Running to the west

A very quick post this week as I need to be out of my hotel in the next hour.  This week has been all about rushing - mainly westward so I get closer to the Russian - Europe border as my visa rapidly runs out.

Monday I left Novisibirsk and by Saturday was at Ufa about 2000km west; this might not sound like a lot of progress for a week but on Russian two lane highway, often now clogged with traffic, and sometimes in the rain i can assure you it was a reasonable effort.  The major thing that you notice as you move west is the increasing density of traffic.  After Novisibirsk the roads have been sometimes nose to tail and 755 of that traffic is trucks - the other 25% are cars many with homicidal/suicidal drivers who continually overtake in the most frightening places.  It is not the most restful riding.

This part of the trip was also enlivened by my first breakdown - albeit not too serious.  The bike at first refused to idle and despite stripping the carburetor this got worse and eventually wouldn't run properly at any speed.  Anyway the problem turned out to be a minor fault in the fuel tap on the carburetor letting air in where it shouldn't.  A new gasket made from a discarded cigarette packet and coke bottle seems to have solved the problem - but it was a frustrating few hours (spread over a couple of days) tracing the problem.

The other highlight of the week was unexpectedly finding a border crossing.  I was taking what on the map was the obvious road west after Omsk when I came to a big gate.   More careful examination of the map showed that since the breakup of the USSR the road here actually crosses the northern tip of Kazakstan.  Oops - a 300 km detour around it solved that one.

 

Anyway here are a few pictures from the week.

 

[caption id="attachment_511" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Norfolk Broads? - No just west of Novisibirsk"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_512" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="And they must contain fish as many of the locals were at the roadside selling dried smoke fish. They tasted good - I bought one for tea."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_513" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="For 100's of kilo-metres the roadside view was a mixture of this"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_514" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="or this - Siberia must produce huge quantities of wheat."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_515" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="and the rush was on to get the last of the harvest in."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_516" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="What an unexpected border looks like."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_517" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="look carefully and you'll see not all the tar is smooth - the trucks were down to crawl speed for about 30 kilometres in this section."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_518" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The towns and villages en-route started to get a very wintry look."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_519" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="I crossed the Urals during the latter part of the week - but rain and killer traffic meant stopping and taking photo's was not really an option"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_520" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="And finally to Ufa. A pretty city - but one with an air of closing down for winter; life on the streets and parks felt very subdued."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_521" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="On one of the streets in town is a house Lenin once lived in - now a museum (and closed when I was there)"][/caption]

 

Anyway thats all for now.  sorry for the bitty post - but  must be off and heading on-wards to Moscow.