ARE WE THERE YET?: August 2011

August 30th

G - reporting

After a nice late start and a great Included breakfast of Bacon, eggs, toast and coffee we wandered the 3ish Km into the center of Barnaul for a look round it’s a nice modern town and by far the most European one yet, didn’t go to any museums as they tend to get a bit same when you can’t read any of the text, but enjoyed just looking at a the shops, buildings and all the various statues the Russian love to put up everywhere including Lenin as a bullfighter!

For a late lunch we ended up in a fairly posh restaurant where we had 2 different beef dishes - both delicious - and a glass of wine which as it was red was strangely served chilled thus providing us with our Russian moment of the day!

Wander over it was back to the hotel for some blogging and planning as Kazakhstan is fast approaching!

obelisk

with bullet holes from the 1918 revolution!

War memorial

Around town!

Huge mosaic (shame about the fence)

Lenin as a bullfighter!

Cool Grafiti

Does Micky D know about this?

August 29

B - reporting

Breakfast was included, so we headed to the dining room where we found a fantastic buffet. I had fish, carrot salad, devilled eggs and chocolate biscuits (well, I was in Bisk, it had to be done). A strange, but delicious, combination.

Went for a quick walk by the river, but as it was raining we soon headed for a coffee shop. There we ordered 2 coffees and what I thought was chocolate cake, but received 2 coffees and the richest, darkest cup of hot chocolate I have ever tasted, with grated pistachio on top! I have no idea what the waitress thought I was ordering, but never mind!

We then headed for Barnaul. The countryside was really flat, and heavily cultivated. Autumn is quite far along, here, with trees turning golden and hay already baled. The sky is huge, and today full of enormous white clouds massing on the horizon.

We had not seen this much traffic since we left Canada, but with the help of Vera our trusty GPS we found the Hotel Nika really easily. We had our phrase book handy, but the Administrator spoke English and even offered us a bigger room for the same price...fantastic.

Instead of sightseeing we caught up on laundry, showering, and emailing. It is such a great feeling to have a bag full of clean clothes!

My parking reciept odd way of writing smith!

Great old buildsing of byisk

August 28th

G - Reporting

After the horrible weather the day before I woke to a warm sun and a great view down the lake so getting up and letting B have a lie in I got the coffee, unfortunately the good weather lasted about an hour and then a strong wind sprung up, so it was time to move onto plan B and head for Biysk, to be honest we had decided the night before to get the heck out but I like to kid myself sometimes :-P

So went North West to Byisk stopping once at Gorno Altaisk for gas, lunch and some internet arriving at the small city of Biysk at around 4 and heading straight to the Hotel Centralia (thank you GPS), wandered in and enquired about a room which they had for 2200 Rubles and it also came with breakfast and internet plus secure parking for an extra 50 Roubles a result all round.

That evening we went to a local restaurant that the lonely planet described as having the best Shashlik in 1000Km a lofty claim well they weren't wrong! So after a couple of tasty Pork Shashliks (kebabs) with salad and few beers we then went in search of Byisks “Irish” pub but alas it had closed down so went back to the hotel to nerd around on the net.

Stuning start to the day

Great camp site apart from the wind and rain.

Lenin and Bouncy Castles!

Guess they are not after female customers!

I love old russian hotels

State of the art AV (yes they are bunny ears!)

August 27

B - reporting

We woke to sunshine! So we decided to camp at the campsite tonight. We breakfasted in the cafe, where a small friendly orange cat helped me with the cream.

We drove to Artybash for supplies (beer & almonds - most of the food groups) then found the campsite. There were loads of signs, but not one I could translate...eventually a random man pointed us to a small blue caravan, where we had a long conversation in sign language with the old Russian lady who administrated the campiste, and were pointed to a site on the lakeshore.

It was beautiful, but pouring rain by now and really cold. We sat under our awning, drinking gallons of coffee, hoping it would clear up. It cleared a bit by 4, so we walked to the village, past wondering cows, and had a beer in a beer tent overlooking the lake. However, the rain set in before we got back to the campsite so all we did that evening was eat delicious bacon & eggs, have a beer, and go read in bed very early.

Our previous nights hotel

Wedding truck!

Small dog that came up to us in the camp site and just curled up and slept.

Nice sky just before it started raining again.

