06.10.09

I woke up in the Ridder Gostinitsa (hotel) and realised that its time to go home.  The daylight was shorter and shorter every day.  The cold was always just around the corner.  I had planned to end the trip in Goa, India, after crossing from Almaty to China and going over the Khunjerab pass to Pakistan, but some other commitments have come up and the idea of ending on the beach sipping cocktails will have to remain as a future plan rather than just being a month away.

I still do have to get to Almaty as it is my last tyre depo.  I have a pair of Mefos waiting for me there – and I do miss my Mefos.  They were going to get me to India, but now they will be my ticket back to Europe.

So the plan for today … spend the day in Ridder getting some niggles sorted.  I had a couple more minor luggage rack breaks that needed re-welding (predictable aafter Mongolia).  I wanted to try and find the air leak in the main fuel tank so that my second tank could be used again.  I needed to get a front bracket made up for the front fairing as one had broken after the corrugations in Mongolia. But most importantly I needed a new gasket for the joint between the exhaust header and the Remus silencer (silencer is a funny word to use for a Remus).  The gasket had blown out a day or two ago and not only did I have hot exhaust gas blowing all over my leg, but the noise of the bike was horrendously loud.  Even with earplugs it was threatening to make me deaf.

I rode round to visit Andrei, the mechanic I had met here 4 months ago.  He took one look, and a huge grin spread across his face as he recognised me.  I spent a few hours at Andrei’s as he sorted most of the above list (including a gasket made from asbestos threads) and helped me with the others.  At the end of the list, he predictably refused payment, so I shoved some cash in his pocket and told him I would surely see him again … sometime.

I got a text from Safran back in Poland.  The Polish 4WD guys (www.syberia-mongolia.pl) we met on the BAM Road in Severomuisk (when we were nearly finished and they were just beginning) actually did the first half of the BAM road … they made it to Tynda and said it was the ultimate, the ‘Everest’ of dirt roads.  These guys have done a lot of tough roads … they are Poles after all.

To be honest they surprised me.  I didnt even think it was possible in a car at all with all the railway bridges etc.  They have done incredibly well.  I have to say my feelings on doing that road are similar.  I have never felt such a sense of achievement as I felt as we pulled into Severobaikalsk.  As I said when I wrote up that blog, I think that road is the benchmark, the standard bearer for tough roads.  The remoteness, the bogs, the endless river crossings and the length of the thing.  Its about 2000km to Tynda and  over 4300km if you go all the way to Vanino.  The endlessness of it is really morale draining – yet it drives you on – once you start there is no alternative.  And the scenery is always fantastic.  And the people you meet, perhaps because the environment there is so tough, are really super people – super kind and super generous.

And then of course, there is the Vitim River Bridge …

I will contact those Polish guys and start a Vitim River Bridge club … for those who know first hand what it is to cross that bridge!  Even now, 6 weeks later, I am unable to put into words what its like to cross that bridge.  Just thinking of it sends shivers up my spine.  Thank god I am in simple old Kazakhstan and Mongolia these days.

When I look back at my own thoughts of that day, crossing that bridge, its like the mind had gone into automatic self-protection mode.  You see it and the first reaction is ‘ …’ Then within 10-15 seconds the brain stops thinking about it and starts focussing on the tiny point 600 metres away that is the far bank.  You start pushing and you never look down.  And if you are lucky, like Terry and myself, you dont have a serious violent storm come along when you are halfway across the bridge.  If you are less lucky (or have metal boxes on your bike) then hell may well visit you on that bridge.

– – –

07.10.09

I left Ridder with nice clean clothes.  Sasha’s girlfriend had washed my stuff in their washing machine overnight.  I didnt want to go direct to Almaty by any typical route.  The plan was to try and avoid roads I had been on before on previous trips and earlier this trip.  I started by heading to the local bookshop and buying their road atlas of Kazakhstan.  It was pathetic.  When you think how good western and even Russian road atlases are, the scarcity of road information in Kazakhstan is a bit of a joke.  Earlier this year I had had Kazakh policemen stunned at the maps I had already of Kazakhstan (mostly Russian road maps published in Moscow  that extended to Kazakhstan).  They figured with such good maps of their country I must be a spy – until I convinced them I bought the maps at general bookstores in Moscow.  For some reason Kazakhs obviously dont do good maps.  Their national road atlas only emphasised that.  If you want good maps of Kazakhstan, but them in Moscow, or at Stanfords.

