Archive for June, 2009

27.06.09

We left Irkutsk about midday, after doing the Tony – Leon tyre switcheroo, chatting with Andreas and Claudia the Germans, taking Leon to the local auto parts / tools market (Leon had had almost everything stolen on his trip over .. tools, phone, you name it), and checking on the status of Hannes’ new shock absorber. Stas, the captain of the bike club, returned just before midday and we said our goodbyes and hit the road north.

The road to Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal was a good one, sealed most of the way. My only concerns related to the new off road tyres I had fitted in Irkutsk. They were squidgy on the asphalt compared to the Mefo’s I had left behind in Irkutsk (to collect on the way back) and took quite a bit of getting used to.

Initially I had planned just to head north to Zhigalovo for the first days ride, but 10km before the turnoff to Olkhon, I had a change of heart. Tony had always wanted to see Baikal in general, and having seen Baikal 3 times in the past I was keen to see Olkhon Island, which I hadnt seen before. Besides, what would the Sibirsky Extreme project be without a trip to the sacred Olkhon Island … a travel destination / pilgrimmage many Russians dream of making.

And so we turned off the road north and headed for the ferry to Olkhon Island. As we didnt know about fuel on the island we filled up in the last major town before the island and sped on to catch the ferry with seconds to spare.

25 miles of dirt road later and we had made it to Khuzhir, the main town on the island. I wanted to see Shaman Rock, the most sacred site on Lake Baikal for the local Buryats.

We found a guesthouse soon after (thanks to the local internet cafe – complete with one computer) and headed out for dinner … only to find Tony now had a flat tyre. His front. I zipped around town asking for directions to a Shinomontazh and ended up at the closed gates of a house a few hundred yards off the main street. I yelled across the fence and eventually a guy emerged asking what do I want. “do you do shino-montazh?” I asked.
“maybe” was the reply, that might as well have included the line “who’s asking?”. I explained that my english colleague had a flat tyre and we just needed to get it vulcanised. Eventually he relented and said “ok, where is he?”

I zoomed back to the main street to fetch Tony, led him to Anatoly, the local tyre guru, and then back to our guesthouse to get a couple more tools for removing Tony’s front wheel. When I returned to Anatoly’s, a tall german guy was talking to Tony … this was yet another cyclist he had met on the ride across Siberia. Tony stopped and talked to 3 cyclists on his way over, he had now re-met two of them. Anatoly fixed Tony’s wafer thin front tube and sent us on our way for 100 rubles (2 quid).

We headed off to a local Buryat cafe for dinner, beer and then home. Our home for the night was an outdoor room about the size of a large garden shed. The guy who owned it had built 3 or 4 in his back garden and rented them out.

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28.06.09

I woke at 7:30 … we had told the lady of the house last night that we wanted breakfast at 8. It was pissing down rain. I wanted to try and catch her to postpone breakfast, but it was too late. She had already cooked our pancakes. I woke Tony and told him if he wants breakfast its time to get up. As we ate our Olkhon Island special breakfast of pancakes, cottage cheese and tea, the sky slowly lightened. By the end of breakfast the rain had stopped.

I needed to back up some data onto a portable hard drive, and told Tony to go on ahead to the one terminal internet cafe. No point us bother being there at the same time if there is only one terminal – and he packed up his bike and rode off.

Half and hour later, once I had packed up my gear and loaded the bike I rode down to the internet hut, to find Tony chatting to a couple of Australian retired couples, driving across Russia in 4×4s. I said my “g’days” and was offered a vegemite on vita-wheat biscuit … something I havent had in years. The internet was super slow and was occupied by a german guy uploading squillions of fotos, so Tony and I decided to forget about it and head off – I could upload the text by phone and the pics would have to wait. It was well after 12pm when we got going.

We arrived back at the ferry and were loaded on within 5 minutes. Not quite as quick as the way out, but the Australians said they waited 3 hours for a boat – so we should consider ourselves lucky – again. We headed for Bayanday, the turnoff point for driving to Olkhon, at at a road detour, Tony clipped a barrier with his hard luggage (not sure he would have had a problem with soft luggage and the bike fell on top of him. I was beaten to his rescue by three car loads of Russians, who lifted the bike up off Tony’s leg … and on to his ankle …ouch!

Anyway, I told him to be a man about it, rub some smelly ointment on it when we stop in at Bayanday 70km down the road, and he should be fine for a 100 metre dash tomorrow. And he did just that.

Bayanday was our lunch and fuel stop. Tony rubbed the goop onto his leg after our lunch of lagman soup and a chebureki each. We powered on after our late lunch and made Kuchug, in the pouring rain, by 5pm. I pulled into a shelter and decided to wait out the rain. Tony and I took advantage of the break by doing some minor repairs to the bike. We were of course approached by Kuchug’s finest assorted drunk locals … we pretended to speak no Russian. Kuchug was also our first sighting of the mighty river Lena … not so mighty yet, as we are right near its headwaters.

By 6pm we were underway again – the rain had stopped, at least the heavy rain. I wanted to make Zhigalovo for the night. The asphalt road stopped at Kuchug and it was 140 km of dirt road to Zhigalovo. The road followed the Lena and for much of the way it was a high speed dirt road with red cliffs on the right and the Lena on the left. The villages in this stretch were exceptionally pretty and traditional. Many of the villages from Kachug down all date from 1600 – 1650 … the great Cossack populating of Siberia.

It was about 7:30 when we arrived in Zhigalovo, and I followed signs to the “Hotel California” on the outskirts of town. Tony waited while I checked the place out. The skanky girl at reception said it was 500 rubles a night… for the room. Cheap. I asked to have a look at a room. She took me into a room, and it was uncleaned, with empty vodka bottles littered about. I asked to see another. She went downstairs and woke the ‘administrator’ … he was totally dishelvelled and reeked of booze. I went outside and spoke to Tony … suggesting we look for another place. Some locals said their was another guest house in the centre of town, right behind the Lenin Statue – cant get much more central than the Lenin Statue in a Russian town.

We found the central place, it was clean and run by a sober woman. It was twice the price but was worth it. And she had a yard for parking. We unloaded, and went out to look for a cafe. By now it was pissing down rain again. We failed to find a cafe so went to the general store on Lenin’s left. There we bought beer and instant noodles … all the dinner we needed.

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29.06.09

No breakfast demands meant we slept in quite late – finally stirring about 9:30am. Tony needed to do some metal repairs on his side box … the attaching points had become a little bent in his fall yesterday. He found a vice and went about squeezing them back into shape.  The weather was still overcast.

I had been fantasizing about a combination of dirt roads and dry weather … it was something I hadnt seen since Kirgizia / Tajikistan. In general, it had been raining either partially or completely every day since hooking up with Tony. We were probably lucky the dirt roads were not more of a nightmare, considering all of the rain. I have always thought the chances of reaching the ultimate objectives of this trip are totally weather dependent. If we have good weather, the tracks I hope to try will be possible. A lot of rain and the picture changes. So far we have been unlucky, but have managed to struggle thru.

We stopped on the edge of town to refuel the bikes and ourselves … a surprisingly unsatisfying brunch today. Crap cafe. No cute serving girls, and grim food. It was 12:30 by the time we got underway … and we had a big day ahead. The pressure would be on. We were trying to ride from Zhigalovo to the BAM.

Most maps dont even have a road, but one detailed map I had showed a road, and the chat with Artyom in the Bike Club in Irkutsk a few days back confirmed that there was a road, and it was possible to get from Zhigalovo to the BAM. We were lucky to meet him… none of the Irkutsk bikers knew there was a road from Zhigalovo to the BAM, meaning none of the locals had ridden it. Artyom was one of very few bikers (or maybe the only one) who knew there was a rideable road there.

We crossed a pontoon bridge to the start of the “Zhigalovo Road” and were now in a map free zone. The sun was now out, and the road was pretty much dry. The first dry dirt road I had ridden since the the first 30 minutes with Tony back in the Altai. As a result we flew along it. At one muddy stretch I took a detour off to the side of the road and saw the unmistakeable tracks of Artyom’s Africa Twin. He had ridden here 4 days ago on his way home to Bodaibo. Artyom had driven the road before, but this was the first time he had ridden it on a bike.

Tony had mentioned that as an Englishman, he was not used to such long dirt stretches. He used to be in the rally scene (back in the days of steam engines I suspect) and was saying he cant remember a special stage of more that 25 miles in the dirt .. and here we were doing about 200 miles between villages in the dirt. So 25 miles from the end of this 200 mile “special” I stopped to wait for Tony … after waiting 5 minutes with no sign of his headlight, I decided I better check out whats up.

I drove back 17 kilometres before I saw him … he had slid off on a corner. But a passing Kamaz all wheel drive bus had picked him up and all was normal. We continued on and finally reached the village of Okunausky … and the BAM railroad. We had done the Zhigalovo Road. We had made it to the BAM!!

We turned left and made the more major town of Magistralny, where we refuelled the bikes and found a railway canteen. Dinner for two in the railway canteen came to 70 EUR cents. It was after 6pm but seriously hot … must be about 30 degrees. Warmest weather for ages. I contemplated taking off my vest as we rode off, heading for Ust Kut 170 km away.

The first 50 km out of Magistralny was a breeze, but there were dark clouds brewing ahead. In the distance lightning was flashing and the temperature was dropping fast. I stopped to put on my windproof fleece. The dirt road was becoming wet. Argghh ! Rain had recently been here. before long we caught up with the rain. Just as I thought we would have our first rain free day on the dirt. It was tolerable until we his a section of roadworks near Zvezdny. We were now only 50 km from Ust-Kut but the road was a nightmare. Deep and long stretches of mud bogs had cars stuck on the road, unable to go forwards or backwards. Tony and I plotted our own routes thru the bog and both made it clear, eventually, but the relief must have been too much for Tony as he went down in a much smaller muddy section a few hundred yards later. I returned to pick him up, showing my reluctance, and Tony just shrugged his shoulders.

I really admire the old guys balls. He is out here in Siberia …. not just riding across Russia or Siberia on the main road, but riding unchartered roads in Siberia. And he doesnt let the tough stuff faze him. His stiff upper lip and pluck is really admirable. He doesnt complain or moan. He has had a few falls in the last 2 days and a decent collection of bruises, but he just gets on with it. Class act. Must come from the half a million motorcycle miles he has under his belt already!.

Soon afterwards we met the Lena River again. We are getting familiar with it and will only get more familiar over the coming days. I have decided from now on, I will call her “Lenochka” .. a familiar form of Lena. This meant we were only a few dozen miles from Ust-Kut.

We pulled into Ust Kut and crossed the last bridge across the Lena … there are no more bridges at all for the remaining 3700 km (2300 miles) of its length. We needed a jet wash … but it was almost 10pm by now. I didnt like the idea of trying to check into a hotel totally covered in mud and with luggage that was totally covered in mud.

I saw a policeman and stopped to ask him where I might find a car wash. He immediately responded by asking me for my documents. “What an asshole” I thought. Cops almost always help when you approach them, rather than when they approach you. It was like he was taking advantage of me by asking for documents when I had asked him for help. It was poor sportsmanship! The game of driver vs cop has rules in Russia … and this was against the rules.

I broke off the conversation after showing him the docs and asked for the centre of town. “That way” he said – Ust Kut is 40 km long – stretched out along Lenochka.  We zoomed off and found the railway station and a hotel … the Hotel Lena … flashest hotel in town. They had no parking and I was frowned upon as I walked across the lobby in my muddy riding gear. but I got a room and returned to Tony and the bikes to begin unpacking.

As I unpacked I was bitching away to Tony about the cop, and how I felt he had broken the ettiquette rules by asking for documents when I had approached him, when Tony replied “Well here he is again”. And I looked up and the cop was there outside the hotel with his colleague, waiting to meet us. Lucky he didnt speak english!

As if to make a monkey out of me, he then invites us back to use the police jet wash. Wow … fine … done! We follwed him back to the station and parked up in the courtyard. Tony and I used the jet washer for a good 20 minutes each … and there was still mud coming off the bikes even then. We jet washed each other … from the knees down tho Tony needed a bit more after his falls. I blasted his back and sides. When we had finished, the police (Andrei and Andrei) offered to house the bikes in the police garage (we had nothing at the hotel and would have had to take every piece of baggage up to the room.)

The police also asked how many bears we had seen on our route up from Zhigalovo. None, i replied, should we have seen any? Aparently yes, this was bear coumtry

So it turns out I was completely wrong in my initial assessment – the police were excellent guys, very friendly and helpful. They told us to come back the next morning and they would help us sort out a ferry to Lensk. Top guys !

21.06.09

Up bright and early at 6:30 am. The 1200GSs and Africa Twin had already gone. One of them mentioned something about leaving at 6am last night, but didnt think they were serious!

Tony and I had breakfast and were on the road by 8:20. The road south was pretty muddy with many dirt sections of up to 10km. I figured we would be catching the bigger bikes with all this dirt, and sure enough at 10am we passed them as they pulled over into a cafeteria for a break.

After Nizhneudinsk the road became pretty much sealed, and my thoughts turned to the village of Sheragul. The stretch from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk was almost the only part of the route thru Siberia that I had done before, and the reason for that was trying to look at new and interesting road possibilities.  But the 1100 km from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk was still interesting to me none-the-less, as there were a lot of memories associated with this stretch from the Tokyo to London Project 15 years ago. We had passed the Kansk army base, but because I assumed there would not be the same army personnel there now than then, I had not sought to enter the base to search for old contacts.

