Today I got up early thinking we need to undertake some action. The train people had promissed us to give us a call when the bike would be here. But so far no news, I think we could wait another month here. So we packed our small backpack and headed out for the Yaroslavskii vogzal.

Like always we use the metro to get somewhere when it is a bit further. In our case it was around 9am. It was interesting to see how many people are on the subway at this time. Commuting like this every day does not seem like the easiest thing.

We got to the vokzal or train station and went looking for the bagage service. It was not so easy as in Irkutsk or Krasnoyarsk this time as the station is big and people are less friendly I find here. After half an hour asking about and walking around, we finally got to the bagage service and to the desk we needed to be. We asked the kind lady behind the desk and showed us our form we got when shipping the bike. But she shook her head. They did not know about the wagon where it could be on. Then another guy came in and suggested it would be in another station closeby named kazinsky vokzal. Another person said it would be still in Krasnoyark.

We were not sure, so we called the Krasnoyarsk station. There they told us, it should be in the Yaroslavskii vokzal for sure. After Larisa and the girl calling around for an hour or so, there was news. The company Logistika we used had used another company to do the transport. So we called this other company. They said us that the wagon indeed was here but could not be opened here as the wagon is sealed and to be opened only by this company. The goods would be ready however, only from tomorrow at this other company. Nice, but this other company is quite some distance from our stay, near the MKAT ring. The bike should pop up there tomorrow.

It was not too good for our stress levels, but what can we do… We will call the other company tomorrow and check if they have found our goods…

We are now almost one week in Moscow. But still no bike… It should be here, but the bagage people in the trainstation are still trying to find it between the bagage. At least this is what they are claiming. If we don’t get more news soon, we will have to go the station to find out more ourselves.

In the meantime we can have some rest and do some site seeing. In the last weekend there was a great airshow called MAKS. Unfortunately the weather was so bad we decided not to go. The alternative was a horse show on the red square. It was a fantastic show. We had seen a lot of horses in Central Asia and Mongolia. But the guys and girls here showed us a lot of skills. They seemed like gymnasts on horses to me.

The bad weather continued, this is no big deal as there are many interesting museums in Moscow. One of the best I believe is the Tretyakov Gallery. It has a huge collection of Russian painters. The only problem was getting there. We travel by using the metro like most people in Moscow, but I only have one pair of summer shoes here, and also no jacket. We put too much in the train cargo apparently. So we arrived a bit wet in the Tretyakov gallery. But we enjoyed the nice paintings here. I am already thinking to go back some time. One visit is not enough here.

Before visiting the Kremlin, we made a walk through the TSUM and GUM. They have more choice in clothes etc than in Europe I think, but the prices are a lot higher as well. Following the Red Square, and the eternal flame, we have also visited the Kremlin. The cathedral square here is impressive. If you take the tour in the Ivan the Great belltower, you get the overview of the Kremlin which is pretty impressive. The view from the top is also nice.

If you still have some energy left, there is the Moscow nightlife. We found a lot of American looking places. I don’t understand this very well, it must be some kind of love/hate relationship between Russia and America.

 

Instead of riding the bike today, I could enjoy a ride in a taxi to the airport of Krasnoyarsk. We checked in and went upstairs to watch the runway. There were some private jets and a big, new looking Boeing 777-300 ER from aeroflot. We would fly in the latter one.

We got in the large plane on row 49. Most rows have 8 seats, the total number of seats is 451. It was a very comfortable flight with a duration of 4 hours and a half. During the flight we had to turn our watches back 4 hours.

Once in the Sheremetyevo airport of Moscow, everything went smooth. We collected our luggage and bought a ticket for the aeroexpress. This is an electric train which goes from the airport to the green line metro station Belloruskaya. From there we had to change to the grey line and get out at tsvetnoy bulvar. Then a little walk and we were at the hostel. Once inside we had a walkaround by a friendly american guy. His name is Scott and he is from Nevada, he appeared to be riding a GSA as well, from 2010. It became even better when he even had the latest Adventure Rider magazine 🙂

We were happy to be in Moscow. It was now time to relax and wait for the bike. The bike should arrive on the second of September. In the meantime we did some site seeing, of course. To be honest, we have both a bit enough of site seeing and prefer to relax now.

