August 19, 2015 Pavlodar to Yarovoe

We left Pavlador, Kazakhstan at 9am today.  This was our last day in the country - now we head back into Russia, Siberia this time, and the Mongolia and China.  Our total distance for today was only 210km (131 Miles), hence the later start, but we also made a border crossing

Half the group went to the bank on the corner to convert their Kazak tenges to Russian rubbles.  We, along with Boz and Alain rode ahead to a gas station to fill up, then waited at the station for the rest of the group so as to arrive at the border at the same time.

Once out of the city, traffic was light, and we were able to pass traffic with ease.

Today's riding was still on the steppe.  The landscape has not changed much.  We can see forever, and what we see is mostly wheat, with some occasion sunflowers, which are in bloom right in time for our visit!

I thought we might have another police moment when passing a marked police car at about 15km/hr over the limit, but nothing came of it.

We still must aware of the livestock on the road.

  

To my delight, the wheat gave way to sunflower fields…

 as we approached the border.

 We waited in line behind about 8 vehicles…

David and the rest of the drivers pushed their bikes forward, inching toward the exit from  Kazakhstan and entry to Russia again.

We had a couple of kids (and I think their parents as well) who wanted their pictures taken on the motorcycles.  It took this picture of this fun little guy.  Then Mike Myers asked him to pose the way he walked up to us:

The gun LOOKS real but his dad assured us it is just a toy.  However, at the border crossing?

  

We had our picture taken in the adjacent sunflower field.

Several adults were also interest in our motorcycles and adventure.  Svetlana filled them in.

It took us about 2 hours to get across the border.  Fortunately we were only behind personal cars.  On the other side of the border crossing was a bus full of people who had to go through the border bureaucracy, one at a time.

It was after 1pm when all of us had our bikes inspected and sniffed by the dog, and our picture taken with a very lovely border guard.  She really only wanted big Mike in the picture.  We had to wait until he completed his inspection.  All the Russian women are smitten by Mike – it’s his smile.

It was getting hot - 99.5 degrees according to the motorcycle's thermometer.  We made a quick stop to grab a snack at a “hotel”.  The doors off the main room lead into sleeping quarters.

Back on the bikes, we navigated a railroad crossing and about 100 km into Slavgorod.  During the cold war the city was home to the Slavgorod Air Base during the cold war - biggest air base in Russia.

Today it is mostly home to some air-polluting factories. We are constantly amazed at the bad air, even in these sparsely populated places.  It is obvious because we are outside in the air all day, but we get headaches by noon.

The Soviet era apartment buildings are still here.

The highlight of the Yarovoe tour is a wedding chapel.  There is a nearby lake that supports a summer tourist season - but all in all, a pretty dismal place - it is easy to see why people did not want to be sent to Siberia.

By 2 pm we were so hot, we decided to head straight for the Uyutnaya Hotel. It was more like a dormitory set up, we were warned that we might not have hot water due to municipal work, but it was indeed functioning, but in our room, not for some of the other riders.  The hot shower was a total immersion experience - everything in the bathroom got wet.  The bathroom "is" the shower.   I’m sure our comrades who didn’t have hot water last night were not complaining too much.

We walked to dinner at a nearby restaurant.  The service was typical of the trip so far - random delivery of the drinks, some appetizers came out as others were getting their entree, and sometimes a dessert arrives before dinner.  It's best just to laugh, chalk it up to cultural differences and the size of our group, and the fact that Janis and Svetlana have to translate the menu for all 14 of us - a big job that takes time.  We all eventually get fed - it may take a couple of hours. 

I took dinner back to David, who stayed behind to telephonically attend his quarterly board meeting with National Retail Properties in Orlando.  That meeting started at 9:00 AM Orlando time, so 7:00 PM our time, coinciding with the group dinner.  The call-in for the meeting went much better than the committee meetings last night, and David had his board book, which had been shipped to our last hotel via DHL, with some interesting customs hurdles, but all is well.  Now we have to lug that thing with us for the next 9,000 miles, as it contains nonpublic information and cannot be thrown away.  Arghhh.  Anyway, tomorrow we will ride further into Siberia, to the town of Novosibirsk.  The next week or so will include mostly transiting Siberia, with a highly anticipated two-day visit to a Lake Baikal resort, and two days in a city where we can have the bikes serviced and tires replaced.