But there were a couple of other points of interest for me on this stretch of highway. James had broken down here and we were helped out by a policeman called Zhenya, in a village called Sheragul. He had taken care of us and our bikes, while we returned to Irkutsk to await spare parts. The other point of interest was the spot were were stuck camping by the highway for 3 days, wet and cold, waiting for the end of the rain.

.We approached the village of Sheragul and I wondered what were the odds of tracking down Zhenya. Tony seemed almost as excited about the prospect of a 15 year re-union as I was. Once in the main street of town, much looked familiar, and yet, much had changed from my memory. It had changed enough that I was no longer sure which house was the one in which Zhenya had lived with his mother. I stopped to ask a woman in the street. All I had was his first name and that he had been a policeman. ‘Zhenya Ivanov?’ she asked. Wow, that triggered a memory, yes Ivanov was his last name. ‘Da, da’ I replied. And she gave me directions to a new house off the main road.

We rode up to the new house, complete with big gate, and I stuck my head inside. A woman was sorting out some clothes. I asked her if Zhenya was around. She said he was out. I told her I was an Australian motorcyclist, and she seemed to know exactly who I was – her face brimming. She was on the phone straight away and said Zhenya is immediately coming home.

10 minutes later, Zhenya burst in the door, with a grin from ear to ear. I had known I might meet up again today, but with no means to contact him, he had no clue. It was a complete surprise to him – out of the blue.

Zhenya is no longer a policeman but now seems to be one of the village’s more successful businessmen, at least if his big new house is anything to go by. The woman I saw earlier was Sveta, his wife, and he had 2 new kids – Nastya and Polina. He asked where is James … he remembered our names after 15 years. Apparently he even tried to look us up when he first got internet 2 years ago, without success.

Sveta his wife had known immediately who I was too, from the stories Zhenya had told her. James and I had really made an impression 15 years ago it seems. I asked why … and was told that as the only policeman in town for a few years after we passed thru he had seen a few other motorcyclists the following year 1995 (maybe including Mondo Enduro) and increasing numbers since, but that James and I had been the first he had seen. He had really been struck by the audacity of these first two guys he had met riding motorcycles across Siberia.

We spent a couple of hours re-living old memories and exploring his big new house before I asked to visit his parents place on the main road thru town, where Zhenya had lived back in 1994. Sadly his father had passed away just 3 weeks ago, but his mother was alive and kicking.

I rode the bike thru her gate and onto the wooden driveway where James had repaired his bike in the freezing cold, and she too immediately knew who I was. I was touched that their memories were so strong and vivid. After so much time under the bridge and with no time to prepare the memories, they were still instantly there. Zhenya’s mother scolded me straight up for taking so long to return and asked where James was. She too remembered our names. I re-created some old fotos and we went inside for tea.

Ever since my first visit to Siberia, I have drank my tea black, preferably with jam. Prior to that it was always standard issue milk and sugar. I got into black tea with jam in siberia, and in particular at Zhenya’s mothers place. She used fill James and I up with a warm cup of tea almost continously. In the cold of the time we definately needed it. I saw the old kitchen where we used to eat, the sofa that was my siberian bed (I didnt remember but they remembered that I slept on the sofa while James slept on the floor).

By mid-afternoon I apologised but had to move on. Tony and I wanted to get too Irkutsk tonight. I told Zhenya I will be back after 2 months, after I have tackled the BAM road.

It was 3pm and Irkutsk was still 370 km away. Its a measure of how the roads have changed, that by the time we reach Irkutsk, we will have covered the same distance today as 3 tough days of riding back in 1994. The 50-100 km south-east of Sheragul had been all mud then, now it was all asphalt. In fact it was alphalt from here all the way to Irkutsk. Our 360km would only take 3.5 hrs of riding plus one hour of breaks.

Half an hour of those breaks came when we passed a cyclist on the road with 200km to go. It was the same British cyclist that Tony had met and chatted to 2 weeks earlier between Omsk and Novosibirsk – a guy called Sam (Tony calls him as ‘Tom’). It was a day of reunions all round. I will let Tony elaborate more about that reunion. We also stopped for half an hour to have a shoarma at an Azerbaijani snack bar by the side of the road, and to refuel.

I searched for the camping location where James and I had been shacked up in the rain for 3 days, but couldn’t find it. Its likely the road has moved. Much of the road had been reconstructed or a new road built 100 yards away from the old. I will have another chance to find it when I pass thru again in September.

We had been told to call Stas, the head of a big bike club in Irkutsk, when I reached the edge of the city. I had texted when we were about 2 hours away. As we rode into town a guy rode the other way on a big Golddwing and waved furiously at us. We pulled over while he turned around and he introduced himself as Pyotr, a friend of Stas and would lead us to the club. I remembered a rumour that the Irkutsk guys have a club house with bar and accomodation.

And sure enough we pulled up at the “Bike-konur” club guesthouse. Gates were opened and we were invited to park. There were two German bikes in there as well, an F800GS and single cylinder F650GS. We were led into the bar, upstairs was the living quarters and snooker table. A couple of dorm rooms were there, and the German couple were in one, and Tony and I moved our gear in with a Finnish guy in the other room.

We changed and immediately went to the bar, as you do. The bar was staffed with mini-skirted Irkutsk biker girls, and I even spotted a pole dancing pole. Not sure when that gets a workout. There was food and a selection of beers on tap. There was a modern warm shower and washing machine upstairs. This place was an adventure bikers wet dream.

The Finnish guy’s bike (an Africa Twin) had broken down 400 km down the road, somewhere near Tulun – due to a complete shock absorber failure and he was trying to work out how to get a whole new shock sent out from Finland.

After a few beers I was singled out by Artyom, a local biker – well not really local, he lives near the remote village of Bodaibo, 200 km north off the BAM road. We spoke about the BAM road and the track to the BAM from Zhigalovo, north of Irkutsk. In all, I got invaluable information from Artyom, a guy who rides the remote roads of this region on his Africa Twin. So add useful sources of information to the many reasons this club house was a bikers heaven!

- – -

22.06.09

I collected my new dirt tyres and had them fitted my a member of the bike club who runs a tyre business. Then I left Tony in Irkutsk for a day and half while I trotted off to Moscow. The main project for Irkutsk was to the one thing I forgot to get Zhenya in Krasnoyarsk to do … make 3 new wheel spacers out of steel or stainless steel for the XC. The originals are soft aluminium alloy and are now pretty badly scored by the dirt and grit so far on the trip. The spacers are what the bearing seals seal against, so the condition of the surface of the spacers is pretty important – and mine were in poor shape. Fortunately they are simple round bits and would not take long to get spun up on a lathe. Siberia has no shortage of metalworkers. Steel would be infinately more durable than aluminium for the purposes of effecting the seal without deteriorating rapidly.

- – -

25.06.09

My return to Irkutsk on the overnight flight from Moscow was the start of a productive day. After lunch I got stuck into the motorcycle, beginning with a walk with Tony and Hannes (The Finnish Africa Twin guy) down to a huge automotive bazaar to pick up some bits n pieces for our assorted bikes. Tony and I picked up a cheap thermometer each, I grabbed a small tube of axle grease and a 26mm socket (dont see them too often, but they do both the front and rear wheel nuts). Andreas and Claudia, the German couple, had just returned from several days out at Lake Baikal, and we all beered it up till late at night in the club bar.

- – -

26.06.09

Hannes needed to extend his Russian customs form and wanted some help with the russian language. I was planning to extend my customs form in Magadan, but if I went with Hannes then I could get it out of the way here in Irkutsk. We woke up at 8:30am and taxied it out to the customs office, 20 km out from the centre of town. It took us a while but by 11:30 we had our customs extensios approved, at no cost, and were asked to return after lunch, at 2pm. There was nothing to do out there in the burbs, so we headed back into town.

By 2pm we were back out at the customs office and by 3pm we were back at the bike cluehouse, with our docs. By now it was looking too late to leave, and when Tony returned from his shopping excursion we made an executive decision to leave tomorrow instead.

Later in town, at the internet cafe, a guy walked in, brandishing a northern UK accent, carrying a motorcycle helmet, and announced “so there are two more british bikers here” to the internet cafe … as Tony and I were the only people in the room, I guess he figured the bikes outside belonged to us. This was Leon from Manchester, on his way to Mongolia on a Yamaha 600.

We chatted a bit before realising he was holed up in a lonely planet hostel. We told him about the bike club and he was keen for a look. 15 mins later and he had decided to stay for a few days at the Bike Club, starting tomorrow. He was keen to change to a spare tyre he was carrying, and Tony had been looking for a spare back in 17 inch. The two met halfway, and Tony agreed to take responsibility for the tyre change, in return for Leon’s tyre.

As I started to pack up all my gear, I noticed the two new tyre changing levers Adventure-Spec had sent out from the UK with my new tyres were missing. I had left them out in the yard of the bike club, and someone must have picked them mup thinking they were surplus. Bummer … they were a nice length.

Tony still has a couple of shorter ones.

- – -

14.06.09

We celebrated our Tuvan wilderness survival by sleeping in till after 9 in Kyzyls finest hotel.  We had breakfast at 10, and were on the road by 11:30.  An hour north of Kyzyl we pulled in to get some food and drink at the town of Turan.  It was raining by now and it was a good excuse to get out of the rain for a while.  We were soon surrounded by local Tuvan men, all middle aged, all wanting to touch the bike.  Normally I dont mind a bit of that, but these guys were all drunk and I made it clear they can look at it, fotograph it, but were not to touch it or lean on it / play with it while I was in the shop.

When I emerged from the shop 5 minutes later, with one drunk local begging me to buy him a beer, another local 40 odd year old was sitting on the bike.  Tony yelled at him to get off but I was already charging.  It was one of the guys I clearly told not to touch the bike.  I shoved him off the bike violently and the crowd of drunk men fell backwards, and didnt come within 15 yards of us again.  Sometimes you just have to put the foot down or people will abuse the fact that you are a foreigner.

It saddened me to think of what has become of Tuvan people.  I knew before I got there that the over-riding general impression of the very few people I either knew who had been to Tuva or comments I had read regarding Tuvan people, was one of alcoholism.  In the time I was there, apart from the yurt dwellers, I would say over 50% of the males I met in Tuva were drunk when I met them.  The crowd of guys who had been hanging around the bikes that morning in Turan were all 35-50, all drunk and clueless at lunchtime.  Every single guy in the crowd, every male I saw in Turan, was drunk and clearly alcoholic.

I wondered what the great General Subeedei would think of the state of the average Tuvan male today.

All the businesses were run by women. Perhaps they were the only ones sober enough to be able to handle money.  I pitied the females of Tuva, and realised why the girl in the store yesterday was so keen to chat.  It was just because I was sober.

We sped out of Turan, the back wheel spitting gravel on the pitiful drunkards of the town.  Before long we crossed a pass and were in Krasnoyarsk Krai – part of Russia proper (as I like to call it).  Incredibly, as soon as we crossed the ‘border’, the whole picture changed.  The countryside looked like stereotypical Siberia.  It was suddenly all pine and birch forest … the Taiga … while in Tuva it had been largely grasslands. And while there were no Russians in the villages on the Tuvan side of the border, suddenly the villages were full of Russians.

We made good progress towards Abakan, the rain stopped and the sun came out.  Just as we felt the going was good, my rear tyre was flat, just 6 km from the town of Ermakovskoe.

It was an amazing coincidence because I had been thinking of Ermak (Yermak) since we hit the dense pine and birch Taiga.  Ermak the Cossack was the conquistador in chief of Siberia.  As I rode thru this dense forest on the nice asphalt highway, I considered how difficult it would be to walk thru it, and yet Ermak and co went by foot, horse and boat all the way from Europe to the Pacific.

Russia was a small state hemmed in by the Kazan Tatars back in 1550, with no access at all beyond the Volga, just 200 kilometres or so east of Moscow, but the defeat of the Tatars in the 1550s opened the door east for the Russians, and they wasted no time.  By 1600 the Cossacks had reached the Pacific, started settlements all the way and claimed the lot for Russia (well for the Tsar anyway) and this huge chunk of land, Siberia, has remained Russian to this day.  To have explored and secured so much land in just 50 years is worthy of serious respect.  To explore Siberia by foot you have to be walking thru hundreds of miles of swamps, deal with the worlds most savage mosquitoes and cross the worlds largest forest.  And thats just summer.  They also had to survive winter with just whatever they could find.  Ermak was one tough son of a gun.  Respect.

Being so close to a town, I just removed my back wheel, jumped on Tony’s bike and headed in to Ermakovskoe.  Tony had gone ahead to scout for a Shino-montazh while I removed the wheel and so I knew exactly where it was.  It was also a chance to sort out my spare tube.  The tube that had just died was Tony’s 17 inch spare.  The young tyre repair lad, Pasha, at the Shinomontazh took the tyre off and found it was a valve that had de-vulcanised from the tube.  Pasha repaired Tony’s valve and sorted out my spare, before fitting my spare expertly to the rim.  By the time we were back on the road it was 8pm.  The sun was up till 11pm these days, being almost the longest day of the year.

We both stopped for some phone calls back to better halves at home base in sunny London, then rode into Minusinsk.  It was near here that Lenin was exiled for political crimes back in the days of the Tsar, and apparently there is quite the museum here.  Locals told me this after spotting my Sibirsky extreme logos on the bike.  Tony and I just wanted a hotel.  It was near impossible to find any and when we did find one, it was full.  So we thought ‘fu@k it’ and rode on.  We figured we would find one on the highway.

