motomundo

Page 19 of 20

20-8. AT THE MUSEUM

 
 
The parcel with our spare-parts is not likely to arrive before Monday or Tuesday. What to do? The historical museum saves our day. Here we see how the original Siberians, in particular the Yakuts and the Burjats, lived and dressed - much like the Samic people we know from Scandinavia. We see guns and crosses from imperial Russia and a reconstruction of at stately home. Dusty and unreal. On the upper floor there is an official exhibition about WW2 in Siberia and a strange collection of clothes and household items from each decade of the 20th cen. What to say about hard and cruel times? This is very much an unresolved question.

19-8. IMPATIENT WAITING

 
 
It has become summer again after days of rain and icy cold. At the river-boat pier we found a table and had a cup of coffee. We shop for our meals at a tiny supermarket next door to our house. Then we sit in Svetlana's kitchen and eat bread with cheese and salami. The window opens to the South and we can get internet-connection on our satellite-terminal and mail home the day's blog. If we are lucky we get our adult children on-line, and Soeren in Denmark. Today we track the parcel - it is now in Moscow waiting transfer to Irkutsk. We would never have managed all the challenges of the tour without our satellite-link - and not to forget the air-time from Inmarsat. Every word and every photo have been on a visit in space on the Inmarsat satellite before landing on this home-page. Fascinating!

Nina

 18-8. A SHORT WALK IN IRKUTSK

 
 
Green Car sleeps on the parking lot while we are waiting for the spare parts, promised for next week. A taxi tok us to DHL in a suburb. On the way back we jumped on a tram. Wooden seats, sturdy electric transport plowing through streets full of cars. Hjalte got a hair-cut before we strolled down to the Angara-river. The evening sun shone on the old wooden houses and then the new shop-signs lit up on Karl Marx street. Tired and hungry we found a newly opened cafeteria with heavy furniture in a kind of Mongolian style, beer and cheap fish-dishes.

Nina

 17-8 A GREY SUMMER'S DAY IN IRKUTSK

Not for a long time have we slept so good as in our bed here in Irkutsk. Hjalte and I take a day of not doing much here in Svetlana's flat. My down-coat warms me wonderfully on this seven degrees summer's day. I did some shopping in a well-assorted super-market  next door (oh what a difference from 22 years ago when we here and food was almost impossible to find!). We visited Green Car. It dreams about getting the spare-part Soeren has sent from Denmark. We eat in Svetlana's kitchen. TV shows floods in Copenhagen! That Siberia is almost under water seems quiet normal.

16-8. WATER IN THE POTS

 
 
24 hours after the break-down Misha had the gearbox back and it worked! We were deeply impressed and clapped in our hands. He told us it was the first time he had opened a gearbox. Rain was pouring down most of the way to Krasnoyarsk. Here in the middle of Siberia we had to change trucks. We got new horsepowers and Valodja, a seasoned trucker. His "evacuator" was higher and stronger and ready to take us and Green Car over the worst part of the road to Irkutsk. We set off as night fell and drove without rest for 24 hours. Potholes became bathtubs, puddles became lakes and the mud deeper and deeper until we could hardly pass crawling along in first gear. At midnight we arrived groggy to Irkutsk. We found a safe place to unload Green Car. The first two back-packer hostels were full and the expensive hotel too expensive. In the cold rain we trudged along the empty Irkutsk streets looking for a bed. It had its own poetic charm, like a romantic French movie. We did not think to record it ourselves. Good luck found us a room in a private flat on Lenin-street - and it turned out to be a perfect place to stay.

15-8. BEWITCHED

 


In the middle of nowhere the tiny "evacuator" breaks down. Oil on the tarmac. The gearbox is cracked open. It is midday, we are bewitched by Russia and besieged by mosquitos and biting insects. Noting to do but keep up the spirits and try and put a counter-spell on everything refusing to move us forward. Misha stops a truck and gets a lift to the nearest town. He returns  some hours later with a gearbox-shell, pulls out his hammer and a few tools. He removes the drive shaft and opens the gearbox right there on the dirt. Hjalte sighs. Will it ever spin again… Hours pass. When night falls we put up our tent between tall and poisonous plants. We argue over a tent-pole forgotten somewhere. I am stung three times on my thigh by a cruel wasp and it starts to rain.

Nina

 14-8. THE TRANS-SIBERIAN HIGHWAY

We are sitting with Misha the young driver in a tiny truck - an "evacuator" as it is called in Russian. The trans-siberian highway runs arrow-straight for hundreds of kilometers. Not much to see but uncompromisingly flat and endless wheat-fields dotted with birch-forest. A corrupt police-officer stops us in a small town and Misha has to pay a bribe. Misha shrugs his shoulders and drive on. We skip dinner and just carry on towards the East. Hjalte and I spend the night in a godforsaken truck-stop. Misha sleeps in his truck as all the other truckers do. Sleeping on the seats can't be comfortable. But that's the conditions.

 13-8. I DO NOT WANT THIS

When I understood more than two hundred kilometers difficult potholed dirt-road and rain as well was coming up I just said STOP. I flatly refused to start. My rear battery-box is rather low. I am like a shrimp full of eggs, I really have to take care of the batteries I carry under my belly. Hjalte is talking about replacing the springs with longer ones to raise the car, but I believe it is music of the future. Now I close my eyes and shut my windows and I will not open them again before Irkutsk. See you again on the blog from Irkutsk. Green Car.  PS - you can follow me on the map all the way from Omsk to Irkutsk.

 7-8 I AM THE ONE RULING

 Every evening as Hjalte and Nina has to find a place to sleep it is me that decides. When I am low on amps, they just have to take the first hotel turning up. In this way they get surprises every day, and if no hotel shows up they have to sleep in the forrest. Now this evening I drove them to a big old concrete hotel in the town Iz… something. The Soviet-style administration made it hard for Hjalte to find a socket to plug me in. Fuses could not take it, windows were forbidden to open. In the middle of the night Nina had to get up and un-hook me because the administrator found the wire was getting hot. This is normal, but all the time she said Nelsja! Forbidden! So Hjalte had to go down on the street and start up our generator. What a fuss…. No, by far I prefer the small truck-stop motels where I can spend the night talking with the big trucks while I charge. Add to that, that many more people stop to admire my beautiful body and electric parts. My picture is now on thousand mobile phones all over Russia. Green Car.

6-8 MY BIRTHDAY IN MAKUSHINO

 Naturally the sun was shinning and the temperature was a balmy 38 degrees at lunch-time. While Green Car was charging at a truck-repair shop we were sitting in an air-conditioned cafe next door and had a tasty dish of lasagna. One of the nice surprises you suddenly can enjoy. We are out east where there is far between hotels and cafes. So at the end of the day we thought ourselves lucky to find what on the map appeared to be a town. We drove for some time around skirting deep holes, mud and unforgiving heating-tubes crossing the road in the worn-down town domineered by a vast industrial block. It turned out to be a mountain-like grain elevator, fitting the endless wheat-fields. in this god-forsaken town we eventually found Hotel URAL with eight small rooms and a staff of friendly women. They did not think it a problem to let us use a socket for Green Car. After a couple of badly needed showers I dressed in my blue silken dress and high-heeled shoes. Hjalte put on a clean t-shirt and then we were ready to celebrate my birthday with a bottle of sparkling Russian champagne on the bed.