Wed 4 June Urkutsk to Tulin

Our group rides on. The Russian guide in a van follows the "main road trackers" the rebels find their own way and our two guides ride down the road preferring to keep their own company.
We were due to be at Lake Baikal today. However we are catching up the days we lost when the bikes got lost/delayed, so we are off to Tulin.
What a good ride.....well to start with but as the day progressed and we got on to rougher roads, more vehicles, especially trucks, I have no idea what they were carrying, and strings of Japanese cars. They are shipped to Vladivostok and driven across Russia to Moscow I assume to be sold but whether they would be fit to drive after they are thrashed across Russia is questionable. Incidentally if crossing Russia either East or West Vladivostok is the place to start or end I believe, not China. The roads were in places being repaired or rebuilt and they were places that required great dilligence. A real hazzard but we all came through uncathed. Unlike a number of the imported cars. Their breakdown rate increased the further they went.
Tulin was a town in the middle of seemingly nowhere. A very ordinary very poor town. Dirt streets. The houses along the route were more interesting but the rural hard times were evident everywhere. Many of the houses having had no repairs for many years. Old people were evident but not much else as they seemed to be in the process of gathering the winter wood. Our evening meal was in a nearby restaurant with pretty ordinary food and a very loud DJ that a group of local women dining together were dancing to. We escaped without embarrassing either them or ourselves by joining the dances.
nzl07