We also met with an English biker Tony P. He is famous in the adventure riding world by doing whole BAM road. He is a real kind gentleman. Tony also introduced us to Walter C, the man behind Sibirsky Extreme. It was a nice evening, as we had diner in a belgian restaurant. I had my favourite dish, a good steak, with a belgian beer 🙂

 

Today our main goal was to get the bike and bike luggage on the train to Moscow. After the morning breakfast, we started by gathering all stuff we wanted to ship as well to Moscow. We like to travel light, so the less we need to carry around, the better for us.

We were ready around 11am and headed for the train station. We met our contacts. By now, luckily, there was another way to get on the platform. I could ride around, and get inside the building. We just had to park the bike here, and gather all our stuff in a big bag.

After that we did the administration part and said goodbye to the bike. Hopefully we will see everything back soon in Moscow. Voila, that was one thing sorted out for the day.

Next we had to find out transport for ourselves. It turned out that flying was cheaper than a 4 person train coupe and faster than going by train. On the train it is around 60 hours to get to Moscow, while by air it takes a good 4 hours. So we bought plane tickets and for the next day. We will be in Moscow tomorrow! We booked a stay in Godzilla in central Moscow as well at the time.

We had the rest of the day off and did some more walking to explore Krasnoyarsk. We walked along prospekt Mira and of course to the Lenin square. There was also a nice park and we sat on the big wheel. We went to bed early as we head to go to the airport the next morning.

We did not sleep too well though as our room was right next to the parking and there were only very small curtains on the windows. There was a big strong light on the parking that was on and off at times and it shined right on my bed when it was on.

The eggs were good though and I was surprised to see the same working girls in the cafe again. They were shouting at eachother though as one of the orders for a truck driver was not right.

We were strong again and ready to do the last stretch to Krasnoyark. Don’t worry about the road here, the gravel roads have reduced to 0.1% from here, only an occasional road work gives you some gravel from here.

We left our small village and after some time we passed the bigger city of Kansk. There was a nice airforce base here. I saw actually Migs fighter jets standing by. They looked like fulcrum F29’s to me.

Another thing to note is the police from here. Yes I was stopped today, it had been a while. I guess I was doing around 100kph and I was only allowed 90 or was it 70? I just got a warning though.

Around noon we got in the big city of Krasnoyarsk. I was told about 1 million people live here, but it is smaller than Novosibirsk. It was a huge city though, as it took about 30 minutes to get into the center. The first thing on the agenda here was to go to first official BMW dealer. Remember my new shock I got from BMW, and which was fit in UB? Well it needed some tuning. It is not a simple mechanic spring, but a more complex electrical version with an engine fit to it. It is called ESA in BMW terms, which means Electronic Suspension Adjustment. With the press on a button, you can adjust the preload and damping of the front and rear shock. Easy, right? Of course it gives you not as much fine tuning as other mechanical aftermarket shocks offer.

Anyway we arrived at the dealer, called Elit Avto. They have a car and motorcycle section. The guy at the bike section understood my question immediately and took off with my bike. What the hell? 🙂 We could wait inside and were offered tea, coffee and biscuits. I had explained that I got the new shock under warranty, however I had to pay for the service. We will check if this is the correct procedure once back in Belgium.

When the bike was back it was really low now, I could my feet on the ground easily. I had been riding for the last 10.000km with a setting on high hills and hard 🙂 I changed it back to high hills though.

Our next stop was the railways. When I was riding to Krasnoyarks, my lust to ride all the way to Moscow on this road got lower and lower. So I wanted to check if you could put the bike on the train like we could in Irkutsk.

