July 21-25 Ulan-Ude to Khabarovsk

We had intensive driving throughout 5 days: 2 700 km to drive from Ulan-Ude to Khabarovsk. 

July 21, we drove 650km from Ulan-Ude to Chita. As we took a wrong turning at some point, we ended up in a rural area with agricultural fields and roadworks to rejoin the Bikal motorway later. We enjoyed our last sightings of pine tree forests in Buryatia. As we entered the Zabaikalsky Krai, the landscapes started to change. We had to drive through the South of the Stanovoy mountain range: the road was constantly going up and down 200-300m. Reminded me of a giant never-ending roller coaster. The more we advanced towards Chita, the denser the taiga forest was becoming. This was also a flower paradise: fields of fireweed (иван-чай) The road itself was in a rather poor condition to be qualified as federal and there were plenty of road works ongoing. For some reason, temporary lane markings were very much not straight, while the permanent were ok. Must be two different approaches to applying the road paintings… We arrived at Chita (capital of Zabaikalsky Krai) at 8pm and after checking in went to have dinner. There celebrations in the town (Metallurgy Worker Day - День металлурга) on the main square: it was crowded and noisy with loud live music. Although Pablo was ok with the town and its people, I (Anna) was quite shocked: it’s as if it stayed in the 90-s (Russians will understand what I am talking about): men in sports clothes, feeling of out-of control. The cherry on top was the strip club ad on the desk of our hotel. I was quite happy to leave Chita the following day.

Some pictures of Chita:

We were pushing the fuel range of the Patriot as we were trying to find a Rosneft petrol station

July 22, we drove 770km through endless taiga up and down again. Chita is the end of the Baikal federal road (that started in Irkutsk) and the start of Amur federal road, which ends in Khabarovsk - this is a lifeline connecting the Far East to the rest of Russia. It is quite unbelievable that the road was only finished in 2010. Until then, it was partially dirt, partially gravel and partially asphalt (often poor quality). The area felt absolutely empty: very few villages/towns. Very little traffic. Very few petrol station with extremely expensive petrol - I have not seen such prices yet. That beat Altai Republic petrol prices by quite a margin! All because there were no other options to the drivers to refuel. In the evening, we left Zabaikalsky Krai and entered the Amurskaya Oblast. We spent the night in a town called Erofey Pavlovich (named after Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov - same explorer after whom Khabarovsk, my native town, was named). This was a dilapidated and sad place lost in the middle of nowhere. I don’t quite understand why such towns/villages exist… 

July 23, 630km from Erofey Pavlovich to Svobodny. The landscape became flatter and many areas were flooded. Just two days ago, a piece of a road collapsed because of flooding - no one died thankfully, but there were still injuries (when will they learn to build roads properly??). As yesterday, the sky was grey. Endless taiga, empty roads with very few cars and villages. Activity only picked up when we were nearing Svobodny. We noticed cars and trucks with number plates from all across Russia - I don’t think we we saw such diversity before (probably, we didn’t pay attention). I wonder whether they were heading to China. Svobodny is a medium-sized down which has recently become the centre of attention: it now has a space vehicle launching site (космодром Восточный) and Gazprom is build a gas plant in the area. We were lucky to find a decent hotel for the night - the following night was sold out as there was some Gazprom gathering at the construction site. We heard plenty of foreign languages in the street - construction labour from the site. Our hotel room in Svobodny had a washing machine, so I was able to do some laundry. 

