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

Dancing Queen

Guess who was wearing their I-Pod whilst driving? A section of the main road between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, which are major Siberian cities. These sections can last for around 60 kms (yes, I mean kilometres) at a time. (Sorry about picture quality, but it I used the camera on my 'phone) - Russell.

Two English Twits and a Stuffed Toy Dog

Well, we've certainly adhered to the phrase “Keep on Truckin'”, cos for the past 2 weeks we've hardly seemed to stop moving. It's been a mixed bag of journeys; on days where we've been leaving a city it's invariably taken an hour just to drive out to the city limit, so progress is slow, followed by constant slowing to 60km/h in all the villages we drive through (and there are many West of Siberia); when we crossed the Ural Mountains we spent half the trip crawling up the hills behind Kamaz trucks that belch out goodness knows what from their exhausts. Lots of old lorries.
In some places, we come across large truck stop
areas – cafes, workshops, prostitutes probably ('old'-style truck stop left and below (there are new ones about, with modern buildings, although they are just as muddy - Russell)). The pollution here can be so bad that visibility is reduced and you want to stop breathing. Then suddenly in Siberia, they seem to have different rules about where you build a road, and have decided to bypass most villages and towns – such an intriguing concept...

So, other driving issues (aside from our current one which involves a mystery light on the dashboard having come on in Elmo (our Toyota). The downside of a grey import vehicle is that it doesn't come (or certainly Elmo didn't) with a car manual which might show you what exactly that particular light means.
Firstly – two motoring fines, both surprisingly clocked up by Russell. I'll let him tell you in his own words:
(21st May – speeding. Radar clocked at 80Kmh (allegedly) in a 60 zone. Sternly ushered into the police car, where a colleague, charming, wrote down a figure of 600 rubles; I had no change, so he directed that I place the 1,000 ruble note I was holding into the car's centre console and pointed for me to go. The fears I had had about not knowing how to bribe my way out of situations were completely allayed; with years of experience on their side, the traffic police make giving bribes a simple process.
22nd May overtaking in a no overtake zone. I was adamant that I hadn't. DPS (traffic police) guy did a drawing to demonstrate what I had done. Wrote down a figure of 5,000 rubles. After much arguing (through gestures), he put a question mark against it and handed me a pen. I crossed out the last zero. He shrugged and said yes. This time I found the right change. I have since read that my speeding fine should have been only 100 rubles).

Secondly, what was supposed to be a paragraph or two about the number of accidents we see on the roads every day, is now slightly more poignant since we became one of these statistics too (albeit not on the same dramatic scale, by any stretch of the imagination). Read Russ' bit first, then I'll tell you more: (We see a lot of Russian-made cars and trucks at the road side with their bonnets up. Lots of new and second-hand trucks have been bought from the US and cars are being directly imported from Japan, still in right-hand drive form. Also, we witness the aftermath of more accidents in a day here than we do in about 6 months at home. Usually trucks that have driven off the road into the drainage ditch. Most just slide the cab in. some topple all the way over. In the absence of a ditch, one drove into the front of a house. Usually, there is another truck parked up with them, offloading the contents of the trailer - Russell).
Where was I? Oh yes, our “Big Adventure Day” as we've fondly come to think of Tuesday 3 June 2008. We'd wild-camped the night before and true to form with the Russian weather every time we camp, it rains by morning, so this time Russ decided to be canny and put his wellies on whilst we dismantled our tent and packed stuff away in Elmo. It was still raining all the while I did the first driving shift (we take it in turns of about an hour each), then we pulled over into a junction and swapped over (where we sat for a while waiting for a hail storm to pass, and got slightly worried because we weren't sure if the windscreen would get damaged - seriously). Less than 5 minutes down the road Russ realised he'd still got his wellies on and would prefer to change into his trainers. It's still raining, as Russ slows down and pulls over to the dirt verge ...
At this point I'll digress slightly to explain about Russian roads (I don't think we have gone into this already?) Russian roads, particularly rural ones, tend to be built up much higher (between 1 and 3 metres usually) than the surrounding land, which is very wet or marshy in most places. I think the water run-off from the roads also collects in the created ditches, as there is no drainage system as we would have in place. The roads are mainly single carriageway, but there's always a dirt verge that runs along the side of the metalled roads on both sides, which is popularly used by many Russian drivers to undertake, or to pull over onto when they need a pee.