The only way out of Ridder south goes through Ust Kamenogorsk but on leaving Ust Kamenogorsk I kept to the East and was going to try to get South by sticking more closely to the Chinese border.

Navigating was a real challenge.  My half decent maps of Kazakhstan didnt cover this region and I had to rely of Garmin’s world map and the useless Road Atlas of Kazakhstan.  I have long since given up on the Smelly Biker maps.  They too are pretty much useless.  I somehow had the idea that they were collated tracks, but they must instead just be stuff scanned in to a map making program.  When i was using the smelly biker maps, not a single road I used was accurately represented.  I had millions of rivers, but no more roads than Garmin’s world map – which at least allows different levels of detail and differentiates between towns and cities.

My lack of accurate maps at one point led to say “stuff it” to all sources, since they were all proving inaccurate, and I did 25 km direct across the steppe to pick up the main road again.

Sadly much of the repair work done in Ridder came unstuck.  My asbestos gasket blew out after just 70km.  The fuel tank air leak is much better, but not perfect. I had late lunch not far from Aksuat and by the time the sun went down I was out on the steppe about 60 km east of Ayagoz and decided that was as good a place as any to spend the night.  Kazakhstan is the best country in the world for one thing … sunset pictures.  Every sunset I have ever seen here is a photo opportunity.  I wasnt going to waste todays sunset and chewed up the last remaining light snapping pics.

It had been a while since I camped, but here the weather was good, no rain threatening and no mosquitos.  I went behind a small hill and in the now darkness (it was only just 6pm) erected the underused Khyam tent.  I had enough in the laptop battery to keep me going for a couple of hours, but when the battery died, I closed up shop for the night and went to bed.

– – –

08.10.09

I slept poorly between midnight and 3am due to the cold.  I knew it would be chilly on the steppe at night but this was freezing cold.  Eventually I emerged from my sleeping bag to fumble around for my long socks, fleece jacket and fleece gloves.  With these on I slept like a log till the sun streaming in at 7:30am fired me awake.

The bike and the tent were covered in thick frost.  It had been well below zero at night.  There was no point hanging around.  There was no bacon and eggs or coffee headed my way sitting there in the tent so I packed up the gear and the tent, ate a bounty bar for breakfast and got underway.

In an ideal world I would have headed south over the steppe to pick up the next road I wanted to be on, but I was veryy low on fuel and had to head into Ayagoz to fuel up.  Getting away from the main roads in KZ was a challenge in terms of fuel.  Plenty of little towns every 30-40km or so, but none have fuel.  I understand from talking to locals that there is usually someone in town who sells fuel from canisters, but its always expensive and a pain in the butt time wise.  You can spend an hour trying to find the guy even in a small town.  I tried late last night just before dark and gave up in frustration.

I looked for breakfast in Ayagoz while I was there but saw nothing appealing.  It has little going for it – unless you are in the Kazakh Army.  I thought of trying again at Shinkosha, the little village where my chain broke on the way up.  The local shopkeeper had let me use his garage and tools to do a bodge repair.  I might as well pass by and say hello, and grab a bounty or two from his place.

I turned off the main road at Shinkosha and tried my luck navigating in the sticks again.  Non-existant road signs, non-existant roads and poor mapping made it tough.  Again I reverted to direct cross country when in doubt.  Eventually I made it to Makanchi and grabbed some lunch in the market.  From there it was south towards the Chinese border and around the big lake Alakol.

I didnt realise what a massive lake it is.  I was riding down the side of that lake from Makanchi to near Druzhba for the best part of three hours.  When I emerged onto the Druzhba road and what I thought would be a speedy asphalt highway back towards Usharal I was shocked … shocked that this Druzhba road, the road of ‘friendship’ (beside the oil pipeline and train line of the same name) that was built to link the Soviet Union and China, was infact probably the worst piece of asphalt I had seen all trip, and possibly in my life.  It took a lot longer than expected to get into Usharal and by the time I arrived it was 6pm and dark.  I pulled into a petrol station to fill up and asked a passing cop where I might find a hotel.  He directed me to one in the centre of town and I settled in for a night in a proper bed, warm shower and proper food.

– – –

09.10.09

Yesterday had been warm.  Low 20s at the peak of the day.  I had thought about stopping and stripping off at least two layers of clothes but instead had ridden with three layers (my riding jacket, goretex liner and softshell jacket) completely undone and flapping in the breeze.  I would plan ahead today and ride without the goretex liner.  It was warm and it hadnt rained on me since the road to Irkutsk.

