Novosibirsk to Ekaterinburg

After leaving Novosibirsk we headed west to Omsk, a distance of 700kms with nothing but small farming cooperatives in between. We often leave the highway to explore these villages, most of the time we are viewed with a look of suspicion, no one smiles or returns our waves. Depending on the day we are often able to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables at their local street markets, we have been over charged a couple of times for fresh berries but when you take into consideration their lifestyle and how long it took them to pick the berries we feel that the 100 roubles (4.50 NZ) charged is worth it, even though we hear them laughing as we leave.
Omsk is in southwest of Siberia at a distance of 2,700kms from Moscow. It is situated on the banks of the lot of Kazakhstan traders come across to sell their wares. We parked in a hotel car park on the banks of the river which proved to be a hot spot for young Siberians making the most of the hot summer weather, lying on the “beach” river bank by day or strutting their stuff trying to attract the the opposite sex in the briefest little numbers imaginable and partying into the wee small hours at night. Vic’s first activity upon arriving was to take a stroll along the “beach”.
From here moved on to Tyumen (pronounced Chuman) a further 690 kms in a northwest direction. W we headed to our e looked for possible spots to spend the night but didn’t feel comfortable with anything so decided to park up for the night in a truck stop. After pulling in and going for a beer in one of the three bar/diners to make friendly with the truckers we headed back to Moggy to cook a sumptuous risotto washed down with a glass or two of Italian Chianti and play scrabble. By this time there were a number of long haul trucks and trailers. We slept well and on awaking found the whole area full of trucks, we fortunately had ensured when we parked that we had space to get out early in the morning for the last 290kms of this leg. We arrived in Tyumen at 3.3pm after stopping off in a village along the way to have lunch. Here we chose to stay in the centre of the town close to the historical area so we could ensure we see all the sites. Tyumen was the first Russian town in Siberia founded in 1586 by Feodor 1st of Russia. In the 17-18th centuries it became an important trade centre, especially for leather goods. In 1948 oil was discovered here and by the late 1960s early 1970s the oil industry became a vital component of the city’s economy. This is evident today by the cars people drive and the city it’s self. All the footpaths are paved and there are lovely gardens and flowered walkways throughout the city centre, it is also very clean. The population is only around 650,000.
We have visited churches, historical buildings and looked and the new promenade area that is being built along the river Tura. Our next stop is Ekaterinburg which is situated on the eastern side of the Ural mountain range and considered the centre of the Ural Federal District. It was founded in 1723, has a population of 1.3 million and was the city where Tsar Nicolas 2nd, his wife Alexandra and their 5 children were executed by the Bolsheviks on July 17th 1918.
We will write again before reaching Moscow. And put up more photos.
All the best to everyone love Michele & Vic

Beautiful Mongolia, local putting milk on Moggie's tyre for safe travel blessing.