It was about 10pm when we crossed into Abakan and the Khakass Republic.  Khakassia on the brief look at it we saw seemed very russified and developed, compared to Tuva for example.  We even passed a “carvery” and pub called The Fox’s Tail in Abakan.  By midnight we were out in the middle of nowhere and no hotel to be seen.  We stopped for dinner at a roadside diner type place and while eating I asked the truck drivers.  ‘None for almost 200km’ was the reply.  Damn.  We hit the road, but after an hour I was feeling very drowsy and pulled into another roadside cafe (plenty of petrol stations and cafes, just no hotels).  I asked there if there were any hotels nearby and voila, there was one in a village just off the main road 5km away.  In the dark, at 1:30am we fould the hotel and got lectured to by the lady running it.  But she did give us a room!

I bought my 500th Euro worth of fuel today, and passed 20,000 km all up for the trip.  Apart from my flat tyre, it was a mechanically problem free day.

- – -

15.06.09

Having got to bed after 2 am, it was hardly surprising that we didnt wake up until after 10.  Breakfast was at midday and we didnt really get moving till after 1pm.  We were in no rush.  Krasnoyarsk, the biggest city we will see for months, was only 260 km away.

Over breakfast we had texted the contacts we had in Krasnoyarsk.  Tony had the number of a guy called Dima, who was a friend of bikers he had met in Barnaul a week or so back, and I had the number of Lena, the mother of another banking contact in Moscow.  Lena had received an emergency shipment of spares from Adventure-Spec, required after some unfortunate incidents in Kazakhstan … namely the new chain breaking and the wrong front brake disc arriving.

We made good time and Dima texted back to say he will meet us on the outskirts of the city at 5:30pm.  We had time to spare, so we stopped off for some lunch and tea, and sat out some of the drizzle we had been riding thru most of the day.

We arrived a little bit early to our rendezvous point with Dima, and set about re-creating a fotograph of the big dam at Krasnoyarsk that I had taken 15 years ago, now with Tony in place of James Mudie.  Due to bridge security (there was none 15 years ago), we were a little rushed and I didnt get to replicate it exactly … but  close enough.

We told Dima, a lawyer and off-road rider, what we needed to get done in Krasnoyarsk in terms of repairs and he led us thru the bustling city towards his off-road club mechanic.  On the way, he took us past the massive BMW centre, complete with BMW Motorrad dealer and service station.  Tony needed a new visor for his BMW helmet, and incredibly he got one there.  We decided to pop back in tomorrow morning for an electronic diagnostic check.  We would still get all the mechanical repairs done at Dima’s off-road specialist guy, but both our BMW bikes have a diagnostic plug that can tell of any electrical faults or engine management problems, and it would be handy just to have a run thru the diagnostic computer before we really end up in the middle of no-where.  If there were any problems with those components, we could get the BMW Motorrad guys to fix them.

We met Lena, who gave me my box of emergency spares, and had teed up a rental apartment for us.  It was a nice big modern place right on the very central street of town, Prospekt Mira, and most importantly, it had a washing machine.

As soon as we had said goodbye to Dima and Lena, we stripped off and the washing machine began running continuously for several hours.  Everything had to be washed.  The bathtub became a boot and luggage scrubbing station while the machine ran.

Dinner time was 11pm and we headed out to walk Krasnoyarsk’s prosperous clean streets.  It was like being back in the real world again after the challenges of Tuva.  We found a steak house (for me) that had beer on tap (for Tony) and indulged ourselves.  The corner of the steak house had a small stage and pole, but it must have been just for decoration … there was no dancing that night.

- – -

16-06-09

7:30am and Lena was already on the case, picking us up to take us to the secure car park where the bikes were stored.  I had the location of the BMW guys in my GPS so we made our own way there.  By 8:30 we were at the BMW dealer, earlier than expected – it opened at 9, so we popped down the road to wash the bikes.  BMW could have done it, but Tony was charged 300 rubles for it in Moscow BMW and we could wash them ourselves with a high pressure hose for 100 each.

The BMW showroom and service centre was immaculate.  I was stunned.  The tiled floor of the workshop was of course spotlessly clean.  The toilets luxurious.  The coffee was perfect.  The ‘technician’ plugged my bike in to the diagnostic computer first and it seemed I had a few minor bad contacts.  Some wiring dismantling followed, a few squirts of contact spray, and the bike was electrically spot on.  No issues with the Engine Management System.  Tony was next, and same deal … a few contacts needed cleaning and then all was perfect.

Dima arrived to take us to Zhenya, the off-road club mechanic, who was barely a kilometre from the BMW centre.  Zhenya’s workshop was a hive of activity, with a dozen off road bikes in for various work.

Dima and I gave Zhenya the list of projects for my bike … fit new front disc, fit new chain, replace three bolts (two luggage rack ones – luggage systems are the bane of our travels so far … but I got my new ortlieb bags from Tony and need to fit them now) and finally I wanted to check some more of the ‘work’ done by Boris in Almaty.  Last week when we were rained out in Aktash, I checked my air-filter … Boris said he had cleaned it.  He hadnt.  It was filthy, much more than the ride from Almaty to Aktash should have done.  It was Tajik dirt in there I suspect.  I washed it myself there in Aktash.

So Boris probably didnt do things he was supposed to do as well as all the things he had done badly.  That means I needed to have his work replacing my headset bearings checked as well.  He was also supposed to check / replace spark plugs … but as I am skeptical of that too, I asked Zhenya to re-do it. As it was a proper off road workshop, it was a good chance to get my forks serviced.  That hadnt been done since Valera in Yalta.

Next up was Tony’s chunkier list of projects for Zhenya and his team.  Tony needed some welding and new mounting system for his luggage rack, a handcrafted front mudguard extender, fork gaitors, oil and filter change, new mirrors, clutch checked, and front rim beaten back  into shape.

Zhenya just nodded his head.  It was clear that like Valera, this wasnt just a job, he was an enthusiast.  He understood it all and discussed solutions with his team, and then said ‘OK, call you when its done.’

Dima took us to a massive new shopping mall on the way home, as clean, stylish and modern as anything anywhere in the world.  As we ate lunch in the food court there, the contrast between Krasnoyarsk, and its immaculate, modern shopping malls and BMW motorrad service centres, and the primitive simple life we had seen in the Tuvan yurts just 3 days ago, caused both of us to wonder at the incredible variety in Russia, in peoples, in cultures, in almost everything.  Its an amazingly diverse place, and you do have to remind yourself its one country.

- – -

17.06.09

This was a day to check progress on the bike, do a lot of internet catch up, buy some bike supplies like chain lube, luggage straps, assorted nuts, bolts, washers, organise minor clothing repairs and in the evening we got to take our fantastic host, Dima, out for beers at an English pub with its own brewery.

The bikes are coming along well and the repairs are more thorough that we even hoped.  A fantastic pair of metal parts has been crafted by the metalworker at Zhenya’s bike workshop for Tony’s luggage system.

I have made an odd decision to use two soft luggage systems on the back of my bike … the new Ortlieb motorcycle bags are too small to use on their own.  Zhenya can fix my old luggage system so I will have a near empty back bag and double side bags.  Cool or what?

- – -

18.06.09

A lazy day in Krasnoyarsk waiting for our bikes to be finished off.  Tony and I spent it mostly at the pub … the James Shark Pub, an english pub just round the corner from our apartment on main st – Prospekt Mira.  Dima came round after his work at 5pm and we trotted off to collect by riding pants (they needed a repair done, a boot (which had a seam re-stitched) and to check out the bikes, which after 2 days in Zhenya’s workshop were now finished.

On the way we stopped off at the workshop of another extraordinary motorcycle enthusiast in Krasnoyarsk, a guy called Misha Shestakov, who is a world war 2 motorcycle restorer.  Among his 22 bikes were a collection of amazingly restored German (BMW and Zundapp), American (Harley) and British BSA bikes form the war.  Evey detail, down to the manufacturers stamp on the head of the bolts had been restored or replicated.  A couple of the BMWs were ex Afrika Korps, a couple were European theatre.  It was a stunning collection.

Back to Zhenya’s garage – not surprisingly, the bikes were sorted to an impressive standard.  A look at every item of work showed the commitment to do the job properly first time that you need in bike prepping for this kind of project.  Time will be the ultimate judge of the quality of the work done, but it looks to me like I just found my second master mechanic of the trip, and he was another KTM rider.  I half think its because KTM guys tend to be enthusiasts, and half think its because if you have a KTM, you better be a good mechanic cause you will need one a hell of a lot.!!

In any case, Zhenya in Krasnoyarsk joins Valera in Yalta in being awarded the Sibirsky Extreme Order of Lenin for services to motorcycle maintenance.  His reward was a rare (and getting rarer) Sibirsky Extreme Lenin sticker.

Dima then gave us a little tour of the city before leaving us at the James Shark pub and promising to collect us at 10am for our departure from Zhenya’s garage.

Tony and I really have grown to like the James Shark … good food (we had a spanking lamb shank and steak tonight), good in house beer (they have their own micro brewery), complimentary wi-fi internet and good service.  It too gets the official Sibirsky Extreme stamp of approval (big red stamp obviously).  For anyone passing thru, Krasnoyarsk is our recommended stop.  Take a couple of days off, get the bike serviced by a master, and enjoy the James Shark.

- – -

19.06.09

The sun was shining for the first time in days when we woke up in our main street apartment, and we packed up the bags optimistically.  After 3 days off the bikes, we were both missing them and were looking forward to putting some miles in.  Its about 1100 km to Irkutsk, and I reckon its 3 days to get there.

Dima came round and picked us and our luggage up at 10am and we headed off to Zhenya’s workshop, where the bikes were.   My headset bearings and spark plugs had been checked and were ok.  My forks services, My new front disc and chain were on the bike … I was ready to go.  I got the guys to install a fuel filter into the line the connects the two fuel tanks.  It wont catch everything, but I reckon over 80% of the fuel I use passes thru that line so it will catch most of the crap, and it will give me an idea about how much other fuel crap has gone thru the engine.  I loaded up my double barrelled side bag luggage system for the first time, and it worked.  That means my small side bags are now the only luggage I need to remmove from the bike at the end of each day.  Thats light and easy.

Tony had been admiring his new luggage mounts.  The guys had not only made two new solid mounting points for the front of his luggage system, but had reinforced the entire rack.  The Metal Mule racks use the strength of tubular steel and then render that strength meaningless by flattening it at every mounting point, so that the mounting points are weak flat squashed ex-tube.  Whats the point making something strong if its full of weak points?  A couple of the mounting points not only have the steel flattened, but then make it even weaker by bending the flattened bits.  Not surprisingly, those bent flattened bits had cracks all thru them and in one case sheared off completely.  I am certainly no metal wizard, but I learnt enough after a few days with Erik Bok to know the basics.  Flattening tube to make a convenient mounting point was something I never saw Erik do.  Tube is tube .. its round precisely because that shape makes it strong.  Take away the shape and you take away the integrity of the frame.  The tube should be welded directly onto strong separate mounting plates, not squashed to create a two ply thin steel mounting plate.

Back in Zhenya’s workshop, those squashed and bent tubular mounting sections were reinforced with several mm of flat steel, bent to shape and should now be as strong as the tubular sections.  All the metal work was touched up in black paint to match the original and refitted.  I looked at the work and thought even the Dutch metal master himself would approve.

Tony also had a new front mudguard extender crafted from thick rubber and riveted to his beak.  It was in the right spot, but it looked small.  Would it do that job?  We had to trust Zhenya and his boys on that one.  Tony’s bike  also had an oil change, new mirrors attached and a few other minor bits n pieces.

We packed up the bikes, said goodbye to the team who had done such a solid job fixing what needed fixing and set off for Irkutsk, with Dima leading the way our of town.  It was good to be rolling again.  The bikes felt happy and refreshed, and we certainly were happy and refreshed from our 3 day stay in Krasnoyarsk.  On the outskirts of town we said farewell to Dima, who had looked after us so well in Kras.  He will be taking his Yamaha to lake Baikal and across the border to Hovsgul in Mongolia in July.  Lucky chap … as a Russian he can cross Russian borders we westerners can only drool at.  (most obscure border crossings are locals only crossings).

After an hour on the road the sunshine ended and it clouded over.  After another hour it begain to rain.  Yet again.  I have been with Tony 10 days now and every single day it has rained.  An hour or so in the rain and  I stopped at a roadside cafe.  I wanted to get warm again.  By now it was cold.  I needed to plug in the Exo heated vest and gloves.  Tony also needed to go for his heated vest.  The temperature had dropped to 6 degrees.  Throw in the rain as well and it was full on winter riding.  Average temperature round here this time of year is 20 – 25 … what it was doing at 6 degrees is anyones guess.

Fortunately we just called up the support trucks who were waiting 2 miles back (just out of shot), one of which has been hauling a trailer complete with fireside bar, staffed with the swedish bikini cocktail team of bar girls.  Tony and I had a little argument about this, as I felt the trailer with the heated jacuzzi and sauna would be more appropriate at the current time, but in the interests of friendship I folded and we crawled into the fireside bar trailer.

When I woke up from my daydreaming it was time to put on the cold wet jacket and notch up a few more miles.  the two hour tea break had helped – a bit.  Between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk we are on the main road.  No interesting diversions.  Much of the interest for me of this section is remembering how the road was 15 years ago vs now.  We soldiered on and passed the big Army base at Kansk where James and I had been led into the basement 15 years ago.  (see www.TokyotoLondon.com for what happened in the basement)

Soon after Kansk, we crossed into Irkutsk Region, where the time changed again.  We are now 8 hours ahead of London.  I believe its also Beijing time, thats how far east we have come.  The road around the Kansk – Taishet area is being worked on and there were plenty of dirty muddy sections.  Unlike 15 years ago, these dirty muddy sections go on for a few hundred yards rather than a few hundred kilometres.

