The Boss “do you know you’re off track” – Jeff

The owner of KUDU and expedition mechanic

Ginger Hunk “I hope no one gets BAMaged’- Gareth

Gareth coined the term BAMtastic as well as many others 🙂

What can I say about Gareth, he is all kinds of awesome in every way, I just wish I were 10 years younger.

Our Muslim with an AK “it’s no problem” – Khairul

Our Malaysian contingent, we hardly ever saw Khairul without a Camera in his hand. I grew very fond of Khairul on the trip and am looking forward to seeing him and his fantastic wife in Malaysia in November

The man on a perpetual quest to keep his boots dry “hello beautiful”- Cesar

The Mexican property developer Cesar and my big brother on the trip, Great great guy

Always there when you need him – Neil

Jeffs right hand man and the KUDU medic and guide

Don’t let him fix your bike – Phil

It took me a little time to warm to Phil after he broke my bike and did not even offer to pay for the damage,

but his heart is in the right place and he turned out to be a very a nice guy.

Hats off to him doing the BAM at 72 WOW what an achievement

Always positive – Craig

I’ve never met an Australian that I didn’t like but I truly think Craig is one of the best

So finally the rail bridges are behind us and we ride the last bit of the BAM top Tynda. We did it WOW what a challenge and an amazing and difficult experience. Without this particular group I think the whole trip would have been very different. We relay stuck together helping each other through thick and thin and keeping the motivation up. The final part of the BAM was a 350km ride in the pouring rain. It was crazy and about 10 times during that day I thought about digging a hole and going to sleep in it. We were shattered and cold and wet and sick of the BAM and just wanted the day to end and of course it felt like the longest day ever. Getting to bed at 1am after dinner and a hot shower did make me feel a whole lot better though.

But the next day was a very sad day for me. I woke to the news that my closest friend had passed away after losing her battle with Cancer. I was devastated and tried very hard and unsuccessfully to just get on with the day but it’s harder to ride while crying than one thinks so I hated that day. We also said goodbye to Cesar in Tynda which was another sad event as he is one of the best guys I have ever made friends with and like a big brother to me.

So off we headed to Yakutsk 1000km away. 350km later we stopped and camped for a final time as a group. The next day saw us on the M59 for 650km a KILLER and absolute killer we got on the road at 7am had a couple of very very short stops for lunch, to get some water, a couple of pee breaks (I’ve never peed so quick in my life but we really were pushed for time) and a front tyre puncture. We really pushed it that day and after 16 hours finally got into Yakutsk. This is where we (Phil also ended his trip here) said goodbye to the other guys. I was so down at this point after the news about Angie, saying goodbye to Cesar ending the Russian part of the KUDE expedition and now having to say goodbye to the rest of the team. I just cried and cried and fortunately Gareth has big shoulders and let me use them to cry on he is a great great friend and I miss so very much.

The guys will continent to Magadan and do the Road of bones I am GUTTED that I cannot join them however have 35days to get myself through Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to China. If I did go to Magadan I would only have 25. If I pushed up to 600km a day I would make it but pragmatism prevails and I realise that I am dead tired and if I did that would burn out and not make it. If I was not travelling for the next 4 months nothing would have stopped me getting got Magadan but my expedition is not a 2 month London to Magadan expedition like the others it but a 6 month Zurich to Singapore via Siberia expedition and I want to succeed.

So that is it no Road of Bones but jeez after doing a 9 day BAM huh can’t be bothered with a 2 day road of bones J I will take 3 days to rest, clean my gear and repack by stuff plus fix a few things on my bike including a broken pannier rack and then head off South on the Solo part of my trip.

After riding some great tracks on the BAM we arrive at bridge number 3 and it’s huge. I just cannot imagine trying to get the 4×4 over the monster. However this one is different as there is a security guard posted on the bridge to stop stupid people trying to cross it. FORTUNALTY he tells us we can take the bikes across and then go into town to the rail office in the morning and ask the chief about the 4×4. So we Craig and I head off at 6am (over 4 more little bridges, DMAN I hate these things) and go chat to the chief. To cut a long story short he gives us permission to cross the bridge at 6pm.

