Riding The Good Life 07/26/2009
 Turns out those boys can move. We left woke up in a double bed one morning looked into eachothers eyes and said "Let's get as far away from here as possible!". I think for maybe the first time on this trip the passion for killing kilometers hit us both at the same time, and suddenly we found ourselves flying through the twisting streets of Irkutsk past the old wooden houses and churches only stopping to take a photo in Levi's case and to buy a Russian flag for the bike in my case. For so long our legs have been held back, first with weakness from Vladivostok to Blagoveshchensk, then with the slow, steady and bumpy ride from Blago to Chita, and finally with the frustration and mountain filled ride from Chita to Irkutsk, they spun with no end of strength and speed as we escaped into the rolling fields of purple and yellow wild flowers. It finally has become the bike trip we have been dreaming of, we'd been riding hoping to reach "the good life" and we have finally reached it. Our lives are straight out of "The Sportsman's Notebook" by Ivan Turgenev, it was the first book I ever read by a Russian author, and is probably what sparked this unhealthy obsession with Russia. It is simple group of short stories about a hunter and his dog roaming the Russian country side from village to village and having simple but wonderful encounters with villagers. Granted this has been our trip all along, but it has been a bit sweeter of late, we don't have a dog, but in every village, right next to the shish kebab stand there is usually a sweet stray dog willing to play the part, particularly when I pull out my bag of dog biscuits (yeah, I carry dog biscuits, so what!? nobody else is going to feed these little guys, I even got the mint ones to help their breath). Usually we stop now at a small shop and ask if we can use their Chai-nik or electric kettle and we turn their store into a mini ramen noodle making factory (it certainly takes more than one ramen noodle packet to fill the 120km void in our stomachs) then we sit, eating outside the store in the shade with our new temp-pet, waiting until the first villager becomes curious enough to stop starring at us and get up off his haunches and start the well rehearsed dialogue. The sun is out here from about 5 am til 10 pm, which makes about 4-6 unbearably hot, and we have taking once again to mimicking Turgenev's hunter, pulling over the bikes into a field or under a tree for some shade and a nice afternoon nap, I never planned on being a nap guy on this trip, it doesn't really fit in with the cycling image, but it gets quite stifling every day. After a quick afternoon nap there is usually a quick gas station ice cream break and back onto the road, racing along, with the sun slowly passing over our left shoulder to directly in front of us, blinding us for those last few hills, but we don't care because by then the temperature is positively cool and refreshing, we reach our final cafe as the sun is starting it's elongated setting process and just as Turgenev's hunter usually finds his way into a peasants cabin for the night.
Add Comment The Return Of The Kings 07/14/2009
I don't know where it happened, perhaps it was right after completing that marathon 9 hour Internet session in Ulan-Ude to get the website up to date, or perhaps it was when we procrastinated the whole next day sitting around eating ice cream and pizza in the city center and only hopping on our bikes at 5 in the evening, but more than likely it was just at that moment when we got out of the city and started to move our legs, winding through a river valley realizing we could go fast. The egos returned, not the egos of before either, not the "I've never met anyone better" and "oh do I have to sign another autograph?", no these are different, after so many set backs they don't talk (so) big, it's all about making it to Porto now and flying from Irkutsk to Omsk to do it. The big talk about meeting Vladimir Putin and getting on Russian MTV has taken a back burner to how many kilometers we can choke down in a month and how many rest days we really need. "Do we really need two days in Novosibirsk? What about Krasnayarsk, what is there?". Sure they talk big, but only in kilometers per day and continents per year, not interviews per city and website hits per month. They are humbled after the Chita to Ulan-Ude debacle and hungry to ride.  