At Taishet, where the BAM road emerges onto the main Trans-Siberian highway, we stopped to refuel the bikes and found a cafe to try and warm ouselves up as well.  I checked weather in other cities ahead.  6 degrees in Irkutsk.  25 and sunny in Yakutsk way up north.  Amazing.  I noted a few days ago that Magadan and Yakutsk were both 30 and sunny.  I hope the warm sunny weather up North will hold until we get there.  It will mean roads are drier and easier.  The only thing that will stop progress will be rain and mud.  To a large degree the success of the northern objectives depends on how lucky we are with the weather.  Down south here we have had 2 weeks of constant rain.  The dirt side tracks off the main highway are just mudbaths.  Thats fine here and I hope we use up our quota of crappy weather here.  Its easier to deal with when the roads are mainly asphalt and cafe’s exist every few dozen kilometres.

Again we put on the wet gear.  We had been told both by Dima and by the guy we sat next to in the cafe, that there were good modern motels by the roadside at Alzamai, 60 km down the road from here, and so at 11pm (still a little light outside) we soldiered on thru the freezing drizzle.

At midnight we saw the bright lights of a pair of new motels, one of each side of the highway.  As we approached we also saw over 100 trucks parked in the various parking lots.  This was quite a popular stop.  I feared for room availability.  I approached the first motel and asked gingerly if they have any rooms left.  The woman shook her head.  We crossed the highway and tried the other one.  Also no…but the lady said shold be some freeing up in about an hour.  The rooms are paid for by the hour here.  About 35 EUR cents an hour, per person. Patiently we waited in the cafe, in our cold wet clothes, for the lady of the motel to summon us.  That hour seemed a hell of a long time when shivering and cold and wet, but sure enough at 1am, we were summoned and told ‘10 minutes’… and 10 mins later were were led to our room and raced each other to see who could strip out of the cold wet clothes the fastest.

One positive note from today, the rubber beak extender added to Tony’s Dakar works …  100%

- – -

20.06.09

Didnt wake before midday.  Still cold and wet outside.  This was the 11th day in a row of rain.  The only rain free day since meeting Tony 12 days ago was the ride from Mugur Aksy to Kyzyl. Weather forecast for tomorrow for warmer drier conditions.  Decided to stay put in motel for another day.  Incredibly while its wet and rainy and 5 degrees in Irkutsk today, its +25 and sunny AGAIN in Yakutsk today.

Did minor maintenance on the bike.  If there is something I forgot to get done in Krasnoyarsk it was to get Zhenya to look at the wheel spacers on the X-C, as they form part of the dirt / water / mud sealing system for the wheel bearings. They are made of aluminium alloy and the dirt grinds away easily the surface – exposing the bearings to greater risk of failure.  Simple to make some steel or stainless steel units on a lathe … or just some sleeves for the alloy units.

Then we took an afternoon nap.

When we awoke there were 4 more motorcycles outside our window; 2 Poles, a Lithuanian and Greek … all on road tyres, heading for Mongolia – 3 big 1200 GSs and an Africa Twin (even bigger).  They too had pulled over for the day to avoid the rain, mud and cold. I guess you get that when you are on the main road across Siberia – other bikers.  Havent seen any other foreigners since the Germans at Sary Tash.

One of the Polish guys said they werent very experienced off road and feared their bikes were too heavy for Mongolia, as they had struggled in the muddy sections on the main Trans-Siberian highway.  He asked me my opinion since I had ridden across Mongolia before … I said I think they should be fine.  It was half the truth.  I think the 1200 is no problem in Mongolia … These guys might be inexperienced, but they wont be after Mongolia.  Its meant to be a learning experience after all.

A comment from Tony today reminded me that there is more than just the bike in need of maintenance.  Hair is getting a bit long.  It hasnt been cut since the disasterous mullet attempt on my head in Feodosiya Crimea, that I barely salvaged at the last minute.  Since then its just been a case of trying to grow it out.  Apparently now its beginning to look a little “Jonathon Ross”.  Oh dear.  Another mission for Irkutsk.

NOTE: Blog page, Photo page and google earth track maps updated now … apologies for delays!  Not a  lot of internet in Altai or Tuva.

P.S.  cant remember who it was, but in some comment earlier in the trip someone advised to me to get ’seal skinz’ socks to combat the non-waterproof boots.  Best advice in the world.  I love them.

11.06.09

We left Aktash excited at the prospect of tackling the ‘Tuva Track’, and just getting into Tuva.

Tuva is one of those mysterious exotic places that fires the imagination. Tuva IS adventure. Thoughout its history its been part of Mongolia, then China, then independent, and now part of Russia. Taiwan still considers Tuva to be part of China, and doesn’t recognise the independence it gained soon after the last Chinese emperors fell in the early 20th century.

The staging post for our ‘Tuva Track’ was the Altai town of Kosh Agach. The ride to Kosh Agach was typically dramatic thru rugged mountain valleys lined with pine trees, down the Chuisky Trakt, the M54 – main road to Mongolia.  We passed a convoy of French 4wds heading the other way – obviously having recently left Mongolia. After the first 70-80 km the landscape gradually began to change and we morphed over the next 50 km into treeless dusty plains, broken by softer rolling hills.

In Kosh Agach we stopped to fill up tanks and to get some food. I grabbed a couple of extra pirozhki to eat on the road as I had no idea how the going would be on the track.

Very few travelers get to Tuva.  Officially there is really only one way in – Via Krasnoyarsk, and then south thru Abakan. Our plan was to turn left about 7-8 km south east of Kosh Agach, and get to the village of Korkorya. This would the be the last settlement before Mugur Aksy in Tuva, and Mugur Aksy is a place where no-one could tell me whether they had food or fuel or a place to stay. The one report I had heard about Mugur Aksy was that it was full of semi-hostile alcoholics.  Hardly encouraging.

Two years ago, when I first came up with the idea of crossing into Tuva the hard way, an Australian mate, Simon, had been preparing to 4WD across Russia and asked me if I could recommend me some interesting roads. I had sketched a track on a map from Kosh Agach to Mugur Aksy and beyond, and Simon had taken it on. He went a different way to what I had planned, going further south via the Tuvan village of Kyzyl Khaya before skirting the Mongolian border and getting to Mugur Aksy that way. Simon had taken a few wrong turns and ended up getting fined by Russian border police for straying too close to the Mongolian border (or was that illegally entering Mongolia – Simon isnt sure).   Russia operates a different border system to most countries, in that there are many “border zones” that extend up to 50km into Russia, and you cant enter those without a permit – unless you are on a federal highway or railway.

I was unsure of the status of the Tuva Track under this rule. The route I had planned took us north-east from Korkorya, over the Buguzun Pass, past Ak-Khol (white lake) then Khindiktig-Khol, approaching Mugur Aksy from the west. This left plenty of room between us and the border and I hoped this would be OK. I had checked the route on Google Earth thoroughly, and apart from a vague 10 miles of so, looked feasible.

The asphalt, and indeed even graded road ended at Korkorya, and only wheel ruts from 4WDs indicated the track onwards. Within 5km from Korkorya the track became a kind of motorcycling paradise traveling on a smooth ‘path’ though wide grassy valleys. The only cloud on the horizon was dark clouds on the horizon … over the mountains ahead of us were heavy dark clouds and flashes of lightning. That would make the upcoming pass interesting.

We stopped when we reached a section of river that still was covered in ice. It was incredibly beautiful. Soon afterwards we realised the track had faded out. I checked the map, we were due for a river crossing. Sure enough, on the other bank was the continuing track. I found a path to the river and stopped. It was fast flowing but looked only a foot deep. I committed the cardinal sin of not walking thru when unsure of depth and flow.  I didnt waant to walk thru it because of all the ice around – I might get cold and wet – and I paid the price. Where I was crossing was twice as deep as I thought – I was up to my thighs. The flow was intense. The bike went down for the third time in the trip, this time underwater. The flow was so fast the bags were being ripped off the mountings. Tony jumped in to help me right the bike and it was soon on two wheels again. We pushed it to an island in the middle of the stream, from where I restarted the bike (no water ingestion) and rode across the second (shallower) part of the river. It was the first proper river crossing of the trip and I was kicking myself for being lazy and not checking the river by walking it first.

We decided Tony had to find a better route. By now we were both soaking from the crotch down in icy water, so more exposure to it was no problem. We were already cold and wet.  By chance a rare 4wd van coming the other way indicated a shallower route (it was the first vehicle we had seen since leaving Korkorya) and Tony took that, with me walking along side his bike. It was a tough initiation to water crossings for Tony, but he had made it across successfully.

I didnt want to tell Tony there were two more crossings of the same river before we reached the pass. As it happens the two later crossings were easier. Less water, less flow, shallower. It would have been nice to warm up on the easier river crossings first.

As we began to climb, the track deteriorated and became very rocky. A couple of times we had to skirt ice and snow across the track, but by 4:30pm we had made the pass (we left Kosh Agach at 12:30). It was windy and bitterly cold. We stopped to eat some of the pirozhki we had packed. Tony wanted to stop and fix some of his malfunctioning luggage system. It was hardly an ideal place to do repairs and I suggested we bodge it with cable ties until we reach a more suitable location.

Now we were in Tuva. A sign at the pass indicated that we had been but were no longer in a border zone. Oops.

The track on the Tuvan side was a different animal. Boggy. We continued on an successfully found my first Tuvan checkpoint, Ak-Khol. This was a marker on my map to confirm I was on the track I planned to be on.  The track at this point was still ok, but we were approaching the point where even max zoom on Google Earth could not verify the track. We passed a pair of Russian 4wd van / buses and I stopped to ask them where they were from. They did a regular shuttle service daily between Kyzyl Khaya and Kosh Agach but couldnt really tell me where the turnoff was for the direct track to Khindiktig Khol and Mugur Aksy was. They did indicate there was an old bridge somewhere near here. I couldnt see it and continued on. If I couldnt find my track, I would have to continue on this decent track to Kyzyl Khaya and take the graded border road from there to Mugur Aksy.

10 minutes later we passed a couple of Tuvan lads on a Russian Planeta 5 motorcycle. They offered to show me the track to the bridge and we turned around and backtracked most of the way to where we had met the 4wd vans. Then the boys pointed to a vary rarely used track heading east. I was sceptical this was the track i wanted as on my map it was marked as a well used track.  Never-the-less, I took the boys advice and went down the faded track.
Sure enough, 5 mins later we got to the bridge. It was the first piece of ‘infrastructure’ of any kind we had seen since the border zone signs at the pass. But the approach to the bridge was not much more than a bed of boulders. Tony went down just before the bridge. He fell to his left. Had he fallen the other way, he and his bike may have been swimming.

By now it was 7pm. We had only a few hours of daylight left and I now realised we would not make it to Mugur Aksy tonight. I turned round and advised Tony to mentally prepare to be camping rough tonight. The vague trail led to a farm of sorts up on a hill. It looked pretty grim but I thought we might as well confirm directions there. A young rough looking lad was working on his own motorcycle when we arrived. The farm was a dirty collection of yurts for the people and wooden building for the animals in winter. I had harboured thoughts of fishing for accommodation for the night from them but now that was there I soon decided against it. The farm folks confirmed the track we were on as the right one.

Constant cross referencing between my GPS and maps confirmed this. The GPS had no roads or tracks anywhere near here, but it did have the lakes and rivers marked and that made approximating whether or not we were in roughly the right location not too difficult. The track at this point was very faint. We were really just freestyling cross country most of the time, picking up the track every now and again when it was more prominent. We crossed three large extended hills and then as darkness was falling we saw it – the stunning Khindiktig Khol. It was the most beautiful lake I had ever seen. Surrounded by snow capped mountains and covered in ice.

Tony and I found a place to set up tent overlooking the lake and made camp. The ground had been wet and mushy the whole Tuvan side and here was no different. The tent pegs went into the ground with the lightest push. As soon as the tent was up, it began to rain. We were at 2500 metres here and it was not warm. We were both wet from the assorted river crossings. There were no trees in sight and there would be no fire tonight. Apart from the view, we were cold and wet and miserable. At least the Khyam tent was a 20 second job. Just what you want when its cold, dark and wet.

Tony started cooking packet soup on his mini stove as I realised my sleeping bag was soaking wet from my river fall. There was nothing else to do but wring it out and use it. I couldn’t sleep in this cold without a sleeping bag … I would freeze. I wrung it out as best I could and prepared for a night from hell. Tony’s soup cheered me a little and I pointed out on the map how far (or un-far) we had come. The good news was that we only had to go around the lake, maybe 15 km, and we should be on a more major track for the last 40km into Mugur Aksy.

After dinner I gritted my teeth and crawled into my cold wet sleeping bag for the night.

As I lay there trying to go to sleep, I thought of the great Tuvans of history, and how they would have shrugged off the ordeal of sleeping in a cold, wet sleeping bag at 2500 metres, above an icy lake. Tuvans (Also called Uriankhai) were prominent in the army of Genghis Khan and the greatest general the Mongol empire produced (some say the greatest military commander in history – and I struggle to disagree) was a Tuvan. Subeedei (Subotai / Subedei) was the man behind some of the most brilliantly planned and executed military victories in history. Were it not for the unexpected death of Ogedei Khan in 1241, Subeedei (then at the gates of Vienna and having just destroyed the Poles and Germans at Leignitz, and the Hungarians at Mohi) would surely have conquered the whole of Europe.

Unlike other great Generals like Alexander or more more modern equivalents, Subeedei didnt campaign for a 5 year war, or a dozen year period.  He was a general of the Khan from his late teens till he was over 70.  Over 50 years of almost constant warfare, and the guy didnt lose a single campaign.  There is simply no peer, strategically, or in terms of track record.

