Advertisement
Published: August 25th 2006
Edit Blog Post
"Cafe Babushka"
The beginning of a good friendship. "Vodka - enabling nice looking men to sleep with ugly babushkas for centuries"! Day 84, 23rd August
Petropavlovsk
We like this place so much so that we decided to stay another night, which means a rush to the border tomorrow before our transit visas expire. Today, we ate at a great restaurant, enough food to fill us up for hours. Then I went off with Tobes to find the post office and the internet café to do some emailing.
There was a huge police presence in town due to a diplomatic visit by some Turkish delegates. The town is quite pleasant with a huge pedestrian street cutting through it. There seems to be a higher standard of living here also and better care of the streets and buildings.
Later on I returned to the hotel to chill-out for a while, write some letters and postcards. Scott returned, we drank some beers and chatted. I had another lovely bath with peppermint oil this time before moisturizing my hands and face, then went to bed.
Day 85, 24th August
Petropavlovsk - Bulaevo - Isil’kul’ (RUSSIA)
Had a good sleep, packed up all that I’d put out to dry last night; tent, sleeping bag, Thermarest mattress - then did the
Dancing Queens
"Dowze Babooshkaars reely know how'ta shake dare booty maaaaaaaan"!!! relay of stuff up and down via the life to the bikes after we had breakfast in the hotel café. After going about town a bit for certain tasks we were on our way just after ten, on the road to Omsk and the Russian border.
I had a bit of an argument with Toby, he can be so annoying at times, trying to be so logical over the most bittyest of things. His arguments on such things as politics, ethics, and logic are being torn to pieces by Scott and I every day. He has such a staid outlook on the world and he often contradicts himself. I had to reassure him in the hotel last night that we weren’t actually getting at him as such.
Anyway, the weather was good and the wind was behind us. The road was straight and empty as usual with no shops, sellers, cafes, petrol stations…. Absolutely nothing…. Nothing at all - for miles! At 45 miles from the city and no café in sight as yet, we were getting a little concerned, we were thirsty and our tummies were rumbling, badly. We never expected this emptiness, so complete and so
The KAFE
No more than a shed really, but more like COLDITZ to escape from! absolute…
And then, one of those strange things happened, one of those things that will be told over and over again and later become backpacker legend…..
“THE DARING ESCAPE FROM CAFÉ BABUSHKA”
We saw a bus shelter ahead….no, wait, a shed. It was a small building as we got closer, a indescript place with the word “КАФЕ” on the side. An unexpected café in the middle of nowhere. We stopped, and I ventured inside. The two babushkas behind the counter looked at me, then at each other, and then a knowing smile crossed their faces.
We all sat at a table, everything was okay to start off with, we had food, coffee, then more food…they were feeding us well. Then the women produced bottles of vodka! Conveniently, it was one of the babushka’s birthday, “Rosa”, the grandmother. The vodka began to flow, the door was barred, and the crap music went on…full-blast! We had no chance of escaping. They forced us to drink, sing “Happy Birthday”, and dance with them. We got very drunk and were dancing on the tables and chairs. We were getting totally monged and completely out of control… did these Babuskas want
Our Hero!
A diversion at the door - a friendly truck driver enables us to flee for the exit. to increase the gene-pool of their village? They were going the right way about it!
We were saved by an amused truck driver who was knocking on the door. This was our chance to escape…we made it to the bikes with the drunken, horny babushkas hot on our tails desperate for our genes!!! It was obvious by now that we had to go, but not after the big babushka had sat on my bike as she insisted on doing. After a few minutes of bouncing on the saddle she got off revealing the FINAL HORROR! We later called it babushka-juice, I think you know what I’m talking about. We made our excuses and left, riding totally drunk to the Russian border, me trying not to sit on my saddle until I’d got a reasonable distance to disinfect it.
On the way to the border, we foolishly bought another bottle of vodka and drunk it en-route. At the Kazake border, the guards found us amusing and wanted to shake our hands, they weren’t even bothered about checking our visas, and no stamps were forthcoming. We carried on past the Kazakhstan sign and back into Russia.
There was no
Shock! Horror!
"Oh my God! What the hell is this on my bike saddle"? checkpoint on the Russian side. After 10 miles cycling passing road junctions leading up to Russian villages we became concerned that our Russian visa may not be validated. Then, 15 miles from the actual border was passport control which took only an efficient 10 minutes to complete. We stopped at a nearby filling station for a coffee, a snack, and to get some water, then found a camping spot after what had turned out to be a 100 mile truly eventful day. Just as I got off my bike the saddle dropped off, that babushka-juice must have been corrosive (seen Alien!), I sincerely thank that truck driver for the intrusion! Before retiring to bed, I cooked noodles for the guys, as we ate, we had to laugh about the days events…
Total Miles: 4826.74 Todays Miles: 100.90 Average speed: 14.8 Time on bike: 6:48
Advertisement
Tot: 0.33s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 24; qc: 118; dbt: 0.1315s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
grantcorp
Johan
HA HA HA HA!
Brilliant...