The second day out was perhaps one of the most momentous, Baikal, the worlds largest and deepest lake appeared for the first time by our side. The lake is huge no doubt about it, surrounded by beautiful snow capped mountains even in summer (the ice on the lake sometimes doesn't even melt fully until June). For us it was a milestone, finally reaching a place that we had talked and dreamed about for so long, where we could relax and take a swim, buy souvenirs for our Idiot deprived families, and take in a bit of touristy life that we missed not being on Cape Cod and Coastal Maine in the summer. After about 40km of riding and taking in the lake we began to notice that perhaps this was not going to be quite as we imagined it, Baikal would not be the tourist trap we had rather hoped for, if anything as we cruised the Russian Federal Highway along side it, the towns became strangely more deserted and without cafes. We had bypassed several cafes and convenience stores along the way, hoping to have that first luch on the shores of the lake, but now that we were by the side of the lake we saw no cafes or stores, just old women sitting by the side of the road selling suspicious looking smoked Omul, the fish of Baikal. We were starving when we met our first bicycle tourers from Europe coming down the road. "hello?" "ah hello, we are French, and you are?" "American" "ah very good" I exhaled in relief. They were two, going from Paris to Kiev by bicycle and then taking the train to Irkutsk, and riding south to Mongolia and on into India. We talked for a while, comparing notes on what was ahead, where the mountains were and where for the love of god the next cafe is (we tried to play it cool, like we weren't starving "you didn't happen notice where the last cafe was?"). Unlike with everyone else, the meetings with cyclists are short, unless there is a cafe to stop in nearby both parties realize that they are burning valuable daylight, and inevitably the bugs will discover 4 sweaty bikers standing in the hot sun, we chatted for a while and then both went our separate ways. The bugs by the way still haven't reached their full peak, we have been lucky and seen relatively few mosquitoes, but that hasn't stopped the horse flies from ending our cookie breaks, these huge quarter size horseflies now follow us in swarms, I have taken to swinging a hand behind me like a cow tail every few minutes to dissuade them from biting my bottom. On hills and mountains we now have a new inspiration, try and keep it fast to avoid those evil horseflies, no breaks mid way, they will catch you and you will be consumed. About 20km later just as we were approaching Babushkin, the town that I imagined was run exclusively by babushkas and we were going to get our stomachs overfilled with free food and our cheeks pinched until they were red, we ran into another traveller. A Swiss woman who had been travelling alone through most of the world for the last 3 years, she was now racing down to Mongolia to Ulaan Batar, and was hoping to be back in Switzerland in the next 9 months. It turned out that Babushkin was not filled with overly kind old ladies, it was just a small village, one cafe and nothing else not even a decent convenience store, just located on this huge beautiful lake, otherwise it could have been Anyvillage, Russia and Levi and I would have certainly passed by. We again met a group of motorcyclists from Germany who were of course heading to Mongolia. "What the hell is in Mongolia??" "Geese, you would think after riding even a motorcycle about 4000km of 6000, you would say hey let's finish this Russia thing" We have never gotten a answer why so many people ride there bikes from Europe to Ulan Bataar and immediately turn around like there is no more to see. Very strange. To each there own.  We headed down to the beach of Baikal for the first time that day, although there was a lot of trash it overall was slightly cleaner than the typical patch of Russian Highway, which shows at least they are trying to keep it clean (it is rather terrifying to think that the world's largest lake, holding 1/5th of the world's fresh water is located in Russia and is rather a bit too close to China). Here as we looked from small picnic to picnic (the Russians love a picnic) for a place to sit we saw a pair of familiar faces, Alexei and Tanya. They had stopped us on the way to Babushkin and invited us to eat with them on the beach, but we had just assumed we wouldn't see them, however once we got out on to "the beach" we realized it wouldn't be that hard to spot them amongs the half dozen people enjoying the shore of Baikal. We had a fantastic night with them, they were from St. Petersburg, and were on their way home from Vladivostok with a new used car (apparently Vladivostok plays the part of Russia's giant used car dealer). It turned out that it was also Alexei's birthday, something that we would normally avoid like the plague, a Russian man on his birthday can be very dangerous, but these two were very relaxed and fun, we spent a wonderful afternoon and evening with them. We of course did our first dip into the lake then too, "you know it is really cold, be careful" Alexei warned. Kings don't listen to something like that "oh these Russians and their "it's cold" they never stop, I think it is just a mindset, I swim in the ocean in Maine I can handle it" said one of our heros. "Oh my god, I didn't know water could get that cold without freezing, good god!!!" one of our hero's said a few moments later. It was cold, it felt like a glass of water where all the ice cubes had just melted, I guess because they had. We had such a great time with Alexei (I think one of the best of the trip so far) talking about our mutual love of St. Petersburg (he had moved there when he was young) and about the road from