- – -

12.06.09

I only slept about 3 hours, on and off. I was constantly waking and shivering from the cold. I was amazed that I was managing to slowly dry my sleeping bag with body heat. By the morning it was only 50% as wet as it had been when I first crawled into it.  Looking ahead, my only source of heat this morning would, apart from a cup of soup, come from the heated vest and gloves on the bike, so I was keep to get going so I could plug in and feel warmth. Tony was snug and warm in his bag and it was cold outside so he was the opposite. Eventually we rose, had our soup and got on the move.

The road around the lake can be described in three words. Bog, bog and bog. I reckon that morning we did 10 km around the lake, 80% of it bog. The clutches both got a hell of a workout but eventually we made it to the pass, over which was the valley in which the more major track to Mugur Aksy ran.

From the pass down was much drier (and easier) though the trick would be crossing the river in the valley below. This time I planned and plotted my route across, going upstream from gravel bank to gravel bank. The river bed (like all the others) was just football sized boulders, anything smaller just got swept away in the current. After a good 30 minutes of pondering and manoeuvrings we were both thru and on the track to Mugur Aksy.

It was also two wheel ruts across the ground, but was wll used, and dry.  I was tempted to re-enacted the Long way round scene where the boys kiss the alphalt after riding a while on dirt.  I was tempted to kiss the dirt after riding too long in mud and bog!  I dont even want to think what I would have wanted to do to the road had it been asphalt !

In the next 15 minutes on the more trafficed track, we covered 15 km, the same as we had done in the 4 hours before that.   Around that time we also crossed 90 degrees east – a quarter of the way round the world.

I thought alot on the road today of Chris Colling, back in the north of England. Chris really wanted to join us for the Tuvan section of this trip but had to look after the Adventure Spec motorcycling business. In his younger days Chris had managed a Tuvan folk band and had wanted to visit Tuva ever since. Doing some hard core off road motorcycling in Tuva would take the biscuit. So thinking of you over here in Tuva mate, if you are reading.

By 2:30 in the afternoon we had reached Mugur Aksy. It had taken us about 14 hours of riding from Kosh Agach. Tony needed fuel. his reserve light had been on for the last hour or so. I stopped and asked a few locals where we might find fuel but the answers were all incoherent. This was the alcoholism I had heard about and feared in Mugur Aksy. We continued on thru town eventually spotting a UAZ jeep. They must know. I stopped to ask them and horror of horrors, I had stopped to ask border police. Their opening gambit was ‘documents please’ … I persevered asking for petrol and eventually they led us to the petrol station. Incredibly it was closed. Out of fuel. no idea when the next load comes in.

The border guards by now were taking fotos of us and the bikes and we got a lot of freindly banter going.  They had forgotten about the request for documents.  In the spirit of goodwill (very useful in these situations) I let them sit on my bike. The senior guy went back to his jeep and produced a canister with 20 litres of fuel. Wow !  What a guy !

I cut a funnel from an old water bottle and began to load up Tony’s and my fuel tanks. The guys said we needed to go to the Border Guards office and get a permit if we wanted to continue on the road to Sagli and Solchur. It was 25km out of town, but on the route anyway. Tony paid them 500 rubles for the fuel and we were on the way.  I kicked myself for not filming or photographing it.  All thru Tajikistan and places like Tuva, Fuel was just poured into the tank, yet I had failed to score a single foto or piece of video so far on the trip.

Mugur Aksy had looked grim. I didn’t see any cafe’s or stolovayas or anything. The road out of town (south east) however was a proper graded road, complete with corrugations. In some sections it was 110km/h, while in others the corrugations were all enccompasing any anything over 35km/h was impossible. Sure enough after 25km we reached the border guards complex and hooted and yelled to gain entrance. The commandant there apologised for not being able to give us tea as their power was down, and was unable to give us a written permission to use the road but after some sweet talking banter he gave us verbal permission to use the road. Woo-hoo!! I also noticed we had changed timezones when we entered Tuva and I needed to move all my clocks an hour forward. It was not 5:30pm

We rode off with glee in our hearts at getting this permission, but the glee was short lived. 300 yards from the guards base I realised my rear tyre was flat. A rusty old nail was sticking out of it. Damn. How were we going to make civilisation tonight? it was still 160 km of dirt road away.

I pulled the wheel off, and realised the valve on my spare tube that had been expertly repaired in Ust Kamenogorsk was too large for the hole in the rim. The new puncture was too large to patch. Fortunately Tony had a spare tube. It was for a 17 inch tyre and mine were 18, but that could be made to fit. I changed tubes and we began to pump it up with Tony’s portable compressor but no joy, no pressure. I must have nicked the tube in getting the tyre back on. We went thru the process again. Still no joy. The small tube was sticking very close to the edge that I was levering against and this made it very tough.  I was feeling faint and had to sit down and take a break several times.

We were only 25 km from a town and I suggested to Tony to take my back wheel into town and get a tyre repair place too do it properly. We needed food and water anyway, so kill a few birds with one stone. At 6:45pm Tony headed off with my wheel. The sun was out and a warm dry breeze made my skin feel a bit dry. Ah … perfeect chance to dry out my sleeping bag and anything else that was wet. Over the next few hours I discovered everything had gotten wet. UK passport, drivers licence, passport fotos, insurance docs, carnet … clothes, everything. I dried it all out in the sun and breeze, along with my soaking boots and socks.

Tony returned at about 10pm. It was getting dark. There had been no shino-montazh (tyre repair) place in Mugur Aksy. Very odd as these are in every little village across Russia and the CIS. Tony had found a local mechanic of sorts, drunk of course, and with his sober friend had eventually managed to repair the tube (also after nicking it a few times). There had been no food for sale anywhere in Mugur Aksy but Tony had found a general store and got some pot noodles, water and beer. I refitted the back wheel and was ready to roll.

We set up the tents and boiled up some water where we were, but the roadside, 300 yards from the regional border guards HQ, had our pot noodles and beer. It was a lot better than the previous night. Warmer, drier and our first solid food for 36 hours – if you can call noodles solid food.

- – -

13.06.09

The warm sun woke me at 8am, and we had a lazy morning, not getting underway till 11. We had 160km of dirt roads to cover before we found asphalt, and then we hoped to do 300km more to make it into Kyzyl for the night.

Within 5km, we knew it would be a long day. The dirt road that led from Mugur Aksy to Sagli and on to Solchur, following the border, was a heavily corrugated, rocky road. Yes it was graded gravel, but it was very difficult to travel much above 50km/h. The countryside was remote and stunning. It was all mountains and we spent our time between 1600 and 2500 metres the whole time on the dirt road.

10 km before Sagli and for the third day in a row (I have only ridden with him 3 days) Tony has problem with the Metal Mule mounting system for his F650. To me the system is a flawed, compromised design. The front mounting attachment is way to weak and Tony had lost both by the end of our first day on the rough stuff back in Altai. An hour was lost as we figured out a way to repair it in the Tuvan highlands. Amazingly we worked something out that was superior to the original, but only temporary. Tony will have to get that sorted properly in Krasnoyarsk or Irkutsk – basically get a metal worker to craft a proper mounting system for the front mounts of his rack.

I have never been a fan of hard luggage and the time lost to us on every day we have been riding together has only hardened my opinion. Riding on dirt roads when the occasional fall is inevitable with hard luggage is just asking for bent metal, broken bits and wasted time.

We got underway and despite us both hungry and thirsty, we didn’t stop at Sagli, or Solchur near the end of the dirt road, but instead relished being back on asphalt for the run north to Chadan. We reached Chadan about 5pm and refuelled the bikes then went looking for a cafe or stolovaya. The only one we found was closed so we went to the shop across the road for some energy drinks. The two young Tuvan girls in the shop took and shine to us and one summoned up the courage to ask if I was free that evening. Sorry lady, but I have to be in Kyzyl, 220 km away tonight.

By the time we finished chatting, eating and drinking, Tony and I were well on the way to internally feeling normal again. Tony had mentioned a couple of times of feeling giddy and I had fainted for the first time in my life and fell to the rocky ground while working to fix my punctured tyre yesterday (another reason to get someone else to fix it). We were both dehydrated (despite the weather being cold and us taking 4 litres of water with us onto the track) and lacking food and sleep. On top of that I had the thermally challenging evening in the cold wet sleeping bag behind me. The food and drink break got us feeling a little closer to normal.  A shower and a shave would complete the job.

It was 3 hours ride to Kyzyl and while the scenery was still impressive, the biggest challenge was dodging other cars and cattle on the road. The only stop was to fix Tony’s clutch. He had a new clutch fitted in Moscow and it was down to that he had no adjustment left at the lever end of the cable, so we had to adjust it the hard way, at the clutch housing end.

After almost 60 hours in the wilderness, we found one of the nicer hotels in Kyzyl and splashed out 25 EUR each for a room … first shower in 3 days. Then we went out for beer and shashlik – and got hassled by drunk locals. Ah the joys of life on the road. Its Tony’s better half’s birthday today, so I left him in his room to have the long birthday phone call.

09.06.09

Tony and I woke in Petropavlovskoe pretty late as we had wandered off from our hotel the last night after showering to go in search of food and drink. It having been midnight, our choices were limited. We found a general store and grabbed a cold pizza and a beer each, had the pizza microwaved and went outside to the bench in front of the store and ate our pizza and drank our beer in the darkness, reveling in the sense of being in the middle of nowhere.

The morning sun was warm and I had dressed accordingly – Summer gloves and only the vest under the riding jacket. I led the way south, and as soon as we left Petropavlovskoe, the dirt began.

This was the first time I had ridden with Tony and I didn’t really know what to expect. He is a seasoned Russia rider but I didn’t know how comfortable he was on non-asphalt surfaces or what general speed he liked to ride at, but judging from first impressions he was more than happy riding at similar speeds to me. That would definitely make things easier in the weeks and months ahead.

We rode over endless green rolling hills that could have been England, only without farmhouses and villages.

60km south of Petropavlovskoye was Soloneshnoye. I needed some fuel as I hadn’t filled up since just after entering Russia yesterday. Soloneshnoye was the last chance for fuel before Ust Kan, almost 2 hours down the road. Looking south-east from sunny Soloneshnoye was like looking from the land of the Hobbits into the darkest depths of Mawdor. It was dark, very dark. Lightning flashed over mountains in the direction we were headed. There was no avoiding it, we had to continue that way and face the music. Perhaps it would be better when we got there.

It seemed at first we had been lucky as we missed the bulk of the storm, only catching the end of it. But the storm had made the dirt road a bit of a slippery mud bath, and that reduced our speed significantly. We seemed to be endlessly chasing pockets of sunlight. The sky was very uneven. Ahead of us was sunlight so when the going was miserable we looked at that and thought just 5 more minutes and the conditions will be better. Not sure we ever made it to that promised sunlight or whether it was just an illusion designed to sucker us on into the drizzle and increasing mud.

By the time we reached the village of Chyornoye Anui, I could no longer see Tony’s headlight. The front mudguard on the G650 Dakar he was riding was not large enough to stop mud from his front wheel flying up over his headlight, windscreen and indeed face. Chyornoye Anui was the first village inside the Altai Republic and the people here were clearly Altai. The Altai are the local Turko-Mongolic inhabitants, and are similar to the Kirgiz and the Tuvans.

I stopped half a mile past the end of town to wait for Tony. But no-one was coming. He was just behind me a when we entered town. I waited for a minute or two in case he had stopped for a photo and then I noticed a couple of kids I had seen a the edge of town milling around the middle of the road a few hundred yards back. I turned around and headed back. Tony’s bike was down in some very slippery mud and Tony was picking bits and pieces from his luggage up from the mud. One of his side boxes had opened and documents and stuff was all thru the sticky mud.

I helped Tony right his bike and once all the bits were collected, suggested we head down to the nearby stream to clean up as much as we could, shadowed by the local Altai kids.

By the time all was cleaned and dried, the drizzle had stopped, the sun was back out, and the picture looked better. I led the way back across the grass paddock to the road but in the process we discovered Tony’s metal mule luggage rack had come off its front mountings. Must have happened during the fall.

After considerable faffing about we realised we were not going to be able to fix it, and Tony decided to ride on without the front attachments. By now it was drizzling again and we headed on with the roads slippery again and increasingly muddy. Our  perseverence did pay off and just before reaching Ust Kan, the sun returned, and so too did the asphalt.

The scenery had been fantastic, and had it not been raining most of the time, I would have taken a hundred photos. But cameras and rain don’t mix well. In fact, despite the rain I will put it down on the recommended roads list, because in good weather it would have been a highlight of any trip.

Just before entering Ust Kan I saw a sign saying to go beyond there was to enter a restricted border zone, permits needed! This now corresponded with yesterdays problems at Ridder (Leninogorsk). The crossing from Ridder came out not far from ust Kan, and the border zone there too had been a permit only restricted zone. I had hoped to ride further south to Ust Koksa, but the weather and the restricted zone put an end to that. Tony and I refueled and headed east towards the M52 – the Chuisky Trakt.

What started off as a promising asphalt road from Ust Kan deteriorated as both the asphalt ended and a severe storm came out of nowhere drenching us. But yet again persevere we did, and we made it to the M52 at Tuekta, and turned south. I had been told there was a decent sized town at Ongudai, 25km south of the road junction and decided we should head there for a late lunch and to dry out.

As fate would have it, the rain stopped and we pulled into Ongudai in bright sunshine. This day was all about on-again / off-again weather. We feasted on pretty mean rations (the Cafe’s here don’t seem to have awe-inspiring menus) and as it was now after 7pm, we headed on. There was a decent sized town called Aktash, 150 km down the road, and we should find a hotel there.