I honestly could not believe he did this and he was such a nice man. This is no joke nowhere else in the world would they close a bridge stop the trains running to let a bunch of idiotic tourists ride a 4×4 across the rail bridge. The bottom line is he understood that although we are idiotic tourists we are good people on a London to Magadan expedition and if he stopped us that would be it trip over.

So here we wait until 6 and I’m taking the opportunity to write this post and will publish it when I can.

So after spending a day in Kunda and getting the bikes and 4×4 off the train at Chara at midnight we head off to find a quick campsite but decided to stay in a trucker stop, were totally taken advantage of with the price but were desperately to just get some shut eye. The next morning bright and early we continued our  BAM saga.

The rain was just relentless and road as bad as ever. Gareth had a bad fall and hurt his foot but fortunately this was the only accident on the BAM. We were all tired and it seemed like we had reached the end of our tether and a balk mood seemed to have descended on our happy little band. So we decided to call it a day and setup camp. Cesar found an amazing little spot in the woods and after a good meal and nights sleep we were back on track. The sun even came out for us and you just would not believe the difference that made. It seems like the sun comes out on our worst day and this is very fortune considering this way was the day we needed to get the bikes and 4×4 over the rail bridges.

OMG not only do the rail bridges scram the bejeebers out of me but now we had to wait for a train to go past get the 4×4 on the tracks and over the bridge before another came. I seriously couldn’t watch, and fortunately Gareth had got a flat tire on a recon mission so I went to off to take him the tire levers and spare tube and fortunately did not need to get involved in the first 4×4 rail crossing.

I wasn’t so lucky the next time around. The bikes went over the bridge first and I fell just at the end and just screamed like a wussy girl to Gareth to get the bike off me because my foot was trapped under it and I was lying at an angle and could not get it off. But basically I just panicked because I was on the rail bridge and had vision of a train taking my head off. Once on the other side I just watched with baited breath as the guys helped Jeff get the 4xr on the tracks and over the bridge it’s a heart stopping experience, 2 down and 2 to go.

I have to admit that my first few encounters with Russian people on the west side of Russia (ESPECIALLY the border customs officers and police) did not give me a good opinion of Russians at all. I found most of them to be quite unfriendly (I must say not all but most), unhelpful and some just rude. I had heard great reports on the people in Russia so found this strange and a little sad.  After crossing into Russia on the east side and finding the border officials pleasant things just got better. Russians on the east side of Russia are so different to those on the west it’s amazing they are really friendly and helpful. I think the people in Siberia should be called Siberians and not Russians so everyone knows they are different. One of the most pleasant and interesting experiences we had on the trip was the Russian hospitality experienced in Kaunda. This was so unexpected and so generous I find it hard to believe there are any people anywhere as generous as the families we met in Kaunda.

So how this all started is with the rail guard I mentioned before who would not let us cross the rail bridge. So back in Kaunda we spent the day in the train station while Jeff tried to arrange a train platform to take the bikes and 4×4 across the river to the next town. Quite a difficult task when none of us speak Russian. Anyway we were told to come back tomorrow and it would be sorted and we could leave at 12. So we settle in resigned to spending the night in the train station. Since it mine and Khairuls tern to cook we head outside and make the evening meal. This lady turns up and tried to explain by means of hand signals that we can stay in her place. Maybe an hour alter and with help from some other locals who speak broken English we figure out that this lady is offering us her new house – they will move in there in a  few weeks, it is empty but DRY 🙂

We cannot believe our luck a ROOF over our heads for the night WOW to us this was like finding the Ritz in the middle of the Amazon. It’s amazing how little things like this just makes ones day when you are wet and miserable. Lida and Dimi (Lidas husband Demitri) turn out to the nicest kindest friendliest people you can imagine. They refused to take a single rouble in payment for offering us their house. Gave us some duvets etc to try and make us more comfortable on their floor kept on apologising for the lack of mattresses… JEEZ if only they knew how amazing having a room for the night was.

They offered us tea and dried fish a Russian snack it’s like fish biltong (jerky) very oily but actually very nice. They did accept a gift of tea and chocolate from us but that was all and took us to their house to show us their place, dog, bike (Dimi rides a big check off-road 500) , tank SERIOULYH he has a tank that he uses in winter and to go over the mountain to go finishing in. He is a jeweller and works from home so showed us his little work shop. It was great and really interesting to see their place and how they live and where they dry the fish (a tad on the smell y side) the time spent in Kaunda was just priceless.