Vladivostok, and Russia in general, that I gave him my knife as a birthday present. "Oh you have made my year, do you know how much I love knives!!! They are my life, I collect them." The next morning they returned the favor giving me a soccer scarf from Zenit St. Petersburg, a team that just last year I became obsessed with. It was a perfect exchange. That day was just a joy, we were warm with that feeling of perfect happiness, it revitalized our trip in a way, a wonderful picnic on Lake Baikal finally able to give a perfect gift, that was what we imagined we would be able to take from this trip, not that there hadn't been very special and wonderful moments before on this trip, but this one was so spontaneous and unexpected it was wonderful. We continued along Baikal basking in the unexpected treat that the road was fairly flat, we had expected really hilly along Baikal, but the Russians had somehow managed to make a beautiful flat road through the mountains, who would have thought. Over the next two days we cruised along slowly, enjoying every afternoon on the beach and riding in the mornings, along the way we met several more motorcyclists, most going to Mongolia, apparently Central Asia's tourist trap. We also met a man who really inspired the new "go get em" egos, he was from the Czech Republic and he had left about the same time as us. The difference was that he had taken only one day off, and he rode no less than 120km a day on a mountain bike. He had gone 9000km in 2.5 months, incredible, he made our upcoming push look like a relaxing bike ride through the park. He was continuing on to Mongolia(!) and then south to Vietnam for the winter and working his way home slowly through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran etc. And we thought we were hardcore. He was extremely excited, half to see a fellow long distance tourer, but also because he had finally come to the end of his long push, he was now slowing down while he waited for his Mongolian visa to become valid. As the days cruised along and we got closer and closer to Irkutsk we began to realize that Lake Baikal was not going to have the touristy, cheesy area that we had half hoped for, it was simply going to be the standard Russian village just on a gorgeous lake, there didn't even seem to be any real tourists aside from those going to Mongolia. When we came to Baikalsk we were still holding out hope, when I went inside the supermarket (the first one we had seen along Baikal to give you an idea of how remote it is) I found some souvenirs stuffed off to a corner, nothing nearly as corny as I like, not even a cheesy t-shirt but still it gave us hope that perhaps we would see some people here. Instead we were almost immediately captured, walking out of the supermarket a couple of young Russian college students approached us, they were staying in their parents Dacha or summer house for the summer, selling strawberries from the patch for money. After we told them what we were doing they promptly invited us to spend the night at their Dacha, which was on the mountainside overlooking Lake Baikal, we had a great electricity free evening with them, eating strawberries and comparing notes on favorite videos on Russian MTV. By the next town, Sluidianko we had given up hope, there are touristy parts of Lake Baikal, but we were not going to see them on our route to Irkutsk, they lie to the north apparently and we simply have no more time to spend on the lake. Sluidianko though turned out to be just what we had been searching for, well kind of. We had always planned on spending 2 days there, and after several days of spending the night with other people we were ready for a rest and isolation, Sludianko provided that very nicely, there was only one hotel, again the only one we had encountered yet on the lake, it was very cheap and nice, we found finally a beach with some Russian families which was nice and we spent two days just relaxing on the beach, rarely swimming again because it was miserably "refreshing". It was wild to think what the Russian version of a beach vacation might be, but overall I didn't think it was too out of control, at least compared to the village life here. Most people were camped out on the beach with a tent and a grill and of course a good deal of booze, but really it wasn't too different to walking down the beach on Cape Cod in July. Well except for one really disturbing trend, we've all perhaps witnessed a few kids on the beach running off into the beach grass to smoke a stolen cigarette or sip the left over of a beer, bad but very common. Here on the beach though, there were really young kids, some of them no older than 5 huddled over a fire of melting plastic beer bottles and trash (you need to warm up after the dip in the lake, so everyone starts fires, which usually are powered by the neighborhood trash, a different way of cleaning the beach) there they smoke cigarette after cigarette, these kids are young, disturbingly young, unexceptably young, but no one seems to care.  