... so Russ slows down and pulls over onto the dirt verge, and as the wheels hit the dirt we realise that the dirt, mixed with over 12 hours of rain, has become the muddy equivalent of a skating rink. Russ is braking, but Elmo's not stopping. Russ is turning the wheels left to get us back on the road, but Elmo is continuing to slide right. As we glide over the edge of the verge and begin our sideways descent down the 3 metre slope Russ is still desperately trying to get Elmo to go back up, but it gets to a point when Elmo thinks it might be easier to do a sideways roll down the rest of the bank, so with brilliant quick thinking (bless my wife - I just did what you're supposed to do and I really didn't fancy the idea of rolling the car - Russell) Russ turns the wheels to get Elmo facing down the slope and finally we come to a 45 degree angle (well it felt like it - Russell) rest at the bottom. There follow a couple of minutes of deep breathing and expletives that I can't put in here because I know at least my Mum would be horrified to know I can use such words.
At this point we would like to say a very big thank you to Stuart Walker, whose off-road driving course we'd done earlier in the year, and who had suggested the type of kit we might need to get us out of a fix (and to Eddie Priscott at Frog Island 4x4 for the same reason), including the bungee tow-rope that Russ now got out of Elmo and waved in front of passing vehicles. For about 5 minutes we thought that nobody would bother to stop (if nothing else, it's STILL raining), but then a very nice BMW saloon pulls over and 3 Russian guys get out. We can't speak Russian, they can't speak English, but we get the gist that they'd like to help but obviously there's no way their lovely car is going to be able to pull 2 tonnes of Elmo up a muddy slope. These guys do however stand in the middle of the road and flag down an oncoming Kamaz truck with trailer, and get the driver to agree to try and pull us out. We never got the names of these 3 guys, but we are touched by their generosity of spirit for helping us out.
As for the truck driver, again, we are very sorry that we didn't get at least a name, because his patience and persistence for the next hour was a sight to behold. For a while, every time he tried to pull Elmo up the bank, he only succeeded in pulling him along it instead (the result of Emo's ditch-dive, above). Eventually he managed to communicate to Russell that he would pull the back end of Elmo round so that the vehicle would be facing directly down the slope. That done, the driver then patiently waited until there was a lull in the traffic, then he gently manoeuvred his truck and trailer over the the other side of the road, and at last Elmo started to move up, rather than across. (I have to say at this point all I had been doing for this hour was standing around, making ineffectual flappy hand signals as I watched unsuccessful attempts to free Elmo. Russ on the other hand was a complete star, and was either in Elmo, trying to steer, or was running around between Elmo and the truck with the tow-rope, trying to get a different leverage point that would work.) (Again bless my wife for the compliment, but the reality is that the average Russian spends a lot of time resolving practical problems, like repairs and vehicle recovery, and has more common-sense in a little finger than I will ever have. There was at least one moment when the truck driver was bemused by my efforts - Russell). There was such a huge sense of relief to see Elmo up on the road again, and I think we wrung the poor truck driver's hand off, our handshakes of thanks were so enthusiastic. We also did ensure there was monetary benefit for him; I would think we've successfully fed his vodka habit for the next month.
That, pretty much, was our Big Adventure Day. We were lucky to get out of it completely unscathed, but it's going to be a while until I forget that sensation of being in a 2 tonne vehicle that isn't sure it wants to be upright any more.
As for the rest of our travelling, we've motored on through a number of cities, and from Northern European Russia, touching on the Volga Region, across the Ural Mountains (which are more like big hills to be honest) and now into the vast land that is Siberia (which seems to vary between looking like British parkland, with many small stands of Silver Birch amongst a landscape of pasture, and just endless prairie).

We left Moscow and got to Vladimir first, with a really quiet, but quaint town centre, where we stayed at the Hotel Vladimir (left and below) in their cheap rate room, which turned out to be the most bizarre apartment-like room (we've now established that in old-style Soviet hotels, you very often get a “suite” of a bedroom, bathroom and sitting room). In Vladimir we felt like we'd walked straight into the 1950's, or a Pleasantville film set, and because there were 2 other beds, spent a while trying to work out if we'd have to share the room with others (we didn't).

The plumbing in the Hotel Vladimir particularly impressed us.

Nizhny Novgorod looked nice when we got there and we would have enjoyed it, had we been able to find a hotel to stay in, but everywhere was full, apart from one hotel which had an apartment available for the equivalent of GBP300. We ended up risking a motel on the road to Kazan at 8pm that night, but got a comfortable room with shower and toilet for GBP30.

