August 10, 2014
Notes on Siberia: Bears, biscuits and buzzy things
Only joking, there wasn't any icy frozen anything, it was August and the temperatures were regularly above 30 degrees (Celsius!) From Novosibirsk I had one very long cycle to Irkutsk, but just how long it would be exactly took a while for the sign-makers of Siberia to figure out. The first sign I saw declared Irkutsk to be 3,000 kilometres away, which I really hoped wasn't true. But I soon came to another one saying 'Irkutsk - 1000km', and no I hadn't cycled 2,000 kilometres in the intervening period. At least I didn't think I had, there had been a bit of a tailwind that day. But then the next sign went back up to 'Irkutsk - 1800km.' I think what would have been best all round would have been if the sign-makers had just made one really big sign saying 'Irkutsk - we don't know how far it is but it's really, really far.'
But that third sign turned out to be pretty accurate and I soon noticed that there were posts every kilometre to count the distance, just like in Kazakhstan, and they declared the distance between Novosibirsk and Irkutsk to be 1,885 kilometres. Fortunately for my morale I could only see the kilometres that I was accumulating as the number marking the distance from Novosibirsk were on the near side of the sign and I couldn't see the terrifying number of kilometres I still had to do. Unfortunately this made little difference as with this new guide to go on the sign-makers of Siberia grew more confident, and started putting a sign revealing the distance to Irkutsk every few kilometres. 'Irkutsk - 1787km', 'Irkutsk - 1783km', 'Irkutsk - 1782km', 'Irkutsk - 1787km', and so on. Hundreds of these signs, each with an arrow pointing straight ahead. That'll be the only road then. The signs seemed a little more than was necessary, and yet when the road went into a town and got lost among a number of streets and heavier traffic and came to a roundabout with multiple exits the signs suddenly all buggered off and told me I was on my own now, and left me to my own devices. So I had to stop and ask people the way to Irkutsk, except they could never understand what I meant because I couldn't pronounce Irkutsk and so I'd give up and ask them the way to Vladivostock which was the only other city I knew in that direction. Being on the Pacific Ocean it was such a long way in that direction that it was a bit like trying to find my way out of Paris by asking for the road to Saudi Arabia, but it was a tactic that worked much better in Siberia, because there was only one road and everyone knew the way.
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The scenery, a mixture of forest and fields, reminded me at times of Canada or Scandanavia, perhaps not surprising given the latitude. The trouble now was that I had lost a bit of time and Mongolia was a bit further than I thought, and so I needed to average 130 kilometres per day, which was a tough ask mentally on what was a relatively boring route. At least the traffic kept me on my toes. Most of the time it was just a standard two-lane highway with plenty of big trucks and tailgating and dangerous overtaking were par for the course. The quality of the road and the state of the shoulder varied a lot but luckily there was usually somewhere relatively safe for me to ride and just watch the sometimes completely insane overtaking maneuvers. Speeding cars would pull out to pass trucks, see an oncoming vehicle and go for it anyway, the oncoming vehicle would see the car coming towards it head-on and not brake, just keep on going, and the car might just make it and pull in with a fraction of a second to spare, or the oncoming vehicle might veer onto the shoulder to make an extra half an inch of space and all three would somehow squeeze past at the same time. It was absolute madness. This was the first place that I had ever been to where seeing the aftermath of accidents became a daily occurrence. More than once I saw cars pulled up on opposite sides with the whole of one side of each car horribly scratched and the wing mirror broken off where obviously there hadn't quite been that extra half an inch of space after all. But none of the cars were beeping at me, so it was all good.
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The most annoying thing about these days were the flies and mosquitoes. They mostly left me alone while I was cycling but as soon as I stopped to take a break they would annoy the hell out of me. The worst was when I went into the fields or the forest to camp in the evening, when huge clouds would descend upon me. I wore my baggiest clothes and put my gloves on and wore my hood up, but my face was still exposed. I covered it in mosquito repellant which was very good at repelling the mosquitoes but seemed to attract the little flies which I hated even more. At least the mosquitoes had the decency not to run kamikaze dive-bombing missions into my eyes and nostrils. Putting up and taking down the tent became a living hell, until I hit upon a solution. My new tent had come with some sort of square of mesh, I think it was for making a shelf or something, and it was the perfect size for my face. So I wrapped that around under my hood and I was completely covered from head to toe in something that looked like a beekeeper that had fallen on hard times might find himself wearing. I looked through the mesh at the flies and laughed at them now. Hahaha how silly they looked. I might even be able to sit outside in the evenings again, eat my dinner in the fresh air. Oh no, wait, that wasn't going to work.
On one of these days the day was drawing to a close and I was going to have to start thinking about soon setting up camp in land that was becoming much more densely forested. I had just ridden through a small village and saw a woman selling a variety of knick-knacks on a stand at the side of the road. She was also selling this, which rather caught my eye:
I cycled over to her and asked if there were any more bears in the woods for me to watch out for, or if the hunters had shot them all by now. "Oh no, they haven't all been shot, some of them dance in the circus," she said. No, she didn't, she didn't understand English. She looked at me blankly, so I asked her in sign language if there were any more of these bears in the woods. "Da, da, da" she replied, nodding affirmatively.
As I stopped to take the photo of the bear skin the woman went over to her stall and, knowing just what a tired cycle tourist needs to buy before a night in the woods with the bears, came back with a stuffed weasel.
"No thanks, I don't really need a stuffed weasel."
She frowned and went and got me a mirror to try and sell me that.
"No thanks, I've already got a mirror."
She frowned, was clearly frustrated and made one last try, this time offering me a keyring.
"Sorry lady, haven't got any keys have I?"
The biggest animal I had seen so far was a spider (they were big, they had lots to eat) but I thought it wise to start taking bear precautions, which was another pain. I started stopping early to cook, and then cycling another five or ten kilometres before making camp. And my food pannier I left a safe distance away from where I slept and I had nothing edible in my tent at all. Well, apart from me I suppose. This sucked! How the hell was I supposed to wake up early in the morning and find the energy to get up and go cycling without a packet of biscuits next to my head?! But bear precautions were very important. But biscuits... but bear precautions... but biscuits! No, bear precautions!
I kept it up for two days. Some things in life are worth dying for.
08/08/14 - 74km
09/08/14 - 131km
10/08/14 - 128km
11/08/14 - 143km
12/08/14 - 130km
13/08/14 - 141km
Today's ride: 734 km (456 miles)
Total: 25,189 km (15,642 miles)
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