This was my first taste of the Chuisky Trakt, Tony having had experienced it downstream while waiting for me at Gorno-Altaisk. Its a lovely road. Good asphalt surface, dramatic scenery thru rugged rocky mountains, and yet very very green. Perhaps that was the recent rain?

We reached Aktash 15 minutes after darkness and found a hotel. This time we were not so lucky re wandering off to the centre of town for some food and beer. The hotel was not in the centre and the town looked very very sleepy. We showered and went to bed.

- – -

10.06.09

Rain stopped play. For the first time in the trip, I canceled biking due to the weather. Tony was happy with that too and we headed off to Aktash’s mechanical guru, who happens to have the same name as the President, Dmitri Medvedev. Looks like him too! ‘The President’ washed and fixed a number of niggly things on the bikes, a rivet here, some soldering there, and manufacturing some new parts for Tony’s luggage system.

We took advantage of the halt in travel to wash a few loads of clothes. Not sure how they will dry in this weather – maybe flying off the back of the bikes tomorrow.

Brunch and dinner was a similar meal (again very limited menu) in the towns one cafe.  For the benefit of those who understand russian menus, it was kotlet c makaronom, i pirozhki.  For the others, I wont bother translating, but will try and score a foto tomorrow to explain.

Its been at least the third day in a row of rain. I saw rain the day I arrived ino Russia in the distant Altai Republic, then Tony and I hit it yesterday, and now again today. This has me worried for the days ahead, specifically the crossing into Tuva. 150 km of dirt tracks plus about 80 km of almost no tracks.

The day was rounded out with a couple of local beers, both at the cafe and then in the hotel room.

I was the guest of Nurbek and his gang of adventurous Kazakhs. These guys were looking after me while in Almaty, chauffeuring me around, taking me out to lunch and dinner etc. The boys aren’t bikers but they do everything from parachuting to quad biking to all sorts of hunting and other assorted outdoor activities.

Almaty was my chance to service and freshen up the bike. Through the Kazakh bikers I had met in Tashkent, a pair of whom were bike parts importers, I had ordered a bunch of spares, which were waiting for me on my arrival in Almaty. Unfortunately, probably the most pressing part required, the new front brake disk, was the wrong part. I would have to fore go replacing that (or wait in Almaty 2 weeks.)

Still, I managed to get the other spares I ordered, of which the new chain was the next most critical thing.

One of the other Kazakh bikers from Tashkent, Marat from “Silk Off-Road” bikers, had booked me in with the club’s mechanic and with my spares I headed on down to meet Boris the Mechanic. Boris spoke enough English and me enough Russian to fully communicate the things that needed to be done and the quirks involved.

By the time I got back from lunch, Boris had changed the chain and front sprocket. The back one was still immaculate (its steel rather than alloy). I had chosen to go down to a 14 tooth front from now on. Since picking the bike up in Wales in February, I had been riding on the standard size 15T sprocket. The 14T front will be better suited to Siberia.

The chain itself was completely knackered. I had adjusted the tension for the first time in Murgab just 4 days earlier and now it was loose again. It was making funny noises and it was definitely time to go. The front brake pads were changed. There was a little more than I thought on them, and I will keep them as emergency spares, or platforms to replace the pad material. I had hoped to merely rotate the headset bearings to eliminate the severe notching that had set in over the last 5000 km or so, but Boris the mechanic said the bearings were too far gone. So in went the spare set.

With that all done, and after a couple of large evenings with the Nurbek’s adventure boys, it was time to head north. I had just over 3 days to meet with Tony, a friend from England, and seasoned Russia rider, in Siberia. He was heading due East from Moscow and I am heading North from Almaty, with a plan to meet up on the Russian side of the Altai border about June 6th. I squeezed in a couple of hundred highway kilometers late on the 3rd and overnighted in Taldy Kurgan.

There was one other thing I needed to do in Kazakhstan and that was to register. Any stay over 5 days in the country means to have to register with the migration police. I didn’t have time in Almaty, so decided to do it in Taldy Kurgan the next morning.

- – -

04-06-09

It took me some time to find the migration police, even in relatively small Taldy Kurgan, and after initially moaning that it should be done by the visa inviting company, they relented and gave me the required stamp for 10 further days in the country.

With that out of the way, I headed off he main northern highway to explore some of the back roads. It was an pleasant afternoon over some dirt’s and some minor asphalt roads that came to a sad halt just before Lake Balkhash, 15 km before the village of Lepsi. I had a flat tyre. I have never had a tube go flat on me in 15 years
of riding and kinda figured it wouldn’t happen to me, so I had not prepared well for flat tyres. In fact I didnt have a tyre lever. I removed the back wheel, on a empty road and inspected the tyre while I waited for a vehicle to come by that might be able to help. There was nothing penetrating the new tyre. Not sure where the flat could be then.

The first two cars to stop had no tyre lever, but one of the drivers suggested he would return with one from Lepsi, where he lived. After 30 minutes by the side of the road a third car stopped, and they did have a tyre lever. A couple of guys from Almaty visiting family out in the sticks. They warned me this was a dangerous place to break down. Locals were dangerous around here.

After getting the tyre off I saw the valve had sheared off the tube. I put in my spare tube and re packed the bike. I had also noticed my luggage rack was hanging on by only a few loose bolts. the others had come off. I suspect Boris had forgotten to tighten the luggage rack bolts when he refitted it in Almaty two days earlier. I would need to find a metal repair place and sort out my rack properly. It hadn’t been fixed since Beyneu, and that was a dodgy repair to start with.

As we are getting the wheel back onto the bike, the earlier local guy (named Abai) returned with a tyre lever, which he gave to me before insisting I stop by his place in Lepsi for some tea. I could use a chill out by now, so I accepted and followed him back to Lepsi.

As I pulled into his yard I realised immediately that he was a metal worker. With it now being 6pm, I had a bright spark of an idea. If I stayed here the night, we could get to work on the bike and sort out all the metal issues that needed seeing to. It was almost 6pm by now in any case, and I wouldn’t get that far down the road.

After chai, we pumped up my back tyre a bit more (my hand pump didn’t have a working pressure guage and it was still too squidgy) and I explained my metal problems. “OK” said Abai, “Get all the luggage and the seat off” and away we went.

By the time it was dark (about 8:30) Abai and his son (the welder) had cobbled together some new drink bottle holders, and sorted out the luggage rack bolts, and we all sat down to eat a traditional Kazakh meal, which consisted of, among other things, cows stomach. I stuck to the regular beef.

- – -

05.06.09

When I awoke Abai had already headed off 250 km away in his car and I had breakfast with his wife, 2 sons and 1 daughter, all the kids in their early 20s. I didn’t stay long as I wanted to put in a lot of miles today and also to test out the new baggage rack.

The road north from Lepsi first heads to the edge of Lake Balkhash, the largest body of water in Kazakhstan. Its more like an inland sea than a lake – I couldn’t see the other side of it. From the lake north the road ends and a couple of tracks head towards Aktogay, one graded gravel and the other a pair of sandy wheel ruts. Yes the graded gravel seems the obvious choice, but no. It was heavily corrugated and very bumpy. No fun at all. I tried the sandy track and it was much better. Thrill seeking at times, but much better on the suspension.

Near Aktogay, the track disappeared all together and I was left with a dusty, soft dirt track similar to sand – the tyres sunk in a couple of inches, and riding thru it was a bit like being buffalo bill at the rodeo.. the bike was kicking thru this soft stuff like a bucking bronco.

With the need to meet Tony in Russia in about 24 hours, the recent shake up with the flat tyre and recent reports saying there is no ‘road’ heading north from Aktogay to Ayaguz, I decided to play safe and turned east towards the main road. An hour later I got to the main road and topped up with fuel.

By 3:30 pm I was just 30 km from Ayaguz when yet another dodgy quality repair from Almaty stopped me in my tracks. Not only had the valve stem sheared off (presumably from not being fitted correctly) my tube, leaving me a flat tyre in the middle of nowhere yesterday, nor the luggage rack that wasn’t tightened, this time it was the drive chain. It lost its joining link. How does a brand new chain (that cost me 200 EUR in Almaty due to customs fees) die less than 2 days into its life.?

Fortunately I was on the outskirts of a village. I walked the road and found the chain a few hundred metres back, but no sign of ‘the missing link’. A Kazakh local walking past told me there was a workshop jut a few hundred yards away near the village shop. I pushed the bike there.

There was a workshop all right, but no-one working in it. It belonged to the guy who ran the village store, and he opened it up and let me use whatever was in there, which wasn’t a lot. He did have some device which I was able to use as a chain-breaker

My idea was to take a pair of links out of the chain and to rejoin it, one link shorter, but it didn’t work. Boris had taken a link out of the chain in Almaty to give it room to stretch, so the chain was already near the minimum possible length. I needed a longer chain. With no other possibilities, I left the bike in the ‘garage’ of the general store guy and hitched into Ayaguz, 30 km north.

In Ayaguz, I was taken to an auto parts store where there had a couple of chains for Russian bikes. most were incompatible but one of them had links the same length as my own. The new chain itself was unfortunately too short, but it was just 15 EUR and I could cannibalise a few links from it and then use its new joining link to complete my masterpiece. I took it and began hitching back to my bike, in the village of Shinkosha.

Hitching back was a lot harder than hitching into Ayaguz and I waited a good 45 mins for a lift. but eventually I got my lift and was reunited with my chain less bike. Immediately I went to work, bashing pins out of the new chain and then joining up my old chain (2 days old) with the few links of new chain. My construction had to last about a week and 2000 km , when I would get a new chain sent out from England to Russia.

Finally it was ready and I fitted it to the bike and linked it all up. It all looked like it could work. Tools were put away, hands were washed and I thanks my friend in the general store and hit the road again, nervously.

It was 8pm and almost dark by now and I stopped at a cafe a few km north of Ayaguz for some food. I hadnt eaten anything other than bread all day so enjoyed a meal of shashlik and chai. I was joined by a Kazakh guy from Semey (Semipalatinsk) driving home after visiting his parents. He told me this was not a safe region. I had known from previous trips to Kazakhstan that the north of the country is very much each for his own. Its the only place in the world where I have had security problems on a bike. I was glad to not be staying the night in Ayaguz, but would need to find somewhere to stay. My friend recommended I go thru to Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk) but that would take me thru to 1am and I wasn’t sure I had the energy for that.

We both hit the road, with him following me for the first 30 mins to make sure I didn’t have any problems, before his Mercedes sped off into the night. I was in no mood for speeding – still worried about my chain. I stopped at a petrol station after the chain had done a bit over 100 km to check the state of my bodge. It was still good. I was relieved and upped my speed from 80 to 90 km/h. About 11:30pm I saw a cluster of cafe’s by the road, about 15km south of Grigorievka, one larger than the others. I decided to see if they had rooms. Sure enough they did. I was feeling pretty tired and drowsy on the bike so I took a room for 5 EUR and took all my luggage in. To my surprise they had a garage and the security guy would let me use it for EUR 2.50. It was too much, but I took it anyway. I then had a lovely warm shower (extra 1.50 EUR) and a beer and relaxed after a long stressful day.

I cant get over how many things are failing, that were ‘fixed’ or fitted in Almaty. I have to find a good mechanic in Russia to give the bike a once over. Oh how I wished for Valera, the master mechanic from Yalta.

29.05.09

The tour group woke at 4am, and left at 5 am.  As I was  sharing a room with their Kirgiz guide, I was privy to all the early morning departure rituals, and stayed up to update the blog and work out what fotos to upload (whenever that becomes possible – I am 4 days behind on fotos now).

As breakfast was included in my homestay fees (which were quite a lot I thought for a shared freezing room with no heating (about 10 EUR) I ate heartily in the seperate dining yurt.

I went outside to do a check of the bike.  In the sunshine it was warm, in the shade it was freezing.  Sary Tash was still at 3100m and contrasts at altitude are always so much greater than at more normal levels.  Balancing light and shade in photographs is very difficult due to the extreme contrasts, similarly temperature can feel boiling in the sun and freezing in the shade.  Ice was all over the bike, so I pushed it into the sun to thaw out while I looked it over.

A couple of things concerned me.  My clutch cable adjuster had rotated since I last checked it (probably a week ago) and a number of strands of my clutch cable had snapped.  I was running on no-more than 50% of the strands.  The front brake pads had worn rapidly with the dirt and the mountain roads and I cant have more than a millimetre left.  I have spares of both with me, but the bike is going on for a proper service and to get assorted works done to it in Almaty, where the Kazakh bikers I met passing thru Tashkent have sorted out new parts (one of them was a bike parts dealer) from Germany and a good mechanic to play with the bike.

So with front brake and clutch near the limit, and the key passes on the alternate roads in Kyrgyzstan (Kirgizia to me) still closed anyway due to recent heavy snows, I decided to nurse the bike thru Kirgizia and take mainly major roads to Almaty.

Before I began making progress, I took a side road out of Sary Tash to get closer to Mt Lenin, rising dramatically from the 3000m plain to over 7000m.  As I returned to Sary Tash to refuel and head north, I saw them … Germans.  You  cant miss them.  Big guys on big bikes with big luggage.  The three germans guys had also overnighted in Sary Tash, at a different guest house.  The place isnt that large so not sure how we missed each other.  they didnt speak a lot of english and my normally reasonable german failed me as every time I tried to say something it came out in Russian.  I think you can operate only I one secondary language at a time.  I advised them on road conditions and fuel availability ahead.  I still had about 10 bux worth of Tajik somoni and suggested they buy it off me or swap it for Kirgiz som.  It was a reasonable thing for foreign bikers to do near a border, but the deal fell thru when one of the Germans insisted the Tajik som was 5.5 to the dollar when I know its 4.5 all over the country.  They thought they were getting ripped off by a sly foreigner and I said OK, whatever boys, good luck, you can change money in Murgab and I made my way to the fuel station and topped up with US dollars.  Again my fuel economy was 3.5 litres / 100km (80mpg uk language – 70mpg US gallons) . This engine just loves the altitude.