Kazan, in Tartarstan, and the Volga Hotel, where we stayed for 3 nights. There was also the marvellous plus that they were “testing” their new WIFI system, so we got to have loads of free internet access. A very clean city centre, with evidence of money from their oil in all the new, Western-style build that's going on. (Kazan, like a number of other cities, has 'benefited' from Central Planning and has a city-wide hot water supply. However, in the Summer, it rarely works. In fact, it is normal for district heating supplies to be turned off for maintenance during the summer months - Russell). A few buildings places have their own hot water heating, but not our hotel (it did have two showers with their own boiler, though). Of note was our lunch on the 2nd day at El Macho, a Mexican-themed bar/ restaurant, where one of the young owners was very helpful in trying to translate their menu for us, and where we had really tasty shashlik and salad. Our first evidence of Muslim influence in Kazan too, with a beautiful mosque set right inside their kremlin.

Ufa next and the Agidel Hotel, after a night of wild camping again, this time in a beautiful silver birch copse (there's a lot of Silver Birch in Russia - Russell), where we were spotted by 2 cops, but they were happy enough for us to be there (without a bribe, too. From what we have read, it is legal to camp in the wild in Siberia, apart from a few places that are (supposedly) signposted accordingly - Russell). We had hoped to get as far as Chelybinsk, but a day of driving the Ural Mountains behind crawling lorries meant Ufa was a nearer and more sensible option. Ufa again struck us as a town that's benefiting from oil, with new build, and expensive clothes shops (Prada, Yves Saint Laurent and Dolce & Gabbana seem to be the norm). A lovely receptionist at the Hotel booked us into an old-fashioned “apartment” again, at a “special price” which meant that we paid cash, for no receipt...(i.e. we paid the same rate as Russians, rather than the official tourist rate, and the hotel did not register us with the immigration department - Russell).

Yekaterinberg was next on our list, after yet another (wet) night camping, where we had a toss-up between a nice, new Western-style hotel, and the huge Soviet Bolshoy Ural hotel. We were brave and risked the latter, and once again ended up in a 1950's style bedroom, bathroom and sitting room combo. We stopped another 3 nights here, to catch our breath, do some admin bits and some sight-seeing. Yekaterinberg piqued our interest cos until 1990 it was closed to foreigners because of all it's defence plants... You can sort of tell, as only now are there some modern buildings going up (i.e. like a lot of Russian cities, it looks like the less salubrious parts of Birmingham - Russell). I was also very keen to come here, as this was where the Romanovs, the last Tsar family of Russia, were executed, so we went (I know, somewhat macabrely), to visit the site. (Also, Yekateringburg meant that we had arrived in Asia and Western Siberia. The Ural Mountains were formed when the European and Asian continents collided hundreds of millions of years ago. About 18km west of Yekateringburg, the 'collision' point has been marked (above) - Russell).
From there we moved onto Tyumen, and again initially struggled to get into a hotel. It would appear that their district (or oblast) have very strict rules about registering foreigners and so the cheaper hotels that we tried just wouldn't take us in. However, when we tried the Hotel Tyumen, the most expensive business hotel in the city, they had no problem once we were able to produce a receipt from our Yekaterinberg hotel to prove where we'd been last. It turned out to be a very ridiculous GBP170 per night, but blimey it was lovely! And it wasn't hard to persuade ourselves that we really needed to stay in Tyumen for 2 nights. For the first time since we've been in Russia we had proper pillow-shaped pillows, and proper duvets (rather than a blanket put in a duvet cover), although the first night we were there I slept really badly, cos it was too comfy! I think we pushed our luck a bit here, and I got very embarrassed, (although Russ will disagree with my sentiments I know), because on the 2nd day when the sun was shining, we got our very wet tent off the back seat of the car and laid it out in their (secure) car park to dry for an hour, whilst we had a reshuffle of the car contents.
Another night's camping followed, which got the tent nicely wet again, then we drove on to Omsk, (and in the middle of all this we had our Big Adventure). Omsk is another big, sprawling city, and we spent yet another hour trying to find our chosen hotel. We don't know what it is about Russian cities, but you very rarely get signs that either a) tell you how to get to the centre from the outskirts, or b) tell you how to get out of the centre onto the road you want for the next city. I don't know how rare we are at the moment, driving across Russia, but we've found it a flaw in Lonely Planet too, in that they have maps of city centres, but they are geared towards folk who've flown in or have arrived by train, not people who've got their own vehicles, and so we don't very often know, when looking at a Lonely Planet (LP) city centre map, which way is “out”. Our stealth hotel in Omsk (it just said hotel, no name on the outside!) was cheap and cheerful, with lovely reception staff who didn't speak a word of English, but listened patiently to my atrociously pronounced Russian request for a double room. Our “apartment” this time had a kitchen instead of a sitting room, so we were able to raid the nearby supermarket and actually cook ourselves dinner for a couple of nights (and get our own breakfast, since this hotel didn't have catering). The downside to Omsk is that we couldn't find an internet cafe, and so important admin stuff couldn't be done / looked into.
Originally we'd planned to get to Novosibirk next, but were increasingly put off by LP's assurances that unless you pre-booked, foreigners wouldn't find a hotel room for love nor money. In the end we beat our furthest travel distance so far and managed to do 510k to a spot about an hour outside Novosibirsk, where we then once again camped (in our worst spot by far; I am absolutely not kidding when I tell you that there were so many mosquitoes in the main compartment of our tent by morning, that after Russ had “Raid”ed them, when I got out of our sleeping compartment, I could not step anywhere without treading on bug bodies).

