Aug 5: Goodbye Russia, Hello Mongolia!

Once in Kosh-Agach, we found ourselves a hotel, got some supplies and tuckered down for the night. We decided to take a taxi from here to Olgii in Mongolia, a distance of around 190 km, as we knew that we would have to go by car anyway for the 20 km "No Man's Land" between Russia and Mongolia and that it would likely be much easier to find a car in town. Mike also had some kind of bug that night, so we didn't really feel up to biking the distance, especially given the lack of great areas to camp between here and the border/Olgii.

Our hotel, the "Hotel Transit." No luxury palace, but the owners were super friendly and helpful, and we met some backpackers from Italy and a motorcyclist from Romania that we later crossed the border with.


After some negotiating at the Bazaar, we loaded up into a taxi with our Russian driver, a Mongolian businessman and two Italian backpackers, and were on our way!
(Check out our post about Russian visa registration for some comments on the border and some tips on taxis, prices, etc.)

Our Italian friends, Christina and Sara...


... and us with Huat, a Kazakh-Mongolian from Olgii whose wife was working in Kosh-Agach.


Me and our Italian friends chatting it up with a convoy of 11 trucks from France crossing the border into Mongolia


The change from Russia to Mongolia once we crossed the border was dramatic. First of all the roads went from smooth asphalt to dirt 4x4 paths shortly after crossing the border, and all of a sudden gers dotted the landscape everywhere. (Gers are round white tents that are the homes of the large majority of Mongolians, both rural and in the ger suburbs of many towns.)

Katraa, a 10-year old Kazakh girl who lived in Olgii, hopped onto the taxi at the border, by herself. I'm pretty sure neither Sasha (the taxi driver) or Huat knew her, but she rode with us all the way to Olgii, stopping at a Ger that we think belonged to her family (cousins, perhaps?) shortly after the border to pick up a bottle of Airag (fermented mare's milk) that we all later enjoyed. We thought that this might have been her payment for the ride? (At first, Huat and Sasha thought that she actually lived there, and were a little confused when she hopped back on the taxi with the pop bottle full of milk!)


Katraa's little cousins(?), at the ger where she picked up the airag.


Our taxi, on the "road" at the top of our first pass in Mongolia.


Though getting to the top of this pass wasn't easy (not exactly what you'd call a smooth ride), Mike and I assume we'll feel a little less "refreshed" at the top of the next one that we'll be climbing up on our bikes in a couple days...


Enjoying an "airag break" at the top of the pass....


Sasha got us to Olgii, safe and sound and much faster than all the other drivers we met at the border. When we stopped for some tea and buuz (mutton dumplings, the mongolian version of wontons or pellmenie or tortelini and the staple of the menus here), we learned that he is a very seasoned driver through these parts and can make the typically 60-hour drive from Olgii to Ulaanbataar (1600 - 1700 km) in only 36 hours. He currently lives in Russia (after having grown up on the Beiring Straight) but by the number of border guards and other folks along the way that he knew, obviously makes this trip quite often.

Now we're in Olgii, finalizing our plans for the bike through Mongolia, doing more laundry, resting our legs, uploading photos and downloading books in the internet cafe. It's a small town that in the evening when it quiets down, feels a little like a ghost town in an old western movie. The people here are friendly, used to tourists but not sick of them, and all the kids yell "hello goodbye" to us as we walk by in the streets. We've seen even more of the Mongol Rally folk all over town, especially in the touristy but excellent restaurants we've been enjoying...



So far so good! Our plan is to leave Olgii on Sunday for Ulaangom, which should be about 5 days bike away. We've both enjoyed the rest and the chance to explore Olgii, and are also very excited for what the next few weeks have in store. It looks like the two toughest stretches are the first ones, after which villages should be alot more frequent and roads not quite as rocky. Next time we post, there should be lots to tell!

Aug 2 - 4: Ondorhangai to Kosh-Agach

Well rested after a day of eating, reading, laundry and bike tuning, we set out from Ondorhangai to a continuation of the idyllic scenery we had just left a couple days before. Our first day was another long one, with 112 km and the Chike-Tamen pass at the beginning (only half as big as the last one, though...)

A tiny little Jen (sorry, we only downloaded smaller pics so it would be faster) climing up the pass...


