London to Mongolia in a rubbish 1989 Nissan Micra

Its monday, and hopefully today, finally we will get out of Tomsk. Yesterday, we left Tomsk.

The road into Tomsk joins at the south of this small city, then skirts around the west and north before it turns into a b road due east to rejoin the M road bound Krasnayarsk.

We left yesterday around 4.30 in the afternoon, keen to crack on and put in a couple of hundred miles.

As we left, we both felt really sad to be leaving, neither of us wanted to, but we had to. Somewhere not far from Tomsk we must have missed the fact the road branched, We stayed on what we thought was the right road for over 40 miles when it suddenly ended in a poor run down village. We were gestured, when shown a map to go back. Eventually with the light fading we saw the right turn off, just 5kms outside of Tomsk. We elected with the light fading to get a cheaper place and hit the sack ready to go hardcore today.

We woke up this morning and went internet cafe number 1, half way through putting up the update a massive thunder storm started and the whole place went down, with 2 hours estimate to fix given, we trudge on to cafe number 2 where I am now writing this from.

Funny thing is, when we arrived in Tomsk there was a huge rainbow, when we left there was a huge rainbow, when we got back after our 3-4 hour country drive yesterday, you guessed it. Now we are actually keen to get out. It seems like ground hog day, all roads and rainbows lead to Tomsk

So next time we write, don't be suprised if eathquakes have cut off all roads out.

We are now off for another attempt to get out this place speak soon.

Only 165 miles today almost due north to the small city of Tomsk billed as the Oxford of Siberia, we have decided now that we have come this far in 2 weeks to have at least 1 full day off, maybe 2 to recharge, eat well have a nice bed and hot shower before we set off for the final push onto Ulan Bator.

Tomsk doesn't have very much in common with the architectual grandeur of Oxford, but it has a very similar ambience. Cool new coffee shops and trendy eateries. It is a student town though most are away for summer breaks. We parked Dave outside our good standard hotel and instantly Russian people start talking to us in English about what we are doing.

The map on the back of the car we believe has kept the police from fining us and has definately increased interest from the public. Every so often when driving someone who has been tailing us and has read "London to Ulaan Bator in aid of charity" and seen the map has driven past honked their horn and stuck their thumbs up.

The Russians in this place like Oxford seem very intellectual, well versed and conservative and English is spoken more here than other places. We spent the evening eating well and feeling fatigued, we spent the best part of 12 hours asleep.

We said Bon Voyage to the lads from Team Scraz as they were keen to head off away again. Doubt we will catch them again, though they have to be in England 6 days before we do. We wondered around the town today, bought a few bits and bobs and plan to go out tonight to a couple of bars. Tomsk is relaxed and feels very safe. It was recommended as a must see in The Lonely Planet guide. It is the ideal place to have break from it. Maybe we will stay another day and chill out maybe we will hit the road again tomorrow. For now its the first time we have both really enjoyed a restfull day off without having to go somewhere. Almost feels like we are on holiday.

It's sunday afternoon and we have decided to hit the road again. Last night we went out for some food and were told to check out a club/bar called Fakel. We didn't really expect it to be that good, but it was packed, the music was kickin the dancefloor was going off and as so many of the students speak English we were talking to loads of different people. Most people seemed suprised to have English people in their small city. We were even told by a group of vodka drinking Russian lads that we are mad for attempting to drive to Mongolia. people here are so friendly and interesting and all keen to speak with us to practice their English skills most of which is superb, we felt like celebrities, everyone wanted to talk to us.

We will be sad to leave. Tomsk has without doubt been the best place we have stayed in and the first place we have actually been able to chat to some of the locals. One guy offered to show us around the city and take us to watch a football match which we would of loved to do but we still have a fair way to go and have decided to crack on though we could easily stay here for a week or two if we could. We were texted by the guys from Team Scraz and warned not to drive when dark as 30km from the ringroad in Krasnayarsk (our next major city) the roads turns to the worst pot hole ridden example they have encountered. We will let you know how bad it, was assuming Dave gets there, in the next update, and put up a few pictures of this cool place.

So long fantastic little Tomsk, Farewell but hopefully not goodbye.

We left Omsk in the early afternoon, after a good lunch, good food has not been available on the road and we were not going to rush away when it was on hand.

Fortunately for us we got into and out of Omsk with relative ease, having devised a system for entering and exiting Russian cities. On the way in stop and ask for directions at first hotel or service station, on way out get reception to draw a map. This time it worked. We hit the road about 4 hours after the guys in Team Scraz who are on a much tighter schedule than us.