Our final stage in our Tour de Baikal (who doesn't catch a little cycling fever around tour de france time) was the mountain stage, finally bearing down and climbing the mountains that surrounded Baikal. After two days off and 5 days of relaxing riding it was half fun half hell riding so intensely, there were several 10km climbs and even some 14% grade uphills for us to enjoy, but the views and the downhills were spectacular. We rode a tough 130 km but in the end were rewarded by making it into Irkutsk around 7 pm. Irkutsk is a wonderful city, very old, filled with great old wooden houses, with great Russian style hand carved trim and window sills. It is once again a city where the wives of the Decembrists went to be close to their husbands who were in prison. As a result in the period between 1830-1850 or so Irkutsk slowly became a cultural center, one of the wives in particular built theaters and schools. Eventually her balls and circle were even talked about in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The city itself seems to have upgraded since then only in adding more concrete, it is full of one way streets and narrow lanes which on our way in gave us no end of trouble, we managed to roll in exactly during rush hour. We witnessed our first and second car accident in disturbing succession, reminding us that we must be eternally vigilant, these Russian drivers are fine outside the cities, but inside they can become crazed demons. We found a hostel on the internet in Irkutsk, it is the first one that we have seen our entire trip, we were very excited at the prospect, again of meeting some foreigners and maybe getting some free wi-fi internet. We weren't disappointed, "sure we have beds for you tonight, tomorrow we can put you in a homestay and then the third night you will be back here". Sounds good to us, they had wi-fi and a small apartment turned hostel filled with people heading to andd coming from Mongolia, what could be better. And the shower was to die for, we slept like kings that night.  The next day we did our standard city tour, we spent all day running around the city from bike shop to bike shop discovering as usual that they do not have what we are looking for (the roads are still so bad that there are no road bikes here, therefore few road bike parts and accessories, hopefully we will find them as we get closer to Europe), in between I shop for cappuccinos, winding up with about 7 a day before we descend back out to the coffee-less country side. We returned to the hostel in the evening used the internet for a few hours and then told the woman we were ready to go to the home-stay (we have become rather anti-social not really wanting in cities to become involved home-stays) "okay now of course you realize that for such an authentic Russian experience it is going to be a bit more money." "What" we thought, "I do this all the time for free, now I have to pay more, oh well, whatever, it's just one night." When we got to the homestay Alex showed us around. His apartment was a classic example of the Chinese veneer that goes on here, you take a classic soviet style apartment, go to China and get everything you could need, everything from cabinets to bureaus to bathroom tiles is Chinese. The wallpaper has Chinese symbols on it, the bedside tables are covered in cheap Chinese souvenirs, you basically take what was 30 years ago the most notoriously bad and cheaply built building and spruce it up with what is currently the most notoriously bad and cheaply made enhancements. Perfect. My favorite is the doors, every hotel and home that gets the Chinese veneer gets these brand new, not quite fitting doors that are all in the style of executive boardrooms, with frosted glass in strange stylistic shapes and patterns, great I guess for your new fake office, but not so great as a bedroom or bathroom door where we so often see them. When Alex showed us our new Feng Shui bedroom we stopped dead. "So the day has finally arrived eh Levi?" "Yeah, knew it was going to come eventually" The double bed stared back at us laughing and we recalled wincing the hostel manager "Of course it is going to be a bit more expensive" For what? To sleep next to this guy? Do you know it is about 95 degrees out? 2 big sweaty dudes? Perfect. "Good night guys" said Alex as he closed the non fitting door behind us. "And of course this is the one day that we left all our stuff in another building we could just roll out a sleeping mat and rock, paper, scissor for it, oh well I guess it is only for one night. Goood night sweety" "Nighty night honey" The next day we got up EARLY and ran back to the hostel, the second day is usually internet day, and we got to work uploading pictures and writing our blogs. "oh boys there has been a mistake, we do not have room for you tonight, you will have to spend another night at the homestay, but don't worry you will pay the same as if you stay here. "are you kidding? again? I don't come into these cities with much expectations anymore, good internet, cheap accommodations, nice bike shops, a decent cup of coffee, I have given up all hope of these things, but I do at least wish to be more than 8 inches away from my friend here who smells like sweat and bicycle grease no matter how many showers he takes!!!!" I thought "Oh no problem. It's a nice place, very nicely decorated" I said. And so we again spend our night tonight in the Chinese Soviet apartment, snuggled next to each other in 85 degree heat, good thing the sun only disappears for about 5 hours a night. Yeah we are going to fly across this next 3000 miles never looking back. Ellski  The Time of Troubles 07/05/2009
