A fab biking day! A lovely sunny day and amazing countryside. 
The Russian lady that I was staying with was up and making noise at 6.30 and so I got up too. It was good to have a kitchen to use to make some porridge and coffee. About 7 her neighbour (who let me use his "shower" last night) turned up. He was drunk and a totally different person to the man I met last night. He was very sweet actually. He was all affectionate and cuddly with her this morning and it was now blatantly obvious that they were a couple - even through they had been all private and secretive about it last night. He was very talkative with me this morning in contrast to the silence last night. We all shared some coffee.
It was really interesting to see their diet. I am not sure whether it was typical as obviously there are vastly different diets of people in the UK and so I should not just work off a sample of one household. However, it did seem that they had an extremely large percentage of preserved foods. She made loads of chutneys and preserved vegetables. These could all be seen in her fridge. The also ate loads of smoked meats and fish. In fact - nothing really fresh other than bread. 
The guy popped off to get me some presents and returned with a dried fish, a tomato, a glass with a woolen cover made by his daughter when she was little and a silver coloured little plate thing. What a fantastic collection of presents to take on a bicycle! How sweet of them.... 
The shared hole in the ground toilets were so bad that I could not face them this morning and instead decided to wait until I found a forest somewhere on the outskirts of town. 
When I was leaving the guy gave me some phone numbers for his friends in various towns along my route in case I have any problems. I was not sure about him last night but in fact he turned out to be a very kind man. I did end up buying them some more food and also giving her a few pounds for the accommodation - which she was very happy about. It was good to stay with them. I was not so sure at first but it turned out really well. 
I was on my bike by 8.30. On the way out of town I met a couple hitching with one bike. It turned out that they had come to the area to do some mountain biking and where hitching back to St Petersburgh. They gave me their contact details for when I get to St Petersburgh. Cool. I now have Russian contacts for Moscow and St Petersburgh :-) 
There was very little wind today in comparison to yesterday and what a difference it made. I could really get a move on and ended up doing 140km. 
I stopped for an early lunch and just as I was packing up this Russian couple stopped to say hello. He had been mountain biking in the area and they were driving back home. They were very friendly and supportive. Just as we were saying goodbye the lady ran off to her car and returned with a small hand mirror and gave it to me! Fantastic I thought (as mine had cracked a few months ago and I had not got round to replacing it), however I was not quite sure why she thought I needed one.... Should I have been offended? Was I not wearing enough make-up for Russia (all the Russian ladies are really well made up)? Was I covered in Mud? Did I just look like I needed a good facial? I just took it graciously with a big grin on my face! 
Like Mongolia there are loads of wild horses wondering around. They are very beautiful. This horse was very interested in me and followed me along the road for about 5 minutes. 
Although it was downhill over all the route was NOT flat! I had done 100km by 4pm though. A big difference in speed in comparison to yesterday against the strong winds. 
I stopped off at a shop about 7.30 to get some supplies. I had hope to get to this town to get a signal but there was no mobile reception and so my plan was just to leave town, bike about 5km and set up camp for the night. I bought some fresh bread (the Russians do really great great bread) and some fruits from a very friendly female store keeper and sat outside to eat them on the shop steps. The lady came to join me and talk to me and soon there was a crowd of 3 elderly ladies chating away to me in Russian. I used my English-Russian Phase book to help the conversation along. They were all really friendly and bubbly and I enjoyed sitting had relaxing with them. 
This is the only one of the 3 women that would let me take a photo. One of the ladies had obviously had a drink or two but was nice with it. She invited me back to sleep at her house. I was uncertain at first as I fancied a chilled early night but it is not often that you are invited into Siberian homes (where as I can camp anytime in my life) and so I took her up on the offer.
She had a small house at the edge of the village which you accessed via animal pens. She introduced me to her husband (who could not talk as he had a tracheotomy), her daughter and their grandson - all of which lived together and slept in the same room.
The whole evening was very surreal. The Russian woman kept on repeating herself over and over again (as drunk people do) in Russian. She did not stop muttering once. Her husband on the other hand could not talk at all and so had to gesture all of the time. The husband and myself had a connection as we both seemed to be in the same position where we could not easily communicate or make ourselves understood. He was really welcoming and friendly and basically looked after me. The daughter was not interested and did not try to communicate with me at all and just ignored me (giving the impression that she did not think her drunk mother should have brought back a strange, foreign girl on a bike when she had only popped out to the shops to buy some chocolate). The grandson just cuddled up with the grandfather most of the night and did not say a word and was obviously very shy.
The have a wash room shed at the back of the house which contains metal baskets for putting in hot water to have a wash and also a fire and heath for heating the water. There is no running water and it all has to be bought to the house in large containers (like in Mongolia). The loo is a hole in the ground at the end of the garden. Fortunately as it was just for the single family it did not smell anywhere near as bad as the loo in Aktash where I stayed last night.
For some reason she did not want me to take any photos of anyone or their house. Perhaps it would take away their souls? It means that I have no photos of the evening for this blog unfortunately. I did get some tomorrow morning though which I have included here (with permission from her hubby).
I felt a little uncomfortable with this family and went to my bed about 10.
It really was a fantastic days biking but it was just not the same as Mongolia. Even for remote sections where there was fab scenery and very few cars, the experience of riding was not the same as off the tarmac. When the dirt tracks were good quality in Mongolia the riding was just amazing. The whole country just has a different feel to it than anywhere else I have been. Riding off tarmac is the proper wilderness. Un-touched and beautiful: pure!
No comments:
Post a Comment