I had dressed for the cold.  Not only was it around freezing when I left but the road north first rose up to a pass at 3600m before descending towards Osh.  The road down from the pass was covered in fine dust and I pitied my poor chain and the whole bike was engulfed in a cloud of fine dust the whole way down to 2800 metres and the first village.  In the sun here I soon begain to overheat and began unzipping the clothes.  By 2000 metres I had to stop and remove my fleece.  I stopped in the town of Gulcho to find the bazaar.  The Kirgiz guide from last night had advised me this might be a place to change my Tajik somoni.  I found two currency channge offices but they wouldnt change somoni.  I needed Kirgiz som anyway so changed some Russian rubles … about 40 bux worth.  I was only likely to be in the country another 48 hours, and fuel at least was dirt cheap.

I continued on to the outskirts of Osh.  By now it was about 1pm and I was feeling peckish.  I had been told by the guide that the road from Sary Tash to Osh was 5-6 hours.  The germans said 4 hours.  I had made it in 3.5, with 30 minutes faffing around changing money in Gulcho.  So much for nursing the bike.  I saw a guy doing shashlik by the side of the road and I stopped  to indulge.  Just 2 sticks and I was back on the road.  I had failed to score any shashlik in Tajikistan and was happy to be back in a turkic country where shashlik is the norm.

By now I was below 1000 metres and it was hot.  I took off two more layers, leaving just the t-shirt and riding jacket.

I was concerned about the brakes and suspension … Since southern Tajikistan there had been a lot of dirt roads and mud and the bike was caked in it.  I could hardly even see where the fork socks ended and the upper forks began.  The front brakes were just a ball of solidified mud.  This wasnt good for either the suspension or the brakes and I decided now that I was back in the land of water to give the bike a wash.  I found a jet wash place, borrowed the tool for 5 minutes and went to town on my bike and luggage (and helmet).

I continued around the Uzbek part of Kirgizia (Osh – Jalalabad region) and soon after Jalalabad I stopped three times.  First for fuel, then for a top up shashlik and finally I decided that since my jacket was as filthy as the bike was, to give it a jet wash too.  It was now well over 30 degrees and below 700 metres.  I had descended over 4000 metres in about 30 hours, from Ak-Baital pass to near Jalalabad.  The locals stared on shaking their heads as this crazy foreign guy blasted his jacket with 100 psi water … I then turned the hose on myself, blasting  riding trousers below the knee and my boots. I rode off wearing the sopping wet jacket.  It was an ideal way to keep cool in the 30 + degree heat.

By 6pm I had reached Kara-Kol on the eerily green Naryn river, complete with countless dams, and decided to make it around the Toktogul reservoir and stop for the night in Toktogul town, on the north side of the lake.

Toktogul was a run down old town, drawn out along the highway, with more than its fair share of alcoholics by first appearances.  I found a place to stay with secure parking for about 5 bux and headed across the road for some food.  I chatted for a hour or so with the lady who ran the cafe.  Most of Toktogul is geared up for the traffic between Osh and Bishkek.  Its about halfway between the two and most of the restaurant business is from passing traffic.  I was still only at about 950 metres and the night was warm.  It made a nice change from the freezing nights in Tajikistan.

- – -

30.05.09

One thing that was apparent from the warmer weather, was there was clearly a cost to not having had a shower since Dushanbe 6 days ago.  Sure I had washed my face and head almost daily, and I had managed a quick cold rinse at my homestay in the Wakhan valley, but I was  starting to get a little sticky.
The tough part about dressing was to make sure I was only slightly cold at the 3000 – 4000+ metre passes, but that still meant I was cooking in my clothes at low altitude.  The upper body was manageable – layers relatively easy to remove, but pants were a different issue.  I was riding with the fleecy lined goretex liners for the extra warmth, but my legs cooked at low altitude.  If I removed them, I would have had icy legs at altitude.  I noticed my legs were now very sticky, and the goretex liner had quite a whiff to it.

That was added to already long list of things to sort out in Almaty.
(1) oil change – Motul 300V
(2) clean air filter
(3) sort out funny noise
(4) sort out dodgy bolts on luggage rack
(5) replace clutch cable
(6) replace brake disk and pads
(7) replace tyres
(8) weld brackets for tool tube
(9) weld new brackets for drink bottles
(10) adjust headset bearings
(11) sort out wiring issue for GPS (intermittent power)
(12) sort out loose tail assembly
(13) wash helmet liner
(14) wash almost all of my clothes
(15) investigate chinese visa and crossing

After a lazy morning, I left Toktogul about 10am, topped up with fuel (what ever happened to my bright idea of topping up in the evenings?) and yes I am still getting about 80mpg (3.5l / 100km).  I was wondering about this fuel economy and how much better it is here than earlier in the trip.  Perhaps the engine just needed 15000 km to properly get run in and bedded down.  Maybe its the lower air resistance at altitude (like aeroplanes).  Who knows, but whatever the reason, its all good stuff!

The road begain climing immediately on leaving Toktogul, but it was the most relaxed gentle climb you can imagine.  Over about 65 km, the road climbs from about 900m to almost 3200m at the Ala-Bel Pass.  Its all gentle sweeping bends – noting steep, nothing sharp.  In fact you can ride the whole road at 100 km/h such is the quality of the road surface.  I think I will add that stretch to the favorite roads.  A sportsbike would have been better for it than the X-Challenge, but I still had plenty of fun there – and the best part of all (for my clutch cable) was I didnt have to change out of fourth gear the whole way up.

It struck me last night during my conversation with Gulya the cafe lady how different all the central Asians were.  The contrast in peoples between the western looking farsi people of Tajikistan and the very mongolic Kirgiz.  The Kirgiz are probably the most oriental looking of all the central Asians and the Tajiks by far  the least.

The Kirgiz originated in central Siberia, right above the Altai region, next door to the Tuvans (Uriankhai).  Not surprisingly, they share a very similar yurt based nomadic culture with the Tuvans and Mongols.  This became very apparent on entering the central plateau in Kirgizia once I had crossed the Ala-Bel pass.

The quick road from here to Issyk Kul (Kul meaning lake) would have been to drop down the mountains to Bishkek, then back up again to Issyk Kul, but I wanted to stay at altitude and travel through the mountains and the plateau.  There are a couple of dirt roads across the plateau and I took the only one without a pass above 3000 metres (the old pass issue is a problem here in KG).  I wanted to stop for lunch in a town called Chayek, but couldnt find any appealing food options there, so set about fotographing locals before pushing on.

Eventually I had a late lunch and refuel at Kochkor, not far from Issyk Kul.  The Kirgiz guide back in Sary Tash had told me about all the hotels lining both the north and south shores of the lake, and apparently the north shore is more developed with a lot of modern new hotels for vacationing Kazakhs, while the southern shore is more authentic still with plenty of places to stay.  So I took the south road … and probably regretted it.

I was determind to get a place with a normal working warm shower.  The sticky legs bugged me.  But all the hotel type places I passed we both (a) soviet vintage and run down and (b) closed anyway.  Only one I saw was open and I saw two backpackers returning to it. That was enough to make me drive on in search of a backpacker free hotel.  I drove on, and on, and on … I was almost at the end of the lake when I saw a sign to a hotel 16 km down a dirt road.  I thought ‘what the hell, lets try it’ and down the dirt road I went.  At the end of it I reached the ‘Marco Polo hotel’ which was still a soviet style sanatorium complex, but had at least one modernised building.  It was a total rip off at $50 a night for a room with no dinner or breakfast, but it had a modern bathroom with warm shower.  Thats gold in these regions folks.  It being now almost dark outside and me being tired and in need of a warm shower I relented and took the deal.

- – -

31.05.09

My last day in Kirgizia featured nothing in particular I wanted to see or do, save a quick visit to Sharin Canyon in Kazakhstan.  The rest of it was just about covering the 400 km to Almaty and getting across the border.

I couldnt wait to get out of the bizarre Marco Polo Hotel so packed my bags, saddled up and got out of Dodge before any of the locals realised what was up.

First stop was the town of Karakol, where I should have gone for a hotel.  I changed my remaining Kirgiz cash for USD, but kept just enough for a bowl of manti for breakfast and some fuel.  Kirgizia has the cheapest fuel so far so might as well top up there.  It has bowsers too, a nice change from the more ‘raw’ bucket, glass jar and funnel approach in Tajikistan.  As this tank would get me all the way to Almaty, it also gave me a change to calculate my entire fuel consumption in the mountains of Tajikistan and Kirgizia … basically my entire route from Tashkent to Almaty, save 100km or so on either end.  26.0 km/l, 3.8 l/100km, 73.5 mpg (uk), 62.3 mpg (us) …  really amazing stuff considering it was mainly low gear useage, hard accelleration etc.  My tank range for that stretch was 575 km … but there was fuel more regularly than I had feared.  I think a 300 km tank range is all you need in the Pamir, and in Kirgizia fuel is everywhere.

Soon after Karakol I came across the most bizarre stretch of highway. Road kill littered the highway, but it wasnt livestock, it was birds.  The road was covered in dead crows for about 5 km.  As I rode through this macabre scene, crows continued to sit on the road, their time numbered by when the next vehicle came along to mow them down.  What made those stupid crows sit on that stretch of road?  I saw them flying in and landing on the road, waiting for their destiny (the bumper grille of an Audi 100) to meet them.  Very very strange.

Speaking of strange and Audi 100s … Kirgizia has two types of cars.  The usual soviet vintage boxy lada or zhiguli for the hoi polloi, and for the upper middle class, there is the 20 year old Audi 100.  At least every second car on the road is an Audi 100.  its like a national obsession.  I guess the critical mass now is that every mechanic in Kirgizia knows how to fix an Audi 100, so either join the club and get one, or you learn to fix your own car.  There were stretches of road where I passed no fewer than 10 Audi 100s in a row!  All late 80s, early 90s vintage.  Every Audi 100 ever made will end up in Kyrgyzstan at some time in its life.

Enough of the wacky crows and their killers, and on to the Kazakh border.  Why would a country spend money building good roads that dont go to your own towns but to the borders?  Populism dictates that roads to borders dont win votes or popularity contests, and so it was with the road to the Kazakh border.  It hadnt been maintained in a very long time and I punished my suspension more than I needed to.

The border itself was amazingly rapid … only 4 posts to pass through this time, one customs and one passport control on each side.  And I reckon all 4 posts were done within 40 minutes and I was soon on my way in Kazakhstan.

I reached Sharin Canyon, where I was invited for lunch by a Polish tourist passing thru there.  He had organised a nice shashlk barbeque down by the river.  I told him I needed to find the track down into the canyon then I would probably come back and join him after that.

I spent over half an hour searching for  some kind of track down, and eventually settled on an dry riverbed canyon.  It wasnt the side canyon that the Motosyberia chaps had gooned around in – theirs was rocky, mine was sandy – but it was a good bit of fun anyway.

By the time I got out I figured the polish shashlik would be long gone so just headed towards Almaty, stopping for shashlik of my own  at the town of Bayseyit.  It was a  welcoming scene for the weary, hungry  biker – imagine a pretty warm afternoon riding across the wide Kazakh plains when suddenly the road ahead is lined with shady trees, and under those trees are dozens of shashlik vendors on both sides of the road and stalls selling cold drinks and ice-creams.  The only thing that could have improved it would have been babes in bikinis offering shoulder massages for bikers.  (my shoulders were beginning to hurt for the first time since leaving London) but that wasnt going to happen.  I indulged with a couple of shashliks and an ice-cream, and felt a better man for it.

From shashlik central to Almaty was now just 100 km and I set off in time to meet some guys I had known thru work, who planned to meet me on the outskirts of town at 4:30pm.  As it happens I was 15 minutes late. Traffic !!

But the guys took me in and promised to look after me for the next few days.  I will need all the help I can get because there is a lot to get done in Almaty.

27.05.09

Breakfast at my ‘homestay’ in Vamg was at 7:30am, delivered with a smile – anything I wanted. My hosts daughter had washed my smelly socks and boxers last night and had made sure they were dry by 8am. This Tajik ‘homestay’ system really rocks !!

I stayed in my hosts majestic living room, with the 5 pillars as is traditional for the Ismailis, updating the previous days blog. I had no internet or phone connection but I should be able to get beeline reception somewhere along my route today so will be able to email the blog to Jon, pics to be added later.

I left my host and headed down the road to Vrang, 5km away, where I could top up with fuel. This time it was a plastic bucket and funnel job. I had done 195 km since my last top up in Khorog, and I figured I would probably take 8 or 9 litres … so I ordered 7, and would see visually how much room I had left in the tank once that was done. Incredibly, that 7 litres overfilled the tank and about a quarter of a litre of go-go juice spilled over the sand. The bike has been incredible on fuel since we hit the tricky roads and the altitude. The last 655 km since Kulab has seen me use just 25.5 litres … less than 3.9 litres/100km (73 mpg) … while climbing pretty much the whole time.

