We left Ussiriysk after a day spent unsuccessfully but almost completely in the internet cafe trying to upload videos, and having adolescent Russian boys stare and sneer at us because we were slowing down their Warcraft III gaming with our lame adventure. We got back out on the road a bit sore, but overall pretty good, and excited knowing that we would have our first "where are we going to sleep tonight" night that evening. However we still had to get bike tubes (slackers), we rode to the bike shop and by the time we got out of the store our bikes we surrounded, not only with passers by taking cell phone pictures but by the local Ussiriysk television station as well. We did our standard statement, and eventually got a late start out of the city, which coupled with the fact that we were often forced off the road to pose for photos really slowed us down.
By 7 we made it to the town of Lyalichi, or I guess a village is more appropriate, though there was a cafe and store. We sat down for a huge meal, thinking if we ate big and told people of our problem of nowhere to camp, and that we were looking for a floor or yard something would happen. However no one was able to help us, so we left the cafe very full as the sun was slowly setting still without a place to stay. But this is Russia, and if there is one thing that I can say about Russia, if you are looking for hospitality, look no further, we had barely ridden ten feet when we saw a woman on the street directing construction workers on a roof, it turned out that she was rebuilding her store that had burnt down, and she lived across the street "of course you can camp in my yard, or wait better yet you can stay in the house!!". And we learned two key lessons that night, one: never eat your big meal before securing a place to stay, because inevitably the people taking you in will force you to eat again and again. And secondly, always venture off the road, it turned out that Lyalichi was actually not a village of maybe 200 as we had though, but a town of 2000, hidden away in a forest of birch trees and quite a bit off the "highway" there were dozens of old communist tenements, a couple more stores, a school, and even a discoteque. Strangely enough the family we stayed with (Wife, husband and a 17 year old son who spoke the only three words of english the whole night) actually had two houses in the village, so we were treated to two more huge meals, one at the house with electricity and then a bed time snack by candlelight surrounded by dyed easter eggs and Russian traditional Easter cakes, which are a combination of both Italian Panatone and giant cupcakes (the next day was Russian Easter). The houses themselves were immaculate, in spite of it being springtime and mud season these houses had neither dirt nor clutter. The one we stayed in was a classic Siberian house, a baby blue wooden house with extremely ornate window framings which is the tradition here (pictures on the website) and even some stained glass on the porch windows. We spent a wonderful night being fed, driven around the town with Sergei Jr. and trying somewhat successfully to talk to Sergei Sr. and Lena (we at least managed to find out what had happened to the store, although I guess anyone could have just looked at the remains and made an educated guess). We woke the next morning ate an Easter egg had a slice of easter cake and hit the road.
The next day was the first day where we really felt the wind, we were travelling in open plains most of the day and just listening to the wind howl by you all day can really start to bother you. But we travelled only about 80 k so it wasn't to bad (things would get worse before Khabarovsk). Every day we stop at cafes for lunch, right now we pass through a town every few hours, after Blagoveschensk they will become much more infrequent, so we take advantage, and weirdly enough it is much more expensive to eat at a supermarket or convienience store than to have a sit down meal in the country here. We stopped around noon and had our standard Borsch and Pelmeni, while watching some Russian men enjoying their Easter sunday, by getting drunk and firing off guns and fireworks in the center of town (can you fire a shotgun off in the center of a town?). We again had many well wishers along the road, including one group of guys who invited us to stay at their hotel and sauna about 140 k away from where we were at the time, it was a perfect opportunity for us to push it hard (we have been going around 80k a day, which any bicycle tourer of with any experience would laugh at). We agreed, hoping we could make it and that it didn't rain. We arrived into the town we were going to that night around 7 and were slightly lost until to little Russian kids on bicycles started riding with us. "where are you going?"
"a hotel"
"oh your going the wrong way, follow us"
and so we were led by these two kids through the town, on the route only little kids would take you on, across railway tracks, through alleys, down one way streets the wrong way, but they got us there quick. We gave them our card (now we have decided to start carrying candy for such favors) and we found ourselves in the refurbished Soviet era Gostinitsa (hotel). The price was about 10 dollars per person with only cold water, and 15 dollars per person with hot water, we went with the cold water (I considered going with one hot and one cold, but that might confuse the system). The shower was unlike anything I had ever seen, kind of like a base of a shower, but raised up about a foot with tile walls another foot up so you had to step into it (it was the depth and width of a fifty gallon drum cut in half, so impractical for showering but certainly not a bathtub) and at about waist height was a faucet). We both stood looking at the contraption perplexedly for about 40 minutes before someone said "i'm doing it" After our freezing cold showers we headed out to get food, causing quite a stir around town, we went to a minimart, where the opposite of "hide your daughters" occurred, the resident babushka immediately called her grand daughters and extremely awkwardly tried to spark conversation and romance. We only got out of there by once giving our phone numbers. Levi then proceeded to try his new favorite game with some guys we met in the market "Can I just take one shot with a Russian and walk away". He lost, and we spent about 45 minutes outside the store with a couple of Russians, trunk open, music blaring until we could escape to work on our bicycles.
We woke up at dawn, hoping to really put on some K before noon, on our mission for sauna and bed. Thankfully the wind was behind us, it had been blowing in our faces for the last few days but this day it switched, and so we had failry few hills and mainly plains, it was like riding a motorcycle. We flew. There were tons of wild fires burning, which we cannot tell if they are man made or cigarette made, but no one seems to care either way, many of them seem rather dangerous, big raging fires spewing tons of smoke on the side of a highway seems not very good to me, but I could be wrong. By the final leg of the day we were just outside the city when we were stopped once again, this time by a friend of the great Siberian adventurer Fyodor Kulnikhov, who was actually one of the riders in Mark Jenkins book Off The Map. We actually spend a lot of our time talking about him on the road, (much like the Camino de Santiago, we spend most of the day talking nonsense) fearing that he will drop what he is currently doing (leading a herd of camels across the Gobi Desert) and start chasing us down from Vladivostok just to teach us what hardcore is, ( he has sailed around the world I believe twice, been to the north pole I believe also twice, and by now has probably scaled every mountain in Russia and is now stuck doing deserts just to pad his stats). Anyway this friend immediately called the local press and got us a back up place to stay for the night, in case our man Sergio fell through. But as soon as we called Sergio, we knew we wouldn't be staying in the back up, he came to meet us at the Lesozabodsk sign and escorted us right to the Hotel, a really nice hotel too, he gave us a room and said, "ten minutes Banya". Luckily our friend Konstantin had given us banya hats before we left, and just like that we were in the banya for a sweat, which after 140km was fantastic, unlike some of the previous banya experiences I have had which were ridiculous, this was a business style banya, very classy, very relaxed. We got all the treatment, the beatings, the cold pool, even a regular pool with massaging jets, we came out tired but limber. We walked up stairs to the bar, which made me really begin to wonder, he sat us right into the VIP section (opposite the stripper pole, no stripper thogh) brought a ton of food out for us to eat, and after a few minutes a reporter came to interview us in our towels and banya hats. Then as just things were getting wild, (the men at the table next to us had sent us a bottle of vodka as a gift) Segei realizing we were tired led us to bed, perhaps only someone who has been to Russia can understand what a favor he granted us, not only feeding us, banyaing us, hoteling us, but most importantly giving us an excuse out of what would obviously be a long night with some very friendly Russians. We went to bed feeling like kings, not knowing what the morning would have in store...
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