Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We shared a meal of macaroni, tinned herring and the rest of a bag of Turkmeni
tomatoes, then sat at a respectable distance from Gregory's bonfire and talked into
the evening.
Gregory was an eternal wanderer. He'd worked in various jobs at different
times, but it didn't really suit him, and so he'd spent most of his adult life making
his way in the wild. He lived on wild wheat and barley and on what he could find
in the forest or in the rivers: berries and mushrooms, fish and the occasional small
animal. In winter, he stayed in abandoned huts in the forest and hunted game. He'd
walked extensively through many parts of Siberia's wilderness, but had never trav-
elled by bike before. Basic as his bike was, he had minimal tools to repair it. The
single gear and heavy load meant that he had to walk up any hill steeper than a
dead-flat plain. He wasn't expecting it to carry him far.
He looked at our bikes and gear with what could have been a faint twinge of
envy. We thought that we'd been doing it tough, but compared to Gregory, I could
now see that we were living a life of relative luxury. We were strangers too - for-
eign curiosities - and we received gifts and hospitality almost every day, whereas
Gregory mostly received none. A great deal of our curiosity value stemmed from
the fact that most Russians we met couldn't understand why we chose to live a
life that they regarded as harder than their own. We were bums with a difference
whereas Gregory was just a bum.
The fire burned low. Gregory manoeuvred the glowing coals into position
between two thick logs laid out together on the ground. 'It will smoulder all night
this way,' he explained. 'I'll sleep right up alongside these logs, and the coals will
keep me warm. Hopefully the smoke will help keep some of the bloody mosquitoes
away.' He looked at us and offered a downcast explanation. 'I don't have a tent or
a sleeping bag you see.'
Tim and I looked at each other and then at Gregory, who sat there swatting moz-
zies away from the inflamed red bite-marks on his neck and exposed scalp. Tim
reached into one of his packs and pulled out the zip-up mosquito net he had used
on the solo ride to Novosibirsk; we weren't planning to split up again.
We rose early the next morning and invited Gregory to join us for breakfast.
With the warm weather we'd stopped cooking our porridge in the mornings and
had started eating the raw oats as muesli, instead. The greenish oats with clumpy
milk powder tasted sour and metallic, but usually they were all we had. This morn-
ing, however, we had extra luxuries.
