When Life Hands You Lemmings…
Monday duly rolled around. By now we were getting used to the way the sun meandered over the eastern horizon and brought a cautious start to the working day. It was fully 9:30 before there was enough light to call …
Flailing About
The phone rang and rang and rang again. Staggering around the bags strewn around our room I groggily picked up the receiver. A Russian accent on the other end spoke in English: This is Sergei, Oleg’s friend. We have Zaya …
Death & Love
Our introduction to the motorcycles now complete, we made our way to the Ural factory museum where a truly splendid collection of antique motorcycles was on display. The entire history of Urals was there, right back to its origins with …
Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day
– This shouldn’t be all that hard, after all we did the Mototaxi Junket and survived that. – Can we take Eric’s motorcycle from last year? He said all the mechanics were rebuilt and aside from the electrics it’s in …
A Couple of Pricks
During our overnight stay in Yekaterinburg, Zaya admitted that she’d been to see the doctor in Ulaanbaatar for a chest infection. With my medical background I’m leery of anyone that says they’re sick and about to embrace an adventure that …
A View From the Bus Towards Irbit
Aeroflot’s one bag rule was my introduction to Russia’s general hatred of luggage. The next time I found it was getting on the bus in Yekaterinburg that was heading downtown from the airport. Stern-looking and solidly built as she was, …
Welcome to Russia!
To Build a Fire is a short story by Jack London that describes an arrogant man’s walk from one trading post to the next in the dead of a winter along the Yukon Trail. London is unsympathetic to his central …
Siberia Calls!
Itchy feet is a chronic condition in my family, and I’m not talking about the athlete’s kind. We are in varying degrees a band of wanderers, seekers of adventure with a commonly held curiosity about the world and other people …
Ice Run 2013
Red Thread is off to the chilly, frozen bits of Russia in an attempt to drive 2,500km across the Siberian wilderness on an old Ural motorcycle with sidecar. The goal is to drive from Irbit, the home of the Ural, …