Part Two - The Final Curtain (as opposed to the Iron one)

And so, the end is near. To pick up from the last posting, arriving in Ulan Ude (UU), it struck us as being very foreign. Yes, I know we are in a foreign country anyway, but UU was different again to what we'd so far experienced with Russian cities. I'm not sure I can explain why, but at the very least we noticed a melting pot of people here; suddenly we were surrounded by very Siberian / Mongolian / Buryat faces rather than the previously predominant white Russians (also, the terrain was hilly, dry and dusty and the temperature around 35 degrees C, unlike most of our experience of Western Russia. UU is a small city, maybe only the size of Shrewsbury, set beautifully, with a good feel about it - Russell). Getting this far was also a bit emotional for both of us; it should have been here that we turned south into Mongolia and then China. However, I can say now, having done what we've done since, what has been in our small world an “epic” drive across pretty much the width of Russia, and realising what we would have missed out on seeing and experiencing, we have the point of view that everything happens for a reason. (In some ways I regret not driving Elmo in Mongolia. Not going to the trouble and expense of a longer, multiple-entry visa was the biggest mistake I have made in respect of this trip so far. It would have allowed us far more flexibility and the opportunity of driving into Mongolia and back into Russia. Mongolia would have been a bigger challenge of navigation than Russia and I would have liked to say that I had crossed the Gobi Desert. However, driving close to the border, we have had a flavour of what the Mongolian terrain is like; driving the Siberian highway, we have driven roads as rough as we would experience in Mongolia; and I think that the right way to see Mongolia is on horse-back. Whenever we stopped the car whilst driving through (hours of) grasslands in this region, we became conscious of the bird-song that we had not heard, and the breeze that we had not felt, because of the car, and I felt we had missed out a little - Russell).
Unfortunately, because of the timescale we have now been working to since our amended travel itinerary, we could only allow ourselves one night in UU; it would have been good to stay longer and experience more of the Buryat culture. However, as it stands, how many of you out there can claim to have seen what UU is proud home to – the biggest Lenin head in the world? ...Quite. We realise now that perhaps we should have had a sub-feature to our blog, with a photo of Darwin next to every Lenin statue we've come across; maybe for our next year-off's blog...

On from UU and a 2-day drive to Chita meant a night “car-camping” again. We stopped early to cook ourselves a meal, before driving on for another couple of hours and then parking up for bedtime. It was while Russ was trying to get either of our 2 stoves to actually stay alight (Western-made stoves made to run on Western-standard fuel, not Russki petrol - Russell), that I noticed a fella on a bicycle, coming from the direction we were headed. I didn't think too much of it, until he shouted “Hello!”. It turned out that Niomi (my apologies for almost certainly misspelling his name), a Japanese gentleman, had set off from Vladivostok on his bicycle on 13 May (it was now 19 June) and was going to continue cycling across Russia, through the Baltic States, make a bit of a weave through Europe, and end up in Portugal, where, 20 countries cycled later, he would then fly home. So, thank you to those of you who have e-mailed to commend us for what we are doing, but, compared to this chap, it's sod-all! And, to rub it in, he has already motorbiked Australia and cycled across America.
The next day we made it to Chita, having awoke early in what turned out to be (we think) the entrance to a logging site! The now expert Prado mechanic performed another fuel-filter clearance before we set off from what was a beautiful spot in the hills (we reached over 1100 metres, higher than Snowdon apparently, but I didn't notice any small train running up the side of this particular mountain).

We did wonder momentarily if we were on some other kind of “trip” when we arrived in Chita, as all around the main square and shopping streets teenage girls appeared to be floating about in ball gowns, and yet it was only 4pm in the afternoon. However, we established that it must have been “Prom” day, and soon got used to the experience of walking past yet another “Princess Barbie” lookalike (well, I did at least; Russ was rather quiet that afternoon....)

While experiencing this fantastical reprieve we were girding our loins; we'd been warned we'd got anywhere between 900 – 1500 km of bad road ahead (i.e. previously unexisting road). We were going to give ourselves 6 days and 5 nights out in the “wilderness”, assuming we might manage 240 km a day max (about 6 hours driving), given what we'd already experienced. So you can imagine our delight, when leaving Chita the next day, to find a good road, and by late afternoon we'd already got 460 km under our belts. The main obstacles in our path were more animal than mineral in fact: as a follow-on from Russ' “Might is Right” rule, apparently, here 4 legs consider themselves far superior on the road to 4 wheels. However, eventually we once more saw plumes of dust in the distance and realised there was some hard driving to come yet again

That'll be a dusty road, then...

