Olgii to Barnaul…..

We´re back in Russia! Survived Mongolia without even a puncture on any of the bikes. The only thing that happened was Eva´s crash and she is fully recovered now. No hip pain or shoulder pain no more. I´ve fixed her fog light and it looks cool so we´ll leave it like it is. We´ll need to fix her left side pannier when we get home tho.

We visited the Irish pub in Olgii! If you ever go to Olgii, don´t feel that you have have to visit that place! The only thing irish in that pub was the sign that said “Irish” on the outside…. No irish beer, no irish music, none could even speak a word of english. And I am rather sure the staff don´t even hate Oliver Cromwell if they even know who he is!! The irish pub was a joke! We left Olgii and drove up to Tsagaannuur near the border to be able to be at the border when they opened That was the plan at least….. We had been told that the border opened at 10 but it´s rather likely that they opened much earlier. The ride up to Tsagaannuur/the border would also be the last stretch of road with no asphalt….. Yay! We arrived in Tsagaannuur and asked some local guy on a small chineese motorcycle about a place to sleep and he said that he would guide us to a place….. He took us way out of the village to a place that must have been owned by his brother or some other relative….. A Kaz ger that we should share with the family and they asked for more money than we paid for the hotel in Ulanbaataar. And they also said that this was the only place to sleep in Tsagaannuur and that they would host some americans the next day. The place looked like shit and we had a clear feeling that they did not tell the truth so after awhile we left and went back into the village. Eva talked to some of the military guys that works in Tsagaannuur and they helped us out and organized beds for us and VERY secure parking for the bikes inside the Mongolian military base in Tsagaannuur….. 😀

Went up to the border the next day and it took us 7 (!!) hours to get out of Mongolia and into Russia. Interesting routines as usual….. 🙂 First night back in Siberia/Russia we stayed in Kosh-Agash and that was a nice stay. Friendly place. We got into some problems in Gorno-Altaysk were we could´t find a place to stay for some hours and one of the hotels we tried at was located in a VERY dodgy part of the town. It was dark too and the woman that had the hotel didn´t talk any english but we definitely got the feeling that she tried to warn us and tell us to leave the neighborhood. So we did and it was actually rather scary. We went back to the first hotel we had tried and they all of a sudden had a room for us. The only difference was that Eva went in and asked this time. I did it first time we were there and then they were fully booked…. “Niet”.….. We´ve decided that Eva will ask for rooms in the cities. Might be easier that way….. 😦

We arrived in Barnaul last night and now we´re in a rather decent hotel for the first time since we left Ulanbaataar. Working wi-fi, working toilet and beds that are not as hard as rock. We´ve managed to get some much needed laundry done and we´ll try to rest a bit before we´ll start the long ride back west. Tomorrow we´ll head for Novosibirsk and the next day we´ll try to make it to Omsk. A LONG ride…… 720 kilometers but we hope to make it. And then we don´t really know since the main road (M-51) heads into Kazakstan…. We´ll try to figure out if it´s a transit road that does´t require a visa or if we have to take smaller roads further north…..

The driving is zoo much easier now since there are actually roads to drive on but the traffic is more intense and it´s HOT. Mongolia had pretty much perfect temperatures but it gets above 30 (32 – 34) C in Siberia so hot days on the bikes. I almost fell asleep while riding yesterday. The heat is really tiering in the long run. And I don´t drink coffee either but I might try to buy some energy drinks to take with me on the bike to stay awake. Won´t do the same mistake again as I did going through eastern Europe two years ago when I drank 4 – 5 Red Bull each day for about 10 days. I got cold turkey BIG time after I stopped when we got into Austria/decent temps again. MAJOR headache for a couple of days and I threw up many times until I slowly started to feel better. Couldn´t ride the bike for almost 4 days because of a overdose of Red Bull…… Won´t do that mistake again….. Some pics…..:

Eva has killed some big bug-like thing with wings. Two more of the same kind sits below on the oil cooler…..

The road towards the russian border. Sharp stones and lose gravel……

Northern Mongolia…..

Our bikes inside the Mongolian military base in Tsagaannuur. Very friendly and helpful folks. Thanks! Never told them that I never did my military service back home in Sweden and had to spend a month in jail instead tho….. 😉

Even the mongolian military guys wants to get their pictures taken…. 🙂

Eva checking out the camels or the camels checking out Eva……? :o)

We got a visit while stopping to drink along the road up to the border after we had left Tsagaannuur. Two Kazak lads. One came on a horse and the other one came after running. They left their herd of sheep quite a long way away to ask us where we´re from and to have us take pics of them. The usual stuff. Friendly guys. Asked if we wanted some horse milk but we politely said No. Eva is lactose intolerant and I didn´t fancy drinking horse milk out of a dirty yellow plastic container. Have had enough of stomach problems on this trip…. But kind that they asked. Friendly lads indeed.

This guy started to repair his car while in cue at the border to get into Russia….. Interesting regarding the border crossing. The roads are really crappy up til the Mongolian border. The second you enter Russia the roads are PERFECT. Better than in Sweden! And the Altay region is really beautiful. We drove along a river the whole day and the mountains around was fantastic!

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Lenin has his eyes on the kids playground in Gorno-Altaysk….. 😉

We bought Crazy Cola! Tasted like shit to be honest…..

Eva on her way for a potty break just next to the road…..

Found this really worked down side car bike next to a work shop out on the countryside. I think it´s a old Zündap or something like that.

This bus broke down in Barnaul and instead of towing it to the garage they asked people to get off the bus and then they started to repair it then and there….. We saw several old busses that has previously been on the streets in Stockholm, Malmö and other swedish cities. Seems like they buy old busses cheap and use them til they can´t keep them running anymore…… Not only swedish busses. We also saw busses from Germany and other european countries with signs in german, french, english, swedish….. Must be hard to keep so many different makes running. Scania, Volvo, Man, Mercedes and many others…..

Tomorrow Novosibirsk and then Omsk and then we need to figure out what route to take to make it further west….. More later!

Take care.

//Jan

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