Siberia: Signing off from Novosibirsk and Civilization, and into the Mountains and Desert

Well this is the first I’m actually saying wish us luck, since this is probably the last blog post until we get Internet again in Ulan Bataar, Mongolia, which is who knows how many km ahead. Joel and I are enjoying our last taste of a large city until Ulan Bataar, and chances are we might meet up with remaining member of Safety Third, Cyrus Grey who’s been driving like a bat out of hell trying to meet us at the Russian-Mongolia Border before our Russian Car Insurance is up.

Good chatting and e-mail with the people I’ve seen online. And wish you all were here. I’m actually caught up for the first time on the blog and hopefully will continue writing and documenting without falling too far behind. Anyway see you next time.

Siberia: Bit of City Culture Shock, Costly Internet

I’ll admit, Hotel Sibir is probably the nicest hotel we’ve stayed at without a doubt. Its a bit overpriced according to Lonely Planet, but its nice to have your own bed and breakfast and shower. It had only been about a week and a half since Taganrog, but being back a large Metropolitan Area was strange.The large amounts of people, especially for the large gatherings of youths near Lenin Square, underground pedestrian passes, the list goes on and on.

After grabbing some quick eats, Joel and I get back online and update family, friends, and work. Joel was up first checking the balance of the account. We had bought an access card for Wifi in the lobby being around 300 Ruble(13USD). It turns out it was only 50MBs of Internet instead of what we thought what the bandwidth of the connection may have been so Skype and Video Chat was one way to eat through 13USD real quick.

We were quick to use the wired computer terminals instead

Siberia: How to get to Downtown Novosibirsk and Hotel Sibir

Just like the problem we had with Omsk and getting on the right freeway, Novosibirsk was just a blob on our map with no city detail, we’d buy another map but didn’t seem like worth the investment since we’d only be in the city for a short period of time.

We’re driving long following signs and eventually we find ourselves seeing signs for the next town towards Tsunaguur, Mongolia, on the M-54 South. We stop by a gas station and ask, I get tossed around by a few attendants and luckily the manager is there. No one speaks English, but he eventually figures out that we need a better map and directs us into the city, and the only thing I could understand is that he said stay straight, and keep going.

Eventually, the road dead ended but hadn’t gone over any main railroad, so we followed and assumed we were near certain landmark. After 10 minutes of wandering hoping we were in the right spot of the city, Joel pulls over and we find ourselves in Lenin Square.

A quick phone call to the Hotel, we get directions from their English Speaking staff, park and check in.

Siberia: Using our Gas, and Helicopter Gas Station

It was another night spent in the van because it was dark and couldn’t find decent enough flat land for Joel to setup the tent. We were woken up by the rain again, and I decided it might be best to get the van to higher ground to avoid the risk of getting stuck. Our gas is low and we use a bit from spare gas cans.

Just a bit down the highway, we spot a helicopter on the way to an interesting Gas Station. The pumps were in these small huts, they also said they’d accept credit card on their sign but for some odd reason wouldn’t touch Joel’s. We paid in cash and headed out. Less than 50km to Novosibirsk.

Siberia: Joel and Elmer vs Siberian Mosquitos

We ran out of light, and I spotted a decent trail off the highway. Stomachs growling for food,  we decide to setup camp in the higher part of an open field. Because of the rain from the past couple days, the ground was still moist, and moisture and stagnant means, mosquitoes, LOTS of mosquitoes.

Even in the clouds of mosquito repellant we sprayed on each other, Joel tried to start a fire with the driest wood he could find. It wasn’t even 10 minutes of trying to get used to the mosquitoes that we found ourselves literally covered in mosquitoes, biting through our clothing and anything that was dark or moist.

This is Joel and I racing off.

You can’t really see the majority of the bites around my cheeks and forhead, but I think a couple got me on the lip. It made eating a little difficult. Joel got eaten up around the ears.

Siberia: Towards Novosibirsk, Gas Stations without gas…and more road.

Finally making it onto the right freeway to Novosibirsk, our goal was to make it a little before the city, then find the hotel early the next day. We were on track and just needed to keep moving, luckily the rain had stopped.

Later down the road, Joel nudged me from another cat nap I nodded off from, and noticed we were low on gas. The next gas station we stop by has Diesel and 92 Octane Gas. We pulled up to the pump and I noticed a sign on the pump, "HET" (Niet), meaning "none". No choice but to hope we’d make it on fumes to the next station.

