St. Petersburg, Hermitage

 

Finally the promised second batch of St. Petersburg pictures. It's not easy to choose there would be many more...;-)

From Irkutsk to Ulan Bator

I just returned from an interesting trip where I didn't have any internet so I hope you'll forgive me for being late. Here is the report, about my excursion you'll read in my next blog:

As I write this I have no internet as I am about 350 km west of Ulan Bator in the town of Karakorum where I'll visit the first monastery of Mongolia (founded in the 16th century)

The last week again was full of (driving) activity. Monday morning it was raining again but it cleared towards noon when I went to see Nicolai for a farewell lunch after which I left Irkutsk direction Ulan Ude. The road first runs at times along Lake Baikal and has really nice vistas from time to time. Its quality, though, varied  and at times was again atrocious. It then goes through almost endless birch and mixed forests and on my map there were a even a few camp sites. Alas, the one I picked which was a little off the road wouldn't accept people like me... So I had to go on which, however, brought an interesting encounter: soon I overtook a big truck with a trailer covered with advertisements of Seefestspiele Mörbisch. I was able to get a good picture and forwarded it to the office of them but have not received any reaction... But it was getting dark and I desperately needed to find a place to stop. The motel mentioned in my guide didn't exist anymore so I just parked close to a gas station with a few other trucks. That's the advantage of driving your own hotel room....

Next morning I continued to Ulan Ude which actually was quite pleasant and I spent about 3 hrs there including lunch. It sports the largest Lenin bust in the world, quite impressive. Which reminds me that I'm late with all my pictures. My apologies but I really was too busy...

My intention was to reach the border by the evening. Both, the road and the weather started to deteriorate as I went south and traffic got less and less. Also the villages on the way became more and more dilapidated.  One of them has a museum of the Decembrist which, however, was already closed as I arrived but to be banned to that place really must have been awful.

Kjakhta is the border town to Mongolia and that's what it looks like: a big military camp and a town with unpaved roads that turned to mud as it was raining when I arrived. There are two hotels, one worse than the other. So I went to the first one asking for a room (with actually no real intention to take one) when they offered me to share one with another Russian. I politely refused but at least got them to let me stay in front of the hotel and do the registration for me which my guide book said was vital for crossing the border. It was rubbish as nobody was interested as it turned out the following morning.

There were only 3 trucks and about 8 cars waiting when I got to the border. It still took an hour till I got to the Russian customs. There I was surprised by their interest in checking everything, not intensively, but more then when I came in. But again I had to fill out the customs declaration for my vehicles twice and the officer diligently put everything into the computer again, just like when I came. I will never understand why they are so complicated… The Mongolians were friendly but not less bureaucratic. I think I had to get 5 different stamps and fill out 3 different forms with basically the same information. Must be a Russian tradition. But after 1 1/2 hrs everything was done and I could leave. Well, not quite. Just as I was leaving the border post I get stopped again and had to pay USD 50 for car insurance….

But then I was done and proceeded south to Ulan Bator. What sprang to the eye immediately was that more or less all of a sudden the hills were green but much less forest and the villages looked much more prosperous. I stooped at the first village to get a local sim card. There was a mother with her maybe 13 year old daughter in front of me. When it was my turn I tried to make the lady behind the desk clear what I wanted but she didn't understand. The girl interjected in very good English and pointed me into the right direction and 15 min later I had a Mongolian phone no.

The road to UB was almost excellent and I made good time and about 6 pm passed the sign for UB. Almost at that moment the road started to resemble a landscape of the moon and slowed the traffic to almost walking speed. Next to it was a perfect road but it was still not finished. Today it was, thank God, as I was already dreading this drive… I took about 2 1/2 hrs to the guest house (ca. 15km) that had been recommended by my guide as it was run by an Austria/German couple. I had to call as I first couldn't find it but then was received cordially by Sybille, the landlady. The guesthouse was founded/built by her and her husband also as a social project as both of them came to Mongolia as development helpers in 1995. They rent rooms and gerts (the local tents used by the nomads and dotting the landscape as soon as I entered the country and they also have a few spaces for motor homes. I immediately felt 'at home'…

Thursday I relaxed a little and had to do a few little repairs/improvements in my 'Datcha' and had a walking tour of UB city center dinner with Prof. Batsukh, a professor for management at the local university who I had met in January in Vienna as he was guest of a school mate of mine. He then gave a lecture about management style in Mongolia. 

Friday was a bit disappointing. I was looking for a motorcycle mechanic who could fix my headlight on the motorcycle which had stopped working and I was unable to find the fault. So my landlady pointed out that there was a Japanese guy right next door who could fix it. I dropped the bike off and by noon he hadn't been able to find the fault but ruined my spedometer/computer which will cost me 350 eur to replace… He then proceeded to tell me that he had to go to the Mongolian Rallye, an event which sounded interesting and he invited me to join him. He would continue working on my bike thereafter. Well, it took us the better part of 3 hours to get to that place which was about 15km out of town… His company sponsored 2 'cars'. Most of the about 40 'cars' were mean machines, all 4x4s but tuned to about 350 hp and 'slimmed' to about 1500 kgs. And that rallye would take them almost 4000 kms through some of the worst roads of Mongolia.

