Cafe Wonderfulness & Newest Article Is Out

We have been in Mongolia for almost 2 weeks exactly and the only thing I can say is that it is wonderful. The landscape is amazing and the roads an off roaders dream. (But it can quickly become a nightmare if it rains too much, we luckily have avoided the rain for the most part. One rainy day meant one wrecked bike. But easily repaired thanks to multi-purpose ties! But that story is coming later).

The only real problem with Mongolia has been the food. ARGH the food. I will cut this part of an email I sent to my childhood best friend Tracey:

So now my birthday is being spent at a British owned cafe that we spent 2 days riding towards because Lonely Planet said they had real food. (I am not joking, the past 2 weeks my diet has consisted of apples when we find them, pasta, and mutton pancakes, which is basically crepes with sheep or goat inside.  Which one is a surprise!). Even I am starting to turn my nose up at cookies and chocolate, because that is the only thing we can buy besides pasta and the occasional apple in these shops. I think Mongolians are completely self sufficient so the only things they need to buy are sugar based junk food.

So for me, this is an ideal birthday in Mongolia. Having our bikes here means we can see the best part of Mongolia at will. But a proper breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes, toast, fried tomato and bacon with REAL coffee (not the 3 in 1 kind we have been drinking since the Ukraine) means I am in birthday breakfast heaven. (We have not had that kind of breakfast since Germany). And that they have wi fi means I can start uploading all my pictures to Flickr so they are backed up safely. And I can write everyone those long neglected emails! And I can update Unleash, and I can have coffee the whole day, and I can eat a meal of Burgers and french fries for supper! (I have no qualms about eating happy animals, it is industrial meat production that I have a problem with, and all the animals in Mongolia seem pretty happy. Apart that is from the last 5 minutes when they are whacked onto the back of a motorcycle, sped to a location away from the others, and they are cut open and a man reaches inside and flips their heart upside down. But since the whole thing lasts all of 5 minutes and the death part the goats and sheep do not even get a chance to let out a full bleaaaaa before they are dead, I count it as a good death after a great life of frolicking on the open steppes).

And I can pass on that the next article in my Chasing Summer series is also out, on our time in Romania. The naked comment is not entirely without basis, check out the discussion in Toytown!

Now I go to try to update the blog to now, lets see how far I get! :-P But I will post them over the next few days, so again even though posts are going up they were written today and autoposted for a future date!

 

Posted via email from Unleash Your Adventure

Volgograd: Insane & Yet Awesome

Russia, we are told, is cold and freezing. Coming from Canada however, where it is also suppose to be cold and permanently blanketed in snow, I liked to think I had some inkling as to what I would be in for. As cold as winter is, summer tends to match it.  Minus 30 something in winter? Embrace plus 30 in the summer.  Volgograd and the surrounding region still managed to knock my feet out from under me. Plus 42 and in full bikers gear. You could feel the sweat running down your legs into your boots.

The boys wanted to swim in the Volga, the North American in me screamed NO at the thought of what is actually dumped in the river. (We have since been told it is safe, yet, I do not regret my decision in the least)  :-P

Riding into a giant city in this heat is anything but an ideal biking paradise. Yet I was shocked.  Yes, the heat was insane, almost unbearable at times. And the movement of traffic appeared to follow the unspoken rules of children playing dinkies rather than following any type of logic.  However (and up until this point no other city in Russia has followed this), the cars would break to let me follow the boys as they zipped and zigged through the city.

Some even hung out the window to scream "otkooda??" (My horrible phonetic rendition of the Russian question "where are you from"), and it was here that I learned a loud honk of the horn is not cause to crash your bike, but rather someone wants to give you the thumbs up sign as they cruise by you.

We did not stop in the city, but wild camped shortly afterwards. We then rode out to the truck stop cafe on the side of the road, where we ordered breakfast and spent about an hour talking with the owners there.  Once again when we tried to pay and they refused, saying that we had entertained them, and pushing the matter seemed to only result in anger on their part. I really love this country, the people are wonderful, and the landscape amazing!

 

 

 

Posted via email from Unleash Your Adventure

Volgograd: Insane & Yet Awesome

Russia, we are told, is cold and freezing. Coming from Canada however, where it is also suppose to be cold and permanently blanketed in snow, I liked to think I had some inkling as to what I would be in for. As cold as winter is, summer tends to match it.  Minus 30 something in winter? Embrace plus 30 in the summer.  Volgograd and the surrounding region still managed to knock my feet out from under me. Plus 42 and in full bikers gear. You could feel the sweat running down your legs into your boots.

The boys wanted to swim in the Volga, the North American in me screamed NO at the thought of what is actually dumped in the river. (We have since been told it is safe, yet, I do not regret my decision in the least)  :-P

Riding into a giant city in this heat is anything but an ideal biking paradise. Yet I was shocked.  Yes, the heat was insane, almost unbearable at times. And the movement of traffic appeared to follow the unspoken rules of children playing dinkies rather than following any type of logic.  However (and up until this point no other city in Russia has followed this), the cars would break to let me follow the boys as they zipped and zigged through the city.

Some even hung out the window to scream "otkooda??" (My horrible phonetic rendition of the Russian question "where are you from"), and it was here that I learned a loud honk of the horn is not cause to crash your bike, but rather someone wants to give you the thumbs up sign as they cruise by you.

We did not stop in the city, but wild camped shortly afterwards. We then rode out to the truck stop cafe on the side of the road, where we ordered breakfast and spent about an hour talking with the owners there.  Once again when we tried to pay and they refused, saying that we had entertained them, and pushing the matter seemed to only result in anger on their part. I really love this country, the people are wonderful, and the landscape amazing!

 

 

 

Posted via email from Unleash Your Adventure