August 26th

G – Reporting

Woke to more rain but at least it was fairly light so made some warming porridge (see living the high life on the road!) and then set of for lake Teletskoe were we planned to spend a few nights before heading to Barnaul, The rain kept coming and for the whole 250Km to the lake returning with vengeance when we got there, so one look at the muddy camp site and we decided to get a room for the night.

We found what looked like a likely candidate and went in and in my best bad Russian asked for a room the woman looked a little puzzled and then spoke English, said the room was 1500 rubles not bad we thought and then she added each hmmm 3000 not so good but we took a look anyway and it was nice and it did have a hot shower and it was pouring with rain outside so we said yes, so we went over to the restaurant to pay for some reason and she mentioned almost as an afterthought that dinner was included in the price something most people would have mentioned upfront but hey-ho this is Russia!

The actual room was in a huge log cabin type building surround by pine forest next to a lake all very Canadian and when I flicked on the TV there was even hockey it all made me feel a bit homesick! So we settled in and then went had our included dinner which was salad, pasta with meat and a sort of sponge cake not bad and nice not to have to cook, we then retired to our nice dry and warm room for the night.

Random roadside straw creatures!

Can you guess who it is

Rainy

August 25

B - reporting

We consumed porridge, dodged mozzies, and were bitten by millions of no-see-ums. Then headed for a day of sightseeing, as back in Olgii G met a couple of Russians, who told him about stone circles, waterfalls and a prehistoric cave in the vicinity.

We think the first sight was the stone circle...but despite driving around the village we thought it was near, we couldn't find it. Never mind, on to the waterfall!

We really have no idea where this was...but we looked! Past pretty villages, full of wooden houses with carved shutters painted a cheerful blue. They all seem to have vegetable gardens, and some also had front yards bursting with colourful flowers. I'm not sure how many houses in these villages have running water, as we saw many people going to and from the pump towing large containers of water.

The roads were now dirt, in really crappy condition, with cows lurking round each bend, poised to saunter across the road in front of us. They seem to have no sense of preservation, unlike the wonderful yaks! It started to rain, so we abandoned the waterfall and headed for the prehistoric cave.

And could we find it? No. More dirt roads, suicidal cows, unexpected geese but no sign of a cave. So we decided to cut across country on minor roads back to the M52, the main road to Barnaul. This country road soon became a one lane mud track. With visions of getting bogged down in mud and having to wait for a passing Kamaz, we turned back and retraced our route all the way back, past last night's campsite, to the M52.

It was raining pretty heavily by now, so we pushed on hoping it would stop, or we'd drive out of it. We crossed a mountain pass, at the top of which a random Russian man shook our hands because we were driving across Russia. We eventually found a campsite by a river where a friendly Russian fisherman showed us a good spot. He then left, as it was raining and he had a home to go to.

It rained all night.

All in all, it was not our most successful day.

Camping and cooking dinner in the rain :-(

August 24th

G – Reporting

Easy day today covered about 100km and just enjoyed the stunning Altai region scenery its very alpine and such a change from Mongolia only 3 days earlier!

Did some inadvertent but hugely successful bargaining for some veggies, as B got the numbers for '100' and '40' mixed up!

Bumped into a couple of Mongol rally teams after lunch and stopped for a chat and exchanged some tips as they had just come from the stans and we obviously had just “done” Mongolia, while we where chatting 2 more teams came by and stopped and we meet our 1st Canadian team the “Dirty Canadians” from Edmonton we introduced ourselves and said we were from Vancouver which was meet with “oh yeah we can tell by the accent :-p “

After we carried on for a few more Kms then headed down a side road and camped yet again by a river as tomorrow we were hoping to see some Altai attractions up said side road!

Camp site early morning

Rock Carvings (old but no idea how old!)

Rare Golden Lenin!

Stuning Altai

Scary Bridge

Dirty Canadians (red and black shirts in centre)

See I wasnt being rude!

August 23

B - reporting

Our first morning back in Russia was chilly, but very pretty with the sun sparkling on the river. We had a slow start, after inflating the tires as we are now on lovely, lovely tarmac!

We drove slowly north, the road winding next to the river through pine-forested hills. After a quick stop in the small village of Alkesh for supplies we found a campsite by the river, and had everything set up before beer o'clock. We ignored the flock of sheep who wondered past, and enjoyed the sunshine.

