On the road to Ulan-Ude

Cassie:
After a late morning start today, we set out from Chita for Ulan-Ude. We're about 400km west of Chita, so estimating ~200km from Ulan-Ude. The road isn't very good at all. It's very similar to the tar road from Vladiviostok to Khabarovsk - narrow, potholed (at times part of the tar is just inexplicably missing as is often the case on the older Russian tar roads) and full of maniacs who think they can drive but are seriously lacking skill and better judgement. Not sure it's ever a great move to overtake someone at speed leading up to the crest of a hill, when you're driving a right-hand drive car on a right-hand drive highway (ie: you can't see around the vehicle to see if someone's coming in the opposite direction!) and dodging potholes all at the same time. But alas, the Russians seem to think this is an awesome way to overtake because they do it so often! We often find ourselves pulling off the road just to let the crazies past before they make some dumb decision about when
and where to overtake us. It makes for a bit of a stressful drive but at least we've experienced this type of craziness early on in our trip so it's of no surprise. Just wish the road was a foot or two wider! We had a half hour or so break in the afternoon to give ourselves a bit of a breather before tackling the rest of the afternoon.

Our stay at Chita was fantastic. We walked around a fair bit, took loads of photos, ate lovely meals and had coffees. Bliss. The hotel we stayed at was really good, cheap, free wifi, breakfast included (the breakfast is nothing to write home about though), private bathroom and absolutely central as it was directly opposite the main city square with the statue of Lenin. There's also an awesome coffee shop just around the corner! The only downfall was the hideously rude staff. This morning when we checked out and requested our hotel registration forms (which every other hotel automatically hand over when you check out), the "lady" just kept saying one word in Russian louder and louder, over and over and I said to her in english, "yep, could you be any ruder if you tried harder? Keep talking louder, yep that's working". Of course she couldn't understand a word I was saying but I was over them being so rude to us the entire time we were staying there. In the end, after rolling he
r eyes at us after we mimed that we're leaving now and not leaving without the forms, she filled them out and handed them over. Good one love, you did your job! Anyway, my rant aside, for those who are reading the blog and are heading in this direction, if you're thinking of staying in Chita definitely make the effort to drive into the heart of the city to stay rather than on the outskirts which look a bit rough and boring if I'm honest. The hotel we stayed at is called the 'Hotel Zabaikalie' on Leningradskaya Street. But there's heaps of hotels in the city and we just drove around until we spotted one.

Tonight we've camped next to a busy-ish railway line. It's been fun to watch the trains go past as we're cooking and eating dinner, but not sure if we may end up moving to a quieter location later in the evening when we want to sleep. Not very often we get a camp with a beautiful view and entertainment! In fact, a train's stopped on the line near our camp and Graeme's gone to investigate what their hold up may be. We're not sure if this is part of the Trans-Siberian Railway Line and without internet we can't confirm it's exact path. This railway line we've camped near runs parallel to the M55 between the towns of Khylok and (ooOOooo this'll test my translating skills because I'm guessing the translation of these towns from our Russian atlas) Pyetrovsk-Zabaikalskyy near Kharauz if anyone's interested. Speaking of our atlas, it's totally falling to bits as each page one by one comes away from the glue binding. At least all the maps are numbered so if I do happen to drop it all
over the place I can easily put it back in order!

Today on the way out of Chita we passed a truck that was heading into the city that looked like it belonged in the Dakar. It was awesome! Graeme noted that it had rego plates from another country but passed by too quickly for us to identify which country. Then, as we were turning off to look for a camp tonight, the truck zoomed past us with a blaze of "hello" horn beeping heading in the same direction as us! Very cool indeedy. Unfortunately we didn't catch it on camera so again can't confirm it's country of origin. Hopefully we catch up with them tomorrow along the way because we're really curious to find out more about them and they're awesome truck. Not holding our breath though because they were hootin' along!

Graeme:
Yeah Chita was awesome. We both ate our weight in raspberry crepes, coconut chocolate crepes, coffee, fresh subway sandwiches, pork, lasagne. You name it, we ate it. Consider it fattening up for Mongolia where we may go hungry. Everyone in Chita was lovley as virtually every person we met in Russia has been. With the exception of the hotel staff (which are obviously rotten from top to bottom), the people are lovley and warm. Everyone wishes us good luck at every opportunity. Wow, I notice I've repeated myself. I said this a few posts ago.

I'm really finding it weird to effortlessly communicate in Russian. When I say communicate, I'm certainly including non-verbal communication in that observation. There is not much we've not been able to organise, repair, order or remedy with a few key words and some hand gestures. As you may have picked up from a previous post, one of my favourite things to say is 'oochin priatnya' (nice to have met you) to people that are shy. One young gentleman waiter at the Chita coffee shop was very shy and eager to please. He would occasionally sneak in words like 'ok' and 'yes' which we zealously would repeat back as some kind of mutual celebratory hi5. When we left, I shook his hand and said those magic words. I hope it made his day. Then again, maybe it's so everyday to say that, it may not be special.

Even in the seemingly confined space of our mystery machine, we manage to find private space. There is the 'lounge room' back here, or a private 'sitting room' in the passenger seat. With shoes off, it instantly feels like you're relaxing. It's occasionally nice to have breaks from one another, just like you wouldn't at home, but then come back togeather to have tea and watch some telly. Just in the way I went and checked on the train backlog, Cassie may have gone to take photos. Video diary's are great to look back on.

I'm a bit concerned about our first ever land border crossing into Mongolia. Naturally we're loaded with stories of other peoples experiences, good and bad. One thing that surprisingly has got me edgy is hearing that Mongolians love to push in at borders. Grr. My single largest pet hate of this trip is pushing in. I know absolutely that it's just me taking offense to something that here is obviously not offensive, but it's been the hardest thing to let go of. I think it's because I couldn't do it to someone else, yet they so willingly do it to us. Any reception desk, cafe counter or barge landing is without fail, pushed in by someone. I'm not sure what erks me about it so much. I wonder how I can get over it?! If it's any concellation, our two intense pushing in sessions at the Yakutsk barge and the Kandyga return barge, ended without problem. It's just that you have to do the same. 'When in Rome...' as they say. One thing that works in our favor(and I hate to admit it) is th
e bullbar. It does allow us to stay tight behind whoever is in front of us. It's puts us in a 'nothing to loose' negotiation with a quarter panel of someone who has 'everything to loose' and is trying to cut in line. I couldn't care less if we scratch it or bend it. I know Kym Bolton from goannatracks also was seriously fed up with pushing in at barges, so perhaps it's not just me.

I think also what's concerning me about the border crossing, is it only runs office hours Mon-Fri. If we get pushed in on a Friday, we could be in for a world of boredom and frustration sitting at the border for 2+ days. All going to plan, we should be there Thursday at the latest, so it should be fine. We're pretty sure we have all the paperwork, and know not to surrender any of it, so it should be swell. I just need to relax about it, but it's the typical, never done it before kind of fear... the unknown! We're going to be used to it after a further 6-7 border crossings.

OK well, that 'oughta do tonight. We're excited that we may be camped at the shore of Lake Baikal tomorrow night. It depends how much time we want to spend in Ulan-Ude, or if we see it one our return from Lake Baikal.

Thanks for the comments, keep them coming. Kerry has a wealth of experience throughout Asia and makes the Russian toilets not seem so bad!