August 28, 2014
The last of Siberia: And goodbye to a Czech mate
By chance I bumped into Petr the next day as I was cycling out of Ulan-Ude. He had arrived into town late the previous night and stayed with a Czech man that had stopped his car to talk with us having seen Petr's Czech flag. I noticed that Petr did not have his front panniers. "Pick-pockets!" he said, perhaps not entirely understanding the term. Still, I was shocked that thieves had made off with his bags, but then Petr revealed that he was only joking and that he had left his panniers with his new friend and was only going to cycle as far as the Mongolian border and then take a bus back to Ulan-Ude. The reason for this was that there were apparently only going to be two hot and sunny days and then bad weather was moving in. Petr would sit this out in Ulan-Ude, then take a bus back to the border and continue. I hoped the weather really was going to warm up again, otherwise this Czech man was going to find himself an unexpected lodger until spring. I found it strange that Petr was happy to jump back and forth by bus like this, given his goal of circumnavigating the planet "without motor." It seemed to me like he was using plenty of motor, even if he did always start up from the same point that he left off.
Petr wanted to get to the border by the following evening and it was already mid-afternoon. I, by contrast, didn't. There were 220 kilometres to the border and my visa was valid for another three days, so I wanted to take it easy for once, especially as I hadn't slept at all the previous night. Of course there was a very bad snorer in my dorm, and a man who randomly burst out shouting in German in his sleep. I'd got around the problem of noisy hostel occupants this time, however, by not even trying to sleep, and instead stayed up all night getting the blog updated and plans firmly made for Mongolia. I was going to have to go to the west of that country, because there were only two places I could cross into China, and the border point in the east had 20 kilometres of no-man's land that could not be cycled across. Having to take a lift in a motor vehicle was out of the question, and a massive detour to the west was the only solution. For me, anyway. Petr had decided when he got to Mongolia he would go east. "If they make me take a motor vehicle for 20 kilometres, I will just cycle around in a circle for 40 kilometres, to make up for it." Everyone does things differently, but for me that would ruin the whole trip. I really wanted it to be one continuous journey, the whole way around, only using my bicycle and boats.
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There was a sad goodbye to Petr as he sped off ahead of me and we both assumed that we wouldn't see each other again, and I was left on my own again. It really had become hot and sunny again but quite why Petr would think that was a good thing was completely beyond me. The next day was a disaster as some truck had driven along dripping wet tar in blobs along the side of the road and this constantly stuck to my tyres, and little stones from the shoulder stuck to the tar. The whole day my tyres looked like this:
Then I got a puncture.
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And in the evening the flies became unbearable. Little sand flies this time, smaller than before, and they were biting too. I literally could not cycle and had to make camp early to escape them. I prayed for the bad weather Petr had promised and indeed the next morning was a wet and windy one. By midday, however, everything had cleared up and the sun came out, and the sand flies came out in force. Now I had no choice but to cycle, because I had to get on to the border, and so I donned my beekeepers outfit actually whilst cycling for the first time:
So Siberia was drawing to a close and actually, depsite the flies, I really enjoyed it. The only problem was having the silly visa schedule which forced me to rush through it. Aside from that (and the flies) I would rate it as a pretty good place to tour. The scenery was really nice, especially in the second half of the ride, I could camp anywhere I wanted, the people were friendly without being intrusive, the roads were mostly good, and the supermarkets were well stocked with good food. My only recommendation if you're thinking of cycling this way - get a longer visa!
27/08/14 - 42km
28/08/14 - 78km
29/08/14 - 123km
Today's ride: 243 km (151 miles)
Total: 27,084 km (16,819 miles)
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