The life-sized version, still climbing...


The view from the top...


And back down we go...


More beautiful scenery, as the road met back up with the Katun river.



On the other side of the pass around lunchtime, the scenery all of a sudden changed. Instead of the rolling green hillsides, now around every new corner there was a new snow-capped peak. It made for a beautiful ride, which we ended in the evening at a beautiful (though INCREDIBLY buggy) campsite, just 5km past a very touristy rafting and horseriding spot.

First views of the snow-capped peaks...




The beautiful but buggy campsite...


The morning of the second day was a perfect experiment in the effects of lactic acid buildup (source of that "burning feeling" in your thighs after many hours of uphill biking.) My theory is that it has a kind of emotional amplifying effect. The day before, when a curve in the road led to an even more beautiful landscape at the almost exact same time as the Paul Simon I was listening to transitioned to a new key, the effect of the lactic acid seemed to amplify these emotions and make me almost delirious with pure happiness at how fun this all was.

The next day, the amplification seemed to happen in the other direction as, going uphill all morning in the sun in still great but unchanging scenery listening to the same songs for the 15th time on my MP3 player, I was literally brought to tears by what I can only assume was boredom and exhaustion. Clearly time for a break, we stopped in Aktash for a nice long lunch and some reading over tea, to give the mind some food for thought for the afternoon.

That afternoon proved much more successful, as the landscape again transformed into something even more dramatic. As we entered the Kosh-Agach region/county, we kept the snow-capped peaks in the distance but got some new reddish-purple sandy-looking mountains in the foreground instead of the lush greenery we had been travelling through the whole time in Russia. The next campsite we stopped at was absolutely perfect... no bugs, a river perfect for bathing and the most delicious meal of Ichiban noodles and cucumber-kielbasa sandwiches you could imagine (never thought I'd be saying that!! :)

Us entering the Kosh-Agach region...

This picture had special significance for me.... we've been "cyber-stalking" two fellow cycle tourists, Sam and Erin , who have followed a similar route but a year before us and as a result have been an amazing source of info and help. (Check out their Guestbook if you're looking for some great km-by-km guides through Mongolia.) Anyway, I remember seeing a picture of them at this spot when we were still in Montreal, researching our route, still skeptical as to whether or not this trip would actually happen, and how foreign and far away it all felt! And now we're here! It was definitely a funny feeling....

Mike at our campsite...


Our next and final day of biking in Russia saw the landscape get even more and more other-worldly atmosphere by the second... steppes at high altitudes, snow-capped mountains in the distance, all the green fading from vibrant to pastels and the hills getting more red and purple with each kilometer. We both felt so fresh and were so entertained by the scenery that we went almost straight through all the ~75km to Kosh Agach with very little stopping, only to visit with some French & German tourists at the side of the road or for a quick chocolate or sandwich break. The last 25km into Kosh-Agach we had an amazing tailwind, almost pushinhg us up the hills, as the numerous Mongol Rally participants on their way to Mongolia snapped photos of us as they zoomed on by. (We've also seen and met tonnes of them during our time here in Olgii - if you've got the time and money, seems like it'd be an awesome trip!)

First thing in the morning, picking up some supplies in town...


There are many war memorials here, all very elaborate, at least one in every town, regardless how small. This little fellow in front of it followed us all around town as we picked up some supplies, though he was too shy to say anything when we said hello...


The winding lush vallies of previous days were now gone, replaced by misty steppes between the mountains...


This picture doesn't do it justice, but the colours here were actually much more impressive than it looks, with hues of purple and reddish-brown and faded pastel greens...


Cycling on our first bit of gravel so far....


Descending into Kosh-Agach, with a lovely tailwind pushing us in...


Anyway, these made for three days of amazing cycling, capping off a fantastic experience in Russia. As you've seen, the scenery, the weather and the roads have made it just perfect cycle touring. To top it off, despite what we heard about the "grouchy Russians" we could expect along the way, our experience with the people here was absolutely fantastic. We met so many friendly people along the way, between our long conversations with shopkeepers (one lady once kept a line of people waiting for almost twenty minutes as she asked us a litany of questions about the trip, where we're from, where we'll go next), the helpful friends we met along the way offering their advice, phone numbers and time to help us with whatever they could, or the quick and friendly little visits with random drivers who stopped in the middle of the road to wish us good luck up a big hill or honked their encouragement as they passed by. All that to say, Russia has been very good to us and we are a little sad to leave, though excited for the next chapter. Da svidania Russii!