And so we get to today, Monday 9 June, and we've been in Tomsk for 3 nights so far (one more night booked, maybe another night be to confirmed). Tomsk is by far the prettiest Russian city we've been in, so much greenery, and it's a university city, off the beaten track a bit, so it's mostly very unspoilt by Soviet concrete slab buildings. There is lots of money here though, and I have mixed feelings that it would appear that as one of their beautiful wooden houses falls down in disrepair, up goes a lovely new modern brick and glass complex in its place (although I know it's progress, and after all, how many beautiful buildings did we tear down in the 60's?).
Again, we have reached decision time; from here we have to either carry on east now across to Vladivostok, in the hopes that we can get Elmo on a ship down to Australia; or we turn back west and retrace some of our steps through Russia, then down through the Volga region and into Ukraine and Europe (the cost of China is beyond our budget - in effect, about $9,000 just to get the permits, etc, necessary to get the car over the border, plus the (mandatory) guide's food and lodging to pay for. Our other alternative, the 'Stans, involves driving back to Moscow and waiting there a week to get a visa for Kazakhstan - Russell). We are trying to get enough internet time here to do research, as well as Russ now needing to do an oil change on Elmo, and we think (hope) that the mystery dashboard light is the fuel filter which just needs emptying (Between the amount of water about and the decrepid nature of some of the petrol stations (there are as many brand new ones), it doesn't suprise me that the diesel is contaminated with water - Russell).
Russia is certainly proving to be a challenge, and a tiring one at that, for many reasons:
the roads: sometimes smooth, sometimes terribly potholed, sometimes seeming to go through 60kmh limit villages and towns every 10 minutes, other times endless driving through little-changing scenery, because the country is so vast;
the weather: for the last 19 days, since we left Moscow, there's been rain at some point every day. If it's only a shower, that's fine, but when you're driving for 6 hours and the rain just doesn't stop, or when you set up camp on a dry evening, and wake up to find the tent's main compartment has pools of water, in one of which your rucksack (and its contents) has been sitting in nicely for most of the night, or when the verges get so wet your vehicle just slides off them (and in this country, where there's water, there's mud);
the language: (For me, the most difficult part of all this is not being able to understand or be understood. I find this a little humiliating, despite the fact that we seem to be getting, just about, what we need whenever we try to buy or obtain something. I do find it really hard. I think each exchange would be easier if they were a people who tended to have a sense of humour (that said, after economic hardship, Stalinist brutality, the reality of 1990s reform being that you realise that most countries in the world make better goods than you do, the mud and the weather, I would have lost my sense of humour, too) - Russell). We bought a Russian / English dictionary back in the early days of St Petersburg, but so many words change their endings depending on what case you are talking in and whether they are feminine, or masculine, or neutral, or singular, or plural, that it's difficult to work out the unchanged original so that you can look up its meaning in the dictionary. Increasingly the further east we go the fewer people speak English; we are starting to become a “novelty” in some places we go into now, whereby you can see people e.g. supermarket staff turning round to look at you as word gets round that you're a foreigner. Not that I'm slighting Russian people; serious yes they are, but (with a few ignorant exceptions) they invariably have tried to be helpful to us.
If this blog entry seems a little dispirited, please accept our apologies. I think that we're feeling a little worn down now; we've been 7 weeks away from home and our families and friends, with another 4 weeks to get across Russia (whichever way it ends up being), and technology hasn't been as convenient as we'd hoped, with sporadic access to the internet, and phone connections somewhat dodgy, and Elmo (our only constant here) isn't quite right, so it all adds up to feeling a bit alienated and alone. I'm sure by next blog check-in though we'll be much more upbeat.
Below: one of Tomsks old wooden houses.