Gobi Desert Mongolia

Out of China into Mongolia

Western Siberia

Western Siberia
We have now travelled over 4,500 kms since leaving Beijing and arrived in Novosibirsk late yesterday, we travelled through rain all day (our first) and a temps of 12- 14c so it was much cooler than we have experienced. .Novosibirsk is the third largest city in Russia, next to Moscow and St Petersburg. It is also the capital of Siberia and established as part of the connection of the Trans Siberian railway link to Kazakhstan in the late 1800s. We are on an amazing journey which has confirmed some of our preconceptions and totally changed others. We have been stopped by the police 3 times so far (twice yesterday) There are police road barriers all along the highway, they step out and point their baton at you which means pull over NOW. Fortunately a little forethought before departing means that we have a laminated note which explains we are from the small friendly county of NZ in the South Pacific and thanking them for allowing us to drive through their beautiful country. It works every time, well it has so far, let’s see how we get on in Moscow.
The steppes of Siberia are beautifully green with lots of Silver Birch trees and Pines, plus millions of acres (no exaggeration) of wheat, maze, rape seed (used for making Canola oil) wild flowers which at times are breath taking. No fences and very little stock, although it must be somewhere as farmers are busy cutting and bailing hay. Since leaving Krasnovkaya the roads have improved a little which makes driving easier, however one still has to watch out for the crazy drivers who will pass two trucks on a blind corner or with oncoming traffic very close, I am sure this is where the term “Russian Roulette” comes from. We have seen some horrific accidents.
For those of you who saw inside Moggie before we left and were worried about how many pairs of shoes and which pair of jeans I might be able to pack based on the room inside, I can honestly report we have ample space, in fact if I am honest I brought too many clothes, but as Laundromats are few and far between it is not an issue.
We have taken the opportunity to sleep over in little villages where we can find suitable overnight parking and feel safe. We always create a certain level of interest and have cars, cycles passing by until it’s dark which in this part of the world at about 10.30pm at present. These villages are more often little farming cooperatives responsible for the large crop areas mentioned above. The houses are built from wood and have very bright blue and white shutters; some also have painted their fences a very bright green. Each house has the most amazing vegetable garden; occasionally they have planted sun flowers. Winters here are so long and cold that they must grow enough vegetables to see them through to next summer. Most of the vegetables that cannot be stored are pickled. They grow more potatoes here than the Irish. They also have the most amazing log piles ready for the winter. The roads through the little villages are not paved as this is up to the local councils and one imagines that funding for such is limited. The main highways are the responsibility of the government. Due to so many heavy long haul trucks passing through the villages, the roads are pot holed and rutted, plus the houses get covered in dust in summer. I imagine the house wives gave up dusting long ago
Sadly the people of Russia are not friendly, when they do speak to us they ask if we are American or English, when we say NZ they look blank as most do not know where NZ is.
The young women are very attractive, tall and well dressed; with 3women to every man they are obviously keen on attracting a husband. Today is Saturday and having just returned from exploring the city centre we were overcome by the number of your couples having their wedding photos taken around old buildings and in the central garden area which is very pretty and as the sun is shining and a temp of 28c and rising makes everyone happy.
This afternoon is vehicle maintenance time, and car washing. We broke a front coil spring about a 1000kms back due to shocking road surfaces, as it broke in the middle it seems to be holding. We have ordered a replacement in Moscow where the Mercedes garage will replace it for us. Other vehicles in our group had to replace shocks along the way; it’s all part of the ride. From here we will drive to Omsk, which is 700 km away (a long day’s drive) but as the Russian Govt would only give us a single entry 30 day visa we must press on.
I am persisting with up loading photos, it will not get the better of me. Keep watching the blog, one day soon our pics will appear.
Love to you all the Weranui Wanderers.