We met an English speaking teacher Tanya who helped us a lot on that day before she left for her holiday. Then the next door neighbours son who also spoke some broken English turned out to be an angle when he helped Jeff on the second day go back to the train station to sort out the platform. The worst part of Russia is the beurocracy. The platform which is there at the station and would cost us 27000 roubles could not be paid for at the station but the money had to be deposited directly into the railway account but ONLY from another Russian federation bank account. SO we were stuck but to cut a long story short Leda came to the rescue again and used her account to transfer the money. What a burocratic saga.

Needless to say this meant we had to spend another day in Leda and Dimis house in Kuanda. We had no complains as we were dry but really itching to get back on the BAM and continue our trip.

The second night we stayed the next door neighbour Tatiana who is the local Dr and her sister who owns a little tea house in the village (there are only 200 people living in Kuanda) arranged a surprise dinner for us at the tea house. They laid on a spread brought out the best china and fed us true homemade Russian borsch (meat soup) YUM it was yet another show of just how hospitable the Russians can be. Before we left Tatiana gave me a traditional Russian doll which I wrapped up very safely and will post home as soon as I can so that it does not get broken. I was speechless what a lovely things to do for a total stranger. Tatiana and I did have some fun trying to communicate by way of dictionary and a good laugh when she warned me to tell Cesar not to drink the milk he was offered by a couple of Russians in the tea house as it would give him diarrhoea. The dictionary does not have this word in it so by way of gestures and fluid chair (the best words Tatiana could find to make me understand) we had a good laugh. This is one of those travel experiences that I will never forget.

The most challenging things on the BAM road are river crossings, Bridge crossing and railway bridge crossing. Since this is one of the rainiest summers for years the rivers are really swollen making the river crossings very challenging sometimes impossible. Many of the bridges over rivers are either nonexistent or in a very bad state of repair. This leaves only the railway bridges as they are the only well maintained ones. Railway bridge crossing scared the $%^& out of me as I was o convinced a train would come and squish me.

One of the longest and most well known bridges is the Vitim bridge, said by many to be one of the worlds scariest bridges (clearly these people never did a railway bridge crossing) The Vitim is 1870feet  (570m) long and 50feet (15m) above the water. The scary part is that it has no sides so no room for error i.e. one slip and you and the bike go over the edge.

Well it’s easy peasy but wouldn’t want to do it in the rain, fortunately we decided to do the bridge when we arrived at about 7pm instead of wait until morning. A good decision considering it was pi… it down the next day.

The Vitim Bridge

and other bridges crossings

The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) runs north and parallel to the Siberian railway and the road running alongside it just referred to as the BAM road is one of the hardest adventure motorcycling roads in the world and it’s estimated that only fewer than 50 motorcyclists have completed it. Although the BMA is in Siberian in the east part of Russia the road is split into the west and east half the wet running go Tynda and the east from there to the coast. We travelled along the western part of the BAM and it took us 9 days of riding, from Irkutsk to Tynda approximately 2300km.

As far as adventure motorcycling routes the road of bones is more famous due primarily to Ewan McGregor riding it in the long way round. The BAM however was the road they did not ride deciding instead to take the railway (hmmm maybe they made the right decision …. NAH wimps)

So after being in Russia for a couple of days we hit the BAM road, described as the adventure motorcyclist’s ultimate test of man and machine. “Hmmm bit disappointing this BAM road” we all commented after the first 100ks since most of this is on very good dirt roads or the odd bit of tarmac. The scenery and butterflies were amazing, the weather was good (SHOCK we actually got to see the sun) and we were having a ball. BUT obviously we spoke to soon because things were about to change. The BAM is simply one of the worst dirt roads in the world. There is nothing more that can be said it is just bad very very bad. It is not that it is technically difficult off road riding just relentless miles and miles of cut up dirt, sand, potholes, ruts, rocks, puddles (well I can only call them puddles but they are the biggest puddles known to man, deep, rocky, muddy and sometimes tens of metres long)

The real difficulties on the BAM are the river and bridge crossings. Since we chose to come during one of the worst wettest summers experienced in this region the roads are at their worst and some rivers just impassable. This meant we needed to use the railway bridges to cross them. Many of the road bridges were in a rather bad state of repair, but passable and the second largest one in the Kaunda just nonexistent having burned down a few months earlier. This would not have been a problem if a bridge guard had not been posted to ensure no vehicles used the railway bridge. This man was not going to budge and there was no way to cross the bridge. This meant a 50km return trip to the town on Kaunda where we had to board a train, I will explain this saga later.

