Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Civilisation became sparse; we found ourselves pedalling for endless miles along
eternal stretches of bitumen. The sun was up for twenty hours at a time and we
adapted our routine accordingly. Often we'd ride until midnight and then sleep till
early afternoon. We averaged over 100 kilometres a day on roads that, for a whole
week, were inexplicably covered by billions of butterflies.
I was on top of the world. I loved the long uninterrupted hours under the sun,
watching the scenery glide slowly by, but Tim was struggling. He was still using
the old gear changer we'd picked up in Novosibirsk, which would have made rid-
ing harder for him. It seemed to me, though, that at least some of Tim's disenchant-
ment had to do with food.
In the month since we'd left Omsk, Tim had recovered - physically, at least -
from the shock of Bruce's death. His appetite had come back with a vengeance and
he was eating more than ever before. I'd only just come out of an endless appetite
myself, so I thought I'd seen most of what there was to see in terms of pigging out.
But Tim's capacity was something else again. I watched amazed as Tim casually
downed kilogram bags of
pryaniki
, and was left bewildered at lunchtimes when he
swallowed loaves of bread as though they were snack food.
The problem was that Tim hadn't realised any of this. He bought provisions ac-
cording to his usual appetite and as a result he was almost constantly starving. This
placed him in a vicious circle. The hungrier he got, the more absent-minded he be-
came, and the more absent-minded, the less likely he was to remember to eat!
Our petty arguments had started up again, and ballooned out one evening into a
rowdy yelling match. I can't remember how it ended up, but the whole thing started
with a disagreement over a plan I'd had since the beginning of the trip. I wanted to
modify our bikes to ride along the tracks of the
BAM
railway.
The
BAM
is a major railway that branches off the main trans-Siberian line at the
town of Taishet - a few hundred kilometres further on - and continued for anoth-
er 5000 kilometres through northern Siberia, to the eastern coastal city of Komso-
mol'sk On Amur. We were planning to follow the line for just over 1000 kilometres
to the northern tip of the gargantuan Lake Baikal: the deepest in the world, and
known locally as the 'Jewel of Siberia'.
Our map had roads marked only along the first part of the railway, and Tim
wanted to follow the road until it ran out. I had only a vague idea about how I'd
go about turning a bicycle into a rail-rider, but I was excited about the prospect of
cruising along a smooth metal track for as long as possible.
