2017/08/25

Day 27: Krasnoyarsk - Kemerowo

For breakfast I have yogurt and some toast from Mongolia and jam and butter.

The weather is bad. It's raining heavily. My biker friend wants to take care of his bike - lubricate the chain, happy that I do not have to. He out for a really long time. So I decide to leave alone, and since I do not know exactly how to return into the apartment, I have to carry everything along with me.

It's good for me to go my own way again, since I want to stay in a hotel this evening, because I have to work and, if I am honest, also the communication is somehow difficult.

Today the handlebar covers are very useful! It's pouring rain for the first approx. 150 km. The ride through Krasnoyarsk is adventurous, the water is partly up to 10 cm high on the streets. Today I have to ride about 500 km, have to refuel once and in the afternoon in the direction of Kemerovo the weather gets better and warmer.

Today I see many Russian bikers in the opposite direction. I'm also meeting a South Korean biker with a BMW. He parks at the side of the road and tells me that he is waiting for a cyclist he has just overtaken. It's a Russian wheelchair driver, who pushes his bike with the - deformed - arms. He is travelling from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok and has already ridden over 5,000 km. Incredible! He rides on the main streets, the trucks passing him in no distance, and at night he is camping. This man is really brave!

In Kemerovo I have to search for my hotel. A young man, Alexander, is curious and tries his English at me and then shows me the way to the entrance of the hotel. It is a pilgrim hotel and the entrance is on the ground/area of a church. It is clean, there's a hot shower, I can safe parking (in the area of the church, which is fenced and guarded at night), and I will get breakfast - for 25 euros.

When unpacking, I lose my motorbike key and can't find it again. Even if I have a replacement key, that is annoying. A blessing, the caretaker finds my key and expects me in front of the elevator, when I just want to continue my search. I am so happy that I want to give him 100 rubles, which he vehemently rejects. He invites me to a snack in his guards' room with monitors: cucumber, tomato, a toast bread with sausage, a piece of garlic (raw!). It's amazing how nice people are!

I have to work a bit and then I'm going out for something to eat. Once again it is not easy to find a restaurant. But I find a place for a salad, pizza and a beer. It's a brewery too here, and I can choose from a lot of different beers. I'm choosing Woodstock, sounds and tastes good.

In the restaurant I'm sorting pictures again and actually I'm getting uptodate. Since Brigitte is typing transcripts of my audio diaries quite immediately, I can put the texts online to my website very timely. I don't know who will read it, but I like to document the journey for myself.

In the meantime, life music has started here, and people are dancing and the girls wear fancy dresses ... I return to the hotel and have to ring to my new friend, the housekeeper, who has to open the gate for me.