Barnaul, Russia: Day 28
Passed up a stay in Semey at the border to trek on into Russia where we met a sudden and dramatic change of landscape from desert to evergreen forest and greatly improved roads.
These people chatted us up and then cut us in line. They smelled like sausage.
These nice people did not cut us in line and gave us another melon for no reason. They smelled like awesome.
Russia! Border was easy, comparatively speaking. Met two nice families while waiting. One gave us a watermelon! Lost another hour, 11 hrs ahead of EST. Hope 2 find internetz soon
08-13-07 at 22:08 – барнаул (Barnaul), MOTHER RUSSIA
We’ve finally made it to the country that started that paperwork craze. But wouldn’t you know it, it’s a lot like Canada with super-friendly people and even a co-ed strip club in the hotel cafe. We made dinner on the side of the road at sunset–cup of noodles in a marsh land, very pretty, but HUGE mosquitoes! Then made it to Hotel Banaul lat, which is amazing, I wish we could stay here for days and days. Took a nice hot bath at 2:30 am when we got in last night and feel a million times better.
Cruising through (I think) Siberia today from Bernal to the Mongolia border. The car does well when we have 96 octane gas and poorly otherwise. Gonna stock up as soon as we can exchange our Kazak Tenge for Rubles.
One note on Kazakhstan . . . It’s true what they say; the roads are like driving on the moon and wild hemp lines the roadways for hundreds of miles. No sign of Borat but definitely some of the worst driving since Azerbaijan (sorry, Mushwig, but outside of Baku it’s a nightmare).
I’m sure a million other noteworthy things happened yesterday but I’m just going to have to revise this with pictures to help jog my memory when I’m back in the states. Right now I’m about a quart low on brainpower from huffing fumes.
Not sure what the cell phone reception will be like once we leave Russia, but we will continue to update when we can! They are al going to be looooong days of driving now as we’re still trying to make the party in UB on the 19th.
at 2:49 – SMS Post
Its cold out now. We went from 43 degrees C in Turkmenistan to 12 C in Barnaul! Roadside melons have been replaced with mushrooms & tea. Need sweaters!