I left Usharral and found a cafe by the roadside.  I stupidly looked at the menu and asked for something from it, only to get the usual reply – ‘we dont have that’.  How silly of me, I meant to ask ‘what have you got?’

I settled on a plate of plov and a cup of tea, and began to plan the day.  It was 600km from here to Almaty and I decided no diversions today.  I would stick to the main road and just get there. In any case, my front tyre was pretty much bald, and proving very unpleasant on the dirt roads.  The tyre had just been one I had found in the tyre bin at the Irkutsk bike club.  It was a Sahara 3 tyre, a type I am particulalry not fond of.  It was 70% worn when I got it and it was clear some other bike traveller passing through had swapped their set of badly worn Sahara 3’s for my same sized slightly worn Mefos that were in the tyre trailer there.  My Mefos had 60-70% left on them, and were there waiting for me to collect on my return.  Does anyone know who stole my Mefos and left a pair of crappy Saharas?  I still had one brand new Michelin Desert rear tyre in Irkutsk so at least I have had a decent rear tyre for the last 7000km, but the front had been problematical since Irkutsk and was now dangerously low.

The day began well and despite it being reasonably early and one layer of clothes down, I was not cold and had no need to plug in any of the heated gear.

Tragedy struck around 10km before Dzhansugir when I rounded a bend at a healthy clip and was met with a police officer waving his money stick at me.  He showed me his brand new photo/radar device which had a crystal clear foto of me leaning nicely into the bend at 98 km/h.  Hmm so I am 8 km/h over the speed limit I thought … hardly worth zapping me for is it guv?  But he took my documents and made me ride back to look at the speed signs.  There was a 50km/h sign posted just before the bend.  When I returned the senior officer in the back of the car pointed to the section in his book that amounted to a 19250 tenge fine for such a violation … thats about 130 bux!  I remembered my wallet was down to 6000 tenge and had been thinking this morning I needed to find an ATM at some stage today.  With this lesser amount in my wallet, I decided to flop it out in front of the officer … flicking through my cash, I showed him all I had was 6000 tenge.  He sighed and indicated I should leave it on the seat next to him.  When I did that, he handed back my documents and I was back on my way.

What kind of country enforces speed signs on highway corners?  I wasnt a happy lad as I pulled into Dzhansugir and searched for a ATM.  When i finally found one, I put only a few thousand tenge in my wallet (just incase it happens again) and the rest in my pocket.

Fifty kilometres down the road and the engine splutters out and dies, just as I am passing through the town of Kyzylagash.  I was out of fuel.  I still had 3 litres in my spare canister and poured that into my tank and prepared to ride off.  Only the engine wouldnt start.  Turned over normally, but no spark.  A russian looking young guy and his father approached and watched and listened.  “Bad fuel” he said.  Hmmm I regualrly rotated the reserve fuel into the main tank and then refilled the reserve fuel canister to avoid issues like that.  So I didnt buy the bad fuel story, but there was no firing at all, but the engine kept turning over well on the starter.

The guys introduced themselves; they were Volga Germans, whose families had been exiled to Kazakhstan by Stalin during the war.  There was no petrol station in town, but one of the local shops sold petrol in old plastic coke bottles and we had to try some fresh fuel.  I pushed the bike to the store and the Volga Germans drove off to get something, saying they would meet me at the store.  When I got there they arrives with a hose to syphon the tank out … I could have done that as I had a length of hose.  As I was about to start siphoning into my 10 litre canister I had a quick look into the canister and all was suddenly clear.  The fuel dregs in the canister (the same canister I just emptied into my fuel tank) clearly had 2 layers, a clear layer and a golden layer (Kazakh petrol is golden in colour).  There had been water in the fuel, and now that water was at the bottom of my fuel tank and water going thru the fuel injector … thats why no spark.

How did water get into the canister?  Some wise-ass must had done it last night.  The bike was parked out the back of the hotel.  I leave two side bags on the bike as they contain nothing important to a theif and I left the petrol canister on the bike.  Stuff like this is so Kazakhstan.  Never have any problems like this in Russia or even Mongolia, but in KZ, someone tries to prove he is better than you by putting water into your fuel canister.  I am guessing he actually stole the fuel or most of the fuel (all 3 litres of it) and replaced it with water.  I remembered on the Tokyo to London trip, James and I never had anything stolen in China, Mongolia or Russia, but countless times in Kazakhstan we had things pilfered.