 In 1598 the last of Ivan The Terrible's sons died childless, leaving Russia without a Tsar and leading it into what became known as "The Time Of Troubles". An Assembly was called and the last Tsar's brother in law and advisor, Boris Gudonov, was elected, but he was unpopular and ruled fairly weakly. The vacuum of power created an opportunity for a usurper, the youngest of Ivan The Terrible's sons had been murdered in virtual seclusion many years before under very mysterious circumstances. Suddenly the first of several "False Dimitri's" appeared from Poland, and waiting until Gudinov died, took the throne to joy of most of Russia. The joy was short lived, though, he was quickly outed as a false Dimitri and he and his supporters were murdered (when I took a history class in St. Petersburg, I was told that his body was stuffed in a canon and shot from the Kremlin wall in the direction of Poland, no idea whether it is true, but there is something rather Russian about the idea). And so it went for about 15 years, there was another False Dimitri, actually I think every town probably had one, another war and another setback, until finally in 1613 the nobles put Michael Romanov on the throne, he and his family were able to rule Russia for a cool 300 years, until that next time of troubles... Our Time Of Troubles We enjoyed Chita quite a bit, we had a great guide Maria, it was a small city, perfect for us we could walk around, find the things we needed and be back at the hotel all before dinner. The weather was glorious too, five perfect days of sun. The only downside was that the Internet was frustrating (hence no pictures) and extremely expensive, but hey it's not like you are going to be here for 2 weeks or more, so it was no big deal. We would just head 6 days west to Ulan Ude where we would hopefully get better Internet.  And so Levi was forced to change back into his bike shorts "When I smacked my bike into your frame I thought for sure I had bought us another day here, next time I'll use a hammer." "Yeah you were close, I thought we might stretch two out of it" we quipped. We wouldn't be making such jokes for long. We made it outside of the city, a mere 25km out, when we decided we should enjoy the beautiful day and take it easy, "we've earned it, all that gravelly road!". So we made camp at a cafe, and immediately made friends with the Azerbaijan man running an illegal Shashlik (basically shish kebab) stand. His name was Igor and he was very concerned with our camping spot, "many drunks around here, not safe" and he continuously made the Russian hand signal for drinking, drunk, or alcoholic, which is done by flicking your middle finger against your neck as if you are trying to get a vein (if the person is really drunk this can be a hysterical thing to watch, they can even knock themselves over). He took us back to his Shashlik stand, first asking "do you drink?" (insert hand gesture) no I said, Levi said a little. He nodded approvingly and said he only drank a little too, while promptly ushering Levi off for a vodka shot. It turned out that HE was the man he was warning us about, we spent our dream afternoon being held captive at the shashlik stand listening to this man as he proceeded to get black out and berate his son. "Me I may be 45 but I am really only 20, see I still look at girls, look, there is one, but my son here he is 16, what is wrong with him, he doesn't seem interested at all, my brothers son is younger than him he drinks and smokes, he is wrestler too. Hey son!!! go clean the grill I don't want to look at you. See he is crazy, how can I have a son like this, ME" "The cops here don't worry about them, I pay them 400 rubles a month, besides they don't know about (insert hand gesture)" Eventually we managed to escape into the garage of the cafe for the night, barely without getting into a fight with Igor (he no longer thought it was cool I didn't drink, instead thought that I was the reason we were not going to go out and drink more with him, which to be fair might be true, although I doubt anyone would have wanted to continue "partying" with this guy at this point). We woke up the next morning to discover that it was pouring, really raining hard. We decided that there once again was no reason to push it "we've earned it,things are going well, we will wait for tomorrow" Luckily, apparently rain days also effect the shashlik business because Igor and his son didn't show up. We spent a nice off day in the cafe.  