Our second day in the wild was pretty much a whole day of unmade, dusty road, but we were both in the swing of it, and when we set up camp that night to find our stoves had now completely called it a day, Russ set to and built us a proper fire, using only a match, with no fire-lighters, or petrol cans thrown in disgust, in sight. So pleased were we to see proper flame, that we ended up making excuses for how to make use of it; not only did we cook our meal, but we then heated water for washing up, followed by more hot water for Russ to have a manly shave in a wing mirror of Elmo, followed by yet more hot water for me to wash my face, which at that point was one of the most glorious experiences I could remember. It was only when we discovered that we'd whittled our 5-day supply of water down to about 2 litres that we realised we might have been getting a bit carried away.

The end of our third bumpy, dusty day was our wonderful experience of the hospitality of Sasha, Svyeta and Roma, as I mentioned in our previous blog update. Sasha told us we were now about 200km away from Blagoveshchensk, which would mean we'd made it to the Russian Far East, an area which is actually larger than Europe. By the time we reached Blago (and good road!) by late lunchtime the next day, Elmo's temperature gauge was showing 36°C. We checked into the Hotel Druzhba (with me using only Russian – smug moment) to find they'd only got a deluxe room available with a king-size bed. Given our past few days of “hardship” we said, well, we'd put up with such luxury if we really had to...

Blago's claim to fame is that it sits one side of the Amur River and the other side is China. Again we had the momentary frustration of knowing we were so close, and yet couldn't get in! Lots of Chinese tourists come across to Blago for the “Soviet” experience (and the nearest vodka factory, if the happy, bottle-clutching group in our hotel were anything to go by). A big plus of this was that the hotel therefore had Chinese food in its restaurant, which was delicious (and made up for the Cold-War style breakfasts we had there). (The Chinese we came across were a very noisy, lively bunch and quite a contrast to the reserved manner of Russians. Now, I would like to go to China just to experience the bustle, never mind the sights - Russell).

(Oh look, another 'phot of me with no top on - Russell) Two hot days later and were were on the move again, another 2-day stint, this time to Khabarovsk. We'd hoped the road would now be okay, but no, another 60 km stretch lay ahead of us almost immediately. By lunchtime it was 34°C and yet more bad road lay in front, prompting us to have a lunch-stop. With horse flies the size of my thumb taking an interest and with no desire to sit in a closed Elmo with our air-conditioning not working, brainwave! We rigged up our 2 mosquito bed-nets so one draped over each side of the car, and that way we could have the windows open without having chunks of flesh removed.

Due to the heat of the day, we had a bad night's sleep in the car that night, so when we arrived in Khabarovsk for 10.30am the next day, we parked up in a quiet street and napped for an hour! We then found our way to the Hotel Zarya where we checked in (we stayed 7 nights here in total) went and had a look at our room and napped for another hour! Our hotel room was very comfortable apart from the consistent and mysterious daily arrival of mosquitoes; it became a ritual every morning and evening to kill as many as we could find, but their numbers never seemed to decrease. After two nights of being entertained by their various high-pitched whines past our ears, and laying bets on which bit of us they'd try next, we fetched our now ever-useful mosquito nets and commenced the nightly routine of rigging the nets up between the over-bed lights and the curtain pole on the opposite wall. To give the mozzies their due, they were very persistent even then; following the first night of “netting” Russ found 2 very poorly critters at the end of his bed, who had managed to crawl up the inside of his net from the floor. (I believe their illness was due to the Permethrin-soaked nets, rather than from having imbibed on Russ' juicy red cells).

Khabarovsk is lovely; a more un-Russian city I've never seen, with wide tree-lined streets and lots of red brick buildings (built around the end of the 19th century). For the first time in a while we were able to be proper tourists. We ate in an authentic “blini” cafe (Russian pancakes, sweet and savoury, delicious); we dined on sushi (shipped in from “nearby” Japan – over 80% of Khabarovsk's tourists are Japanese); and gorged ourselves on ice-creams (Russians have a very sweet tooth and there are ice-cream stands on virtually every street corner). We strolled round the Park, visited the Regional History Museum and spent time at the Military Museum (where Russ was in raptures over the courtyard display of Russian army trucks, cannons and tanks, and where I wondered how much longer until I could have my next chocolate ice-cream). We took a long look round their huge WWII Memorial; a massive black marble crescent and about 30 enormous black marble monoliths, all covered with the names of those that Khabarovsk had lost; there were thousands of names. It was very moving and slightly eerie, because as we looked around, the bells of the church behind the emorial started to toll slowly, and they kept ringing until we walked away, when they came to a stop again.