I syphoned the tank dry, and discarded all the fuel, loading up the bike with fresh clean fuel from the village store.  By now, having turned the bike over so many times, the battery was dead.  I pulled out the jumper leads and the Volga Germans positioned their car so I could borrow a few dozen amps.  I turned the engine over for a good 30 seconds as the water in the fuel lines was flushed out and finally the bike spluttered into action.

I thanked the Germans and we had a quick chat about my travels.  When we came to the subject of traffic police hassles I swore in Russian extensively and mentioned they had stung me for 6000T earlier today.  The Germans laughed at me and said ‘a foreigner on a motorcycle … ha you should not even bother stopping for them when they wave you over’.  I made a note of that advice.

While I had been stopped sorting out the fuel problems in Kyzylagash there had been a change in the weather.  Wind had picked up from nothing to almost gale force.  The sky had changed from cloudless, to totally overcast.  All in the space of less than an hour.  As I pulled away towards Taldy Kurgan, rain was falling on the hills to my left and the temperature had turned notably chilly.

I stopped for a shashlik just south of Taldy Kurgan  by a roadside vendor.  It was lamb shashlik.  Proper shashlik.  And the first lamb shashlik I had eaten since leaving central asia.  I dont know why it is, but in Russia, shashlik is always pork or chicken.  Even when you go to a Kavkaz or Uzbek shashlik place in Russia it will be pork or chicken.  Maybe lamb is just hard to come by in Russia.

Thirty km down the road and with me zooming over the hills to get through the light rain to the warmth oof a hotel in Almaty, and lo and behold, in the middle of a windy road a cop strides out wwaving his money stick at me.  I dont even know what I am supposed to have done wrong.  I began slowing down and remembered the advice the Volga Germans gave me.  As I approached the cop waving his red baton, I startled him and made him jump back with a sharp opening of the throttle.  I still had no exhaust gasket and a rapid blip of the trottle made a very loud noise indeed.  I blasted away over the hills and wondered how accurate the Germans’ advice would prove.

I kept one eye on the rear view mirror, but no-one was following.  At the speed I was doing over the wet windy roads, they would have to take some serious risks to catch the zippy X-Challenge.  20km down the road and there was another section bound to have more traffic cops (there were everywhere today and I was now getting good at guessing where they would hide).  Sure enough I rounded a bend and there where I expected, was a cop car and a cop with his red money stick.  I however was going nice and slow so the only reason he would pull me over was because his buddy down the road called ahead.  But he didnt pull me over.  They have their own localised revenue raising operations I guess.  One towns traffic cop is not going to stop his own revenue collecting so that he can help his competitor in the next town save up for a new car faster than he can.  The germans were right.  No point stopping for unjust cops just trying to line their pockets.

I got into Almaty and headed straight for a hotel another biker had given me the co-ordinates for.  I had been put up at my banker friends expense last time I was in town but didnt want to let them do that again.  This time, I will check into a hotel, and then call them to say I have arrived.

The night was spent at a local bar with Marat, a local biker I knew from earlier, who runs Silk Off-Road … running bike tours around Kazakhstan.

– – –

10.10.09 (saturday)

The day began with lunch with Dauren, an old work colleague, who had my last change of tyres … the Mefos.  I met with Marat in the afternoon and we went round to visit Volodya, the only guy in Kazakhstan who can balance motorcycle wheels.  He fitted and balanced the Mefos, and then did a more thorough exhaust gasket repair, with asbestos cloth this time, rather than the asbestos string shoved in that we had tried in Ridder.  I have confidence this repair will be more permanent.  Volodya runs one of only two motorcycle shops in Almaty and should be able to sort me out with a new chain on Monday.  The chain I have on now has 13000km on it, and was fitted on the BAM road soon after Tynda by the side of the track.  I had gotten 19000 and 12000 out of the previous full life chains, so this one was probably on borrowed time.  2/3 of its 13000km have been dirt km.  Marat had his tyres changed while we were there too and both rode off happy with the new tyres.  The Mefos were like a dream.  It felt like I had half the rolling resistance of the old tyres.  It felt fast!.

I worked out a route back across KZ.  I have crossed Central Asia to / from Almaty a couple of ways in the past and wanted to at least do a different route.  I will head up direct from Almaty to the capital Astana and re-enter Russia somewhere near Kustenai.