-Jen

Russia: Altai Republic Registration

Lots of registering to be done in Russia, and we had some hiccups that with a little bit of info could be easily avoided, so we thought we'd post about it. In a nutshell, here are the different bits of paper we needed to collect along the way. I'll also try and help differentiate between the useless ones and the important ones, though with the disclaimer that things seem to be useless/important only on a case-by-case basis: (#3 is the one with the most important info)

1) MIGRATION / ENTRY-EXIT CARD: Crossing the border from Kazakhstan (or anywhere else) into Russia, everyone (including local citizens) fills this out (both entry and exit sides), hands in the entry side, keeps the exit side and gets it stamped with the date you entered. DON'T LOSE THIS. Every hotel we went to checked for it and we absolutely had to hand it back at the border. The exit date you put doesn't seem to matter, we just put the last date our visa was valid for, even though we left many days earlier than that, it wasn't a problem.

2) VISA REGISTRATION: This is done at the hotels. In big hotels with lots of foreign traffic (like the one we stayed at in Biysk) it's done very simply and systematically. In smaller places (like Gorno-Altaisk) we were told by one hotel that we couldn't stay there because she couldn't register us as her photocopier was broken (and she said there was a fine for having unregistered foreigners), but she later changed her mind. Another hotel in Gorno didn't do it for us since we were getting the OVID registration anyway. Either way, when you're camping you obviously can't get registered and of the 4 hotels we stayed in, we got registered at two. Though this is a sketchy system, we did need one of these hotel registrations (they asked for the first one) when we left Russia, and our guidebook says you should get it within three business days of entering the country. (The other registration went in the garbage.)

3) ALTAY-REPUBLIC REGISTRATION: This one seems to be the most contentious, as it is not obvious how to get it, recent regulations have changed in August 2008 and some people get it, many don't. We were advised by thorntree.com to get it, along with an outdated Lonely Planet, especially since we were going through a potentially difficult border crossing (Tashanta to Tsaganuur). We WERE asked for this paper at the border, as were two backpackers along with us. A motorcyclist we met didn't have it, we passed on what we had learned from some french tourists in a car, that if you say you're only "in transit" you don't need it (i.e. if your stay in the region is short enough.) We didn't see whether or not the motorcyclist made it through the border without this registration or not.

If you do want to register and you are coming in through the north (Gorno-Altaisk), then the office is beside the Gorny shopping centre on Kommunichesky road. It's hours are 9am-1pm and 2pm - 6pm Monday - Wednesday, closed on Thursdays and open Friday morning only (I think?). There, you will have to fill out a grey paper but also have it SIGNED AND STAMPED BY A TOURIST AGENCY. We asked the Moscow-based agency that provided us with our invitation letter (for our visa) for this, and they said it wouldn't be required, so we just brought the two documents they gave us. THIS DOESN'T WORK. It actually has to be the Altai Republic's own grey form with little white boxes, which you are unlikely to get from any invitation letter-provider outside the Altai Republic.

We would still recommend the same invitation letter provider - way easier from home than contacting a tourist agency in the Altai province.... but from there we would recommend the following steps:

a) Upon arrival in Gorno-Altaisk, don't go to the OVID Registration Office, but go straight to the AGUNA Tourist Agency and ask for (english-speaking) Lioubov. The address is apartment/office #309, in 39/8 Choros-Gourkina (This is the street that runs parallel to the main drag "Kommunichesky" street. The building (#8) is one of several at the address 39 Choros-Gourkina, all clustered around the main shopping mall.)

Tell her you need to register your visa. If you give her your passport, it will take about 20 minutes (if there is no one ahead of you) and cost you 10 Euros or 420 Roubles. She has the form electronically on her own computer, so you don't need anything but your passport with your Russian visa.

b) Take the form she gives you to the OVID Registration office (on Kommunichesky by the Gorny shopping center) and tell someone official-looking that you're looking for registration. (It's oficially supposed to be in the Kiosk #2, but this was unmanned the entire time we were there, all during its posted opening hours.) If you're lucky, the lady in charge of registration will be there, and you will be in and out in 2 minutes. If you're not, she will be shopping or out for lunch in the middle of operating hours (as was our situation), in which case you'll just have to wait. But if Lioubov filled out the form for you, you should have no problems when someone finally does get there.