We left the cafe feeling quite energized and flew across the open valley in front of us in spite of the winds. We were now definitely on asphalt again and it felt good, we even felt that we were cheating fate as we stayed in the valley as the mountains grew higher and higher on either side of us (the area surrounding Lake Baikal is extremely mountainous). We finished our ride outside a town called Uloty at a truck stop per usual. It was good to get a big day in and we felt good as we set up our tents. A man, whose name escapes me (I'd say it was Ivan, Sergei or Alecksei, but that is just because those are the only names you ever run into here), he was covered in coal, but very jolly, he worked at the truck stop working the coal stove which was responsible for the heat and the hot water of the restaurant and pay toilets and showers (this was the first place which we had been offering real toilets and showers for a small fee, something that we can only hope will continue). We talked for a while, he told us that all the surrounding mountains that we had seen today were filled with coal and the coal which covered him and his workplace was from only 40 km away. He was also an Obama fiend, very excited about the warming of relations between Moscow and Washington. "Aw fuck your aren't going to believe this." Levi called out while he was locking the bikes up for the night "My rear rack is broken in the exact same place as yours was. Fuck!!" "Well there is a shinomantage (garage) right here, we can just take it tomorrow morning, they will weld it and we will be back on the road by noon." We woke up early in the morning, had a big breakfast, packed everything up and headed over to the garage. The guys were more than willing to help, it was to become an almost annoying trait of Russian people we would meet in the next week, if you tell them that you have a problem, they are going to fix it. No one else will do. So as we saw that these men had a slightly less skillful hand with the welder we tried to no avail to say that we would take the bicycle back to Chita. As one man began trying to weld a bolt to where the wheel goes instead of where the rack goes Levi tried "Oh please sir we are going back to Chita anyway, and we know a man there who knows all about bicycles, we can take it there, he has a bigger welding operation." Nothing worked, we managed to dissuade them from welding the bolt onto the wheel well, and with some guidance we were able to avoid too much damage to the bike itself. Eventually they wheeled out the bike with a perfectly crooked rack on the back, it wouldn't hold weight but at least they didn't weld the wheel to the frame or something. Luckily the truck stop also rented rooms, we rented one, threw all of our stuff inside and hopped on a bus back to Chita with Levi's bike. By now we were becoming well acquainted with Chita, we went right to the garage, they seemed quite excited to see the Idiots again and immediately got a good laugh at the weld job of the previous guys. Soon Levi's bike had a matching weld in the back and we were ready to go. Alex and Victoria not only took us back to our hotel by their car but also took us out to eat before sending us on our way. We were feeling pretty good when we walked back into the hotel room, "boy a lot of people couldn't break their bike, get it welded poorly, catch the one bus back 120km to Chita, get it re welded, have dinner and still make it back to the hotel room in time to get a good rest before the next days ride, I've never met anyone better." It was pretty impressive, only one day wasted. Not bad. The next morning we again had a big breakfast, packed up and got on the bikes. "ah I think I have a brake problem" says Levi "Unbelievable! Okay everything off your bike, I'll take a look" It took about 3 hours of me tweaking and tapping his rear brake before "Well I can't do anything about it as far as I can see, but it seems that if you don't use it, it doesn't hinder you so just use the front break." "No problem" And we headed off, leaving the truck stop around 1 and heading into what appeared to be a rather rough rainstorm, but we didn't care, we had rain gear and we were not going to waste anymore time on this simple six days ride from Chita to Ulan Ude. The thunder cloud was just over-head and we were at that strange point where you are just waiting for the downpour when my phone rang, "Hello Ellery, this is Mariya from Ulan Ude" (the girl we were supposed to stay with when we arrived in 4 days around JUNE 25th) "Oh Hi Mariya, What's going on?" "Well I just though I would call and let you know that it is snowing right now here, and it is a bad storm." "Did you say Snowing?" "Yes" "The stuff that happens in winter?" "Yes snow, I know is strange." A moment later I told Levi. "Snow?!!? Are you kidding? do you know what day it is" "I don't actually but I know it is June" We were still processing the concept of late June snow, when the sky opened up, not only did it start to downpour but the temperature dropped about 20 degrees or so, from a mild day to a day when we could see our breath. (it was actually 20 degrees, the truck stop had a big sign that read the temperature and I had happened to look at it when we left and it had read 19 degrees Celsius and it was 8 when we got back) We raced back to the Truck stop with our tails between our legs and respectfully asked for our old room back (particularly embarrassing because everyone there had told us the weather was terrible . Another day wasted. That afternoon we got a text from our Australian friends, they were in Ulan Ude, "there is about 20 centimeters of snow on the ground here, hot enough for you?!"  