Getting back to the bad BAM story, one of the best things about the trip is the group that I am riding with. This is team work at its best not only while getting over broken bridges and through rivers but camping and keeping the spirits up. Every time a rider got stuck two or three other riders would be off their bikes and rushing to help before one could say mayday, often wading into knee deep freezing water. I would have to comment that most of the time that was Gareth and Craig, but no one in the team spent the BAM watching from the sidelines everyone chipped in and did their bit. I know companies send their employees on team building days and now I just want to laugh every time I think of one of those ridiculous events. Until you are lying upside down in a pile of dirt half way up a steep incline underneath a bike you have no idea what team work really means. It took three of the guys to get my bike up the bank after I fell and the 4 to get push and pull Phil’s bike (a lot heavier than my baby) up the incline while I road it. If corporate companies sent their employees to the BAM they would soon weed out the slackers 🙂

I AM LOVING THIS. DAMN this is off road tastic (basically because using the word road is stretching the truth a bit) every day I have just really really enjoyed the riding. Other than the knarly river and bridge crossing the road is not that difficult the challenge is primarily in the conditions. The relentless rain and the wild camping in one of the most mozzie infected areas in the world. These little buggers drink mozzie spray for breakfast. The BAM is long and you get really tired and worn down and it just takes a LOT of stamina to do this road but if you like this kind of things its great and I highly recommend taking on the BAM, it’s a worthwhile adversary and I am so glad I took up the challenge.

Even though I am sick to death of rain and being wet and camping in a wet tent and pulling on wet boots and clothes in the morning I would not change this trip for the world.

No words could really accurately explain what we have been though. Just how much I enjoyed the riding and the challenge and yet just how difficult the BAM is. This is by far the hardest, most challenging, most exiting, most fun thing I have ever done and I do believe the only way to do it is to have the right mental attitude because you need to dig DEEEEEP you will learn more about yourself doing the BAM than just about any other motorcycle adventure I can think of.

Everyone who knows me well will know that I have a real complex about only one part of my body and that is my big butt. However my posterior has taken a seriously beating on this trip and I do feel very sorry for it.

Anyone who rides bikes will know just how hard it can be on ones gluteus maximums especially when spending up to 10 hours a day in the saddle. I am seriously happy that I bought my Corben saddle as it is damn comfortable and I only gets monkey butt after the a few hours unlike the original DRZ saddle on which I could not ride for more than 2 hours.

Feeling bruised and saddle soar my posterior then had to endure the copious number of mozzie bites it received especially while in Russia, remember I’m peeing in the same place as the bears so no respite from hungry mozzies and they are not fussy about what part of one’s anatomy they are feasting on. Thank goodness I picked up some cream to use on insect bites as it came in handy one day when I sat on a thorn bush while peeing in the woods. I kid you not, I genuinely sat on a thorn bush during our arrest by the Mongolian border patrol. Thereafter I took extra special care when squatting.

Since half our journey has been in rain one of our biggest problems is trying got keep our gear dry. My riding pants are always wet or damp even when I wear my rain gear as that makes me sweat anyway.  I have a removable kind of quilted lining in my riding pants so took that out but this has led to what I can only describe as some kind of nappy rash. Now try and imagine describing this to a pharmacist who speaks no English…well I didn’t I just used that insect bite cream and it seemed to work a treat clearing my rash up in no time, I may just tell the manufacturers 🙂 Needless to say no matter how hot or cold it is the lining stays in my riding pants.

As if this was not all enough the final straw in my poor butt saga came about when we stopped for petrol at a Russian gas station. I walked around the back to take a pee and was promptly bitten by a rather large ferocious dog. Now fortunately his bark was worse than his bite and more fortunately he was on a long chain. One minute I’m scoping out a pee patch and then next hear a very angry bark and feel a decidedly sharp pinch on my rear end. I turn see the dog, I spot more teeth coming my way and promptly high tail it out of there but just to the end of his chain and on realising that he was now stuck told him he was a BAD DOG and nonchalantly continued to find that bit of inviting grass I was searching for in the first place. So there I was in on a nice patch of grass staring my attacker down and wondering just how strong that chain was.

