Mother Russia!!!!!

August 3 at 12:32pm

So last time we were in Volgograd...

After visiting Mother Russia we headed out with Torbay Tourists in tow which now constisted of just Colin after his team mate had bailed on him in Odessa and he'd driven the rest of the way to Volgograd on his own.

We headed for Seratov and reached there at about one in the morning. A steep hill into town had me on the brakes trying to keep the speed down to the very low town centre limit just incase the police were waiting to clock us round the corner. Sure enough they were and despite crawling past they pulled us over anyway. Here we go I thought and checked the ash tray to make sure there was a $10 bill in there just in case. We pulled over and got out and the Police were all smiles.

Obviously bored they pulled us over to have a look at our cars and we took the opportunity to get them to sign the cars, nick their hats and get photos, and ask directions. All in all though they were really friendly and then a Lada squad car showed up shouting from the loudspeaker on top and we found ourselves with an escort throught the city. We crawled through Seratov behind this Lada as a few other cars inched past cautiously until a taxi drew along side. We then pulled up to some lights and the squad car and taxi burnt away from us wheels smoking and fish-tailing wildly around the corner. I wasn't ready for that! here we were expecting to to find hardnosed Russian police demanding our papers and they are clowning around in the middle of the night in a half empty city we all pulled over and shook hands, he gave us directions the rest of the way out of the city and we went on our way bemused.

Just outside of the city directions got a little confusing as the main highway became a little back street for a short while, as is common around these parts, and we drove around for ages looking for the road to the Kazakh border. When we found the road it was well into the early hours so we pulled over to sleep in the cars again at a quiet petrol station.

The next day we made for the border, stopping along the way to get some delicious traditional Azerbijhani food as another team drove by. We caught them at the border and as we progressed through our three became 4 and then 5 as other teams caught up and joined the queue. Getting out of Russia was no problem, just the usual unhurried nature of the border guards which kept everything to a snails pace and on the Kazakh side everything appeared to be going swimmingly too, until the final hurdle and we went to see the guys in the customs hut. After they had processed our papers and being really friendly they they stopped and said to us that the charge for the customs dcument was $47. I immediately smelt a rat and insisted that we shouldn't pay anything and the customs hut began to fill with other ralliers who were equally as insistent.

After around 45 minutes during which the actual price varied - a sure sign that it was a scam - and a very amusing phone call to an 'interpreter' on speaker phone who was just shouting 'you must pay!' over and over we eventually went without paying the fictitious fee and all the other ralliers followed including a couple of Irish guys who were so full of attitude that they didn't realise we had just dealt with the situation on their behalf, followed us through and said 'of course we don't have to pay them anything stupid!' before speeding off. We were half expecting to see them around the next corner pulled over by the police but it seems they are never around when you need 'em!

We went in a convoy of 3 to Uralsk where the plan was to find a cheap hotel. We got towards the outskirts and pulled over to to discuss where to go and a car pulled in in front of us. Two guys got out - one of them holding a beet bottle and we were expecting trouble. THe car emplied further though and soon a whole family were surrounding the cars, smiling and laughing. Then they all got back in and we followed them to a hotel. This is typical of the people here - very curious and forward which can be intimidating but then always so helpful and generous!

We are currently in Astana but after 3 days of tough rally stage-like driving and no wash since Uralsk we are in need of a good night out so I will continue the story later...

Kazakhstan has been amazing so far and is a fascinating country I never had any idea of!

I will try and bring you up to date on our adventures before we enter Mongolia in hopefully the next 3 or 4 days, after which things might get a little quiet on the email front.

Mike (& Greg)

August 15 at 6:47am

I'll just start by saying we've made it as many of you already know - we dropped off the radar a bit this last week as we've mainly been camping in the desert but yesterday we pulled into Ulaan Bataar and crossed the finish line so I am writing this from an internet cafe across the square.

Last time I left it though we had got to Uralsk and I never did finish the bit to Astana as a few things happened. These things take a little while to write too, especially when all the keys aren't in the normal place.

so... Uralsk

We had a hotel in Uralsk so another wash and good night’s sleep and a few beers too. After breakfast one team in our convoy decided to hit the road so that left us and Colin (torbay tourists) again. Colin had some work to do on his car, mainly fixing his fuel tank filler neck which his oversized wheel had been rubbing through and I took the opportunity to sort our exhaust out a bit to prepare the car for the Kazakh roads which we knew would be the first yet. Greg walked around the corner and found a huge market so we stocked up on food, water, and 'presents' of vodka etc should we find ourselves introduced to the police once more. We also bought a CD of 200 Kazakh pop songs on mp3 which would keep us amused for the next 3 days.