We found the train station and the bagage section easily. The guys here told us they don’t do bikes as they are too heavy. We needed to go to another company for that. They explained us where it was. It was already around 3.30pm by now. I had been riding all over the city, and there is big traffic here. Before entering the city from the hills we noticed a big smog cloud above it, well now I knew which caused it. But Russians are quite polite for bikers and you can easily manouver between the cars.

We tried to find the new address but appeared further then we first thought. So I had another plan. I still had the number of Rostislav in Irkutsk and gave him a call. He texted me back with a number of a local guy in the station. We called this guy and he turned out to be, right, in the bagage section of the train station. But only 20m further from where we were. So back again to the train station 🙂

We found our new contact easily now and Larisa did her magic. She is a real gem in doing business like this, I am sure many things would not be so easy without her. It was not a problem anymore to put the bike on the train and the price was good. We only had to come back tomorrow before 12 at noon to put it in a crate. The guys asked me if I could ride on steps as we needed to get the bike on the platform though.

We had another thing sorted out, the next step was finding a nice hotel or hostel. We saw a few places, but most of them were very old soviet style and dirty. One of them reminded me of a place I saw in Nukus. But we found a nice place eventually called hotel Ujut close to the Yenisey river, with a safe parking for the bike.

In the evening we went for a bite and a walk downtown. We discussed our plans for the next days. At it was actually cheaper to put the bike on the train, and I did not have too much lust anymore to ride with the TKC’s on the boring asphalt to Moscow, we would go and leave the bike at the station tomorrow.

We took a day off in Bratsk yesterday. The city has a typical soviet layout, with the main street being ulitsa lenina and a big lenin statue. We could already feel it is getting colder here, and the summer has ended. It was around 10 degrees and people wore jackets on the street. I had also noticed it in the forest, the colour of the leaves was already yellow or brown for some trees. We both realised it was time to leave Siberia and head back to the West.

The problems with the water in the Far East also played part in our decision not to go further East. As can be seen in the news the summer of 2013 is catastrophic for the Chabarovsk area with a historic high water mark level. The Amur river has reached to about 7m and people are being evacuated. But it is not only this area that has lots of rains for over a period of one month. Also Magadan area is affected and parts of the road have washed away.

One wonders if this is coincidental, or perhaps a reason is behind it. A possible reason would be warming of the ocean water caused by the submarine volcanic activities. Higher water temperatures cause higher evaporation. This damp is carried via the wind over the landmass. I am not a geologist but it seems like an acceptable theory which I would like to further review, because if this would be the case, it would not stay to just this summer… I also wonder why this specific area was hit by the heavy rains.

Anyway, not only the water catastrophy, but also the colder temperatures felt at the end of August, made us not go further east and north, but rather back home. My friend Ivan who lives in the coldest big city in the world, Yakutsk, told me they already had temperatures of -2 degrees C. The ideal period to go to the Far East would rather seem June or July at the latest.

The third reason is a resource reason, we have run out of resources which is basically time. The reason behind this was mainly mechanical problems, remember the rear shock. But also leaving home a bit later than planned, and staying a bit longer than planned in some nice locations, stretched the planning. An even more flexible planning and more time could resolve this issue of course…

Back to our story now, as we are ready to leave to the West.

We carried our luggage down from the room, and I went to the stayanka to get the bike. Before riding back, there was friendly russian guy who gave me some clay so we could glue a broken mist light of the GS. These little but strong lights, typically can break or come loose with a fall. He had noticed one of mine was loose.

I also took my spare oil can out, I had about 0.4l synthetic 10W60 of a french brand high grade oil left and poored it into the bike. The oil mark was back just above the middle now.