The next morning we once again had a big breakfast and packed up and got ready to face the weather. It wasn't too bad, just a freezing wind and a couple passing showers, we went 40 km before we decided to get out of the cold for the day, we couldn't risk the chance of one of us getting sick on top of our mounting delays. We stopped at another great little family run cafe and watched a dog torment some passing cows for a couple of hours, watched Dumb and Dumber (the similarities are striking) in Russian and went to bed under a little lean-to in the back yard. We made it to the parking lot the next morning and were starring at the road with fully packed bikes when I looked down and suddenly noticed that once again my rear rack was snapped off and just a tangle of nuts and bolts. Once again we sat down depressed and crest fallen, "well what do we do now?". We decided to head back to Chita and get everything welded one more time. However before we could do that we had to explain to the cafe owner that we wanted to leave our stuff in his cafe and pick it up in a day or two. "What your bike needs to be fixed? My son can weld it no problem!" and before we knew it or could protest my bike was being wheeled off again to be defiled by a bunch of men who may have never even ridden a bicycle. Surprisingly they did a pretty okay job of it, it is a very solid new (old) bolt that I still have attached to my frame, and it is one with a hook at the end (I think it is like a coat hanger) so I can put streamers on my bike if I so desire. However Levi still had a brake problem which I had since realized was due to the weld on his bike, and he was less excited than I about the coat hanger bicycle rack fix so we took off again to Chita "this will be the last time, we will get everything working well and that will be that, then we will ride!" And that is kind of what happened. We did return to the garage, by now people were getting less excited by the site of us, (one of the guys had acquired a fresh black eye over the weekend and wasn't that anxious to show it off to the Americans) we did get everything welded again, but it took two days, so we spent the night at our old same hotel. This hotel has a group of four Russian babushkas who alternate days there and when the daily babushka opened the door and saw us again she nearly fell to the floor dead, but happy. It took us another day of hitchhiking to get ourselves back to the cafe, so all in all it was a 3 day delay, but at least now we could ride. And we did, we took off early the next morning flying high, our legs were fresh after all the delays and we went like the wind climbing huge mountains and flying through the valleys. The first night we misjudged where a cafe was and had to sprint for our dinner making it a cool 50km in just over 2 hours, finally finding a small cafe on top of a mountain, with a generator for electricity and one flickering light bulb. In any other case I might have said no way, but the family seemed nice and we had no other choice, we didn't have any food with us really, plus the watching the light dim and beem with the struggling generator engine in the background was kind of fun. We ate a big meal and camped in the concrete parking lot. The next day we again flew along, making some of our best time yet, perhaps we were going to make it to Ulan Ude in okay time after all. That afternoon as we relaxed after a hard ride while eating snickers outside a cafe Levi said "phew boy something is going through me, but I'm excited about it, I haven't had anything wrong with me yet." Perfect. The next morning I asked him how it went "oh I made a few trips to the bathroom last night, but feeling pretty good now." "oh so like I do now if I eat dairy?" "yeah seems that way" We sat down for breakfast and suddenly I realized something was moving through me now too, not good, I had had a weak stomach since my first food poisoning adventure and was always nervous at the slightest growl. I had reason to be, I would be in the outhouse frequently from there on out, while Levi watched from the sidelines. After one trip I came back and spiked my toilet paper like a football player does after a touchdown, "well start clapping" "Why?" "Because you are looking at the winner!" "huh?" "You know the who is going to puke first on this trip award! I win" "You puked?" Levi looked crushed, he had obviously been hoping things would pass and we could ride, but vomit isn't a very positive sign. I did try and ride, we made it about 10 km before it was too much for me, we checked into a hotel and I spent a miserable and feverish 24 hours battling a bad cafe meal. Levi spent the day restless and fighting depression "Sometimes I think it is better to be the person who is sick