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