We posted some pictures. Enjoy! http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ronskibeat/SproutsNKrautsGentToUlaanbaatar2008

We are in Ulaanbaatar and totally exhausted. We'll write a proper update tomorrow.

 

 

It's been 4 days of eatine dust. Driving here is incredibly hard but the car is holding up well. So far we only dented the engine sump which leaks a bit now. The highlights so far were: breakfast with a mongolian family, pete fixed a ural motor bike, getting lost in the desert, holding an eagle, seeing incredible sun sets, making friends with camels, digging out the car after getting stuck in the sand, crossing river without bridges.

We are in mongolia! After a long 8 hours wait in the blazing sun we crossed the russian border into mongolia near tsagaannurr. At the border we met loads of other rally teams which made a nice change. We also got a first taste of the road conditions here. It took us 4 hours to drive 100km! But the views are worth the hard work. The landscape is just breathtaking. We now head on and hope to outrun the rainy season.

We are in mongolia! After a long 8 hours wait in the blazing sun we crossed the russian border into mongolia near tsagaannurr. At the border we met loads of other rally teams which made a nice change. We also got a first taste of the road conditions here. It took us 4 hours to drive 100km! But the vi [Missing part 03]

After a very quite night in the sibirien forest we decided to venture a bit deeper into the forest and discovered a traditional sibirien village. In the village there were beautiful russian style timber houses, a water well in the centre, barking dogs and people that seem to never have seen foreigners before. This place seemed to have been centuries away from where we live. We will post a few pictures when we get the chance.

The same day we continued our journey towards Omsk. Omsk is a very bizarr place. Huge factories with tall samoking chimneys are scattered all over the place. It felt like driving into Mordor but we didn't find the Mount Doom to destroy the ring to save the world. Sorry! We will continue our quest.

Before we set up camp that night we stopped at a lonely caffee along  the empty dark road. We were the only guest. The three woman working in the caffe were really interested to find out more about our journay and sat down with us at our table. It didn't take long until the vodka came out. Pete got away without drinking vadka because he still had to drive but "unfortunately" I had to join in. After one bottle and some "fluent" conversation in Russian that party seemed to get going. Unfortunately, some guy called Alexander who seemed to own the place wasn't very happy that we chatted with "his" ladies and he made us feel very unwelcome. In fact he started to really annoy Pete and we decided to "escape" this isolated dark caffe although I would have happily continued drinking vodka.

A few kilometers down the road we found an ideal spot in the forest for the night. We camouflaged the car and tent and slept for a good 10 hours (it's a holiday afterall!). The whole night it didn't stop raining and the next morning the forest roads we used were muddy and at some point we seriously got stuck in the mud. Finally! We tried all sorts of tricks to get out out of the puddle of mud but the wheels just didn't stop spinning and we couldn't move a bit. Covered in mud I walked to the next road to find some help. Fortnately a huge "Kamaz" truck passed by and in "fluent" Russian I convined him to pull us out but he didn't have the equipment for it. This was the moment to test our brand spanking new towing cable donated to us by Atraxion. And what a job it did. Within minutes we were back on the road to Novosibirks.

In the evening we arrived in Novosibirsk. It is a big lively beautiful city situated at the river Ob. In Novosibirsk we met up with Ilya and Eugene who are friends of Lisa who we met in Moscow. We are really glad to have a "Russian connection". Ijya and Eugene found us a place to stay for the night. Strangely the otels in Novosibirsk don't accept foreigners so that we rented a appartment for the night in old Soviet style house. The whole building has a constantly running central heating, a 50 year old fridge, bunker style steel doors (I think they are blast proof).

After we had a shower Ilya and Eugene took us to a traditional Russian restaurant where we had Altai vodka, red kaviaar shashlik. It was really delicious! Later we were given a night tour around Novosibirsk and went to the geografical centre of Russia.

Today we'll head into the Altai mountains which are known to the Russians as the "Second Switzerland". We can't wait.

 Frodo and Sam

 

 

got stuck in mud novosibirsk

Yesterday we stayed in the middle of the ural mountains. Both of us thought we could here a bear near our tent but it turned out that we heard each other snoring :-D today we reached sibiria. We are in asia now! At the moment we are 250km east of chelyabinsk which is known as tank city because the WWII winning T34 was built here. So far we met quite a few people on the way and without exception everybody has been really nice to us.

We're just relaxing with a beer at the banks of the river volga. Today we left kazan, the capital of tatarstan, behind us. On the way we stopped for food and tea at a traditional bazar. Also, our dash board started smoking today due to a faulty switch. It stopped after a while. No real problems so far... Touch wood. It's another 2000km to novosibirsk from here. I think in one week we will cross the mongolian border.

We spent 2 great days in moscow. It's such an amazing place. Well worth a visit! Our hosts vasily and lisa were very kind to us. Thank you so much for your hospitality! We are now somewhere between nizhniy novgorod and kazan in the volga region. Haven't seen the mighty volga yet as we did most of the driving in the dark. We'll try to get to yekaterinburg tomorrow.

We spent 2 great days in moscow. It's such an amazing place. Well worth a visit! Our hosts vasily and lisa were very kind to us. Thank you so much for your hospitality! We are now somewhere between nizhniy novgorod and kazan in the volga region. Haven't seen the mighty volga yet as we did most of th [Missing part 03]