The teams were either Mongolian or Japanese. In the motorcycle class were about 50 participants, many on KTMs…

It turned out to be only the technical check, the actual rallye would start today. So we went back and he continued to work on my bike. when I checked at about 7pm he hadn't been successful and I found out by asking specific questions and suggesting certain tests that his level of knowledge about car electrics hardly exceeded mine… So at 9 I told him to go home and that I would put together my bike myself the next morning which I did and now have to see that maybe somebody more talented will look at it in China…

Saturday I spent till early afternoon putting the bike back together and had a nice gulyash with dumplings and then met some English motorcycle drivers that were staying and a Bavarian with a Mercedes G and we got carried away talking and finally killing 3 bottles of red wine… 

So today I got up at 6 to be able to see the start of the rallye. I was slightly late but got to see most and a few motorcyclists. It was quite spectacular seeing them speeding down those dirt roads… Got some good video footage, I believe…

After that I proceeded towards here, the road being 'paved' most of the way which is important for me as I don't have four-wheel drive. The quality of the road though again was very mixed and waves and potholes forced me to slow down. The last 15 kms were the worst but at least I made it without any (visible) damage. I arrived here after closing of the monastery and the museum so that I'll do in the morning. I also met a group of Poles with 4x4 motor homes and stopped at a camp close by where I met  a group of Germans traveling with a Rotel which is a German company running special bus tours where the participants sleep in little compartments best described as 'drawers' in the back of the bus…

And I just remembered that I didn't mention a guy I met in Moscow with the name of Mike Perham. He was 14 when he first crossed the Atlantic in a sailboat alone, only his father following in another boat behind. With 17 he went around the world singlehandedly and now is on an around-the-world trip by car and within the next 2 years he wants to be the first one to have circled the world by sea, land and in the air. If you are interested check his web page under  www.mikeperham.tv

That's it for this week and I hope I can send this out tomorrow…

From Novosibirsk to Irkutsk and Lake Baikal

Somehow I can't quite believe it myself: I made it to Irkutsk. I knew it would not be an easy drive but then there were parts in this where I really feared that my car would be ripped apart. But nothing like that, only the motorcycle rack that also holds my bicycle broke again. Admittedly it wasn't built to hold another bicycle (even if it only about 12kgs) but under these road conditions... well, after about 1900 kms it broke again and the rack including bicycle scraped the road but without major damage as I had noticed and stopped immediately. Thanks to the fact that I had discovered some large plastic quick fix straps in Novosibirsk and Andrei presented some to me I was able to quickly tie the rack back and continue to Irkutsk and be there in time to apply for my Mongolia visa...

This visa was the reason for the rather stressy drive as I had to be at the consulate by Friday 1300 (and I 'lost' another hour due to the next time zone), but one thing after the other:

I drove via Kemerovo where I made a quick tea and photo stop at the local branch with Anton Aksenov, unfortunately much too short but I had to get on to Krasnoyarsk where Alexey Melentyev received me at about 2200 and showed me where I could very comfortably park and sleep (like in Novosibirsk, I could even plug into the net). I at least could invite him for a beer at 'my premises'.

The next morning we had a breakfast together and a short tour through the branch after which I headed on. Again I would have liked to stay but the visa...

And now came the worst part of the road. From Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk it is a little more than 1000 km. I guess about 2-300km are European standard, about 50 km aren't even paved and a large part is like a washboard which means that maximum 20 km/h are possible. The rest is paved and largely even without potholes but with waves in the road that get my vehicle into swings that are terrible for the shock absorbers and obviously for my bicycle rack... I drove till it got dark, stopped at a truck stop and continued at dawn. I was relieved when I finally reached Irkutsk, found the bank and was greeted by Nikolai Dolgushev who is the local branch manager only 30 years old. We immediately went to the Mongolian consulate and thank God everything had been sent from Ulaanbataar and tomorrow afternoon I can pick it up.

He then took me to the Decembrists museum which was interesting inasmuch as I had met some decendants of the Trubetskoy family just recently in St. Peterburg. The Decembrists in 1825 started a revolt against the tsar, and it is considered a precursor to what happened in 1917. For details please refer to:   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decembrist_revolt

After a little more sightseeing Nicolai took me back to the hotel as I was quite tired by then after having gotten up at 430 and driven about 400 kms that day. On Saturday morning I quickly repaired my rack (which from now on shouldn't give me any more problems) and Nicolai picked me up for an excursion to Lake Baikal. It is about 70 kms from Irkutsk and the largest freshwater water mass in the world due to its maximum depth of 1642 m. Also here please refer to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal

for the interesting details. Unfortunately it rained a little and so the visibility wasn't great. Nevertheless we took an old Doppelmayr chair lift up the mountain and down again. After a very nice lunch at one of the villages that is already very much geared to tourism (as for that matter is Irkutsk) we saw a show of seals which was quite impressive. I didn't know that at lake Baikal there are about 60000 seals. The evening I spent at the hotel relaxing as I still was tired from the drive. Also today I took it easy, did some small repairs and improvements at 'Datcha' and gave her a thorough clean inside, outside is no point... Also the weather only improved in the afternoon and I took my bicycle for a photo tour. The city unlike many other cities I passed has preserved a lot of its character and while there still are many buildings in a terrible state the efforts to preserve some of the old architecture are visible throughout the city.

So depending on the weather I'll do some more sightseeing or spend the morning working on my pictures...  If I'm lucky, my next blog might reach you from China...