Beware Dark Skies

Day 100 Sunday 10^th July 2011

Breakfast was very welcome and in the same style as the Hotel Vladivostok – a buffet but with a twist;  We actually had fried eggs and other fried bits and pieces. I filled my plate and sat down for my feast then at the first bite I realised that everything, although once hot, was now cold. I ploughed onwards though making an egg sandwich but Mark couldn’t stomach the cold fried egg and left his to fester on his plate.

The rain had stopped overnight and our bikes were still there so we started on our way out of Birobidzhan, slowly retracing our steps until we found the T junction that took us back to the main route to Chita. It was misty and very cool in the early morning air but refreshing all the same as we sped on the empty road north westwards.

We still met a few roadworks, not so many now but those that met were more challenging because there was more sand and our Tourance tyres were just a little slippery as we pushed our way through. The front end of my bike slipped a couple of times and I resisted the urge to correct the steering knowing that to grab the handlebars and attempt this would inevitably result in the bike tucking under and throwing me off – nevertheless a very unnerving feeling when riding a bike weighing nearly 500kgs.

We rode all day and around 5pm we started to look for a place to stay but as it turned out the weather chose for us. The clouds started to group together into one large mass and started to get greyer and then black. Lightning strikes started and we could see the rain mass heading our way in a swathe of water like a waterfall coming from the sky.  We stopped at a fuel station, refuelled, and got the attention of a young lad on a Chinese motorbike and sidecar outfit and we watched amazed as he sped off , wheels skidding, to the nearby road laughing as he went.

A quick look at the map showed us that the next large town of Belogorsk was only 10 miles or so further along the road so we took the plunge and headed towards the black sky. We rode hard and the road twisted sometimes towards the storm (heart sinks) and then away (hooray!) until eventually we had skirted around the whole mass. I was elated that we had missed the clouds but that joy was quickly shattered when we came upon the signpost to Belogorsk which pointed us 11 kilometres directly towards the blackened sky and directly into the jaws of hell on earth. We turned and started on our path towards the dark skies and the lightning bolts smashing down to earth just a few miles ahead of us. We reached a point where we could see the start of the sheet of rain pouring down onto the ground ahead and I stopped at the roadside and spoke to Mark on our intercom. He agreed that we should turn back but also pointed out that there was a junction just a 100 yards or so ahead. We went forwards and the T junction showed our destination to the right and also towards less brighter skies so we sped that way like cowards and entered the city without having got wet – a victory for us.

We rode a good way into Belogorsk looking for the familiar Russian Cyrillic which spells hotel but couldn’t see any. We stopped at the roadside and a young guy pulled up alongside and asked where we were from and we explained who and what we were doing and also asked him where the gastinista was. He said follow me and jumped in his car and sped away with a screech and did a broadside turn into the road just opposite where we had been stopped and then did and emergency stop. We followed the 50 yards or so that he had travelled and found ourselves outside an hotel. We thanked our friend and he sped off again like a madman.

The sour puss old lady who manned the reception eventually understood what we wanted and we handed over our 1000 roubles (about £20) for our room. It was OK, basic with a shower but we had to have a shared toilet which was only just over the way from our room housed in a tiled smoking room.

We showered away all the dust and dirt acquired along the road and found ourselves in a state of hunger so we braved the old lady again to ask about restaurants. She said a few things in Russian, picked up her mobile and spoke to someone and then asked us (somehow) to wait and (somehow) we seemed to understand. A little later a lady appeared who seemed to be a friend or relative of the old misery guts of a receptionist but this lady was much friendlier and spoke English quite well. She walked us to a nearby restaurant that we would never have found on our own and helped us order some food from the menu before she left to go back and look after her little one. We ate well and had a couple of beers before we set off back to the hotel noticing along the way that it had rained very heavily whilst we had been eating.

We settled down for the night but I was awoken at around 4.30am by shouting and violent noises in the corridor that seemed to go on for an hour or so. Mark eventually awoke and we surmised that someone had been subject to CS gas spray because he was coughing continuously. I wanted a pee but I didn’t venture outside the door until at least an hour later. What a strange place.