Below: off the main roads, this is what the roads to villages look like. After a lot of rain, the trucks give up using them and queue up on the main roads to wait.

Below: just an example of some village houses. We keep talking about villages, but not showing any pictures.

ZDRAVSTVUJTYE!

Well, we're in!
It only took 4 hours to cross the border – 2 hours of waiting, followed by 2 hours with 4 different sections of border control with people who don't speak English trying to sort out the paperwork of 2 inept smiley scared Brits, who only know the Russian for “please” and “thank you”!
Once across the border ... what a difference! Roads are unbelievably pot-holed most of the time (although there are extensive road renewal works in lots of places). All of a sudden too, we were only seeing Russian cars (lots of Ladas, which we didn't realise they still make!) And not that Russia is a big country, but we drove 60km to Pskov, and only went round one corner ...

There was a flurry of panic in the car as we arrived in Pskov to be surrounded by lots of road signs in Cyrillic – thankfully Russ had learned the word for “Centre” so we followed signs accordingly, until we found a Lonely Planet recommended hotel, the Hotel Rizhskaya, the best hotel in Pskov apparently, where a room cost us a grand total of £30... an experience in itself, where each floor of the hotel has a lady who looks after the room keys, and keeps a tight rein! Breakfast was in a converted bedroom on the 2nd floor, with ½ dozen small tables, and a little kitchen where the bathroom would normally have been ...
That first afternoon and evening was quite a revelation; our hotel backed onto what looked like the set of a Harry Palmer movie (above); the ultimate Cold War Soviet scenes of tower block flats and knocked-about cars parked in the mud in between the high rises. I'm not ashamed to say we both called our mummies for some TLC and reassurance! (Thank you Mummies). (Strewth, how embarassing! My wife is 40 and she writes like this - Russell).
We keep saying to each other about the road systems in Russian cities; that we are glad we've had the transition of driving across different countries (eg Poland), 'cos if you were just dropped into here with a car, you wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance – it is completely mad! Russians are the masters at queuing, except when they're in a car! There's absolutely no road discipline – if it's a 3-lane carriageway each way, someone will “create” a 4th and even a 5th lane in between. At crossroad junctions people pull across into the middle and sit there, irrespective of the fact that they are blocking the way of the other 3 junctions. Undertaking? A way of life here.

Bizarrely, just has we had in Latvia, we turned up in St P the night before their main “Victory Day” holiday (celebrating the end of WWII and the breaking of the 900 day Nazi blockade). Unfortunately we were so shattered from our journey the day before that we pretty much slept through most of their morning military parade (but did catch some of Moscow's on the TV). However we did get to see the afternoon parade of survivors, being driven up the main route in old military vehicles, accompanied by small representative marching groups of the different forces.
We've both come to be quite fond of St P; the centre is a manageable size to walk around and once you get the hang of the road system, it's a fairly easy place to drive around, and drive in and out of. There are 3 beautiful canals; if the light's right they rival some of Venice's views. There are also some nice parks (albeit small); we had a wander round the Summer Palace Garden, and the Mars Field park,where an eternal flame burns for victims of the 1917 revolution.

A small section of the vast Winter Palace

We managed to see the main tourist attraction, the Hermitage, which has some wonderful rooms, especially in the Winter Palace, and a great collection of art (never did I expect to find myself in a room with 15 Picassos, most of which aren't even behind glass). However, we've come to learn that a favourite local phrase is “it's closed” - I was looking forward to seeing the dozen rooms occupied by the last imperial family, including Nicholas II's library - “this wing? It's closed” and the Malachite Hall (supposedly the most impressive room in the Hermitage) “it's closed” and the family chapel “it's closed” and then at the end of the day, when we'd made it as far as the French art collection, as the big hand on the clock hit 5pm and we were about to walk into the rooms containing works by Monet, Renoir and Degas, off went the lights and “it's closed”.

