August 18, 2015 Astana to Pavlodar

We met this morning in the parking lot behind the Traditional Hotel in Astana for the morning briefing.  Our previously filthy, muddy motorcycles were clean!  Thank you John and Mike for getting 2 weeks worth of bugs and dirt off the bikes.  Today Janis led us on our 444km (278 miles) trek.  We thought it might be a quick day.  However, it turned out to be nearly 278 miles of continual construction, detours, gravel and dirt sections.

We waved farewell to the hotel employees who had gathered to see us off and take pictures.

Chuberashka decided he wanted to come out of the panniers and see what motorcycling adventure is all about.  Boz currently has custody of our friend, who is passed from rider to rider at dinner, with a story about why the next rider is due the honor of the bequest of his presence.

He seems pretty happy so far.  Oh, and look he's been pinned as an official Ayres Adventurer.

Randy looks like he's having a good time too.

Our day started off overcast. These factories just outside Astana are adding to the cloud cover.  The further we got from the town center, the less clean, and less prosperous it looked - similar to cities worldwide - except for the air pollution.

Our clean bikes didn't stay that way for long.  We had a lot of construction all day.  This is a typical turn off the main road onto a gravel access road paralleling the construction - loose underpinnings are lots of fun on a motorcycle.

There was one 20km section of completed new pavement.  It was great.  Nice and smooth, but it didn't last long enough.

We were soon back on gravel trying to pass the trucks and busses so we don't have to eat their dust the whole way.  We made about 150km in an hour and a half.  It was 89 degrees even early in the day.  After our morning gas stop, Boz, Dave and I decide to skip the lunch stop and go straight for the next hotel, hoping to arrive before it got too hot.

Zipping down the road, we spotted the first yurts on this trip.  We hear there will be many more to come, including some nights accommodations in them.

We think we found the source of all the dirt used for the new road.  It looks like they are taking down a large hill here.  In any case, long stretches of dirt road two-up on a motorcycle give new meaning to adventure.  Dave is a very god dirt rider, but these are big, heavy machines, and having a pillion on back makes it harder.  The riders generally stand on the foot pegs while traversing rough and unpaved patches.  Pictures do not do justice to the huge potholes and ruts, and washboard surfaces for many, many miles.  It is quite tiring to ride on and leaves my butt hurting.

The white lines appeared are conveyers to move the dirt from the hill to waiting trucks.

We had to pass a lot of trucks.  Dave usually rode the gravelly sections standing up while I held on with both hands, so I didn't get many pictures today.  The above was a rare exception - passing on gravel while breathing trucks dust and diesel fumes.  Fun.

Many times we were redirected onto a gravel section off to the right, other times, off to the left. 

The gravel sections sometimes diverted us around this type of work; huge culverts being placed beneath the new road.  Basically, we were riding in the midst of ongoing road construction the entire time - something that would never happen in the U.S - this type of road would simply be closed while being built.  However, the roads here go for hundreds of miles through barren and remote locations with no alternative roads, so the authorities have no choice but the keep the old "roads" open while upgrading them.

When we had fairly good road, we flew - but we are still in the middle of nowhere.  The horizon stretches forever and there are almost no towns, few gas stations, but there were still horses, cows and goats near the road.

Closer to Pavlodar, we began to see signs of population like large cemeteries.  The muslim and christian burial grounds were right next to each other here.

Just before we crossed the river to enter into Pavlodar, we noticed some cafes on the right.  Sitting behind the traffic we were tempted to hop over to the new asphalt and jump ahead in line.  Then as we got closer and noticed the grills outside the cafes, and the aroma penetrated our face shields we thought about stopping for lunch.  But the line began to move, and we kept going.

The alien dude holding the orange hand gave us a big thumbs up as we motored by.

We arrived at the day's destination hotel a little after 1 PM.  Actually, this is a picture of the new addition which isn't open yet.  Our building is behind this one.  This is the only nice building in Pavlodar, which is basically full of shacks.  Our tour is intended to be a luxury adventure, but often it means staying in "best available" accommodations that are pretty shabby.  This place looks a lot better than it is.  Event some of the supposedly five-star resorts have seen better days or are overly glitzy in a Las Vegas facade glitter-and-mirror-ball way.

Upon checking in, we were told that there was no hot water in our rooms.  Ugh! But a lunch of chicken noodle soup for me, and a beer plate with fruit platter got us in a better mood.  When we returned to our room, I discovered that we did in fact have hot water.  Hurrah!  Svetlana cleared up the confusion when the rest of the group arrived a few hours later.  Apparently, only some of the rooms have hot water while they are replacing hot water tanks.  We had a temporary tank hanging near the ceiling over the toilet.

Dinner was at a nearby restaurant.  The DJ/karaoke music was way too loud.  But soon he took a long break and the conversation flowed, as well as the alcohol.  So when he returned about a half hour later, the group was in the mood to play along.

David did not make it to dinner because of his board committee meetings.  He is on the board of National Retail Properties in Orlando, which held its quarterly committee meetings from 1:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon.  David called in to participate in those meetings via cell phone to their boardroom.  Of course it is a ten-hour time difference, so he dialed in at 11:30 PM our time, and the meetings finished at 2:30 AM.  The connection dropped several times and it was difficult to hear some of what went on, but the quarterly board book did make it to the hotel via DHL, and Dave was able to listen to most of the proceeding and vote when needed.  

Tomorrow will be more of the same - after we ride across the border into Russia (Siberia this time) and to the little town of Slavgorod, Dave will dial into the actual board meeting, kicking off at 9:00 AM and finishing around noon, so 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM our time, much easier than the late-day committee meetings today.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a scorcher of a ride, with a typical multi-hour border crossing.

There were a couple of other interesting events today - the final members of our group arrived in Astana to join us - Tom and Mona Loftus.  Tom rode from Venice, Italy, as they had already visited the parts of Russia that were the first part of our adventure.  Mona flew in, so is fresher than most of us, although jet lagged.  Tom, on the other hand, had a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago on the last day of the Iron Butt Rally, near Albuquerque, New Mexico, so is nursing an injured leg.  

The other sort of funny incident is that Marilyn's California license plate went missing in the road construction, rattled off by the bad surfaces.  The guides have made a "temporary" facsimile, but it is obviously magic marker quality, so it could make border crossings and police interactions interesting.

One last thing is the constant interaction with police.  We were stopped several times by police leaving the Rixos resort yesterday, and were stopped twice (different groups and the van) today.  There is usually no payment required, and no tickets - they mostly seem interested in us, or want to question why we are passing through.  We are quite the spectacle.  Today a police car came by in the opposite direction while Dave was going about 130 km/hr (80 mph), riding ahead with Boz.  The car's lights and sirens came on and he turned around, but about a half mile behind us.  He was driving a small car, and apparently could not catch up to us, as we left him in the literal dust (not running from police, but not making it too easy either).  For the next week or so, the blog may be even more boring because we will be crossing Siberia - no one lives there for a reason - this time of year it apparently can be a lot of long dusty roads and few points of interest.  Stay tuned, I am sure we can make our own reasons to stay awake!