John Key wishing us well in Beijing

13th Century Mongolian Village

Seberian Update

Thanks to those of you who have responded to our blog updates, it is great to hear from you no matter how mundane you might think you emails are we really enjoy receiving them. Keep them coming.
On leaving Mongolia we were able to tick off another item from our bucket list. Our overall impression was that the people are friendly, under Russian rule the children were not taught English, however this is now their second language taught in schools, the country side is beautiful if a little devoid of trees, the cities and townships are yuk, and there is an overall lack of infrastructure and funding. The people deserve more. There are cars, cars and more cars, no motor bikes or cycles in the cities( specifically UB) NO gardens, but a lot of dust and mud which makes it difficult for the most of the women who trotter along in very high heels. There are some new buildings going up and significant Sth Korean investment and influence. Funnily enough the house of Parliament was stunning situated in the middle of the town square, gleaming white sand stone.
After leaving Ulaan Bataar we drove through to the border town of Sukhbaatar, all such towns are the pits to say the least. We were up at 5.30am the next morning to ensure that we were first in line (or at least close to when the border gates opened at 8am. This is when you’re please to be part of a group. Breakfast on the side of a with 12 underfed mangy dogs looking for the slightest scrap of food are looking up at you is not easy, well not for Michele anyway. We got through the Mongolian border in 2.5 hours which is considered to be fast. Then 1 km through no mans lands to the start of the Russian border, which was very orderly if not regimented. I am sure no one will be surprised by this. At this point we were separated from the group as we are a truck, not a car like the Toyotas Land Cruisers. Well we did ourselves proud, we were inspected, put through a special x ray truck and came out with flying colours ready to meet the others on the Russian-Siberian border 2 hours later. Last year the group who did the trip took 10 hours to complete this process. What a change, within 100 meters there were trees galore, no stock lots of lovely wild flowers and the roads were better (not a lot) but better, we could almost hear Moggie breathe a sigh of relief. Our 30 years grand lady runs so well, so far she has exceeded our expectations. This is partly due to Vic’s TLC prior to departure plus his driving skills.
We were now in Eastern Siberia driving to Ulan Ude, green steppes, vegetable gardens with mainly potatoes, tress, lakes wild flowers, such beauty and peaceful surroundings. Here the main religion is Orthodox Christianity, followed by Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and Christian denominations with an estimated 70,000 Jews living in Siberia. Siberia depends hugely on r it ail for transport and freight .Lake Baikal is huge and holds somewhere in the vicinity of one 5th of the worlds fresh water, it is freezing cold with a depth of 1.6 kilometres, it freezes over in winter. Some of the more hardy of the group decided to take a dip, all be it very brief, Vic & I have more sense. This is where the MIG fighter jets were developed and until a few years ago was closed to all foreign tourists. From here we continued through to Irkutsk which is one of the largest cities in Siberia. The city centres is very busy with daily markets offering a wide range of fruit and vege plus other items. A lot of the wonderful fruit comes from Uzbekistan. Being foodies Vic & I just love markets. We took this opportunity to load up our fridge .There are dogs of the pavement special variety everywhere, people just drop their rubbish on the street. The plastic bottle must be the dirge of the modern world plus empty Vodka bottles is this part of the world. We have done some local sightseeing and walking around looking at the people. The young women take a lot of care over their appearance and are very attractive and slim until about 30 yrs of age, once they are married and then seem to let themselves go.
Tomorrow we head off roughly following the Trans Siberian Rail Line to Tulun which lies alongside the river Iya. Tulun is the centre for Azey Ignite (Brown Coal) Wood and the Forestry industry. This town is surrounded by mountains and a lake
From this point on we will spend much of the time on our own as the group will be
Covering distances of up to 700 kms in a day, we want to take a little more time, plus Moggie prefers to travel at around 80 kms per hr not 110. We will up date the blog site as and when we can whenever we are in a place with WIFI. Keep checking as you never know when the update will come.
In Moscow we have been invited to the NZ Embassy, will keep you posted on this auspicious occasion, not that we expect John Key and family to greet us this time round.
We miss you all very much but are having a really fantastic time and flying the NZ flag with pride. Take care; love to you all, Michele & Vic