Just a small part of the WWII memorial

Left - Spot Darwin

It was in Khabarovsk that we were finally able to give Elmo a proper clean at an “Auto-Moika”, basically a lad wielding his pressure-washer wand (ahem). It cost us a lot of money, but Elmo was VERY dirty, (so it made us pig-sick to hit yet more unmade road on our last leg to Vladivostok.)
And so now we are here, in Vladivostok, (a city closed not only to foreigners but also most Russians until 1992), having spent 7 days in a very small hotel room and not at all getting on each other's nerves, at the end of the line. We've not had time to sort out 'photos of 'Vlad'. It is a port city, set in a bay and built on a number of hills, so it feels a little like San Francisco, and has a similar climate (some hot days, some foggy days). It's also a cosmopolitan city and a very nice place to while away time.
Elmo has cleared customs and is waiting for a container ship to start his journey to Brisbane, thanks to Davos Express, shipping agents, who have been a pleasure to deal with. We catch the ferry to Japan this evening. We can't really believe we've done it; back when we were debating the idea in Moscow we didn't really think it possible, but you can surpass your own expectations and give it just that little bit more than you think you've got. Yeah, yeah, enough of the marketing.
Big thanks to Ken (Pops) for giving us the encouragement and mental push into going ahead, rather than turning back, and enormous thanks to Murray (Step-Pops) for his invaluable patience, time and internet searches in finding the best way to get myself, Russ, Darwin and Elmo the heck out of here.
We hope you have enjoyed our Russian journey, and hope you'll “tune in” again to catch up on our Japanese and Australian exploits. Thank you for being there with us.

Just more beautiful Eastern Siberian scenery

Different Strokes – Part one

Yep, it certainly does take different strokes to make a world. When I typed the last blog 2½ weeks ago, I never thought I'd be drafting the next one sitting in 35°C heat in an open-air cafe above a man-made lake with fountains, in a park, surrounded by beautiful brick buildings from the turn of the century, with tree-lined avenues and SUNSHINE.
We're now in Khabarovsk, only 2 days (albeit long ones) drive away from Vladivostok (yes, we decided to do the daft thing and challenge ourselves to drive across Russia). It's such a weird feeling to be so close to the end of our Russian journey, although the fat lady hasn't sung yet (no quips about my vocal talents on the video clip please). We aim to get to Vladivostok for the evening of 5th July and then we've 5 days to try and ensure that Elmo has successfully been put into a crate and on a ship bound for Brisbane, Australia (the shipping agents in Vlad think that is enough), and 9 days to sort ourselves (and Darwin) out with ferry passage to Japan, where we've decided we'd like to spend 3 weeks sight-seeing (by public transport – what a quaint concept...) Thanks to Dave and Helen for their suggested “must-sees”.
And I don't mind admitting that we are flippin' proud of the fact that we've now driven across Siberia, along approx 1300km of unmade road – again if you've seen the videos, you'll hopefully understand our patting our own backs.

Russ will readily admit that he wasn't that struck by Western Russia, either the landscape or the people, but we have both fallen in love with Siberia and the Far East of Russia, and the folk that inhabit it. The Siberian landscape, especially, is more than can possibly be described, with glorious grassy prairies full of bird life that you can't see, but are deafened by when you stop the car and step outside, while around the edges of your view are magnificent mountains, in so many hues of pinks, purples and greys. We've taken more photographs than we can probably count, but none of them will do justice to what you have to see with your own eyes.

We are glad that we have driven the Trans-Siberian Highway rather than take the train. The hardship of driving such a distance, on such challenging terrain, and sleeping out in it for nights at a time when we were between cities and any chance of a hotel-stop, I think made us feel we'd earned the beauty that we were experiencing.

