel
Reality Check
We were about a half hour out from Chita on a beautiful morning when we rounded a curve and stopped up behind a long line of vehicles. It was obviously an extremely bad accident . There were debris everywhere visible from way back. One car ripped in half and another upside down in a ditch beside the road. An ambulance, just one, arrived a half hour or so after we arrived. Crowds of people were going forward many returning distraught. We found out later the the compass crew had gone through before us just after it happened and there being a doctor and a nurse amongst them had stabilised and done what they could for the victims. We eventually had to go bush to get round and carry on. I'm not a believer in just looking when I cant help so I stayed back but the long and short of it is at least two children and one adult may have lost their lives on this sunny August morning..........just what can you say.......
Next .....hopefully Vladivostok!