That's it! Keep the stub of the form they give you, and at the border at Tashanta, they will want to see it along with your Migration Card and the Visa Registration that you got at your first hotel.... You will first show these documents at a small office before the actual border crossing, and then the agent at the big official crossing will keep your hard-earned bits of paper, likely for the trash :(

Our border crossing was very smooth, though we would suggest getting a taxi from Kosh-Agach straight to Olgii as we did - we didn't see any taxis waiting at the border at Tashtanta, and all the cars we say were quite full, including our own. Our Russian taxi driver and the Mongolian that was also travelling with us were EXTREMELY helpful, and as a result we seemed to pass through both the Russian and Mongolian borders much faster than the French and American tourists we saw in front and behind us.

We got a taxi at the Bazaar in Kosh-Agach (ask Sergei at the Hotel Transit - he will help) for 1200 Roubles (about $60) for the two of us with our bikes and all our luggage (it usually costs 350-400 Roubles/person without bikes.) There were however lots of taxi drivers (who seemed to be conspiring not to give us the "market price") at the Bazaar that wanted to charge us much more than that and only take us as far as the border, so watch out!

NOTE ON BORDER ZONES: We read in the Lonely Planet info from 2006 that suggested this border crossing might be in a border zone. It is not, even in the new August 2008 border regulations. Lioubov informed me that you don't need any border permit so long as you stay on the M52 and do not turn off onto the other highway at Kosh-Agach, which would lead you into one of the border zones requiring permits with long notice.

July 28 to Aug 1 - Biysk to Ondorhangai

So, after alot of time on trains, buses and more trains, we finally got back on the bikes again. In spite of the big build-up, the biking still managed to exceed expectations. Our first day, we cycled a beautiful 100km or so out of Biysk on amazing roads, amidst beautiful scenery with little traffic. It's quite a touristy area of Russia, we passed the hometown of Shushkin (a famous Russian writer, for whom there are special celebrations this year that we had just missed by a week). That afternoon and evening we crossed over into the Altai Republic and stayed at a hotel in Gorno-Altaisk, the republic's rather ugly capital city surrounded by absolutely beautiful scenery in every direction.

There are cows on the road EVERYWHERE here... this one was passed by two cars in either direction several times but did not budge an inch....


The next morning we experienced some frustrations getting our visa registered. Fellow travelers who will be going this way might want to check out this post for some info that should make it MUCH faster and easier.

We ended up leaving only around 2:30 from Gorno Altaisk once our registration was finally complete, but made it about 45km before we stopped at this campsite, worried that it would be the last one this beautiful (it definitely wasn't, though!)

Where we ate dessert, two steps away from our campsite....

... the river was so close and so big that the sound of it actually woke us up a couple times.

At the camp, we met a fellow traveller from Germany who was travelling a loop from Germany through a few of the "stans" including Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia in his very formidable vehicle (that has also made it through several amazing journeys through the Sahara.)



The next morning, we washed dishes with a Russian engineer that very generously donated his topographic maps of the region and discussed his most recent telecommunications challenge with Mike. (Now that we're out of Russia, if there is anyone planning a bike or other trip through the Russian Altay, let us know and we'll be happy to send them your way for planning purposes... they are not very widely available outside the Altay Republic, we've only been able to find them in Biysk, not even the Kazakh Altay region.)



On our third day, we spent the morning following the huge and beautiful Katun river, then crossed a bridge after which the frequency of resorts, roadside cafes and traffic in general decreased dramatically.



At one of our lunch stops (our long biking days include multiple lunches and suppers, averaging about a zillion calories) we stopped at a shashlik stand and met up with a bunch of motorcyclists from the UK who are biking around the world from London to New York.



We also were able to directly observe the supply chain from whence our delicious shashlik came....



We also met up with two cyclists (on recumbent bikes) from France on their way out of Mongolia. This made both of our days, capping it off with a visit in the only remaining language we knew that we hadn't spoken yet that day (which gave me an extra spurt of energy for the last few hills), talking logistics about the route through Mongolia, benchmarking our equipment and amount of water storage capacity, etc. (which gave Mike a little extra jolt too!)



