A Honeymoon to Remember

[anjum153]

While eating, a gentleman approached us asking if we were German or Swedes. When we said we were American, he excitedly motioned for us to stay right where we were and dashed off. He reappeared 20 minutes later with his wife, son and camera. He wanted pictures of us, so we went the rounds of all of us, a pic of us with his son, a pic of me with his wife etc.

[anjum153]

The village of Ust Pristan.

[anjum153]

Again leaving town a carload of young guys raced up asking if they could take their picture with us. They were very curious to know all about the trip, and one kept exclaiming what I guess was the Russian equivalent of 'how awesome!' over and over.

Sam setting up the picture of us in the field.

[anjum153]

Road leaving Ust Pristan.

[anjum153]

Sam sets up camp in a Russian wheat field.

[KKNIAZI]

No offense, but if they cycle all day, what do they do in nights, SLEEP IN HONEYMOON ???

Choctalpur, you have a very myopic view of a HONEYMOON.

I think it can't be better then that, if you look at the begininning, they sold their house and rest of it to make this epic journey.

Btw, I, on mine, went to Kashmir with no camera, no mobile phone or any gadget at all. We used to walk all day long in hills and come back in the evening to our guesthouse in DHIR KOT and SLEEP. The only occasions we hired a car was while going to Bagh and Muzaffarabad.

Its been six years and I remember it like yesterday and thats without any photographs.

Cheers,
Kaleem

[choctalpur]

KKNiazi, a HONEYMOON is a vacation taken by a newly wedded couple.

To me, when it comes to a family vacation, it should be as hassle free, and as less tiring as possible. I can't really comment on their idea of quiting their jobs, and selling their homes for this thing. BTW you can't compare your honeymoon with that of them. Your's was cool i must say.

Cheers to you.

[anjum153]

Aug 19: We lose the main road

Tuesday August 19, 2008, 40 miles (64 km) - Total so far: 345 miles (555 km)

To put it succinctly, Day 2 in Russia sucked. We lost the paved road and hit what seemed to be essentially a road paved with large, round river rocks. The going was slow and it took us most of the day to cover 15 miles.
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We leave the pavement behind and ride on rough gravel, ugh.

[anjum153]

Sam pauses near a tributary to the Ob river.

[anjum153]

Erin riding by the church in Korobeynik.

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[anjum153]

We passed through many tiny villages, many of them not even appearing on our high-resolution GPS map, but we stopped in virtually ever one. When I'm at a faster internet connection, I'll upload the video we took in one of the villages.

A typical grocery store we buy meals in. Note the abacus, common in the stores we stop in.

[anjum153]

Sam navigating at a split in the road in one of the many Russian villages we passed through.

[anjum153]

lunch-break-in-unkno

[anjum153]

We entered a village that didn't seem to have a road leading out.

[anjum153]

We could only find this footpath that locals assured us led to Biysk.

[anjum153]

Just when we had given up on getting anywhere further, after a... well let's just call it a "discussion" we decided to use the compass and strike out across the wheat fields using farming access roads. This was a brilliant idea, the access roads surrounded every field, cut straight in the cardinal directions, and were smooth packed mud. We covered many miles in the evening and camped near a town that we realized would have required an additional 90km to reach if we had followed the real road.

Erin pausing on a fantastic farming access road we preferred to the "main" highway.

[anjum153]

To make things even better, we had thought ahead and purchased a bottle of vodka to try out. It was awful and we ended up giving it away the next day, but got a shot or two out of it before giving up.

Sam bartending in our tent that night.

[anjum153]

Aug 20: At a low point, Sergei rescues us

Wednesday August 20, 2008, 40 miles (64 km) - Total so far: 385 miles (619 km)

Morning at our camp off the farming roads.

[anjum153]

We woke up to rain and it rained all day. This wasn't too bad and was a welcome respite after the heat wave in Kazakhstan. But after the bouncy gravel the day before we were sore, and eventually were tired, cold and didn't know where we would spend the night.

It rained on us almost all day.

[anjum153]

Birds on a wire.