Larisa was waiting by the hotel when I got back. We loaded the bike and road along the lening street outside of Bratsk. I don’t know why, but I also like to ride via the Lenin street and watch the statue when I leave a city. By now I guess we have seen about 50 different kinds of them 🙂 One remarkt though, in Russia, there are still many of them, while in Mongolia and Central Asia, most of them have been removed. I will not go deeper into this, but there is a reason behind it.

Once outside the city, it was a nice asphalt road, which runs for about 200km to the city of Tulun southbound. From Tulun you hit back on the M53 which is the transsiberian highway in this area and leads to the next big city which is Krasnoyarsk. If you look well on the map you can also see there is a small road from Bratsk to Tayshet, a city on the M53. This looks like a serious shortcut, but I had no documentation whatsoever about this road and decided against it. I still wonder however how this road condition is.

The M53 is a pretty boring highway if you ask me. Many trucks are seen here which leave massive dust clouds once you are on a gravel stretch. There was not a lot of gravel left, it was mainly asphalt. You also have the railcrossings.as the road follows the trainrails, or is it vice versa?

Anyway, we rode well into the evening, and into the sunset. A bad thing to note about riding in this direction is obviously that you get the sun in your eyes in the evening. This can be bad for eyes and dangerous as you can be seriously blinded in some cases.

Once it got dark we were on the lookout for another gostinitso and we found one around 10pm. It was a typical truck stop place with cheap food and beds. The guy who watched my bike was armenian. We noticed that in this area there were more and more armenians and georgians looking people also.

We had a beer in the cafe and talked to a truck driver and watched the local girls dance on the latest russian hit songs. I had ridden about 600km today, so I wanted to go to bed. I also had a problem with one of my eyes, it was aching a lot. Maybe it got a cold by riding with open visor during the darkness. Rest was needed, but the ride of tomorrow would be shorter, about 300km to Krasnoyarsk.

 

Yesterday we had done about 450km. Today I wanted to get to Bratsk, it would mean about 550km and I don’t know how much asphalt we would see. So we got up a bit earlier then yesterday and said goodbye to our host.

We went back a bit in the town to make some pictures and fill up.

Even after leaving the town of Magistralnii the road stayed asphalt. It was only a while after the junction to Nebel that it turned to gravel again.

The road was pretty good, and the scenery was nice, but less impressive than yesterday. We made a few stops under the way.

Just before the city of Ust-Kut we met another tank. This time the man invited us inside, he was eating and having some vodka.

He also invited us for a ride in the tank on a steep track in the wood. He asked me to park my bike up on the steep track which I did. Larisa got in the front passenger seat and I was in the tank. The ride up the hill was very relaxing, but then we reached the top. The man must have thought war broke loose because he almost flew off the hill. I could not stay up and had to tighten myself inside the back while everything was flying around. Larisa in the front could witness the ride better and told me how the tank just made it through every corner and just missed the trees.

Anyway we both made it back in one piece, barely, and the man enjoyed himself when he saw our faces. He told us when he is very drunk he rides too fast… It felt very good to get on the bike again and ride further.

We entered the city of Ust-Kut and saw the Lena again. We checked the barge waypoint and there would be a boat the next day to Lensk.

Our decision was already made to go back, so with pain in the heart I drove on the West towards Bratsk. It was another 300km to cover over a mix of gravel and asphalt roads from now.

We had some more borsch, lemon tea, bread, koteletki and puree and drove the rest of the day further through the siberian woods.

At some points the gravel had very big stones and the big felt like steering by itself. At other points the road was very dusty and it was very hard to see through the dustcloud.

In the evening we reached the city of Bratsk which is actually very big. It lies at the Angara river, and there is a huge dam. We rode over the dam, and had a look at the power station.

We had to ride another 25km to get to the real center, and checked in to the Bratsk Hotel. They have a restaurant, disco, biljarts, and good rooms 🙂 We had a blast!

 

I had a strange dream last night. In winter time I go mountainbiking now and then. In my dream I was riding in Oudenaarde in Belgium on a very muddy stretch and the bike was going all over the place… Was it a sign? The talk with the russians of last night had made me thinking at least!

Our clothes were almost dry, but not our boots. No big deal as we would have probably more rain today. One of the russian also said last night it would be sontse today, 100%. We went to have some breakfast first and check the weather.

It was really misty today, you could see maybe a few hundred meters far. The hotel was also situated in the beginning of a forest, so it was a nice atmosphere.

After having a nice blini breakfast we packed the bike. We met the local butcher and he gave us a nice bottle of fresh cow milk. I like milk a lot and it was really good.

We left the gostinitso and about after 500m the asphalt ended and the gravel started. It was actually nice, it was misty, there was the big forest, and it was not raining.

We followed the road through the forest and the road was ok. My dream was a bit over the top surely. After half an hour or so we got to the Lena river and there were nice rocks on the right bank of it.

We stopped at a small village which had a bridge over the river, and there was a sign to… Wait, was it Magadan? No it was Magdan, and it was 70km further. I was talking to a local guy in a lada at the bridge and Larisa made some pictures of the Lena river.

 

We followed the nice gravel road towards the town of Zhigalovo. We noticed some cows doing a rivercrossing 🙂

It was around 2pm when we reached the town of Zhigalovo. We are not quite the early birds anymore and we made plenty of stops. We filled up the tank and checked the map. Now we could take a rode back to the Transiberian highway or M53, or we could continue north towards the BAM road.

We stopped at a local cafe to discuss the plan. It was another 270km to the next town following a gravel road, but a worse one then the one we had in the morning. We didn’t actually talk about it a lot, and just rode on north.

We first rode through a few small towns, before we entered a vast forest. It is hard to describe how beautiful and big this is, I think you can only know if you are there yourself. Under the way we didn’t see too many people anymore, just an occasional truck driver and jeep.

 

After a few hours in the forest we saw an exceptional tank like vehicle. We stopped and had a chat with the two guys driving the tank. They told us they were looking for gas in the area. They also told us this place was full of bears so we should take care and not sleep here. I was actually planning to camp somewhere in the forest, but it became almost out of the question now.

 

The rode got a bit rough with many potholes and some muddy stretches. It was also getting later in the day. Near the evening we reached a post, with a guard dog and two security guys. It was a gazprom post, and you could not go in. They also told us not to camp here in the forest and to continue to the next town. Not only because of the bears, but also because of the water. If you watched closely next to the road, you saw the swaps.

Camping in bear area, you should know what to do. I know you should also keep your food separated from your sleeping place, hang it high in a tree 100m away from the tent. But what if you have a confrontation? We did not have bearspray and I was not armed. If you have the bad luck to meet an agressive bear, you should be armed or it can be game over quickly.

So we pushed on. Luckily the road improved, so we could increase our speed. The sun started to set, and it gave the most tremendous light over the forest. It was just amazing to watch, we both enjoyed a spectacular sunset. When it began to get dark we passed an abandoned town, with a truck graveyard. We were getting closer to civilisation now.

We had to do another 80km or so, but the last part of the road we could ride around 80kph. It was getting dark now and Larisa was already fearing that wolves and bears would be waiting for us on the road 🙂

We got out of the forest finally and it was a good feeling I must admit. We saw a sign now, to the left was Ust-Kut and Magistralnii, to the right was Severobaikalsk. You should go right here if you want to continue the western BAM towards Tynda. We were already heading home so we turned left to the town of Magistralnii. This was still 20km to go, but it was asphalt now.

Well at least it was asphalt for some 5km or so. It turned to gravel again soon. I heard by the sound that I was riding on big stones at times. Just before the town, we had to go under the rail bridge and there was a big pool. It seemed pretty deep. It was already 10pm and I didn’t want to walk it. So I just rode through it, but it was deep! Luckily the engine did not stall and we reached Magistralnii all ok.