rather than the person who is sitting around bored". After about the 3rd vomit he recanted his opinion. There is no doubt about it, it was a trying period for both of us, the sickness could not have come at a more disappointing time, after so many delays just wanting to get on the road, instead we were asking at the hotel what time we had to get up in the morning to go back to Chita to the hospital. We went back the next day on a sleeper train, which it turns out in this part of the world is basically all there is (because of course if you are going anywhere it is probably far far away) which was good, if surprising, for the invalid. We made our way once again right to the hotel, nearly killed another sweet old Russian grandmother and set about our way trying to get one of our many friends (now) in Chita to accompany us to the hospital. It took us two days before someone was free (it was the weekend), but luckily our friend Maria was able to accompany me on Monday to once again the Infectious Disease Hospital in Chita, lucky for me it is the only place they deal with stomach troubles in these cities apparently. Whereas the first experience I had in a hospital here was horrifying but thorough, this experience was horrifying but deficient, no 400 pound babushka to do things to me I am still not ready to share with the general public, no doctor that was kind and courteous and concerned about my condition, no awkward open door stool samples. Instead it was "please wait on that bench, the doctor will see you shortly" when the doctor came into the office every one of the attendants trembled, she was like a screaming teradactile, screeching at everything and everyone. I was terrified like I have never been before, I looked at the old man who was going ahead of me and he too was visibly shaken, she turned to him and beckoned him with her claws...er I mean pen "are you sick or not come on let's go into the room" he looked at me, I motioned good luck and he went into the lair. I've never heard so much screaming in a doctors office, you would think this guy was being interrogated for a crime not a indigestion problem, suddenly he was expelled with his pants around his ankles to go to another room (through the waiting room). It was my turn, I walked in terrified, she couldn't have been sweeter (she had seen my passport) and less helpful, no we aren't going to test you unless you spend a week here, you have no fever now though correct?, just take these pills and everything will be fine. The only thing they did do to me was take some blood, the old fashioned way, cutting my finger and pulling it out drop by drop until they had an entire vial, now I HATE needled but just for the sake of time wouldn't it be more efficient.. oh wait I forgot where I was for a second. So in the end I walked out of the hospital with the same pills I got in Birobidjan, but who knows maybe they will work.  Ulan Ude It had now been over 2 weeks since we set off on what was supposed to be a 6 day trip, it was like a bad episode of Gilligans Island. It took us 4 more days to reach Ulan Ude, 3 of riding and 1 rest day for the recovering Elman. We had thought that Blagoveshchensk to Chita would be the most difficult part of the trip and that after we reached pavement again we would be smooth sailing across Russia, we learned our lesson almost immediately. I've never been so happy to reach a city, not to mention my excitement about reaching the World's largest Lenin head. Strangely even after all our days off and no riding we reached Ulan Ude and felt like we had really earned a rest. Ulan Ude is the capitol of the Buryat Republic, another Russian autonomous region. The Buryats are the original peoples of the region, and give the whole area a very Asian feel, we spent our days going to Buddhist temples and being surrounded for once with people who aren't Russians. The history of the Buryat and other native peoples of Russia is often likened to what happened to the Native Americans in the US, and certainly there are some similarities, especially to the northern people like the Yakutks, but for us the Buryat Republic has been the nicest place we have been yet (perhaps because of where we have been the last few months). When we entered Ulan Ude we immediately met foreigners, people simply travelling Russia by train!!!! We met a French family travelling by home made RV from France to Mongolia and back, sounds wild and fantastic doesn't it, well let me just tell you what their family consists of, two 6 year old twin boys, one 4 year old girl, one newborn and we think there was actually another kid there too, but we couldn't keep track of them all long enough to count. They said that it was slow going because no matter how early they got up, they could never get everyone ready to go before noon, which considering that "go" just meant sitting in the super RV and looking out the window is terrifying. It made travelling by bike seem like a cake walk, food poisoning or no food poisoning, which i guess was just the kind of thing we needed to see. ellski  |
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