I continued along the Panj river to Langar, the last town for about 150 km. Here the valley split in two and the road and the Afghan border followed the Pamir river, while the Panj was renamed the Wakhan river and continued into Afghanistan.  Almost immediately after Langar (2900m) the road began to climb sharply up to aroung 3500 metres. From here to the military base and checkpoint at Khargush, the road would be mainly 3400 – 3700 metres up. It was about 65 km from Langar to the checkpoint and the only company I had on that road were the countless shepherds moving sheep, goats and cattle uphill. All going the same way, driving the beasts along the road. I stopped almost as many times for them as for my foto stops.

About 5 km from Khargush, the road began climbing again and by the time I got to the deserted checkpoint at Khargush, I was at 4000 metres. I wondered around the checkpoint making lots of noise and trying to find signs of life.  It was now seriously cold.  Even in Langar, I had been overheating. But once I had climbed to 3500 metres, and the Pamir plateau, the temperature dropped rapidly. Some soldiers came trotting up the hill from the Army base 300 yards from the checkpoint, carrying a book. Good, this would be the registration book. They took down my details as they had in every other checkpoint, and opened the barbed wire encrusted gate.

I had hoped to continue following the Pamir river eastwards from here, and get into the far south east corner of Tajikistan, but Yusuf yesterday had told me it was a closed military road, confirmed by the soldiers at the checkpoint. Instead I followed the gravel road north, to the Khargush Pass. (editors note … I since heard from a guide in Murgab that its not as closed as it once was, and permission, if got thru the right contacts, was definately feasible)

From the checkpoint, the road immediately climbed higher and in quick time I was above 4300 metres. From here it was a relative flat road for the next 5 miles to the pass itself .. very flat for a pass … very gradual. So flat I didnt notice it until I was heading downhill. 4350 metres my map says.

15 minutes later and I reached the Pamir highway … the M41 … asphalt. A black ribbon of reasonable asphalt across the Pamir plateau. I was now at 3800 metres. From here is was a comfortable ride through ethereal landscapes, 130 km to Murgab, the only town of any substance on the Pamir plateau. One mile down the new asphalt road I stopped to take some fotos at the same spot as a tour group. It was only the second vehicle I had seen all day. Mostly British with an American in there too. These were the first westerners I had chatted with since leaving Jon and Marcin in Romania months ago. They were headed to Murgab as well and I agreed to meet them for dinner in Murgab.

I had plenty of time on my hands so I spent the afternoon shooting still and video clips on the Pamir plateau, but all the mounting and dismounting the bike was having an effect. I did notice feeling either tired or light headed when filming up near 4150 metres in the afternoon. I was glad Murgab was a few hundred metres lower, at 3650 metres and made my way down … stopping to take photos regularly. As with the rest of Tajikistan so far, every scene has been a postcard, and my camera has been working overtime. All my batteries were running low – camera, video etc and I would need to recharge everything in Murgab tonight.

I pulled into dusty, windswept Murgab and went searching for petrol. I had realised after this morning that it was making more sense to buy fuel in the evening so I could just pack the bike up and go in the mornings. I eventually found fuel, and tried to estimate my requirement to the Kirgiz guy selling fuel from his backyard. 285 km? should be about 11 – 12 litres. I bought 10. Again I overestimated. The last half litre ended up in the dirt again. I had used only 9.5 litres to do 285 km through the mountains, mostly uphill, mostly on dirt roads. It continues to amaze me.

I found a homestay run by a Kirgiz woman called Apal (Murgab is mostly a Kirgiz town) and unloaded the bike. I had phone reception here and sat in my room uploading the last blog post to Jon, and checking the loads of emails since I last had functional gprs reception in Khorog. There were a couple of disconcerting emails about the Kirgiz border with Uzbekistan being closed due to some troubles, but hopefully that wont affect me.

Darkness fell and Murgab was black. There was no power in the town. The town has a hydro electric plant but apparently its very old and hasnt kept up with the towns growth. IN any case it didnt work at all tonight.  This would make it hard to recharge my assorted batteries.

- – -

28.05.09

I left my homestay in Murgab with a full stomach and full tanks of fuel and went straight to the police station to register. Apparently it isn’t necessary any more but I was advised by Surat, the head of the tour company guiding the tour group I met yesterday that it would be prudent to visit them and get their OK on that. Having done that, I headed north, towards to Ak-Baital pass … the highest point in the trip at 4655 metres … at least for several months.

I had woken up much as I went to bed the previous night, with a headache and feeling less than 100% alert. It was the altitude. Heading to Ak-Baital meant climbing up 1000 metres from Murgab. This would be a test for the constitution. I needed to get back to a lower altitude and the only way I could do that was to continue North – about 100 km from Ak-Baital was another pass, the Kyzyl-Art pass (4280m) which was also the border with Kirgizia, and after that I could drop over 1000 metres to the first town in Kirgizia, Sary Tash.

I still felt that if it was possible, I would leave the road at Ak-Baital and try and climb higher up on the bike, off piste, despite my dizziness and throbbing headache. When I reached the pass, I realised that unlike every other pass I had crossed in the Pamir, the Ak-Baital was surrounded everywhere by steepness. There was no safe way I was going to score any more altitude metres and I headed on down. My GPS altitude reading was 4664m. The dizziness and the cold hit new heights in the last few hundred metres to the pass and I was very glad to be descending.

This was the highest I had ridden since Bolivia in 2005. (I made an error in an earlier post about Col de l’Iseran being the highest I had ridden before .. how could I forget Bolivia?) In Bolivia I was riding above 3600m all of the time, and above 4000m most of the time. I suspect I got up to about 4500m plus at some of the passes there, but with no GPS, I cant be sure exactly how high I was.

15 minutes beyond Ak-Baital and I saw two cars I recognised. It was the tour group from yesterday. We crossed paths a few times over the next hour with either me or them stopping for fotos, before they pulled in for lunch at Karakol. I had eaten a huge breakfast precisely so I didnt need lunch and left them by the lake.

I had got about 15 km North from the town of Karakol when the strangest thing happened. I saw a BMW type bike with a sidecar appraching from the other direction. It would have been easy to shake it off as a local on a BMW sidecar clone but something made me think twice … the bike had a headlight on. It must be a westerner. We both pulled over with huge smiles and introduced outselves. Vincent was French and had been on the road since September last year. I am the first westerner on a bike he has seen this year. Apart from colleagues Jon and Safran, Vincent was the first westerner on a bike I had seen since the Germans in Montenegro over 7 weeks ago. A guy travelling solo in Tajikistan with a sidecar – thats one for Erik Bok!!. We chatted, and discussed maps and routes when you wouldnt believe it, there in the middle of nowhere Tajikistan, a third bike (with headlight on) approaches from the north with a huge grin. Guy was from Belgium and he too hadnt seen another westerner on a bike for 2 months. None of us had seen anyone for months, and then in a remote location, we meet two others within 20 minutes ! Here’s one for Chris Scott … Guy was on a 20 year old Tenere! (The 138 kg model with a big 29 litre tank)

They both warned me about the border pass ahead … apparently its a bit muddy. Vincent with the sidecar said it was particularly tough on his set up. I advised them on routes further into Tajikistan. Vincent and his sidecar were trying to get to Pakistan, but didnt want to pay up $2000 for the Chinese tour guide system, so he has decided to go thru Tajikistan to Afghanistan and from there to Pakistan. Hope he makes it … will make a great film (he is filming his trip as well).

I had to press on tho and tackle the border. It was 2pm and you just never know how long borders will take, so I left the boys and pressed to the muddy border pass. 30 odd minutes later and I was at the Tajik border post. It was a few hundred yards before the pass itself. The process went smoothly … just went through the same steps with 3 different services. First the police checkpoint. Kill the engine, dismount, take documents into small hut. Answer a million questions. Finally the man writes down all my details into his log book and shakes my hand telling me I can go. Next is the customs shoebox. Kill the engine, dismount, take docs into shoebox room. Answer questions, smile and laugh at officials jokes, hope he hurries up and just writes down the details and eventually we are done, and I move on to the immigration booth (cylindrical tin drum) where the official takes out a log book, then decides its the wrong one, takes another, looks at every single visa and stamp in my passport (as do the police and customs guys mind you) then asks to see my vehicle papers (there is total overlap in the questions of all three services – why does an immigration guy want to ask about the bike’s papers … can he not assume that the customs guy has done that as part of his job?

Anyway it all went pretty quickly. I reckon 25 minutes and I was thru the Tajik post. As I packed up to leave, I saw the tour group’s 4WD minibus pull up at the police post, 60 yards away and gave them a wave. I stopped 20 yards past the Tajik checkpoint to talk to the new waiting minibus for the tour group, to tell the waiting Kirgiz guide that his clients are on the way thru the border now. (the group changed drivers, guide and vehicle at the border)

The Kirgiz post was not just over the pass, it was over the pass and down in the valley 25 km away! Getting up the last few hundred metres from the Tajik post to the pass was what Guy and Vincent were taking about. It was red mud city. It was a no-mans land, and no-one maintains roads in no-mans land. Steep slippery wet red mud. The name of the pass was the Kyzyl-Art Pass and I know Kyzyl means Red. I am guessing but ‘Art’ must mean earth or mud … because the intensity of the red colour was quite striking.  The slippery mud was worse on the other side.  Muddy hairpin bends at 4000 metres … mmm fun ! No wonder Vincent on the sidecar rig hated it.

When I reached the Kirgiz checkpoint 25 minutes later (and 750 metres lower), I realised I didnt have my documents on me! My passport, vehicle papers etc … I had them at the Tajik checkpoint. I searched my tankbag and pockets in vain, and it suddenly hit me that this could be a showstopper.

I asked the Kirgiz border guards to excuse me while I returned to search for my documents. On the way I passed a car load of Kirgiz who had a flat tyre in no-mans land and no way to fix it. They asked me if I had a spare patch of rubber. I took one look at the huge rip in their tube and shook my head. The best I had was a push bike repair kit with a couple of patches big enough to patch nail holes, not huge rips. I continued up the mountain. Perhaps I had left the papers at the last checkpoint – with the immigration guy – and perhaps he had given them to the tour group to carry down. I would probably pass them on the way up. In the meantime, my eyes were scanning the red earth muddy road bed for anything unnatural. Everything artificial stands out when you stare hard enough. Even at reasonable riding speeds I was suddenly seeing cigarette butts and small plastic wrappers. That was encouraging. Then I saw the tour group. I stopped and asked them if they had seen my papers, but got only blank looks back.

This was bad … it meant the docs were probably not at the Tajik post .. at the very least the Tajiks would have told them to tell me they had my docs and I should return for them. The docs must be somewhere on the road. I decided to continue up the mountain at full speed, and do a slow speed retracement once I got to the Tajik post. I powered thru the red mud and reached the pass with no sign of the papers. A few hundred yards away around the next bend would be the Tajik post.

Then suddenly I saw something at the side of the road … it was the clear plastic sandwich bag that held all my docs. It had fallen on a dry patch and was barely even dirty. I was barely more than 100 yards from the Tajik post. In my haste to leave (there is never a good reasoon to hang around or to take your time at a border post once you have been given the all clear) I must have put the docs on my tank bag while I mounted the bike or put on my helmet or whatever. And forrgotton to pack them inside the tank bag. As I rode off from the post they had fallen off the tank bag.

I was relieved as hell to have found them. It was the second time for document dramas this trip. I returned to the Kirgiz post and the boys there were relieved I had found the docs. They had been wondering what to do with me if I didnt find them. I would have been a passportless man on a motorcycle in no mans land … neither in Tajikistan nor Kirgizstan. Mutual relief ensured I was given a hasty passage thru the Kirgiz border. Both border posts had taken a mere 20 odd minutes each.  It could have been my fastest border corssing in central asia to date, but instead was a 2 hour stressful ordeal!

Kirgizia was now country number 27 and should be the last new country for me for some months. My plan had been to try and get towards Osh for the night, but the delays and the need to chill out meant I would only go to the next town, Sary Tash. The tour group had been going there and their guide had given me the name of the place they would stay when I chatted to him just after the Tajik Post 2 hours earlier and suggested I join them. At the time I pooh-poohed the idea but circumstances had changed and I decided to head into Sary Tash and find Mirbek’s homestay.

Sary Tash lies in an incredible setting. The two massive east-west ranges I had to cross on the road to Dushanbe extend here and Sary Tash lies in between them. The border pass with Tajikistan was the southern range and Sary Tash lies at the foot of the northern one. In between the two is a plain about 3200 metres up. Like the road to Dushanbe, the mountains are a solid wall … a real range rather than individual peaks and valleys. Again I looked at the range from a distance and thought ‘how the hell do you get across that?’ It was a solid wall for as far as I could see west towards Dushanbe and East towards China. Then I turned around and behind me was an equally impenetrable wall, and I had just crossed that one.

Sary Tash itself reminded me a bit of Murgab, only a little smaller and a lot greener. Here the ground was grasslands while at Murgab it had been dusty, barren, bleak and unforgiving. Animals grazed here. I found Mirbek’s guesthouse and the tour group. The Kirgiz guide arranged an extra room for me and I joined the group for tea. Dinner was on the way in less than an hour and I took the chance to wash my face and hair for the first time in two days. The rest of me will have to wait till I find a shower somewhere.

The tour group was headed for China early the next morning (5am departure) and so we all ate an early dinner. I had missed lunch so feasted on the manti provided by the hosts before discussing routes thru Kirgizia with the guide. He seemed to know exactly which roads would be open at this time and unfortunately some of the more interesting passes I had planned were not yet open.  He did recommend a morning detour tho to check out Mt Lenin … the second highest mountain in the former USSR at over 7000 metres. The Sibirsky Extreme Project could hardly bypass a chance to see Lenin Peak now, could it?