That night we camped at a site on a smaller river, but an equally lovely spot. We also hung out with two sisters from Novosibirsk and their father who were camping there enroute to the Mongolian border (we later saw them on their way back, unfortunately not able to cross the border without visas.)


(We had just got out of our "bath" in the river, so you'll have to excuse my horrible hairdo!!)

Our lovely little campsite in the pasture...


Mike practicing some new photography tricks he's been reading about...


The next day was a tough one, with a slow climb all morning to our first major pass, the Semalinsky pass. After spending all morning climbing the 30 km to the top (only about 10 km very steep), we had some shashlik at the peak and watched two different couples have their wedding pictures taken, before a very speedy descent all the way to Ongudai, where we would spend a day resting up and doing some laundry.

Jen ascending the pass....


Mike at the top of the pass... (notice the wedding party in the background)


The afternoon took significantly less time to cover the remaining 55km as it did the first 30km, but they were incredibly fun kilometers... a slight tailwind, all downhill, beautiful scenery and sunshine, no traffic other than a few cows and the odd herd of sheep and beautifully smooth tar and asphalt the whole way. I drafted behind Mike as we sped through the small hills and valleys in what must have been some of the most ideal surroundings for bike touring ever.





We arrived that night in Ongudai and found a charming little hotel with a tiny little sign on the front door with lots of space to ourselves for cooking and doing some laundry. (If you're following the same path and looking for it, go right at the first alley after crossing the bridge to the town's main street instead of left, where the bigger and more obvious but less clean and friendly hotel in the area is found.)

Jen descending into Ongudai...


We were very glad to have a kitchen of our own, and ended up using it to bastardize the local Russian "Pelmennie" (kind of like tortellini but with filling simliar to wontons) by covering it in an italian tomato sauce we put together- a bit of a clash of cultures, but delicious nonetheless!



All and all, this first stint back on the bike confirmed that we had picked the right kind of trip for us. The biking was amazing, and though we don't expect it to continue at this pace (our planned kms in Mongolia are dramatically less than we covered each day here), it was fun and exactly the kind of "slow travel" we were looking for. We have got to talk to tonnes of people... We've discussed our trip with local shopkeepers (so far one of the most common questions is still, "How did you get all that time off work???".... same as Canada. So thanks again to our bosses/deans!!!) and we've asked them loads of questions about the area, and all the little details of their lives that must seem like stupid questions to them but are very different to us.... Since we've arrived in Russia, we've also talked "shop" with the first fellow travellers we've met, some like us, some much more experienced with pretty crazy tales to tell...

So far, we're very happy with our choice of honeymoon!

-Jen

July 25 to 27: Goodbye Kazakhstan, Hello Russia!

After 20 lovely days in Kazakhstan, we said goodbye to our friends (see me & Roma figuring out the train in Ridder, below) and the country - or so we thought! After deciding to take a train from Ridder right to Biysk, Russia so we could get right into the "good stuff," biking through the Russian Altay, we got on in Ridder on the 25th and were on our way. (we decided to take a train to Biysk once we fouund out that the border crossing 60km east is closed to foreigners as we talked about in our last post)

Mike, eating our "last meal" at our very favorite "Kafe Lakoma" in Ridder. In our week here, we literally became regulars at this place - great food, nice and cheap, with a whole buffet of amazing desserts for like 50 cents each.

About two hours into the train ride, the police controlling the customs process came and told us that, between Kazakhstan and Russia, foreigners cannot cross the border by train. He said we could cross by plane, bus, car, bike or foot, but that it was not possible in the train. We were confused, as we have heard of many people doing this, and argued with him, especially since the train staff had assured Roma and myself that we would have no problem with our bikes on the train, it would be easier crossing the border, etc... all knowing full well that we were from Canada. The train staff was also confused and surprised, but then also mentioned that they had never actually had a non-Kazakh or Russian citizen on their train before....

