After a brief stop in Irkutsk, it was time to head on further eastwards. The road took me through some mountains at the base of Lake Baikal and then through a flat plain to the city of Ulan-Ule.
Ulan-Ule is the capital of the Buryatia region and a mighty fine place it is too. Lovely wide streets to wander down and after a tiring ride a nice dinner in a basement restaurant. The décor looked at bit like Tin-tin (photos will be uploaded when I get round to it) and the pork and potato steak dinner was well received.
The reception in Ulan-Ule was great. Just prior to entering the city I was chatting with a guy (he was complaining about all the Mongolians coming over in minibuses - it's just above Ulaan Bator, and buying everything in the shops!) and he introduced me to his family and wished me luck on my travels. Then when I arrived, a taxi driver blocked off the traffic so I could park in front of the hotel. As I parked another guy turned up and chatted to me about his stay in London and thought it was great someone was visiting his hometown.
After the meal I wandered back to the hotel, but didn't linger too much given it was bitterly cold at night - warm days, freezing after dark.
Onward then to Chita and then the start to the long drag across to Khabarovsk (it starts to appear on road signs with 3000km to go). Once you leave Chita there isn't much apart from Steppe or Taiga (you can google them yourselves). I had planned to stay at a place called Mogocha but the hotel was full, so I rode on hoping I could find something else by the roadside. After briefly being stopped by the police (who lost all interests in my documents and just asked me about my trip) and noticing how dark and cold it was getting, I decided to consult the IOverlander app, who noted a potential camping spot in an abandoned gravel pit. I hadn't used my tent - so why not.
Well at altitude on the steppe it gets freezing! It fell to -5c and the tent was just a sheet of ice. My sleeping bag barely worked and I didn't get any sleep. There was also some shuffling and scraping noises outside the tent - bears, wolves, tigers? Well whatever it was, it gnawed a hole in my Russian potnoodle and helped itself!
Given it was so cold I decided to ride on early (6am) but couldn't do anything above 30mph as it was freezing (heated grips had no effect and my limbs were becoming numb and hands blue) and finally made it into a truck stop at 7.30am where I could warm up for an hour.
A difficult ride for the rest of the day until I finally managed to drop altitude. Arriving in the hotel at Belogorsk was very welcome and an early night beckoned.
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