Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
At first sight, the village of Novi Vashki didn't appear any better than Skokovo.
I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find a shop among the three or four wooden
homes.
We sat out the back of the shop on a slab of concrete eating lunch. The temper-
ature had risen slightly and the puddles and frozen dirt had turned to sticky mud.
Dollops of cow dung were flying periodically out the window of a nearby house.
While I cut the loaf of bread, Chris wandered off to find water.
'Jeez, we can't drink that!' I shrieked. He was dipping the billy into a muddy
puddle.
'It's all right. During my bicycle journey around Australia, it was just a matter
of choosing the puddle with the least cow shit … Oh that looks like some nice ones
over there,' he said, his eyes lighting up.
It was obvious that we could not continue with my injured knee. Over jam sand-
wiches we decided that we would hitchhike to the small city of Vologda, 200 kilo-
metres to the south-east. There I would find a hospital and get some advice. But
first we needed to solve the problem of where to leave the bikes. Within seconds of
entering the shop we were surrounded by three or four babushkas, all vying for the
honour of being our hosts.
'Oh, good boys, good on you, well done!' they uttered, shaking their heads and
tut-tutting. I looked down to see faces squeezed into neatly tied scarves.
'I'll cook you pancakes!'
'I'll make you fish pies!'
'Do you like cottage cheese?'
Finally, we chose a woman who muscled her way to the front midway into the
scuffle. The others winked in approval. She had been the woman shovelling the
cow dung out the window, and she wasted no time in ushering us back home. Under
orders we hauled the bikes through the front door and plonked them in her tiny kit-
chen. The table had to be removed so that they would fit.
'Are you sure about this?' I asked, uncertainly.
She wielded a fist as her face screwed up like an old walnut. 'Don't worry about
it! They are staying here!' she thundered, breaking into a cackle. She didn't tell us
her name, suggesting that we should address her as Babushka or Baba, the Russian
term for an elderly woman or grandmother.
We said goodbye and wandered back to the main road to begin the trek to Volo-
gda. In vain we plodded on with our thumbs out, hoping to encourage some traffic
to appear. Every half hour or so the faint whine of a vehicle could be heard in