More open road to camp.

Flat tundra, day light running out, after rain. It was going to be really moist.

Siberia: Junction of M51 at Omsk,

We hit the road fairly early, and just like after any rainstorm cold air was settling in. Just like every city Joel and I get to, we hope there’s a way around instead of going through the town where they’re high possibilities of getting lost.

The confusing thing about the junction of M51 is that on our map there were two ways, one having a lot of turns to the North, and another M51 that followed the rail straight.

Our map that we bought didn’t have the detail that most maps would. It looked like the junction was from where the airport was. We drove following a sign to an airport, but we noticed there was barely any traffic the it looked like the road hadn’t been used in a long time.

If this was the airport, it was either under construction or deconstruction. We get to a rail and ask the railguard and he points down the road which leads back into the city.

We finally stop for gas, and I ask for directions. The cashier wasn’t all too helpful and differed me to a different trucker, Joel had better luck when a young man by the name of Alexander approached him about the Rally.

On top of getting correct directions to the highway towards Novosibirsk, he traded us cool cell phone cleaners and we gave him one of the magnets I had gotten back in Japan. Thanks a lot Alexander, his enthusiasm and warm greeting was just what we needed from a long night, and rude greeting from the people before.

Siberia: Marathon Drive to Omsk in the Rain

We had 2 days, more than 600km to Omsk, and then an additional 700km to make it Novosibirisk to receive our part in time at the Hotel that our boss Steve reserved for us. The clouds that were dark, seemed to get darker and before you know it, it starts raining.

If we were to make it on time in Novosibirsk, Joel had to keep driving (Joel didn’t want to risk me driving without my license since it was in my wallet which is non-existent). It occurred to me at that moment that we were already a month into our Journey, Hemel Hempstead seeming to be so long ago, at the same time we had the most challenging part ahead of us, and then some.

With longer stretches without gas stations, Joel and I started fueling up our extra gas cans, but to keep decent ventilation and to keep Joel awake at the wheel, we cracked the windows, letting in the cool Siberian Air. The rhythmic electronic music and patter of the rain on the windshield and the white noise of our wheels on wet road made me tired and a nodded off, regardless of how bumpy the roads were-I think Joel described it as if someone strapped a life size rag-doll to the passenger seat and was bouncing everywhere.

When I came to, it was hard to tell how much sunlight we were going to have, but before we could stop anywhere, it was already dark.

Joel could barely see the road and we were out of washer fluid. We’d be able to make out the road perfectly fine, except when oncoming traffic lit up our insect graveyard of a windshield. Joel later told me all he could do was stare at the bordering white line on the edge of the road. We’d occasionally use some window cleaner we picked up in the last town, and eventually filled up our windshield fluid with a mix of water and window cleaner, and seemed to help out a little bit.

We found a spot slightly outside of Omsk, off the freeway, and for the first time Joel and I slept in the van, trying to sleep as the wind whistled and rain drummed against the roof.

Siberia: Cashing up in Tyumen

Joel and I woke in a brisk morning, smell of smoke from last night’s campfire was in the air, but for the first time it felt like Autumn, plus what clear skies we had before started turning cloudy, we were hoping it wasn’t going to rain.

Only 20km outside of Tyumen, we were low on cash and headed to the nearest Bankomat (ATM) we could find, not getting to deep into the city.

Oddly enough the place that exchanged money and did international transfers at the edge of town, didn’t give Joel an option to withdrawal money, but a quick check at the shopping center across the street and we had cash in hand for gas and food until Novosibirsk.

Joel and I were actually really impressed with Tyumen, it seems to have a lot of development rapidly growing out of the city. There were the nicest condo’s we’ve seen at all on this trip and new car dealership after new car dealership.

There was also a pretty cool power plant exiting the city.

Siberia: North to Tyumen, No cutting through Kazhakstan to Omsk.

Normally at this time of the day in the picture, Joel and I would be staring into the on coming night, chasing our shadows with the sunset behind us heading east. I had forgotten that a bit of the Trans-Siberian Highway cuts through Kazhakstan, and we needed to detour from Kurgan…north to Tyumen unfortunately adding an extra day on our Journey.

Even though it started as country and tundra, heading North the scenery changed rapidly from fields to forests filled with tall pines, and it got extremely cooler than we were used to.

The good thing about the forest we chose for camping is there were a lot of dead trees, good for camp fires to help warm the soul.