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