Looking across the River Neva to the Peter and Paul Fortress, St Petersburg

A huge error on our part was not checking to see when Catherine's Palace, 25k south of St P was open. We decided we'd visit on the Tuesday, but no “it's closed”. As a consolation prize (or so we thought) we decided to drive west instead, to the Gulf of Finland and the Petrodvorets estate, fully expecting its famed gravity-powered fountains to be switched off (example, above), but no! It was all up and running and it was absolutely glorious – shiny, gold and pretty, with lots of greenery and a lovely yellow and gold palace that looked “comfy”! Whichever tree-lined avenue you walk down, there's another different beautiful fountain, and the main Grand Cascade runs into a canal that flows down into the Gulf itself.
Our only other adventure of note in St P was the inept British couple's 45 minute walk to the British Consulate to register our presence in Russia. We glibly assumed we'd wave our passports and wander through the Consulate for a chat with some nice young UK chap. The reality? We arrived at a gated entrance, to be met by two Russian men,who although very pleasant, were in no frame of mind to let us in! What would two English people want with the British Consulate after all?! However, they very kindly phoned through and got us access to the Visa department, where we were met by a very serious but extremely polite Russian security guard, and then we went up to a glass-fronted counter where we were advised by a nice Russian lady that we couldn't register at the Consulate anyway, we needed to do it online ... (All Russians seem serious. Most of those in customer service roles are capable of polite, but the default behaviour for Russians, generally, is surly or pouty. We regard it as a victory to get a smile out of one and that takes patience and time. We had a conversation with a Russian chap who told us that they cannot understand why Westerners smile, although there seems to be a slightly rebellious (and at the same time materialistic) core of youngsters who are prepared to laugh and smile with each other in public. An observation on the various different types of police and army types wandering around (they really like uniforms, it seems) – treat them like nasty dogs; if you look them in the eye, they might think you are challenging them, so don't - Russell).

Left - an empty roadside 'shop' unit (in the rural areas, these structures are quite common)

Below - thanks to Guy, Angela, Joe and Marcus for the 'innovative' Spork, invaluable for car picnics

Moscow was our next goal; we thought 2 days to get there, no problem. Well yes, it probably is 2 days if you can get your arse into gear and leave St P before midday on the first day. As it was, we got 210k south by late afternoon, then hit major traffic jams,so we gave up after an hour, turned off onto a dirt road (actually a B road equivalent)and headed back 30k for a night in Novgorod. We were pleased to have done so; a very pretty town and kremlin (fortified citadel – we've now realised how common kremlins are across Russia). Day 2 of this excursion meant covering 510k, which we mostly did in good time (and we'd actually managed to start out about 9.30am that morning) until we got to the outskirts of Moscow. What we should have done at that point, if not earlier, was give in to the fact that we weren't quite going to make Moscow in 2 days, and so would spend the night in a hotel in the outskirts. But no, the invincible, inept British couple kept going, entering the city of Moscow at 8pm, and finally booking into the Novotel in the city centre for one night at 11pm and spending a week's budget for the privilege of doing so (yes, really).

Our view of the All-Russia Exhibition Centre

Now we are coming up to our 4th and final night at the Cosmos Hotel, out by the All-Russian Exhibition Centre. It's an amazing 1700 room hotel that thinks it should really be in Las Vegas – the two-tier lobby has got bars, restaurants, slot machines, casino, ladies of the night ...

Some of the towers along the wall of the Kremlin

We have of course been to the Kremlin, a surprisingly peaceful, and spacious area, wandering tourists notwithstanding (and once again a place we got kicked out of as the clock struck 5!), and visited it's Armoury, which sadly for Russell did not contain much in the way of arms, but fantastically for me does contain more jewelled items than you can shake a stick at, including a selection of gorgeous Fabergé eggs.

Darwin at St Basil's Cathedral, Red Square

We've risked the Metro system 2 days in a row, and you know, it's not really that different to the London tube, once you can translate the signs. Whether it's because we've seen so much in a short space of time, with Moscow we've struggled to find the “wow” factor (apart from St Basil's Cathedral, which is completely mad).
Our strangest experience I think so far was our trip yesterday to have a look at the Komsomolskaya Ploshchad, the transportation hub of Moscow, where 3 architecturally different train stations sit round one square. As Russ said at the time, it was like walking onto the set of a Mad Max movie; the types of people here are so different from the sleek, groomed, shiny people of the city centre; here are drunks, tramps and generally people who’ve slipped through the cracks in society.