I kicked off first again, Rich prefers the second stint. We found the M51 with ease this time and for the first 200 miles or so it was the best continued stretch of road we had seen in Russia and it was a dream. Dave had taken a battering into Omsk and his steering is less sharp than it was when Jeremy handed over the keys. On this bit of road he was skipping along at 75mph with ease.

We have been in Russia now for over a week and we still have no idea as to what the speed limit is and there are no signs.

After 200 miles and as usual with no warning the road turned to rubbish. The Scraz lads had camped a few kms short of Novosibirsk and gave us instuctions on how we could meet them, with our average speed now down to around 50mph by the time we were in the area they'd stopped it had gone dark, so we elected to continue on to a motel signposted a few kms ahead. Now the mist dropped and when we hit a new piece of black tarmac road with no white lines, it was virtually impossible to see the road with the lights of oncoming traffic. The motel had no rooms left. So here we are again with nowhere to go, it's dark and dangerous driving conditions, so we were forced to continue onto the city 40kms away. Rich was now driving and he pulled in behind a big truck and followed him. We drove towards the city and Rich stopped at some military security point and the guard there was very helpful and told us how to get into the city. As we entered we could see the neon sign for the Hotel Sibir, who earler said they had no rooms available. We've learned this is often not the case, so we rocked up anyway and lo and behold they had a twin at 40 quid cheaper than they were quoting the cost as perviously. We had covered 476 miles.

We decided to go out for one as the main street Prospect lenin was across from the hotel. We wondered down the road and there was a closing empty Irish pub, across the road was a basement bar called Index with music playing so we wondered in and ordered a couple of beers. The place was virtually empty apart from a group of teenage looking girls dancing a few lads and a couple of girls eating. We sat down and the waitress wondered over to the 2 girls eating and must have told them we were English. Next thing the came up to us and started trying to talk which was more hand gestures and 1 word here and there, after our 10 minute quasi conversation, we decided to go home and said goodbye in English to the 2 girls who were sisters. One of the group of lads near to us heard Rich speaking English and started to talk to him. The other lads not realising he had spoke first all squared up to Rich as apparently in this country men who don't know each other don't talk to other men in general. They all stood down when he told them to.

Rich introduced him to me and he was completely fluent in English as he'd lived in London for 2 years. A few minutes later he asked us if we fancied going to another place that was busier, Rich and I were not sure if this was wise or not but he seemed Ok and well dressed and even though we were tired we said OK thinking it's all part of the experience.

We walked out on the street followed by a load of other lads, thinking we'd walk around the corner to anothr place or get in a cab. Up pulls a blacked out big merc and we are shepherded in the back with him. The driver was a broad muscular beefcake with no neck who was scary just to look at and the front seat was occupied by another big bloke called Sergey. We both started to wonder if this was a mistake. Who were these guys.

The lad we'd met whose name neither of us could remember said he first needed to go and get some more cash. We had been driving for about 15 minutes when the car pulled down an alley in a dark car lot and another big flashy car pulled in full of shady looking young lads. They all got out their car and all the people also did in ours, including our English speaking host, leaving just me and Rich in the car alone. Rich turned to me and said we're done for (in slightly more floral language), they're going to kill us, shall we get out as well. My heart was racing, there was nowhere to run and where were anyway. It did look like the ideal place to dispose of someone as there was nothing or no one around. I said just stay in the car and see what happens we've got no choice. They were all bantering away heatedly in Russian. After a few minutes that seemed a lifetime with double the heart rate they all got back in their respective motors and with our normalising heart rates we we're then taken on a guided tour of our hosts constructions sites. He is 21 slickly dressed in smart Italian clothes and he is building modern glass fronted tower blocks in this city of old and shabby buildings. I was under no illusion now that this was a "new Russian". He even told us that you can get nowhere if you follow the laws in his flawless English. After our tour of his building projects, he whisked us to the club, paid for our entrance and gave us VIP treatment all night, everybody was shaking his hand, he was obviously the man about town and was introducing us to everybody.

What started off as as an innocent conversation after a goodbye in a bar across the road turned into initially one of our scariest ever moments then into a totally surreal experience. In the Long way round Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman had the same expereince in Ukraine when a random guy took them home invited all his mates round then pulled out his machine gun to show them and they thought, what on earth is happening here. This was our such time. We hit the sack at 4am wishing we had taken our camera in what by chance had turned out to be one of the weirdest experiences we had ever encountered. Our host was a complete Gentleman to us the whole night, more importantly we were alive but still keen to get out of there as soon as just in case he decided he didn't like us anymore.