We hit the road around midday and made a note to visit a petrol station on the edge of town so that Colin's repair job on his tank had a bit longer to bond before it got more fuel in it. As we were leaving town the petrol station we wanted to fill up at was closed for a delivery, fine we thought, we'll go to the next one. So we drove for a bit, nothing. Drove a bit longer, still nothing. After around and hour we were both dangerously close to running out and decided to turn off the road to a small town as there was nothing on the map for nearly 100km. After asking a cowboy for directions we found what was better described as a large hamlet, there was no petrol station in sight and by now we were desperate. Greg walked over to some local guys who were working on a car. The next thing Greg is waving us to follow and reluctantly getting into the car with these guys so we follow them down some dirt tracks to a house and yard where a little girl appears with a 5ltr can of fuel after much bartering we agree a price with the girls who is a real tough trader. The atmosphere was very tense as we knew that we were at the mercy of these people as we would be effectively stranded and shell we say they didn't look like the most trustworthy people and we felt very vulnerable. The police drove by and took an interest and one of the guys was nervous and said to us 'no police, police are bad' and went and told them that we were their brothers. It was difficult to know what to do at this point as often the police are more difficult to trust so we went with it and the police drove off. We had obviously now gained the trust of these guys and everybody relaxed, we went and found 10 more litres of fuel (which was being sold to us as 93 octane but was in fact 86 so the guy got a clip round the ear from the old lady who was providing it this time) the price was reasonable though and the guy only wanted a drink for his troubles - ah ha time for the cheap vodka to come in handy we thought but he didn't want it, luckily though he was delighted with two cans of Carlsberg that Greg had brought all the way from home. Phew! - We were on the road again.

We slow timed it towards the next town to make it on the fuel we had until the Bristol Heros caught up with us in their 2CV (yeah we really were going that slow) and stayed with us as they had a full jerry can if we needed it. This was to be the forming of a great team of three cars which would drive all the way up to the Altai Mountains together. We drove on for many more miles until it was nearly dark and then all pulled off the road and set up camp, getting to know our new friends Lloyd (from UK) and Simon (NZ). I tried to sleep outside under the stars but the bugs get up early in these parts it seems so at around 4am I retreated to the car. The next day we got up early and hit the road again, hoping to make it to Aktobe which we did late afternoon.

The scenery in that part of Kazakhstan is mainly undulating plains of straw coloured grass with the odd bit of semi-desert scrub land in a lot of places and generally you can see a whole lot of nothing for miles and miles.

When we reached Aktobe we needed to get our immigration cards stamped by the immigration police so pulling into town we used our standard tactic of heading towards what looked like the centre and pulling over, then asking the people that would start and take an interest in us and the cars. As luck would have it the first guy to approach us was more than happy to get in Colin's spare seat and show us the way. Also it turns out that he was studying at university to hopefully joint the transport police and that wasn't all, the girl who worked in immigration was his cousin so he got us sorted really quickly which was very handy indeed as we only had an hour after hitting the town that the station closed and without him we would have had to stay in Aktobe overnight. In exchange then for his kindness and sparing so much of his time, we took him for a meal at the restaurant of his choice - another good move as we were directed to a traditional Uzbeki restaurant where we enjoyed Lagan - a soup with meat and noodles, delicious Uzbeki bread and fall off the bone barbequed lamb – then he directed us out to the main road and we drove out of the city and found somewhere to camp.

The road to Astana was good in some places but absolutely terrible in others. We were literally slowed to a crawl and eventually ended up ditching the road altogether and taking the little dirt tracks which snaked around along side. What fun! – These roads were soft and sandy but lots more forgiving on the car and really fast compared to the road. They would undulate and twist and turn to avoid trees and then go back up the steep embankment to the road before diving off the other side. Many of these tracks formed and before long each car in our convoy had taken to a different track in the hope to find the quickest way. Naturally the average speed escalated as everyone got excited and eventually we thought we’d best slow down a bit when Colin’s gearbox started to leak oil after a particularly hard hit. We drove on more sensibly again until the sun looked like going down soon and pulled off the road into another random field to camp.