So we get trucking again tomorrow, on to Nizhny Novgorod, and then generally following the Trans Siberian railway route across to Siberia. The bigger picture of our journey is still a little undecided; for the China part of the trip, the quote from the agents suddenly tripled, then following a lengthy revisal of our route by Russ, to leave from Shanghai rather than Hong Kong, to make it shorter and hopefully much cheaper, of course China suffered their terrible earthquake (plus there seem to be problems with obtaining long duration visas at the moment). The agents we've been liaising with are based in Chengdu, and although all are safe, are spending a lot of time helping their community, so we now need to be patient and see if it can yet come off. If not, it could be something of a double-back, down through the Stans and into India, or maybe keep driving across Russia to Vladivostok and ship out to Australia from there. Who knows? We'll keep you posted.

Yellow Brick Road – More Like Solid Brick Wall

26.04.08 Camping in Kladow, a few kms West of Berlin and close to Potsdam, alongside the line of the old wall (we think). A beautiful wooded area and the most raucous dawn chorus we've ever heard. Had lunch outside in Kladow town itself and had my first schnitzel (Alexis). Campsite great – clean and plentiful facilities. Cooked our first camp dinner, then went for a walk and came across a beautiful lake – all pretty idyllic.
Next day we went to Berlin itself, and due to a language error, ended up paying to get into the city zoo, and then couldn't find our way out. Good side of language barrier – ended up driving right up the Brandenburg Gate (above) and got some fab photos of it (was only supposed to be route for taxis!) Also got our zlotys (Polish currency) for the next day.
Monday 28th and off to Posnan in Poland. For some bizarre reason it took us 4 hours to have breakfast and get all packed up (Not bizarre at all. Just too flipping casual and not in a mind to leave – Russell) – we only just managed to get out of the campsite around checkout time (11.15am when we should have been out by 11.00am). Once outside Berlin we came across a Toyota dealer - Thomas Reist - who sold us ½ dozen car fuses (to top up our supply of the ones we'd blown up earlier in the week). On the road in Poland it became apparent that Polish drivers are “slightly” nutty – they think nothing of overtaking into oncoming traffic, even if that oncoming traffic is a huge truck. We learned pretty quickly that you pull off the road as far as you can when you see a vehicle sitting on your rear bumper. Didn't make it to Posnan til 7.30pm that night, so found an Ibis hotel with not too much difficulty and hunkered there for the night. (I regret not taking any photos of Posnan - pretty city centre. Poland seems vibrant. A lot of businesses are 24 hour – notably amongst them, depots buying and selling pallets for truck freight. Polish trunk roads are very busy (and not always well-constructed) – sometimes just long lines of trucks. The town and city centres seem to have kept their history, but the bigger of these also have sprawling out of town retail and commercial areas that look more like the USA than Europe – Russell).
(Along the major roads, at least, there are a lot of modern, privately-owned restaurants (some 24 hour) and hotels. Food in these (good, fresh food at that), seems to be less than half the cost of the UK equivalent (or a quarter of a Little Chef bill). I suspect that the hotels are cheap (and comfortable), too. As with the Netherlands and Germany, the cost of petrol and diesel in Poland is about the same as the UK, so fuel must seem, disproportionately, very expensive to Poles. This is probably why there are a lot of LPG stations in Poland - Russell).

- The Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw.

Tuesday and on again – Posnan to Warsaw now. Found out we couldn't get on the motorway without a special permit (there are very few motorways; we should have obtained a 'vignette' at the border, but found that out too late - Russell), so decided to take the E route, and what a difference suddenly, to the quick, easy autobahns we'd become used to; now it's speed up, slow down, (swerve to miss oncoming, overtaking cars and trucks), etc as we leave or get to small towns along the route. It took over 5 hours to get to Warsaw and then we spent another 1 ½ hours trying to find another Ibis hotel that had been (badly as it turned out) signposted. In the end we gave up and found ourselves in a very comfortable Novotel (above) bang in the city centre (sorry JP, hardly the hippy dream you'd pictured for us!). The one big plus of having to spend another huge wodge of cash on accommodation was that we had free internet access – praise the gods! (A little melodramatic, perhaps. Finding cheap internet access is difficult when you don't have time to spend in a City centre looking for it. It's not that we are aimlessly surfing the net; amongst other bits of 'admin', we were in the middle of re-arranging our itinerary with the Chinese agent when we left the UK, as travelling through Tibet is no longer an option - Russell).

- Probably, a less common sight in recent years, but still normal transport for a few Polish.

