Staying in Onguday in a little wooden lodge we met some very interesting people. On first impression the lodge was clearly a bit of a party place in summer as there was a swimming pool (empty at this time of year), a stage and tiered seating, as well as a pool bar that was cranking […]

Sorry to lie to you, but we haven’t seen any bears, not yet anyway. We stayed in Gorno Altaysk, a decent sized town with teenagers in school uniforms behaving like any other teenagers in every other part of the world on a Friday afternoon, and a lot of military propaganda. We had noticed many memorials […]

I’m not sure what was supposed to get better, according to our truck driver friends, but it certainly isn’t the roads. We have officially crossed into Asia and the landscape is incredibly barren but beautiful. It’s so much more idyllic away from civilisation, the towns tend to have a rather pungent smell and the roads […]

A couple of weeks ago we met some lovely truck drivers at a service station. They were two Germans and a Dutchman who were transporting quality cows from Finland to Siberia. After a conversation about roads and drivers, they told us that things get better after the Urals. We had high hopes. Our first hurdle […]

On a day full of sunshine and magnificent autumnal colours, we had our first experience with the Russian authorities. It seems to be that you are not pulled over for actually doing anything wrong, but more like you get pulled over and then they try and find something wrong. We were waved down by a […]

Heading out of St Petersburg we arrived in Veliky Novgorod. At first this was just another city to us, but research later prevailed and it is known as the birthplace of Russia. It is one of the oldest towns in Russia. Wandering around the ancient Kremlin (with scaffolding almost equally ancient) I was astounded by […]

I could not wait to get to St Petersburg. We had a fairly simple experience at the border, the only drama was not caused by us but by some poor bugger who rode his motorcycle down the wrong road (accidentally I’m assuming). All of a sudden there was shouting and sirens, I was half expecting […]