June 8th " Bug City" - Ynctble Knoyn to Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere Russia

Well, what we thought was the top of a hill was certainly not! It was hard starting the second day off right on an uphill whith no leg warm up. Stopped for lunch in a small hamlet called quite fittingly "Poo" and ate some mystery bread balls filled with mysterious items.  Met lots of really friendly people here who gave us hight fives and encouragement in broken Engligh (as our Russian is not up to par for convo's). Interestingly, one car load stepped out all with a bottle of beer in hand.  It has been slow going for us as it has been one hill after the other since Wenexob and we are relegated to the rocky shoulder.  the road we are on is a major transportation route to Mongolia and Eastern Russia so hugh 18 wheelers are constantly going by blowing fumes at us.  Ali and I both have a sore throat as the fumes could probably be likened to smoking a pack of cigs a day.  Come on Lake Baikal!  Found a nice camp spot in the woods off the road some where in the middle of nowhere Russia.

June 7th " High on Diesel" - Irkutsk to Somewhere past Ynctble Knoyn

The learning curve was excellerated today heading right out onto the busy roads of Irkutsk for the first time riding on our weighted bikes.  Not as hard to handle as I thought it would be, but it will take a few days to get uber comfortable.  Once out of Irkutsk we passed through a few other medium sized town, and then we hit the hills!!  Looks like we will have our work cut out for us.  The temperature on my bike computer read 40C for the better part of the afternoon and it was an electrolite powder bonanza.  After getting to the top of a hill we decided to camp for the night in the woods beside the road.  It would have been relaxing had it not been for the 1 million bugs buzzing around.

June 6 - "Heat Wave"

I am all out of whack still with jetlag; awake at odd hours of the night and then absolutely exhausted during the day. I'd better get it together for tomorrow as we have 91kms to pass to get to Lake Baikal. It would he nice to get there as soon as possible to enjoy the beautiful lake scenery and have some uber relaxation on the sandy beach. No biggie as to how many kms we do each day as we are totally self sufficient with our camping gear, water purifier, food, etc. Bought a modest xl glass jar of Nutella today which is not exactly ideal for going fast and light, but I am willing to risk it for that yummy,caloric spread! We also stocked up on a bazillion instant noodles, which are not exactly my fav, but I will learn to love them. Oh and by the way it is 29c here today - finally a taste of summer!

June 5 - "Moment of Truth"

The bikes survived their arduous journey to Russia! After a 007 mission getting the bike boxes up into our room yesterday and making up a funny excuse as to why the cleaning Lady could not come into our room today, all of our hard work paid off and they are complete. Now the trick will be disposing of the evidence! Packed the panniers up 80% and am hesitant to actually try and bike with all the weight once food and an enormous amount of water are added to the mix. I am certainly feeling like a sloth after 2 weeks of no real exercise, so it will be quite interesting the first few days out on the road. Ate some street meat kebabs for dinner and am still alive! Need to pack in some serious calories for Tuesday's start date.

June 4 - "Some smiles please"

I love getting screamed at at 8:00 in the morning by a burly Russian woman - nothing says welcome like a good 'ol fashion tongue lashing! In my haste to pay for our bikes before our check-in closed I neglected to get our baggage stickers back so ofcourse these wereabsolutely imperative to be able to retreive our luggage in Irkutsk - like seriously! After feigning a full body pocket search which I knew was fruitless I suppose she felt that Ali and I had been verbally abused enough and pushed us out of the baggage room only to be met by a throng of inbound Russians packed 20 deep to get into the room - thus ensued even more verbal abuse as we pushed through with our bike boxes! Yay Russia! Our Irkutsk hostel is actually quite the anomaly where we get our own bachelor apt. A life saver really where we ca unpack our bikes and get the panniers ready. So far people have not been exceptionally nice to us and it's quite obvious that we are annoying everyone we encounter! I am a bit worried that we will be so exposed and vulnerable on our bicycles on the side of the road. Looks like roughly 680kms to the Mongolian border so fingers crossed that we encounter some smiling faces along the way. Off to sleep at 6:30 pm and wishing I had some ginger kittens to play with like the ones up on Scotland!

June 3 - "Either pay or don't board the plane"

15 hours of sleep! Not entirerly restful due to our noisy bunk dwellers, but still amazing to be horizontal. Made repeat visit to our favourite little grass patch outside the Kremlin and had a siesta in the shade. Excited to leave Moscow and get to Irkutsk, but there will be one major snafu in our plans before we get there. I knew there would be roadblocks along the way, but being charged per kg for our bikes on s7airlines was over the top! I had tried to be very diligent about researching our bike box passage on all the airlines and had even been in email correspondence with s7 regarding our bikes. I was told that as long as they were less than 203 cms in lwh that they would go under free baggage allowance along with our checked bags. However the airport staff had a different idea and thus ensued an hour scene at the checkin counter where we refused to pay for 40kg of extra luggage - at 250rubles (10 dollars) this was extreme. I even had the email to show them that stated our bikes would go for free! The manager who only spoke Russian refused to deal with us and found the only employee who spoke English to tell us that we could either pay the 10,000 rubles or not fly. He then admitted that it was their mistake that I was given the wrong info, but there was nothing they could do about it! Welcome to Russia I thought as our flight was 5mins from closing and I forked over my visa card to pay. Needless to say this has put a very sour taste in my mouth. Another sleepless night on our night flight and with the 5 hour time change we will land at 8:00 in Irkutsk.

June 2nd - High Fashion Circus

Nothing says getting to know Moscow like taking a nap on the grass outside the Kremlin for a few hours! After five flights taking us from Calgary to Toronto for a three day fam-jam, then to London and up to Scotland for a five day fam/kitten-jam and back to Heathrow for our flight to Moscow we were feeling jetlagged to the max when we arrived at 6am in the Russian capital. Once our bikes had been checked into Left Luggage we hit the Metro at rushhour to make our way to the Trendy Kitai Gorod sector of Moscow where our hostel was. Once out of the Metro and on the busy streets it became very apparent that I had missed the memo on the requirement for women to be in miniskirts and stilletos. Needless to say I am feeling very shabby in my flip flops and baggy AA tank. Ali and I managed to find our hostel after a few "fun" hours of searching. It is already becoming apparent that this country is not set up well for independent backpacker travel -made even more apparent when Ali was interviewed by a major Moscow newspaper as to why he was staying in a hostel in Moscow - the interviewer did not hide her disgust! After we checked into our 8 bed dorm room we hit the town in search of St. Basil's Cathedral - the main reason why we made a stop in Moscow before Irkutsk. The heat of the day was starting to do our heads in after pulling an all nighter, so once we saw the nice green grass outside the Kremlin we were sold. Hours later we were more prepared to take in the sights of the Red Square! Back to the hostel to sleep at 5:30pm.