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We were bright and early this morning, almost first in the queue. Right now we are the last people at the border crossing. 12 hours of waiting, smiling and gesticulating and we're almost through. While final bit of admin and we should be through. We are tired but we're gonna try and push through to Ulaan Bator and this epic journey tonight. R
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about to leave russia but we cant find the border!
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A lot has happened since my last update. I actually have no idea where to start. We left The picnic spot the Red Bull girls took us to in Omsk and drove all night to Novosibirsk, where we spent the night. After a good night's rest we set off for irkutsk. You know that it is going to be tough when every russian you meet just shakes there head and tells you that youu are crazy. The first problem is that nobody actually knows how far away it is. We guessed that it was about 2000 kms and we roughly in the ball park. What we were not expecting were the scary roads. There were potholes that were bigger than our and the challenge moved from avoiding the huge craters to trying to find the pieces of tarmac around the spots where theroad once was. All of this while trucks and Ladas come flying past you. And then the road vanished. We suddenly found ourselves offroading at night! It took us 2 days but we did eventually make it to irkutsk. We spent last night and all of today on lake baikal and we are now heading to Ulan Ude. I need to get some sleep while Zakir's is driving so ciao for now. R
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We drove through the night to get to Omsk around mid morning. As we've travelled eastwards the the countryside has become prettier but in a very flat, Russian way. There are no hills here, none at all, it is so flat that potholes probably feature on contour maps. And there are lots of those! While looking for a place to rest for a few hours we bumped into a couple of Red Bull promo girls who gave us a case of the good stuff! They also took us to a picnic spot on a river bank, leading a riduclous convoy of 2 corsas, an ambulance and a bus for the disabled with their MINI with a can on the roof. Its amazing how Red Bull girls look the same all over the world :) These 2 were really friendly and went our of their way to help a group of strangers in even stanger cars, the russian hospitality has been incredible. We are on our way east now, gonna continue driving till we need to sleep. Chat soon R
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August: We spent the night in Chybilnisk and today we find out that it is overun with gangsters and drug dealers. Suppose it's a good thing that we stayed in a really nice hotel which didn't cost very much. This morning we showed off our cars to the hotel staff who thaught that we were insane. They also laughed at 3 cylinder engines and poked around the inside of our car like they had never seen 3 door econobox before. We also showed them our broken fridge and the manager immediatly offered up is phone charger to replace our broken plug. The hotel handyman quickly attached the plug to our fridge and our team looks like it'll be all cool again We met a group of Brits who are driving a pair of ambulances to mongolia as part of another event. It was really great to meet English speaking people and we've decided to drive with them through the night. Should be lots of fun. Dasvidanye, R.
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We have crossed the Urals and are now officially in Asia! Crossing The Urals was not quite as epic as I'd hoped but at least there was a change of scenery. As I mentioned last week Sumesh left us and buggered off to Paris. We decided to replace our former team mate with a fridge which made the team quite a lot cooler ;) Sadly I have report the departure of our new fridge as well. After just 2 days the charger decided to melt itself and the carpet filling the car with yet another unpleasant smell. It took us 3 hours to find the source! I was driving and Zakir was asleep so I convinced myself that it was Russian air pollution! The entire plug melted except for the fuse, suppose that's Russian technology for you! We'll try to get it fixed otherwise its back to drinking warm coke again :( We are about 30 minutes outside of town and about to look for accomodation. Dasvidanye R
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When we left our makeshift campsite yesterday morning we saw a family of wild boars wondering around just a few hundred meters from where we slept! We hit the road early yestrday and managed to do over 900kms. We spent last night in a roadside motel called Hotel 5 Stars. We are in oil territory and the rolling hills are covered in oil wells. The air is filled with the stench of oil so we can't wait get to the Urals today. R
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We are about 250km outside of Samaara and have decided to set up camp in the forest. Busy braaing some salmon and then plan to hit the road quite early tomorrow. R@
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Getting some minor work down to the cars, just some wheel balancing and alignment, then we're heading out of Moscow. Then it's out into the great unknown, can't wait. R
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Made it to Moscow at last, it's been pretty slow going on some very rough highway stretches. The Russian people have however been incredibly warm and friendly even though they don't understand a word we say. We're not exactly inconspicous though. Our group of 4 non-white guys has attracted more than a few curious stares, nothing malicious, just curious. Today we even caught a shy Moscowvite secretly taking a pic of us :) Even though we're a little behind our schedule we've decided that it would be criminal not to take in a few of the touristy bits in Moscow. So tomorrow is a bit of sight seeing and then we're off early saturday morning. Spokoinoi Nochi from a hot Moscow. R