Unfortunately we didn’t find a room right away, but we ended up in a small place run by an Ukrainian guy called mria. He was happy though to meet a fellow countrymen.

He gave us a good diner and bed, we slept like roses.

 

It had been raining again during the last night, so we decided to leave the island today. We wanted to go for a swim first on the beach at the shaman rock, but the water was really cold. It stayed to a little footbath.

 

We packed our gear together and left the hostel. The roads had already turned into mudpools. The main road, which was gravel, had some small streams in it now.

It was a bit more difficult to reach the ferry this time. So we arrived a bit soaked and cold. On the ferry we talked to some guys about the road further north towards Kachug, Zhigalova and further. They all said we should go back to Irkutsk and follow the main road. Hmm 🙂

After the ferry there was a stretch of gravel as well of about 5 or 10km which big splashes of water. When a jeep rode through it next to us, we were now soaked in a nice brown colour 🙂

I didn’t have enough of the offroad yet, and decided to follow a small road through the forrest instead of the asphalt road. After some miles it became really rudded. Ruts are difficult to get out, I finallly had to drop the bike to get out. Larisa was not too happy so we decided to go back to the main road.

It hadn’t stopped raining though. We were thinking the rain for the catastrophic area in the far east was coming here also. We reached Bayandai again and stopped for some food. Here it was decision time again. I wanted to ride a piece of the BAM but we needed to head home already, so what should we do? We decided to ride to Zhigalovo and see again from there.

The ride to Kachug was straightforward as it was all asphalt. I just had to be careful as there were many bumps in the road.

We arrived in the evening in Kachug and filled the tank. We saw the Lena river here for the first time. I was thinking before about finding the source of the river, but it seemed to deep in the forest. We stopped at the river to make some photos and moved on. At the end of the town we found a nice gostinitso called 3 sosni. There was a good cafe next door where we met russian guys.

They told us about the road from here more north to Zhigalovo. Appartently it had been raining here good as well and it was all gravel from here. On top of that a tractor had passed by today to scrape away the top layer, turning everything into a soap like surface. Were they scaring us or telling the truth? I had no idea to be honest.

I enjoyed the Zhigalovskoe beer and the food and we went to bed. We put everything on the floor to let it dry, because our clothes were soaked. Hopefully they will be dry tomorrow.

It had been raining during the night. No asphalt and a lot of rain, you can do the math. But it was still ok in the morning, just a bit slippery. We had the choices of going hiking or riding to the northest point of the island called mis choboi. Nikita told us the ride is ok, it just had a few difficult stretches which were soft sand and a bit mud through a little forrest. Of course we chose the second option, but first we put the bike on a diet. Wow, she looked almost like a dirt bike after removing the alu cases and ortlieb bag. It would be a fun ride today! After having the nice breakfast at Nikita’s we left to the north. The road was ok, there was some soft sand, but the rain had made it a little firm now. There were some muddy parts, but we stayed on the footpegs 🙂   At some point we reached a barrier which was closed, but we could simply go around it through the woods with the bike. Just behind the barrier the fun part starts with the soft sand. It was time for Larisa’s walk here 🙂 Then came the little forest which was fun as well, I felt almost like mountainbiking here. We saw a nice spot to stop, it was right next to a beach and a fireplace. Unfortunately we forgot to bring the Omul. After the forrest the landscape was even more beautiful. We kept following the road until we reached the end of the island where we found a meteo site and some boots sitting in the lake. We talked to a few guys here and they told us we could go back a bit and then turn to the right to get to the most northern point. So we did, and we found the point, it was easy because there were standing about 7 UAZ busses with tourists. One of them were germans and they seemed more interested in our bike then the point 🙂   We went to another point and did some walking here. We followed another route to go back to the hostel in the evening. It was really fun riding with the bike so light.

When we got back into Khuzir we bought some Omul and beers before going back to Nikita’s. After having a good diner and some beers we rested a bit and went to the banya in the hostel.