I got up at 8:00 a.m. which really was 9:00 a.m. I am always losing time because I’m going east. I never know when I cross a time zone until I see a clock in a gas station or a restaurant. Then I reset my clocks. I started to plan my route for the day. I will be on Highway M53 again all the way to Irkutsk. That’s a little over 600 miles/940 kms. I tore down my tent, packed my bike, dealt with the mosquitoes and departed my bush campsite. I drove down the road some and pulled into a restaurant to get some water and to oil my bike chain. I went into the restaurant and bought some water, a couple of snicker candy bars, and two pasties. Actually I don’t know what they’re called. I think the Upper Michigan miners used to carry them into the mines for lunch. They're like bread dough with meat and vegetables on the inside. To cook them I think they put them in a deep fat fryer. They’re awful greasy like french fries. I ate two of them with a litre of water and was good for all day. They kind of stuck to my ribs. Just when I was about to leave, in rolled two BMW RS 1100s up to the gas pumps. Tom and Gordon are about my age and are from Scotland. They’re riding around the world without trying to punish themselves. Today I saw four motorcycles carrying tires either going east or west on Highway M53. I’m getting the impression this is major thoroughfare through Russia and for tourism. These two guys are heading to Vladivostok just like I am and then flying to the United States. I will almost bet you that this year there are between 10 and 15 motorcycles riding around the world. I eventually arrived at Kansk and saw there was a sign for a bypass around the city. I was expecting a bypass similar to the one like last night. Before I started around, I stopped and filled up with gas. It was one of the old fashioned gas stations where you tell the person behind the glass how many litres of gasoline you want. You pay for it first, then they start pump and you receive whatever quantity of fuel you paid for. That’s a tough guess on a motorcycle. Anyway, I paid the lady and started pumping gas. Not a big deal. It was getting near the top and I slowed down the gas. Then I stopped pumping the gas but it kept pumping. So I spilled gas over the top of my gas tank and motor. I was steaming under the collar about this. The old style pumps continue pumping about a cup of gas after you release the lever. That was the gas that spilled over the gas tank. Then when you screw the cap back on you spill some more gas. I just went and got my change and left. It didn’t do any good to bitch. I just got bit by ignorance, maybe gained some experience and hopefully will remember that in the future. So I got on the bypass around Kansk and things were looking really great. Matilda was doing her job and I was watching the signs. We were going up this hill and the semi-trucks were dragging butt. So I passed the whole lot, thinking to myself “that was a slick move”, and continued on down the road. I noticed Matilda was mumbling about something like I was going the wrong direction. I continued on the road for 10 miles/16 kms. Then a blue road sign appeared, and it was missing the town of Irkutsk. That town has been on every sign for the last 250 miles/403 kms. I also noticed there was no heavy truck traffic. Highway M53 always has heavy truck traffic. I missed a turn and went the wrong way. I backtracked all the way back to the hill where I passed all those semi-trucks. Sure enough the semi-trucks hid the sign when I passed them which caused me to go in the wrong direction. I turned onto the bypass and what a surprise I was in for! This road had potholes up to a foot deep every five feet! What a mess. The semi-trucks were in low gear just idling along and swerving to miss all the deep holes they could. This went on for about 10 miles/ 16 kms. Eventually I got out of that and back on to black top/pavement. I made another turn that I thought I was correct, but something told me that I might have made a wrong turn. So I went back to the sign again and checked if I turned correctly. Yes I did. In the process I almost made a left turn in a roundabout in front of the police. A good samaritan made a circular sign with his finger and probably saved me from a conversation with the police. Anyway, I was on the right road and that’s all that mattered. I continued on, and in the last 24 miles/40 kms, that’s when the road turned to crap. The soil in this area is red and of course you have red dust. Rick, it’s just like the red dirt and dust in Vietnam. The cars would be 100 feet/100 meters in front of you and the dust from them blinded you so you couldn’t see the potholes in front of you. That’s why I wanted to get off the road fast. I didn’t want to get caught in this pothole area in the dark. So I started looking for a campsite. It’s going to be bush camping again. I found a perfect spot in a clearing out of sight of the road. It was a beautiful clearing full of yellow buttercup flowers, and again I forgot to take a picture of my tent site. It looked the same as we have in the USA. As with all good things there is always bad. The bad came in the form of mosquitoes. They were 50 percent worse than the night before. I probably was standing in a swarm of 50 or more at any given time. With my hat on and mosquito net over my face I just laughed at their frustration. “No free blood tonight, guys, and you may die in the process of trying to get some.” I was completely covered with clothes and I had my gloves on so they had no place to bite me. I put my tent up with my newfound, unhappy, blood thirsty friends, with hardly a bite. I gathered everything that was going into the tent, opened it, threw everything in, climbed in, and zipped up the tent for the night. I sorted everything out. I also saw another two bicyclists along Highway M53 today. They were taking a break and drinking energy drinks. I didn’t stop but just waved and kept on going. Since I haven’t stayed in a hotel for a couple of days I been using my inverter to keep my laptop computer battery charged up. I always worried about running down the battery in the motorcycle and that would be downright unhandy if that happened. After I finished with my blog I went to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment