Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
For the first time in ages, we had a string of uneventful days. Besides tick sight-
ings, the only scare happened one afternoon when I discovered that my urine had
turned a fluorescent, glow-in-the-dark yellow. I was drinking a lot, so it couldn't
have been due to dehydration. Over lunch, I told Chris.
'What? You too!' he exclaimed. For the rest of the day we discussed the possible
causes; the most frightening being that we had been eating radioactive pryaniki . If
that was the case, we were sure to have a high radiation reading. We also recalled
the many times we had collected water from drains, and chewed over the prospect
that we were destined to become mutants by journey's end. What with the Soviet
Union's terrible waste management record, heavy-metal pollution and chemically
enhanced crops, it didn't seem that far-fetched. Not to mention the widespread nuc-
lear testing program and the fallout from disasters like Chernobyl.
A couple of days later, after some simple tests, we were relieved to discover
that our extraordinary urine was due to the vitamin-B tablets that we were taking
to supplement our diet!
According to Chris I looked especially dishevelled and dirty as we rode into the
city of Perm. Judging from the looks I got, he was probably right. Once again it
was a shock to be in civilisation. Perm was the largest city we had been in to date;
it positively bustled with activity. We passed a square in which scantily clad girls
walked hand in hand with their partners. Drunkards sat on park benches and boys
on roller-blades circled around a statue of Lenin. Outdoor cafés emblazoned with
the Coca-Cola trademark were an unavoidable eyesore.
We were both looking forward to a well-earned rest. Unfortunately, we dis-
covered that the only hotels with free rooms were going to blow our budget of
$AU4 a day. The Kirov hotel and the cost of the gamma gobulin for my injection
in Glazov had set us back substantially.
On my return from another fruitless hunt for cheap accommodation, Chris was
talking to a couple of guys and a girl. They were probably in their early twenties.
They greeted me with vigorous handshakes, and it wasn't long before we took up
their invitation to stay with them.
Our living quarters for the night turned out to be a rust-bucket cabin surrounded
by a tall, barbed security fence. Squeezed between our cabin and the security fence
were hundreds of lockers where workers at a nearby market kept all of their goods
overnight. There were no taps, so we washed our faces with the scummy water
from a rusty metal drum.
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