The police who broke the news to us also mentioned that, at the town near the border, he could drive us and our bikes to the border in his car and have his brother pick us up at the border and drive us to the nearest train stop in Russia, and should be able to do this in time to get us on the same train (since the next one only came two days later), all for $200US...... This raised a few red flags. From what we've learned about Kazakhstan, the police are one of the few things to be careful with, and $200US is an exorbitant sum for the 30km we'd have to travel, about 2x the price of the train ticked for the whole 1000km trip! All that to say, we said no thanks, and got dropped off after dark in Shemonaika, a small town 20km from the Kazakh/Russian border, leaving us without a train, taxi or place to stay still feeling a little suspicious about the whole situation. Thankfully, at the train station after asking around for a bit, a very nice couple led us to the local hotel (which would have been impossible to find without them) and we had a lovely, evening in the hotel (Mike very hospitably doing vodka shots with other guests) before scouting out our options the next morning.

It all worked out, we ended up bussing it from Shemonaika to Barnaul, a much faster border-crossing option than by car or bike (2 hrs vs what looked like a 4-5hr wait in the cars) and met yet another fantastic and friendly fellow from Ridder who now lives in Barnaul (Max)- proving that these great people from our favorite Kazakh town continue to follow us even into Russia!

Bikers seemed to abound in Barnaul, we even managed to hook up with this group of 3 adults and 10 kids that just finished a bike around the Altay region we're about to head into. They were camping out in a park near the train station, so we joined them for a few hours at their camp in Barnaul until our 3 AM train left for Biysk.

Jen sleeping on the train to Biysk, after a very tiring 24 hours without sleep....

So here we FINALLY are, three days later in Biysk, VERY excited to finally get back on the bikes again. Due to the heat and the timing of our Russian visa, we did much less biking in Kazakhstan than we planned. We had a great time nonetheless, but are now super pumped to spend the next two months far away from busses and trains, camping much more and hotelling much less, both of us excited for the bike trip that we feel we're only really starting now.

We've got more reflections on our time in Kazkhstan that we want to post, but the Blinny (Russian crepe) joint we're getting our internet from is about to close, so we'll save that for later.

Tomorrow morning, we're back on the bikes, headed towards Gorno-Altaisk and then the rest of the Russian Altay, and we should be crossing over to Mongolia in a week or two. The "SPOT" will be back on, so you can follow our progress on the tracker. We're not sure how much internet we'll have, but from what we've heard, the next few posts should be packed with some great scenery.

-Jen

(Mike in "BlinnyMaster" that is about to close, which has free WIFI if you are ever in Biysk)

Russia: Picky consulate in Montreal....

This application, considering we were only applying for the standard 30-day tourist visa, was more complicated than it seemed it should have been. There were a few particulars about it that others applying for it might like to know:

1) Russian visas can only be applied for through the embassy/consulates of your country of origin. Luckily, it's one of the first countries we are visiting, so we could apply for it from Canada and still be within the 90-days you are allowed to apply for the visa before your arrival date. Had we have been doing our loop in the other direction and arriving in Russia later in the year, this one would have been a real mess to apply for.

2) Russian visas, even the standard 30-day tourist visa, require a letter of invitation. We got lots of info from guidetorussia.org and used Visa to Russia for the letter of invitation, and got excellent, very fast service. We got both of the required letters with stamps emailed to us almost immediately after payment, and even got them re-issued with different city names (you need to list some cities you will be visiting) for free, even though it was our mistake.

3) The consulate in Montreal seems to be very picky. We originally applied to them and, if you use the default settings for printing out the application form, the size of the box to attach your photos to comes out about 1 cm too wide. As a result, they ended up (after keeping our application for a decent amount of time) returning our application to us saying that it was not allowed to cut the photo but that it was too big. We snipped off 0.5 cm of white space on either side of the photo, re-printed the application form and sent it to the Consulate in Toronto and got the visa no problem. (Canadians are all allowed to apply to the Toronto consulate, but I think you need to be a resident of Quebec or the Atlantic provinces to apply to the Montreal one.)

All said and done, though, we ended up eventually getting our 30 day visa which should give us plenty of time.

The one remaining question mark is something called a border permit. Our Lonely Planet says that it is required for the area of the Altai region that we will be visiting, the road from Aktash or Kosh-Agach to Mongolia in particular. They recommend that you get help with that from your Letter of Invitation provider, but Visa to Russia didn't know anything about this. We've followed other blogs of people biking in the area and didn't read anything about a border permit, but that's something we'll have to deal with when we get there, if it is in fact a requirement.