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Turbaza Log Cabin - Russia

After getting Heathers bike fixed by Victor it was around 9pm at night.. unfortunately we had yet to organise a hotel and needed to find accommodation. Without us even asking we got asked if we wanted to stay with Victor (the mechanic/bike god) and his girlfriend. We repacked Heathers bike, and helped clean up (a little bit)…. and then set off… Heather decided to take the wrong turn when Victors girlfriend turned away from the convoy… we soon got back to Victors place after a quick stop off at the supermarket to get some food, beer etc… After a beer and a beautiful meal we sat down and chatted (as best we could when we didn’t speak much Russian) over shots of vodka and ground black pepper… we soon got loads of great tips on where we should go and what there was to see on our route through the Altai to Mongolia…

River - Russian Altai

The next day we had an amazing breakfast and headed off to with Victor towards Barrnaul.. we decided that we needed to stay in Barnaul to catch up with all the other blog posts we recently posted and to catch up on washing etc… two nights of “relaxation”… aka posting stuff, writing blog posts, backing up photos, getting our washing done and for the first time in a while going out for some drinks… it was time to leave Barnaul… we had really grown to like Barnaul and its relaxed attitude.. before leaving though we had to get a Russian Sim card for our phone… O2 had charged us £30 for a 5 minute phone call… it was wayyyyyy too much and to put it simply O2 sucks big time.. trying to buy a SIM for your mobile with not very well spoken Russian was a great experience.. trying to figure out if we had a contract or not was interesting..

Autum in the Altai - Russia

On the way out of Gorno we stopped to restock our food.. while I waited with the bikes Heather went to get some food, a guy stopped to give us some apples which turned out to be the best apples ever.. we ended up buying a bucket full of apples about 15minutes later from a road side stall… dam fantastic. At the same time a guy smacked his “girlfriend” in the mouth so she would come over and beg to me.. when I refused he was not very pleased and the guy who gave us the apple he told them to fuck off.. it was all a little surreal.. she now had a bleeding lip for nothing.. This is when Heather came out with so much food that there was no way we could fit it on the bike… we already looked like snails.. now we looked like snails that had been eating at an unnamed super size restaurant… Then we stopped at the road side stall . If only we took some photos.. it would have been a good image to show how not to travel by motorcycle…..

A short time after leaving Gorno we saw the two UK motorcycle riders one on his bike the other’s bike on a trailer of a car going back towards gorno.. no idea what happened there but it didn’t look too good.. That night we decided to stay our first night in a Turbaza.. a Russian Holiday camp.. basically the Russians build little cabins in the Forest which are cheap (£10) places to stay.. often with only basic facilities.. the first one we checked out looked like a dump.. the second one was quiet nice and had beautiful panoramic views of the river… Shortly after arriving I asked the owner if they had some beer for sale.. they said no but he offered to take me to the shop to get some.. on the walk to the shop we kept passing people where he would introduce me and say where we had come from and where we are going.. each time the people would have a shot of vodka to celebrate.. 5 shots of vodka on the way to the shop to buy some beers.. dam the walk was going to take a while… then the shop wasn’t open.. they called the shop owner’s mobile and they came back to open the place.. turned out to be more of a bar than a shop.. anyway on the way back we had another way to go where there was another group of people to toast to our ride… all up I had about 7 shots of vodka and a beer… I got back and Heather was clearly bored so she had decided to clean her bike… we decided to sit in the gazebo and watch the approaching storm while drinking our beers… yay I was already pretty drunk…

Kamaz Truck crossing the river - Russia

The next day we headed off after a freezing cold night.. those dam huts are like sleeping in a refrigerator… I think sleeping in the freezer would have actually been an improvement.. and to top it off the day was rainy and cold. Whooo hoooooo.. we had to do some distance today so that we could cross our first mountain pass and hopefully get some good weather. The weather had finally decided to improve… it was now raining we crossed our first pass.. unfortunately the weather didn’t improve.. the second mountain pass a short time later revealed a beautiful valley. (it was no longer pouring with rain) .. a short time after we found a nice place to camp on the river and the Sun decided to come out… the next morning we woke to an absolutely stunning morning… the sun was shining through the trees, with steam coming off the river….. very picturesque.

The road to Mongolia - Russia

That day we decided to take it easy so we could take advantage of the beautiful weather.. we stopped by a raging river to have lunch.. a short time later a big Russian 6×6 kamaz truck decided to cross.. the Altai drivers stopped and said hello and cheered when we asked to take photos of them crossing.. very impressive the river was moving fast enough for the truck to move down stream a little despite driving upstream to cross the river diagonally.. all up very impressive… about an hour after our early lunch we stopped to camp the night.. we fould a little Island in the river where we could get too and camped there.. we had to clean our clothes and wash.. the joys of washing in the icy river… Heather was too much a wuss to get in.. so she just washed using a washer.. poor little jimmy got in a few times to wash properly.. no stinky jimmy.. hello stinky heather.. to be honest the water was so cold it actually stung your skin when you got in… and it took me many attempts and a few screams before I got in., Heather was nice enough to laugh and chuck rocks in my direction to quicken my pace. once I got in my legs etc had all gone numb so the other times it was much easier.. as dusk started to roll in we had a bull calf who got stranded on our side of the river away from his mum… it was a shocking time to see the calf try and swim across the river we thought it would never make it the speed of the torrent.. as it started to swim it got taken by the torrent… and then it got stuck on the other side.. its head almost went under a few times it was a crazy thing to watch.. then it managed to get its grip down stream a little and got out of the river after a few attempts… we sat there in complete shock that the calf had actually made it.. there are humans that couldn’t have made it (people with wheel chairs not included).. the calf definitely had balls…

the next day we had to make it to the Russian Border with Mongolia…. The ride through the Altai had been spectacular so far and it only improved. By far the best scenery and roads of the trip to date.. Its impossible to describe it so please see the photos..

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 4:04 am and is filed under Adventure Motorcycling, Altai, London to Sydney, motorcycle touring, Siberia, Wild Camping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.