Blog entry from China- Mongolia 9th July

We arrived in Beijing on Sunday 4th July at 6.30am to a warm 26c. After checking into our hotel we decided to set out and explore some of the tourist sites. The rest of the group were arriving later on Sunday from Shanghai where they had been visiting Expo.
We decided to visit the Forbidden City as this was only a 30 min walk from our hotel , we hadn’t banked on the enormous crowds due to the start of the school summer holidays. By the time we arrived the temp was sitting at 36c. The Forbidden City is amazing, the size is mind boggling, opposite is the Tenamin Square where the queues were now over a kilometre long. We decided that due to the heat that we would head back to the hotel. Here we met up with the other travellers from NZ.
Bright and early on Monday morning we headed to the railway station t catch the fast train to Tanggu, south of Tanging which is the port where our truck “Moggie” was waiting to be released by customs, sit our Chinese drivers licences then head back to Tanging for the night. On Tuesday evening we went to the theatre to see a performance of Kungfu, which was actually the story of how Kungfu originated all done in dance, it was amazing, this was followed by a dinner of Peking Duck at a well known restaurant. The next day we visited the Summer Palace, the Olympic Stadium , a traditional village where we had a rickshaw ride, lunch in a family home and went to a tea ceremony.
The next morning we left the hotel at 6.20am for the NZ Embassy where we were guests of the Ambassador and his wife for early morning tea and scones. As our PM was in Beijing they had arranged for us to meet with him, have photos and then for him to wave us off with the NZ flag. The entire embassy staff came to see us off. A moment we will remember for a long time to come. Getting out of Beijing in early morning traffic was something else, eventually we arrived at south west section of the Great Wall. We climbed this section to the top and marvelled at the creation of the wall so long ago. From here we drove to Jining via Zhangjiakou (where we had lunch) The next day we drove to Erianhaote which is on the Chinese- Mongolian Border, this is known as the last place that dinosaur remains dinosaurs, and as you approach the city there is a huge archway made from two giant dinosaurs, from that point along the highway there are all sorts of dinosaurs strategically placed, it is very well done. Like all the places we stop Moggie is of great interest to everyone. It is nothing to have a dozen or so people around the van, of course little boys just love it. We have found the people to be very friendly, and the children love to say hello in English. The temperature here was a little cooler in the late 20’s which a relief was. Today we crossed the Chinese border, then across 500 meters of no man’s land to the Mongolian border. In all this took 4.5 hours which is good as it can take up to 10 hours depending on immigration & customs Tonight we are staying in the border town of Borhojn-Tai before heading into the Gobi desert where we will stay in Ger’s the traditional Mongolian tents for 2 nights We are looking forward to the desert drive as Moggie will come into her own, we are not as fast on the hill as the 4 Lanscruisers but we feel we will sort them out in the desert. The town we are in is very poor, but people are friendly and welcome you to their country, the children are delightful, go bare bottomed, this teaches them to use a toilet early .Bearing in mind all the toilets are of the squatting kind it makes sense and with 1.5 billion people the disposal of such would be nightmare.
From Ulan Baatar Mongolia 15th Jul y 2010
Crossing the Gobi desert was something else, it has a beauty of it’s own quite unparalleled with anything we have seen before. It is the largest desert in the region of Northern China and Southern Mongolia surrounded by the Altai mountains and the grasslands and steppes. The Gobi is a cold desert and it is not uncommon to see frosts and the occasional snow fall in the dunes. It runs on a plateau roughly 910-1,520 meters above sea level .Temps can range from +40c in summer to -40 in winter. When we drove through it was between 35 & 29 c. There are only a few trees in the whole desert, no roads just hundreds of tracks formed by cars making previous crossings and as one gets too rough, muddy or rutted then another is formed, this makes it very difficult to navigate, thank god for the Garman maps Vic had loaded on to a lap top. Dotted throughout the desert are Gur’s. These are the tent like circular homes occupied by the nomadic Mongolians who farm sheep, goats, horses, cattle camels and yaks. The size of some of the goat herds is amazing, and to see herds of semi wild ponies with foals is wonderful.
We stopped at a watering hole in the middle of the desert to photograph ponies at a watering trough and help the herdsman pull the water up in a homemade rubber bag an empty into the trough as he could not keep up with the herds thirst. With in 20 mins a 2nd herd of ponies arrived plus some cattle, it was fascinating. We visited an isolated Buddhist monastery village, where the children flocked to see us, all very excited, they love having their photo taken especially with digital cameras as you can show them immediately.
Mongolian food on the whole is rather bland, with a lot of mutton and diary ( fermented mares milk, sour milk) not my favourite. We also a national festival as we were passing by and could see that there were horse races taking place. The Mongolians are superb horse riders. The races we saw were for the children (a 10km race through the desert)it was quite a spectacle especially as a large # of them were wearing national costumes. Once again we were mobbed by young and old alike. (This is what it must be like when you’re a film star.)
The closer we got to Ulan Baatar (the capital) the smarter the peoples cars became. 32% of Mongolia’s population live in the capital, but the drivers are maniacs, the worst I have ever experienced, they cut you off without any indication and stopping 7,500 kg Moggie quickly is not easy, Vic gives them a real blast on him fog horn. On a single carriage highways they pass a long line of traffic when there are cars coming towards them. They pass on the inside(on the gravel shoulder) it reminded me of driving in India without the constant blowing of everybody’s car horn. They never wear seats belts and hold their children on their knee in the front seat. After visiting a 13th century working village and the giant stainless steel statue of Chinggis Khan we made our way to our hotel in the centre of town feeling very dusty and dirtying all after leaving the dry desert, a cold beer then a hot shower in that order was a priority. Today we have visited a large Monastery in the city centre plus a few other local tourist attractions before heading back to the hotel. It is not advised to sleep in your camper in the city. We have 2 free days in which to sightsee, do any maintenance on the vehicles and clean them before we head north Sukhbaatar.