Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Tim and I were enlisted to spend the evening hours on a bumpy, muddy field play-
ing a sprawling game of no-rules soccer.
We returned to our hosts after dark and learned a little about life in the village
and how it had changed for the worse since the days of communism. In turn, we
told them of our lives: on the bikes, and back home, half a world away in Australia.
We finally made it to bed at around 3 a.m. I smiled as I thought back over the
events of the day. It made me realise how privileged and lucky we were to be here
experiencing a life and a culture that few westerners even knew existed. Yet, at the
same time, how easy would it really be to get here? With a few thousand dollars
to spare, I could get a visa in Australia and reach Ishimka within a few weeks, at
most.
No, what made our being here so special was that we'd come the hard way.
We'd arrived on bikes, living a basic lifestyle that the locals could relate to, even if
they did think we were crazy. More than that, we'd taken the trouble to learn Rus-
sian and could talk freely to everyone we met. Perhaps the most significant thing
was that we were young.
Twenty-one, I thought, is an ideal age to be. We were young enough to have fun
with the kids and young enough that the majority of babushkas got all fired up to
feed and look after us. But we were also old enough to converse meaningfully with
adults.
I made the choice about continuing the trip as I was drifting off to sleep. I loved
Nat dearly, but this opportunity to live in Russia and to get to know its people and
culture was unique. Tomorrow we'd be riding again, and the day after that we had
decided to split up and spend the next week riding alone. What chance encounters
and fantastic opportunities were waiting along that road? What about Lake Baikal?
And Mongolia? And China? One thing was for certain: unless I continued the ad-
venture to the end, I would never know.
