Arrival at Chita

Day 102 Tuesday 12^th July 2011

I woke up at daybreak and noticed a big drop in temperature. I got out of my tent and began packing away ready for an early start. Mark soon joined in. We had a coffee, finished packing then headed off  on a cold clear day with a fog patches along the road in dips and gullies. These areas looked so surreal and magical as it looked like a sea of cotton wool with just the tops of the forest trees showing above the cloud base. The road was 100% good now. This section was finished only last year and travellers before had to negotiate pretty awful road conditions for a very long way so, in a way, we are somewhat spoilt by this modernisation although the new road tends to bypass all the small villages that were on the old route – such a shame.

The new road is good

Along the way we filled our spare tanks with additional fuel because we were acutely aware that a large section of this new road – over 200 miles – had no fuel stops at all. We made for what was to be our last fuel stop to top up on the 70 or so miles that we had travelled since our last fuel only to discover that the only petrol on offer was 80 octane and the lad on duty told us that the next fuel was 100 kms away (within our fuel range) so we gave it a miss. With hindsight this was a silly error on our part – we should have topped up the tanks with the low grade fuel and let it mix with the 95 octane already there. The 100 kms turned out to be almost double that and our reserve lights came on some 130 miles further down the road telling us that we still had 60 miles left in the tank. When we got below 30 miles on the fuel countdown we stopped and emptied our extra 6 litres each into the bikes to give us another 100 kms. We managed to ride another 30 miles or so when we spotted a sign saying fuel 1km and so it was, Phew !! We filled our boots with the 92 octane on offer and went on our way happy in the knowledge that we had enough to get us to Chita.

As we approached the large city of Chita (population of over 330,000 people) the skies started to get dark again and we rode along the main road into town looking for the familiar hotel signs. As I drew towards some traffic lights a guy in a pick up drew alongside me and beckoned me to stop so I followed him into the layby just a bit further along the route. We swapped names – and so we had met our new friend Yuri who spoke a little English and who then used his mobile and passed me over to his friend Dmitri who spoke a little more English. Between us all it we managed to get across that we were looking for a nice hotel with wi-fi and Yuri conveyed to us that we should follow him. And so we did, to the Panama City motel car park where a little later Dmitri turned up and very kindly booked us into the hotel – very nice, clean and good internet connection although the small road to the hotel from the main drag was a bit more of a challenge than some of the roads from Vladivostok.

We told the guys that we were very tired and needed some sleep and they arranged to meet with us tomorrow at 2pm. What great people Russia have who give up their time and make a real effort to make you comfortable in their towns and cities.  We think that it is odd for these guys to see Englishmen on motorcycles so far over the East.

We found a Chinese restaurant just behind the hotel and did the pointy thing again and had a reasonable meal and a couple of beers before heading back to get some well earned sleep.