This particular area was a little more populated (but still very rural) so we wanted to get a bit further off the road. The fields were huge and eventually rose to a crest so we head on further still. When we reached the top of the rise we saw a lake appear the other side. Great find we thought – maybe we can have a swim. As we got closer though we saw hundreds of cattle drinking at the water edge and as we got closer still a couple of cowboys rounding them up. After a little discussion we thought it best to ask permission to camp here and to our surprise the cowboy directed us to the other end of the lake where the cattle did not feed and the area was just idyllic with a small strip of beach. There was someone else in a car nearby and as we were getting ourselves sorted he walked over. It turns out he is the land owner and has been fishing at the lake – we asked him if we could buy some fish from him to cook for dinner and he took us over to his catch to pick some. Greg picked two nice big ones, about a foot long each and wide too (don’t ask me what kind they were but they turned out to be tasty). We got some money out and the guy wouldn’t take it. We built a fire with lots of wood we had collected earlier and went for a swim in the lake as the sun set and it reduced to cooking embers. All in all we couldn’t believe our luck What started as a random turn into a grass field turned out to be the best camping spot yet – how could we beat that?!.

Finally the next day (or was it the day after? Kazakhstan is huge and these roads seemed to last forever) we reached Astana – the idea was to get there fairly early in the day so we could sort out a hotel and maximize the use of it by getting washing done and maybe then doing some shopping before going and having a well deserved night out. We first pulled up at the Radisson but after finding out it was $500 a night we realized that this wasn’t a cheap town and went to find something more within our budget. Astana is the new capital of Kazakhstan and has some huge and impressive buildings but to be honest it was a huge disappointment. It is all new and designed along an American block structure and there doesn’t actually appear to be a centre as it didn’t grow from anywhere. As a result everything is dispersed and there is no atmosphere. There is a large shopping mall called the Mega Centre which appears to be where everything happens but it is very westernized and expensive. Beer too in the bars was expensive, more then four pounds a pint. Most of us couldn't wait to get out of Astana before long.

I'll have to cut it short there as we've got to go visit the Christina Noble's Foundation right now in Ulaan Bataar so I will continue the story later...

August 20 at 10:43pm

Well were back in blighty now and quietly slipping back into normal life but now I have a back log of story telling to catch up with and I’m getting some heat from people who want to know what happened so here’s the next instalment.

Looking back at the old diary it turns out there was another day on the road to Astana that I had forgotten about (not surprising really as Kazakhstan is MASSIVE). We had intended to get to Astana early in the day so we could make the most of the rare occasion of having a hotel so we actually camped up with only 100km or so to go so we could get washed, go shopping and sort our kit out before having a good night out.

We’d already stopped for dinner cooked on the camping stove by the side of the road a few hours earlier so we drove until dark before finding somewhere just off the road for Simon and Lloyd to put their tent up while the rest of us just reclined the seats in apathy and kipped in the cars again.

This particular night though I woke up gripping the steering wheel and pressing the brake pedal really hard. It took me a little while to figure out where I was and that the red glow was actually the brake lights lighting up the surrounding area. I had to turn on the headlights on to see Simon and Lloyd’s tent and remind myself that we’d actually pulled over to sleep. Lucky I had hidden the keys! Five days or so earlier Greg had woken me up with screams of “get off the tracks!” after we had pulled over to sleep at a petrol station near a train line. Greg had heard the train’s horn in the middle of the night and woken up believing we had stopped in the middle of the tracks with a freight train about to smash into us. I thought he had lost the plot a bit and went back to sleep but now it seemed like it was my turn to have my dreams invaded by the constant driving that filled our days.

This only made me more desperate to reach Astana and get some decent rest, not to mention a shower and the others were just as keen. This anticipation only deepened the disappointment I felt in Astana which was a soul-less place and add to that the fact that we arrived in pouring rain and the power cut out as we finally checked into a hotel at a reasonable price, it wasn’t exactly shown in its best light either. After a somewhat lacklustre night out we were all keen to get going and we dragged Colin and Lloyd, who had got back in well after the sun came up, out of their respective beds to get going.