Svobodny's Lenin

July 24, in the morning, I visited the part of my family who I have never met before: my grandfather’s brother’s daughter with her family. Then we drove via picturesque winding roads to Blagoveschensk - the capital of the Amurskaya Oblast. Quite an interesting place. On one bank of the Amur river is a Russian town of Blagoveschensk with mostly 1–5 storey buildings and on the other side a Chinese town oh Heihe with skyscrapers. Connection between the towns is by boat (a cable car is currently being built). We could see a giant shopping mall on the Chinese side right at the pier - for the convenience of Russian tourists. We were told that Heihe has built an amusement park with a giant ferries wheel (колесо обозрения) just for Russian tourists, but it has not been switched on for a while. After Russian rouble depreciated in 2014, it is the Chinese that come to Blagoveschensk for shopping and not many Russians go to Heihe. The weather has deteriorated, so we were walking under the rain. Thankfully, there was no fog and we could see the Chinese Heihe in all its glory. On the Blagoveschensk embankment, we saw the same Greek motorcyclist that we saw already twice on the road from Ulan-Ude. I was tempted to talk to him to learn his itinerary, but he was talking over the phone… We saw him once again the following day on the way to Khabarovsk.

Looking at Heihe (China) across the river

Blagoveschensk's "Arc du triomphe"

Bull fight

We can't visit a city in Russia without meeting Lenin (or two as the case is for Blagoveschensk)

July 25, 700 km to Khabarovsk! What a miserable weather the whole day… We started on quite a poor quality road towards the Amur motorway. Plenty of agricultural fields. It was quite sad to see water accumulations in the fields as this will certainly affect the harvest. And the weather forecast was not promising for the following days… As we re-joined the  Amur motorway, the road quality improved somewhat, but still not to the level of a federal road. We entered the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, which was also rather flat with flooded plains. Slightly after 7pm we approached the bridge over the Amur river, where Khabarovsk and Khabarovsk Krai start. And around 8pm, we were home!

You know you've made it to Khabarosvk when you have smoked fish and salmon roe (Russians call it red caviar) on your bread for breakfast

July 19-20 Ulan-Ude to Baikal and Back

This was another unplanned part of the trip. When planning the route, I was considering visiting the Eastern side of Baikal, but as this was quite a detour, I decided to excluded it from the itinerary. As we talked to people locally, they advised us that this part of Baikal is very picturesque and the guide book read "You can't claim you've visited Baikal unless you've been to Olkhon and the Sacred Nose peninsula". We've already been to Olkhon, so not visiting the Sacred Nose was no longer an option.

July 19, we drove to Ust-Bargusin, where we went (quite a long walk!) to see the Baikal and its long sandy beaches. We ended up in marshlands as we were trying to find picturesque walks and had to trace back our steps: less than 10 meters of water made us go back almost 1 km.... We thought taking off our shoes and walking through the water, but it required a proper swim.

July 20, we went to Monakhovo located at the Chivirkuy Bay of the Sacred Nose peninsula. It was packed with tourists. This area has the warmest water in Baikal. I finally took a dip in the Baikal. We also went up the cliff to see the bay from above. The area was covered with spider webs - it was all over trees and rocks. After lunch at the shore, we drove back to Ulan-Ude.

This is when we say goodbye to Baikal, which was also a wonderful host to us: the weather was nice and the Lake showed us all its beauty during the three visits we had to its shores (Olkhon, Listvyanka/Bolshie Koty and Ust-Barguzin/Monakhovo).

It is also time to bid farewell to Siberia. Very recently, Buryatia and Zabaikalsky Kray (Chita) were administratively reclassified from Siberia to the Far East of Russia. Had we visited this place a year ago, we would be still in Siberia, but we are now technically in the Far East of Russia... So the Western part of Baikal is Siberia and the Eastern part is the Far East. How convenient!

We will now be driving to Khabarovsk. We estimate to take 5 days for it. The original plan included two options: 1) going to Magadan in the North East, 2) going to Primorye at the South East. Magadan is no longer an option: a 6000-km detour from the main road. We already drove 14000km and still need about 3000km to get to Khabarovsk... so another 9000km seems a bit much. Primorye is closer to home and we can go the seaside!

July 16-18 Return to Russia

We took 3 days to drive from Khongoryn Els sand dunes to Ulan-Ude.