Another day, another town – Bialystok this time; a very nice town with a very nice Best Western (yes, there's a theme here, but it's about to quite rudely change when we realise what our daily budget is supposed to be, versus what we've already spent). Not much to say about this place really, except we had a tasty veggy pizza at a street cafe. (Poland has a reputation for car crime. In Posnan, guests seemed to clamour to park their car outside the front of the hotel lobby, but I didn't sense that it was a dodgy area. In Warsaw, we were parked in the 'culture and entertainments' centre of the city and, I guess, there were plenty of 'reasonable' folk walking around day and night. In Bialystok, however, the hotel seemed to be in a little bit of a seedy part and had an office manned 24 hours, overlooking the car park, with the gate to the car park controlled from the office).

- Below - an example of a Soviet Era statue. Prior to independence, you weren't allowed to forget who was in charge.

Into May, and a different border to cross, from Poland into Lithuania. This time (following our wake-up call re funds), I'd done a bit of research and found a cheap and cheerful Hotel Metropolis in Kaunas (Traveladvisor.com said it had clean sheets and towels and was just fine if you went with a sense of humour and closed your eyes to the rest). We found Kaunas an odd mix – flash shops down a main promenade, but then defunct factory / industrial buildings around the edges and quite a few “bag” ladies and gents. Not sure what's been going on here. (In Kaunus, too, a 24 hour car park means that there is somebody in an office (more like a shed) watching the car park night and day - Russell)

And yet another border on Friday 2 May – from Lithuania into Latvia, and the capital, Riga (right - 'Old' Riga). What a shock, for the first time since we'd started travelling, it rained! Managed to have a bit of a wander round old town Riga – very pretty but very touristy. We booked ourselves in the Hotel Irina close to the station, after turning up at one of the Youth Hostels to be told we'd be lucky to find a room since we'd come at a major holiday weekend (4 May is Latvian Independence Day).
Saturday we were meant to cross into Russia, but hit some interesting problems today. For one, suddenly our credit card was being refused .... slight panic to say the least, added to by the fact that my phone (our main contact with the Western world) had run out of credit and couldn't be automatically topped up cos it came off the credit card, which was now not letting any payments go through .... Luckily we had a brainwave and put my old sim card in my phone and managed to call the credit card company. Note for all future travellers – tell your credit card company if you're going away for a little while – ours had stopped transactions because it was “out of character” for us... (sigh...my fault; it was the one card provider that I hadn't informed - Russell). Our Wedding Anniversary day was spent driving 4 hours to the Russian border, realising that info we'd read re getting Russian 3rd party car insurance at a petrol station was a kind of a moot point since there was not a petrol station within 2 hours of the border, and driving back towards Riga for another 2 hours until we found a hotel to sulk in for the night. (When Latvia was still part of the Soviet Union, this would have been very busy, as it would have been the trade / supply route between Latvia and Russia. Along the route, there are large hotels, restaurants and truck facilities that are now unused and boarded up or unmanned. Presumably, Latvia now looks to the EU and the US for trade and Russia makes a point of ignoring it, in that respect. There are still some Russian tourists, but I think they are welcome only for their money (that said British 'stag-do' tourists have caught the critical eye of Latvian media, too - Russell).

- A view from a rural Latvian home.

Must mention the Hotel Melkuri on the Riga – Pskov road; it was the equivalent of £25 for the night, B&B, and was a real oasis in the middle of pretty much nowhere. The owner speaks little English, but Russ and he managed to converse quite comfortably in German, of all languages! (In other words, his German was as basic as mine. Also, the older generation in Poland and the Baltic States seem wary of saying much to strangers. Perhaps, this is a hangover from the Soviet era– Russell).
4 May, Sunday, back to Riga, to see if we can sort out our car insurance tomorrow and head back for the Russian border .... but no. The holiday weekend for banks continues inclusive of Monday, so now we have another 2 days to kill in Riga. Spent some time today taking in the Latvian Independence Day parade etc. and even saw the Latvian President laying a wreath of flowers at the main memorial. Also did the “proper”tourist route of old town, which was indeed scenic, but now we've done that, what's left??? Managed to book into the Balthostel, thehostel that had been fully booked a couple of nights back (and JP, this is definitely more the travellers accommodation you'd have pictured us in!!!).

So now it's Monday 5 May, still a public holiday, and we're kicking around, trying to work out what we can get done at the local 24 hour internet cafe, so that we can be as ready as we can be to get on with stuff again tomorrow. Let's hope next time we do our blog, it'll be from the “other” side.