Colin’s car required yet more work to help stem the flow of oil from both the gearbox and engine sump and replace the not insignificant amount that had been lost in the last day or so. While Colin did this Greg and I checked the Polo over and went to the market for water and other supplies. Simon and Lloyd emptied the entire contents of the 2CV into the hotel car park before wheeling it off somewhere for some reason or other, then packed it all back in. There were of course all the usual passers by taking an interest and signing the cars while this was all going on. Suddenly while Colin was underneath the front of his car the engine started and he jumped up to tell the two guys who had been hanging around and had now found his keys in the ignition to clear off. It was only 10 minutes later that he realised they had taken his camera and mobile phone with them!

Colin declined the offer of the hotel staff to call the police as we had all had enough of Astana and just wanted to get going, the phone and camera were not expensive and the travel insurance couldn’t bring back the images on the memory cards so filing a police report could only really waste more time.

The roads improved drastically to the east of Astana and we made Pavlodar as night was falling. We had developed a habit of reaching large cities at night which isn’t to be recommended as it makes navigation difficult and makes everybody more nervous about stumbling into a bad neighbourhood unawares. To add to the fun in Pavlodar we seemed to be getting much more attention from other vehicles – mainly packed with groups of young lads. We assumed that the rally must have been on the telly or in the newspapers as everyone seemed to know what was happening (except me that is as I just tried to pick my way through to get on the right road as Greg responded to their shouting between traffic lights) They were friendly enough but we ignored their gestures for us to pull over as we were too busy trying to get out of the city. Once we started to leave, we pulled over at a petrol station to double check we were on the right road. We drew a crowd yet again including a guy who wanted to swap his Mercedes S600 for the 2CV and was celebrating his birthday. We gave him a hat from one of our sponsors and he sprayed all our cars with beer, for luck presumably, as we left. Twenty km or so out of town when the scenery turned back to miles of nothing we pulled over again to sleep.

In the morning we found a car/truck ramp on the other side of the road and got the 2CV and Colin’s Panda up on it to try and sort their mechanicals for good. In Russia and Kazakhstan every so often there are such concrete ramps around 50 feet long with a gap down the middle for getting underneath your vehicle. They were, reportedly, for servicing tanks back in the soviet era, now however they make very handy servicing spots and are free to use. The gap in the middle is quite wide though and our little cars only just spanned the gap so you have to be really careful getting up and down on them.

All fixed up we pressed on again and if the roads stayed as good as they had been, we were certain to make the border with Russia by the afternoon. We reached Semey by early afternoon and attempted to spend all of our remaining Tenge by buying a small store out of Beer and Vodka and also filling up on petrol and other food. We were weighed down to the stops at the back and were really hoping the border guards wouldn’t take too much of shine to all our goodies.

The border was actually one of the most straight forward, the usual unhurried pace but no scams until, as always, the final customs hut where a seemingly helpful woman filled out our papers before demanding cash to give them to us. Balls to that I thought and grabbed a couple of forms to fill out myself, as did the others. Fortunately we still had copies from the first time we crossed into Russia so we could decipher what went into what box. As we did this the English example magically re-appeared into the plastic sleeves sellotaped to the wall. The disgruntled woman wasn’t getting her $10 a form now and went and had a word with the customs official. ‘That’s it’ we thought – she was going to make sure they stripped our cars to the last nut and bolt in the vehicle inspection. Instead though they took a passing interest in all our beer (which we ignored) and then they waved us on our way.

We were through the border as the sun was just starting to go down – I remember that well as it was right in our eyes as we were passing through the final checkpoint and we screeched to a halt right at the last second before taking out the very last barrier which had become almost invisible. We stopped with the barrier inches from our windscreen – that was lucky, we could have got in a lot of trouble there!

August 21 at 11:39pm

After we had crossed into Russia for the second time with the sun going down we drove maybe 20 km and decided to pull off the road on a completely random track we saw to the right. We followed the track looking for a good spot to camp until we came across some small cabins. As we drove past people came out to have a look at us and by the time the 2CV, the last car in our little convoy had reached the first cabin they had been waved down and it wasn’t long before cars were getting signed again. Among the people here was a girl called Lena who spoke pretty good English and she explained that these were their fields where they grew melons. We asked where we could camp and they offered right there by their little cabins.