(left - a view from our lakeside overnight stop)
We've had Lilia and Sisik, two local girls in Ulan-Ude, come up to us and just start chatting, curious to know where we were from and where we were going; the first people in Russia who'd really taken an interest in two dusty foreigners. We had a taxi driver applaud us and give us the thumbs up when he saw the GB sticker on Elmo. At a fuel station in a small village in the middle of nowhere we've had a local chap come up and shake our hands and wish us “Good Morning” (it was actually afternoon, but hey, who's fussy in the face of such obvious friendship). And most special of all, as we were preparing to sleep in the car for the third night in a row (we gave up on camping – more about that later) as we crossed the most remote section of the highway, and having parked up by a beautiful lake, we had Sasha (a Russia/China border guard), his partner Svieta and her son Roma invite us (in Russian – no English spoken by them and rightly so) to their evening picnic of shashlik (BBQ'd chicken or pork), where they proceeded to virtually force-feed us most of their meal, going without themselves, and they were so patient and full of good humour as we bumblingly tried to answer their questions about where we were from, what we were doing here etc. For both Russell and I, I believe that it will be our best remembered night in Russia, such was their honest generosity and friendliness. (Dull diatribe from me: generally, Russians seem to be very matter-of-fact. We have dispensed with the smiley foreigner stuff when we try to communicate, as that seems to confuse, but, on the whole, the folks on the receiving end allow us, patiently, to struggle through with our phrases of (bad) Russian and gesturing, without any sign of a belittling smile. So, we have got used to having an armoury of words, props, gestures and play-acting that will get us what we want. That said, the further East we have come, the more helpful, friendly and animated the people seem to be, and a little more inquisitive, too, although it is hard to quantify within that how much more positive I am towards people now we are in warm, dry weather in stimulating scenery - Russell)

So, enough of the eulogising, and on to a proper breakdown of our journey from Tomsk onwards. Did I talk about Tomsk much before? We liked it very much; it was fairly untouched by Soviet hands, apparently because the city fathers decided not to have the Trans-Siberian railway stop there – a wise move if you ask me, given how lovely it is. It was here that we drove to a quiet spot (that we thought was rough ground, but actually turned out to be a local beauty spot for picnics – oops) and Russ successfully managed an oil change on Elmo, a wash of the air filter, and emptied the fuel filter of quite a lot of yucky water (the cause of that mystery dashboard light, Russ discovered after a good internet search), while I was able to give Elmo a good wash with water from the river we were parked up at.

It was a 2-day drive to Krasnoyarsk from Irkutsk, so we camped out for the night in between; our last night in the tent as it turned out. It had been a gloriously hot, clear, blue-sky day, which meant a gloriously clear, therefore numbingly cold night. But once I'd got my hot water bottle, thermals, pyjamas, 2 pairs of socks, scarf, one of Russ' fleecy tops, plus 2 fleece blankets over my sleeping bag, I was absolutely fine. Bizarrely the next morning pretty much for the first time we were able to put the tent away dry. Russ would have appreciated this much more had he not woken up suffering with a nasty tummy-bug and therefore having to commune with nature slightly more closely than he would have liked.
Because we'd done good mileage the day before,we arrived in Krasnoyarsk for early lunchtime, to find we'd turned up on 12 June, which is celebrated across Russia as the day (in 1991) the USSR ceased to be, and the Russian Federation began. Therefore we found ourselves battling down one block of the main street for about ½ an hour, through massive crowds gathered for the parade. Eventually we got down to Ploschad Lenina (the main square; every city should have one, I shall campaign for Shrewsbury's on my return) and managed to check into the Krasnoyarsk Hotel, a big Soviet concrete block of a building, but comfortable rooms. We thought this might be a mistake initially, as we found ourselves looking directly over the Ploschad, where a big stage was hosting all manner of singers, dancers and other entertainers, performing, VERY LOUDLY. However, when we returned to our room about 11.30pm that night, we were first captivated by the sight of the huge crowds who had gathered in the square to enjoy the late-night festivities, and then we were completely enraptured by the entertainment finale of a non-stop, 15 minute firework display to music.