The one thing my poor butt can be grateful for is the fact that it was not bitten by a horse fly. I was washing my hands in a stream one day and did not notice a horse fly bite my arm until it was too late. Damn it hurt like …, an hour later the bite on my arm had swollen to the size of half a peach and by the next morning was like two halves next to each other and really hot. Cleary my body did not like the idea of a horse fly bite and was having a reaction a few antihistamines, pain killers and a day later and all was well again but boy do I watch out for those things now. We bought extra strength insect spray and just dosed ourselves in the stuff constantly and it sort of helped. I thought the rain would keep all those little buggers away but no it makes no difference.

Butterflies: The first thing that struck me after entering east Siberia was the number of butterflies one sees. I have never seen so many in one place, and as you ride down the road you just see hundreds of them as they cluster together on the side of the road, it’s quite beautiful to see.

Siberia scenery: The other thing that struck me was just how stunning Siberia is I had no preconceived ideas about this area of the world and have been speechless on more than one occasion. Siberia must be one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I’m an alien an illegal alien I’m an Englishwoman in Russia. This is another story for another day probably after I have left Russia, unless I am in jail.

Of course being so close to the Russian border our campsite is infested with Russian Mozzies, but this time we came prepared wiht face nets and extra strong mozzie spreay.

So not being impressed with someone breaking my bike we all break camp and get ready to leave just as two Mongolian border guards arrive and demand our passports. They are clearly not happy keep our passports and demand we follow them. Not speaking Mongolian we try ascertain what the problem is waste a lot of time but realise we must follow them, thinking they want us to leave ASAP and get to the road where they will return our passports. We get to the main road and get told to follow them in the opposite direction to the Russian border where we want to go. We (I keep on saying we but what I mean is Jeff ) try in vain to get our passports back and go to Russia but after cocking his AK47 (hmm is that the right term? do you cock and AK47, well basically he put a round in the chamber and tried to look mean) and looking like he means business we sigh and follow the guy all the way to the border post in the middle of nowhere. They basically make us sit outside next to the 4×4 and wait…and wait…and wait, not really understanding what the issue is but having no option we wait.

Jeff finally ascertains that the problem is we camped in the wrong place according to them it was a border no go zone…hmm strange considering according to the GPS coordinates we are 50 km from the border and 500m from the maid road. However the border guard who has made a mistake won’t now admit it and has called his senior officer who needs to come in from the barracks so we wait…and wait… and wait. The big boss arrives and the situation is still not cleared up due to no one speaking Mongolian but we are told to follow the big boss back to the barracks where he will speak to the even bigger boss and get an interpreter.

Well we head to the barracks in the nearest town still in the opposite direction of the Russian border. We FINALLY get to speak to the big commanding officer through an interpreter and explain that we did nothing wrong, there are no signs indicating this was a red zone near the border (50km from the border unlikely but we had clearly been stitched up) needless to say the big chief had better things to do than seal with us and told us not to camp there again and basically pi.. off, so we did 3.5 hours wasted.

Knowing what Russian borders are like we were not looking forward to the border crossing especially after a 3.5 hour delay. WELL we could not have been more wrong. The Mongolians let us jump to the front of the queue and we got though in an hour, we still had to fill in a number of stupid forms but hey we’re not complaining when it takes an hour. Then the Russian side of the boarder OK so we steel ourselves ready for the red tape onslaught. We get though the passport control and get sent to customs. We walk into the customs office with bated breath … here it comes … two ladies with big smiles greet us and ask us to fill in the forms and help us fill them in… erm are we in Russia? are these ladies on happy drugs? Are they imposters and not Russian perhaps? WOW we were gobsmacked these ladies were so nice and when they said goodbye and good luck we nearly passed out. LESS than an hour on the Russian border this is surely an all time record. So we get Back in the USSR (well ok not quite the USSR but you know what I mean)

We finally arrived in Ulan-Ude which will be our last hotel stop for at least 9 days, from here we tackle the BAM road!!!