That was our third motorcycle tour of Russia and in all we’ve now ridden almost 20,000 kms in Russia alone – ten times the length of NZ. While we feel at home here, quite familiar with the people, the way of life, the driving style (!!!), the food, and the hospitality, the health system – […]
This season’s ride is drawing to a close. Here’s our last video clips of the land of Genghis and our return to the wonderland of Lake Baikal.
Having spent the last 3 months in these countries and getting some appreciation of their dependence on fossil fuels – oil, gas, coal – one realises how loopy is the idea popular in societies like New Zealand that have negligible stocks of any of them, that producers should just stop extraction. It would be like […]
The famed Russian summer houses are still mostly modest cottages with a small plot of cultivable land and are popular amongst the nation’s urbanites, who travel to them for weekends or longer retaining their passion for country living, relaxing and gardening. With Russia having a relatively low rate of urbanisation the villages include many permanent […]
Being lucky enough to strike Mongolia during the annual Naadam Festival we’ve been treated to th extravaganza of Naadam in the capital city, Ulanbataar – but even more enjoyably in the small country towns that organise their own wrestling, archery and horse racing carnivals to celebrate their nation’s identity and independence.
We left Russia temporarily & did a circuit in Mongolia. Here’s the footage as we bid au revoir to Eastern Siberia. We’ll be back in a week or two and by then hopefully the rain has gone – although we might welcome it after the dust bowl we’ve been promised in Mongolia.
We’re into Mongolia at last and here on schedule so we can enjoy the traditional annual Naadam Festival which celebrates Mongolia’s cultural inheritance and highlights three national sports – wrestling, archery and horse racing. It’s held throughout the country so we’re coming across the celebrations in small towns as well as in Ulaanbataar. 30% of […]
The area around Turun in Eastern Siberia (just west of Irkutsk and Lake Baikal) suffered terrible flooding and 20 people lost their live. We rode through the area two days after the disaster and the impact on local housing was shocking. It reminded us of the awful days in New Orleans after Katrina when we rode through […]
Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia – indeed it’s 20% of the world’s surface freshwater. At a depth that reaches a mile in parts, the world’s oldest lake has a length the same as SH1 between Auckland and Wellington. As we descended 500m to lakeside from the hills the air temperature dropped 7 degrees C. That’s […]
One thing indelibly etched on your mind when you spend weeks riding across Russia is the massive scale of this country – not just the 11 time zones you cross but the unbounded scale of the rural landscape – mile after mile of grassland, cropping and forest. Who owns it? Of course it was 100% […]