It was here that I got to experience another “exciting moment”. So we'd wondered off to find our Krasnoyarsk hotel (left - the Krasnoyarsk Hotel), which was down the other end of the main drag from where we'd had to leave Elmo. We'd lunched, and made our way back to the car. As we were getting sorted, I felt an irritation on my left hip, slightly itchy, slightly prickly, slightly sore. I thought something, maybe a label, was rubbing, so touched my hip to find something had fixed to me. I glanced down, to see ... A TICK. Instantly hundreds of horrible thoughts about tick-borne encephalitis (rampant in Russia, delightful effects of brain-swelling and pretty much death – I now feel that the £600 we spent on inoculations before we set out really was worth the money) poured into my mind and I spent a good few minutes either feeling very nauseous, or about to pass out (unusually, perhaps, Alex isn't exaggerating; mortality rates from tick-borne encephalitis in this part of Russia are about 20% and 40% of survivors have permanent central nervous system damage - Russell). Russ was calm, found our sharp-nosed tweezers and pulled the little blighter out. Well, in two goes he pulled the tick out. First time round apparently the body snapped off, leaving it's head still embedded (it made me feel so much better to hear that), but second time round he got it, assuring me he could see the antennae and jaws, and that therefore yes, he'd got all of it out now... For some reason after that point our desire to camp waned quite a lot, so since then, any time we've had to sleep out, we've just put our sleeping bags in Elmo and put the two front seats back. That and the fact that all manner of critters seem to like to feast on me – mosquitoes, horse flies (that draw blood – did you know they did that?) and kitten-sized ants have all “had a go”.

After just one night in Krasnoyarsk it was time to move on again, so a night in the car, then a day later we reached Irkutsk ...I made that sound so simple, didn't I? Actually, the road between Krasnoyarsk is what you can see in our Dancing Queen and Driving on the Moon clips (previous posting), and it wasn't the first bit of bad road we've driven, but it was the worst. If you could also imagine driving that terrain until 11.30 at night, up and down a couple of darkly forested hills, fighting for space with oncoming, headlight-toting vehicles as well.


(Often, there is one good 'line' of least potholes, bomb-holes, berms, banks, etc, which vehicles in both directions try to take (left - oncoming traffic trying to find the best line). To some extent the 'Might is Right' rule is in force, such that we can 'persuade' smaller cars to pull over and get off the good line for us and oncoming trucks persuade us of the same. To go off on another diatribe, the reason for the poor condition of the road in the Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk section seems to be that it is built straight onto marsh which, presumably, freezes and swells in winter to force the road surface up and open. In the new sections of, as yet, unfinished highway that we drove further East, the road has been built many metres above the land, on (millions of tonnes?) of hardcore, gravel, earth and/or sand. It is a hell of an engineering project. What also becomes apparent is the effect of traffic on the road surface when it has been impaired or is unfinished. The suspension action, of trucks in particular, can create a corrugated road surface that is grim at low and high speeds, but there is a speed at which Elmo's suspension can cope with it well, typically about 60 – 70 kph (40mph, ish). However, if the corrugations have become badly potholed, then above 25kmh is bloody awful and it is best to slow right down and pick your way around them as best as possible.

Also, Alex hasn't mentioned the road-dust (which gets EVERYWHERE). Whilst I enjoy driving along seeing a cloud of dust behind me, driving into the dust from other cars is less entertaining. Visibility can drop to around 10 metres and it is best to assume that there will be a car on your chosen line coming the other way, so on with main beam (it's best to dry with headlights on in the daytime, anyway) and slow right down (we had a few near-misses, but Russian drivers, whilst risk-takers, are switched-on). To be fair, with the few slow vehicles going in our direction that we wanted to pass, it was a case of judging whether it was clear from the odd glimpse of road past their dust cloud, then main beam on and drive into blindness as fast as the road surface would allow. Oh, and Russian risk-taking on the roads: population of Russian about 2.5 times that of the UK, road deaths over 10 times that. Families (I assume) erect small shrines at crash sites in the same way that some people leave flowers in Britain. You don't travel far without seeing a shrine. I'm not sure what point I want to make with this, since I am comfortable with a bit of risk-taking, but 35,000 road deaths each year seems rather a lot - Russell).

(These trucks weren't going for it. We would get overtaken by tipper trucks and then not be able to see for what is far too long when driving).