July 16, we left the dunes and drove to Mandalgov, where we stayed at the same nice hotel as two nights before. Again, we spend 3 hours driving the horrible corrugated road, then a good stretch of impeccable asphalt which was steadily deteriorating until becoming so bad that we took alternative roads. We remembered the place with the potholes that damaged our wheel, so we were very prudent to avoid another damage this time.

July 17, we drove from Mandalgov to the border. The idea was to avoid driving in Ulaanbaatar, hence we did not spend a night there. As we were approaching Ulaanbaatar, the road quality was improving. We arrived from the South and immediately turned in the Western direction, where the road to the North started, away from the city centre. Well, the road was closed! Just a week a go we saw it open and now it was closed for road works. We were able to find an alternative route passing via quite a picturesque area with camping spots. Camping for gers! We were puzzled to see small patches of green grass with paved pathways - similar to the blocks of houses, but without houses! We then saw some gers in those areas. We think that this is a camping site, where city dwellers can install their gers and spend their holidays in the traditional way. Have you seen something similar?

As we were driving towards the border, the road we took just 10 days ago was closed in several places and asphalt removed. Where the road was still operational, we could see alternative roads being built for traffic for when they would also be closed. Great concept when you have space! Just close the entire road and build a temporary dirt road next to it. We arrived at the border at about 8pm and it took us more than 3 hours to clear it. All of the time was spent queuing. Border procedures themselves were very quick. This time, no one took much time to look at our passports and they did not even ask us to remove the tarpaulin cover from the roof top. Car check was very quick - just for a tick really. After we passed the border, we stayed in a small hotel in Kyaght.

July 18, we drove to Ulan-Ude, where we went to fix the wheel, check the car for any damages done on the beautiful roads of Mongolia and clean/change air filters. We also visited the same self-service laundry as last time (there was much to wash!). In the evening, we returned to the Churchill bar, where we ate last time. It was overcrowded, so we only had beers there (their cherry beer was fantastic!) and went for dinner elsewhere. There was a festival going on in Ulad-Ude central square (the one with the Lenin's head). It was very crowded and noisy, so we wanted to escape as quick as possible. Because of the festival, we took a hotel away from the centre. It was one of the best value-for-money accommodations during our trip.

July 15 Khongoryn Els sand dunes

Today, we drove west of Dalanzadgad to the famous Khongoryn Els sand dunes. About 80km of the road was impeccable asphalt (the same road going to China as yesterday) and then 100km of the worst drive during the trip (3 hours)… It was like driving over a grater. The views though were spectacular. 

We were not sure whether to stay in the area overnight or go back to Dalanzadgad, but considering the quality of the road, going back the same day would be to much. In the meantime, we had no bookings made for that night. As we arrived at one of the ger camps, we found a deluxe ger with en-suite shower and toilet available (plus 3 meals), which was just what we could wish for. It is officially the most expensive night stay of our trip, but what can we ask for being in the middle of the Gobi and having facilities?!

After checking into our ger, we went for a walk and sunbathing in the sand dunes. We then returned into our ger to eat the Mongolian watermelon with spoons and have a glass of wine on our private terrace. 

As we parked our car, a couple of local drivers came to see our Patriot and its engine. We already had other drivers taking interest in our car and its engine. One even offered to exchange it for his Toyota Land Cruiser (No way I am parting with my Patriot!), but I am not sure how serious he was about it. In general, we saw quite a few people looking at our car with their mouth open while driving.

We met a British couple on the original Toyota Land Cruiser (military one) refitted for travel (expandable rooftop and a kitchen). They started their trip in October 2018 in India, already visited the South-East Asia and Japan, then shipped their car to Vladivostok and drove to Mongolia via Ulan-Ude. They will then continue to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkey etc. They sleep and cook in their car as much as possible to save money and stay flexible. Although they have started their journey 9 months ago, they still seemed very enthusiastic about the trip. Could we handle this I wonder?

Modern nomads: herding cattle with motorbikes

Modern nomads - a spec of civilisation in the desert

Modern nomads: horses are good, but cars are better!

Very modern nomads: toilet and shower included in the ger