Into Siberia - Off the Trails - page 82

As the skies finally started to clear, we met a great number of people drawn
to the outdoors by the warmer weather; they were all amazed by the spectacle of
our weird recumbent bicycles. Kids who'd never even heard of Australia pedal-
led frantically beside us on ancient, oversized bicycles, firing breathless questions.
Middle-aged men in sturdy grey clothing waved us down to share a quick shot of
vodka, or a pocketful of unshelled sunflower seeds.
There was an art to eating these sunflower seeds - semichki , as they are called
- that I never quite mastered. The little black seed is popped into the mouth and a
clever nip with the teeth opens the shell so that the tongue can extract the kernel.
Then, all in one fluid action, the husk is spat out onto the ground - or the floor, or
the bus seat, wherever the person happens to be.
Eating semichki is something of a national pastime. There are little weather-
beaten babushkas standing on virtually every street corner selling them for a pit-
tance. Almost everyone we met had a stash and was willing to share but it took
months before I came close to getting the technique right. During that time, I threw
countless crowds into roaring fits of laughter as they watched the Australian splut-
ter and choke on his bloody semichki . Usually, I'd get fed up and simply swallow
the darned things whole until, months later, I learnt that the husks are carcinogen-
ic. On the other hand, I'd also read that due to the potent fertilisers used during
Soviet times, the average middle-aged Russian would have consumed sixty percent
of their bodyweight in heavy metals and toxins. With the huge appetites brought
on by riding we were probably eating at least three times as much as the average
Russian and, doing the maths, that meant we'd had up to 1.5 kilograms of lethal
chemicals each over the year! With all that inside me, the sunflower seeds were
hardly going to make any difference.
With the warmer weather and our improving fitness, we were soon covering up
to 100 kilometres a day. Just to add spice, a few days before reaching Omsk, I
caught a stomach bug that had me regularly sprinting to hide behind the first avail-
able tree, with my pants down and retching at the same time. I spent a day groaning
in the tent and cut my diet to bread and water before I improved enough to ride
again. All the same, during the final days into Omsk, Tim would often come across
my bike hastily dumped by the roadside, with me nowhere to be seen. We covered
the distance steadily and reached the city in the nick of time. I'd just used my last
square of toilet paper.