As we set up camp and got the stove on for food we invited them to come and have a drink with us. They brought a rug out and two bottles of Vodka, we got the beer out and two bottles of Vodka too and before long we were all sat around having an aperitif as they insisted we should all have a shot before we eat, then another, and another. We were also brought some food and a whole load of melons – about 15 and 3 huge watermelons. The night went on, the guitar came out and they sang traditional Russian songs for us. Yet more vodka flowed and the beer ran out, then later the vodka ran out too. More songs then our turn to sing English songs and to our embarrassment we couldn’t find any that we all knew the words to so we had a clumsy rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody and it was back to proper Russian singing again. Some rather potent home brewed vodka made an appearance and shortly after that my recollection of the evening becomes hazy and I woke up at 8 in the morning half in and half out of the car. Passing out it seemed was a good tactical move as only Simon surfaced before 10 and he had passed out early too. We both felt far better than the other three. Apparently after the home brew was gone some of our new friends had gone off and returned with even more Vodka – in all 6 and a half bottles and 20 beers had been put away. No wonder we were all so rough.

We ate melons and slowly packed the cars, and then we were led to a river where we had a bathe. The Russians brought some food down and then the Vodka made another appearance. “Woah – no thanks we’re driving!” we said, so they had theirs and then another for us, to wish us luck – nutters!

We finally got on the road at around two in the afternoon – way after we planned but it was worth it for the great random experience we had the night before and having met such friendly people.

We drove a good few hours and grew hungry again and when the unmistakeable smoke from small metal chimneys signalled a row of Shashlik huts we pulled straight in. The Shashlik (which is pieces of meat marinated cooked on skewers over charcoal and translates as just ‘barbeque’) we had there was huge pieces of pork, so tender and the best thing I’d eaten all trip. We immediately ordered more after finishing it was so good.

We had lost quite a bit of time that day and so decided to stop In Barnaul as we’d had a tip off about a good hotel that was only around $20 a night. If we could get a good nights sleep and get up early in the morning, we thought, we could get to the Mongolian border, 600km away by the next evening. We reached Barnaul after meeting up with ‘Panda Hands’ – a team of two Irish Lads who had been really putting in the miles and who it turns out had been on Kazakh TV the day before which explained the reception we had had in Pavlodar. On reaching Barnaul we made friends with some guys in the hotel car park who turned out to be Majors in the immigration police in Novosibirsk and as we checked into the hotel they managed to produce an ice cold can of beer each for us – amazing! – we had met so many friendly people here – and it was Russia too where based on what we had been told, we were expecting everyone to be miserable and unhelpful.

The next day we got way fairly early – though not as early as we had hoped and the guys in the 2CV were already pessimistic about making the border by the end of the day. The scenery started to become more mountainous as we approached the Altai region of Siberia and as lunchtime approached we started looking out for the tell-tale Shashlik smoke again. The Irish guys hadn’t experienced this amazing roadside cuisine so we were keen to show them. I think at this point the Bristol Heroes had convinced themselves we weren’t going to make it to the border and stretched the lunch stop into 2 hours with walks down the river side among other distractions. I was itching to get away and hung around impatiently by the car, as did the Irish guys. When we finally got back on the road it wasn’t long before Panda Hands became too frustrated with the pace, shouted to us ‘Were going for the border!’ through the window before shooting past and off into the distance. I didn’t blame them and really wanted to follow but stuck instead with the 600cc 2CV and 700cc Panda which were starting to struggle on the hills and were only going 30mph at times on the flats too. After a few more hours of this and Greg had driven Colin’s car for a bit to give him a rest (he’d pretty much driven the whole thing on his own lets not forget) Greg and I had a chat and decided that if we didn’t press on like the Irish lads we would risk not making it to Ulaanbataar on time, should anything happen in Mongolia.

We stopped and explained to the other guys that we needed to get moving and the only way was to break convoy. It didn’t go down well, especially with Colin who we had been travelling with for some time, but I think they understood, they didn’t have flights booked from UB but we did so off we went.

The Altai region is simply stunning and the road was beautifully smooth nearly all the way. The miles flew by and by dark we’d got to the border after catching up with an Italian team, but it was closed.