Fab Altai

August 22nd

G – Reporting

Back to Russia day so after 30 fun, scary, interesting, beautiful, sun, rainy and very Mongolian days it was time to move on our Visa was up and the border was open (it closes at the weekend!) and even though I had no regrets going to Mongolia I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to good food and good roads in Russia. :)

So we arrived to at the border at 08:30 and found an already pretty big line up which we joined and then just waited, I walked up to the gate and looked for an opening time but there was nothing, but at around 9:30 it all started to move and by 10:30 we were in the Mongolia border compound, passing a bunch of mongol rally teams that had been stuck in no-mans land all weekend!

Into the offices we went and were immediately called into the office and asked if we had any Mongolian currency, it turns out he just wanted to do a bit of freelance under the table currency exchange but I naively though this was official and went to get my cash while I was out at the car I got stopped by the officials out there so they could do a search of the car and by the time I got back inside B had got shot of the official even though he kept giving us the hairy eyeball for turning him down!

Then it was just a matter of paperwork for us and the car and we were all done in less than 30 minutes not bad then it was though the gate manned by the most smiley official I have ever seen he even saluted us as we entered no man’s land a nice way to exit Mongolia!

28Km across no-mans land later we arrived at the Russian border office where first the truck wheels got sprayed with disinfectant for a $3 charge and then after a half hour wait through the gate and onto passport control, followed by customs and lastly Car paper work and we were done or would have been if just as we started the car paper work they hadn’t all stopped for an hour for lunch! So we went back to the car and had some lunch the 1st time I’ve ever had lunch in no-mans land!

Once they returned the paperwork was done quickly as we just copied the form we got in Vladivostok and after a quick search of the car we were done and though the gate into Russia for the 2nd time, outside the gate was a huge line of cars waiting to get in including a long line of mongol rally cars, we stopped at the 1st one and asked if they had any guide books for Mongolia they said no, well you have now we said leaving a bemused and smiling brit in our wake.

We then hit the 1st town for all the food stuffs we had been missing i.e. cheese, ham, butter, bread etc (I know not the most exciting things but you trying not having them for a month!) and then found a beautiful camping spot by a river the Altai region of Russia was looking good already :)

The line up.


The border

1st Russian road hazzard in a while.

August 21

B - reporting

After a delicious breakfast of porridge by the lake, we headed slowly towards the border. We stopped at about 10-ish for a coffee break, in a rocky plain near a strange formation of reddish rocks. Then retraced our route from a few days ago (when we failed to find the lake) and drove back down the narrow valley.

Today, however, there were no gers on the valley bottom...they had all been packed onto trucks and were headed east. We passed at least eight trucks, crammed high with the actual ger material, poles, furniture, children and goats (dinner?). The cabs held at least 6 people, and others were clinging on top of the loads, small excited children included. Everyone smiled and waved at us.

It was a slow but fascinating trip for us, as we also passed herds and herds of goats and yaks, following the trucks. I had not really appreciated the actual meaning of 'nomad' up till now.

We stopped for lunch at a small lake or large pond, which had been surrounded by gers only days before and now was inhabited only by a pack of dogs. We didn't see the dogs until we had started making sarnies, and discretion being the better part of panic, we decided to finish our lunch further away.

After a final purchase of beer and chocolate from Tsannagur, and avoiding the very pushy man, we got lost in Mongolia for the last time as we tried to find the border. The tiny border town was not very inviting, so we headed back into the hills for a final night's camping in a lovely green valley.

Yak Heard heading to lower lands for winter

Moving truck mongolian style

posing roughly in the place charlie and ewan spent their 1st night in mongolia

Everything is better with chips!

Fitting location for the last night in mongolia

Aug 20th

G -Reporting

Woke early on the last morning in the Ger :( and tried to get the blog as up to date as possible but was thwarted yet again by the incredibly flaky internet!

Not to be defeated we packed up the truck and said farewell to the lovely comfy Ger and headed to the town square, parked opposite the hotel and used their unprotected wifi to finish the blog and send some emails.

That done a quick bit of grocery shopping was in order in the local market and then we hit the road west to Achit Lake for our last few days in Mongolia, the road by Mongolian standards was pretty good and we arrived at the lake by 3ish and quickly found a nice beach to camp at but we spied what we thought were better location further north so we though why not so we headed north big mistake the terrain got worse and worse and even though Swiss is a not bad 4x4 the last thing we wanted to do was break the truck in the middle of nowhere with 2 days left on the visa, so discretion being the better part of valor we headed back to the 1st beach and enjoyed a nice if a little cloudy evening.