Siberia I

Two days ago we arrived in Barnaul, so we are back in Russia. Finally! After spending 8hours and the night at the border. We were missing a document, stating that Marcin is allowed to ride "my" motorbike (it is registered in Germany on my name). And it is simply not enough that I am there, saying that he is allowed to do so. After hours of waiting, filling in forms and the same boring procedures as on every border I started complaining because the sun was setting and it is no fun to ride here after dark. So after about 5 hours I asked the sour faced border officer if we could camp at the border. And to my surprise he left his little office and 50 people waiting, met us behind the little office cabin and was quite nice. He showed us a room where we could sleep and another officer gave us a HUGE watermelon.. later we were drinking some vodka with them and spent a few hours talking. In the end we got all the papers we needed and after a night in the customs control zone garage (where they store the "bribes", i.e. watermelons, apricots, eggplants, paprika they take from the passing trucks) we entered this really nice part of Russia.

After Almaty we were expecting boring countryside in Kazakhstan, but it turned out to be a quite enjoyable ride. The landscape changes constantly, hills, not too hot, thunderstorms in the distance, we even found some rocks that would be good for climbing and bouldering. We met a couple of motorcyclists, that were already preparing for a huge biker meeting that will be at Lake Balkash on Sunday. Coming back to Russia was for us almost like being in Europe again. Even the landscape looked very European. Like Europe without people.

In Barnaul we met two German motorcyclists (www.jeansontour.blogspot.com), one of which we had already met in Tajikistan. So we knew they were also heading towards Mongolia and will take the same route in Mongolia, and it was a nice coincidence that they were staying at the same hotel. They showed us a very nice friendly motorbike garage, where we changed our front tires, changed the oil and I got a knew chain kit on my motorbike. It looks like brand new. Apart from the shattered plastic thing above my front wheel.

In Kazakhstan I had another flat tire. The tires are so worn off that they are easily pierced. We fixed it on the side of the road, the sun burning down on us, no shade at all anywhere close... so we start riding again and I am looking down on my newly fixed tire, to check if everthing is ok, and I don't see Marcin stopping right ahead of me in the middle of the road. Something was lose on his bike. When I looked up I got a heart attack and I guess he did too when I crashed into him :) It was the permature sudden death of his rear tire. We fixed the tube, and he wanted to keep riding on the old tire. It worked - for about 4 kms, then he had another puncture and finally put on the new tire that we have been carrying for about 12000kms now.