(A picturesque village on the road to Irkutsk)

Russ likens Irkutsk to Stoke-on Trent, and Lonely Planet calls it “slightly seedy”, but as Louis Walsh would say “I liked it” (so did I. It had everything we needed, the people we dealt with were friendly and helpful, the lady who cut my hair told me I was 'beautiful' (I suspect it was the only word of English she knew) and it was the best signposted city we have tried to get into and out of. We just didn't see anything that encouraged us to take any photographs - Russell). We set ourselves up in the Hotel Delta for a few nights, a comfy, Westernised business-type hotel, only slightly marred by our last night there, when we had to move rooms, and had a quibble over the price we'd been quoted, which resulted in us being “allowed” to stay if we checked out by 10am the next morning (the receptionist quoted us their rate for Russians, rather than visitors, which I double-checked with her as it sounded cheap, so I held her to it when she tried to back-track the next day - Russell. However, the folks in the Epitsentr Internet place were friendly, as were the folks in the Fiesta cafe we regularly frequented (great pizza slices), and we bumped into a few Australians and British students who had stopped off along the Trans-Siberian Railway; it was very strange to be able to use complete sentences in English with someone other than each other.

For our last day in Irkutsk we headed off to Listvyanka, a small village sitting on the edge of famous Lake Baikal and our nearest access point to it. On the way we called in at the Taltsy Museum of Wooden Architecture, which might sound a bit dry, but it's an outdoor collection of very old Siberian buildings that were actually moved piece by piece from other villages so that they could be restored and maintained. We spent a fab couple of hours there, and in fact it's given Russ some great inspiration for our “Good Life” style new home project when we return to the UK.

(Oh yes, I'm going to build a wooden chapel...)

Listvyanka, when we got there, well, it's a bit like Borth I suppose, with less cafes and shops open. So instead of a nice shore-side cafe lunch, we made do with a bottle of Coke and a Kit Kat from the nearest magazin (shop). For those of you who don't know, Lake Baikal is the world's deepest lake, containing almost a 1/5 of the planet's unfrozen fresh water (thank you Lonely Planet). The water is apparently pure enough to drink straight off (we didn't try) but blimey, it's SO cold. In fact the lake is so big that it impacts on the surrounding weather; we left the Taltsy Museum, only 10 kms away , in 28°C warmth, to arrive at the lakeside with a temperature of 11°C...

Darwin freezing his fluffy bits off at Lake Baikal

Following our four nights in Irkutsk, we drove towards Ulan-Ude, and fame! To explain, we had promised ourselves that we would pick up any “decent-looking” hitch-hikers (no, I don't mean Angelina Jolie / Daniel Craig look-alikes), but had only earlier that morning given our first lift to someone since arriving in Russia (a really nice young chap, Andrei, a National-Service officer in the army, who when Russ asked if it was a good life in the forces gave quite a vehement “nyet”) (above - the town where Andrei is stationed, on Lake Baikal). Then only about an hour later, as we drove through yet another small village, we noticed 2 people frantically waving at each passing car. We drove on, then following a squabble where I insisted we couldn't fit 2 people in the back, and then Russ made me sit there with him to prove to me that it could be done, we drove back to offer them a lift. Two people yes, but two people who are actually part of a Spanish TV competition called “Pekin Express” (where 10 couples are fighting it out to be the first to get to Beijing, on NO money, therefore everything has to be begged for – food, accommodation, lifts off idiot English travellers), and who also have a camera woman with them, plus her big camera... Well, we tried. A frantic shuffle of our things off the back seat and rear foot-well, jamming them into the back of the car and hanging bits off spare bungees. It would have been fine, had not the lass suggest that their rucksacks could go on the roof rack, which meant Russ clambering up to do a shuffle of fuel cans etc and free up some ratchet-strap space. He was just tightening up the last ratchet when a beeper went off on the lad's belt, and suddenly we're told that actually one of the points of the competition is that they have to achieve certain things to certain times, and they'd just run out of time for moving anywhere that day ... Russ kept smiling, I'm very impressed with him for that. Anyway, we might be on telly (albeit Spanish and maybe South American) sometime in September / October, as we were being followed round by a camera the whole time we were going through the above palaver. If anyone is interested we can email you the website of the TV company (why would you be? - Russell). So I'll finish our blog for now, even though I haven't brought you right up to date yet, to go and dream of being “discovered”, although I expect Dancing Queen has pretty much put the lid on that one. If things go to plan, the next instalment will come from Vladivostok, and should be our last from this “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” (Que?- Russell)

More Eastern Siberian landscape. Mongolia is on the other side of the mountain range.

A village on the way to Ulan Ude in Eastern Siberia