Chris and I pushed harder and harder at the pedals. We were emerging blissfully into the city of Kirov.
Earlier that morning, we had braved the cold to wash in the melt-water of a roadside drain. I gave up after getting an ice-cream headache. Chris, on the other hand, had stripped off and washed all over with soap.
Sixteen days in the cold without a proper wash had taken its toll. Without a mirror to look at my face, it was my hands that worried me. The constant exposure, daily use of an axe and saw, and dealing with pots, had left them stained black and brown with calluses and blisters. In places the skin had dried and cracked, forming painful gashes that refused to heal. When I touched my chin with the sandpaper-surface of my hands, I felt the beginnings of a beard. I had decided to leave my shaver in Babushkina to save weight – and besides, shaving seemed unimportant on the road.
Soon we were in the throng of evening traffic. The driver of a trolley bus stuck his head out the window and yelled out, ‘What the hell is that?’ The fifty or so passengers that were crammed in the bus stared back at us.
It took several agonising hours to find a hotel with vacancies, and as the light faded, so did Chris’s hope of getting to the Internet.
Eventually, we found ourselves outside a twelve-storey building with golden letters emblazoned above the entrance: Hotel V’atka. Several black Mercedes and a Toyota Landcruiser were parked outside, and as we pulled up three men in business suits sauntered out.
Chris darted inside and soon returned with a room key. ‘Tim, mate, let’s go!’ he said. The V’atka was a plush-looking place, but a room for two only cost about AU$15. It was more than our budget allowed but we had little choice; besides, a little bit of luxury wouldn’t hurt after what we’d been through.
Moments later we were wheeling the bikes across the polished marble floor of the lobby. There was no hiding our grease-stained panniers, muddy tyres, cracked soft drink bottles, and filthy socks lashed onto my backpack. It took two trips to lug the cumbersome bikes upstairs to our landing on the third floor. As we rolled them down the corridor, the landlady appeared. She stood as tall as possible on her high-heel shoes, accentuating the shortness of her white dress and apron. With her shiny legs bending at the knees and beginning to shake, she let out a deafening scream.
‘Aaaahhhhhhh! What are you doing! You are disgusting, you are so dirty! You can’t bring motorbikes up here! Get out, get out of here!’ Her thick lipstick parted to expose a blur of perfect white teeth; peroxide blonde hair shivered atop her head.
‘Oh no, don’t worry, it’s a bicycle and we have permission from downstairs,’ I said.
‘Like hell you do! I am going to ring the manager now. This is a clean hotel, we can’t have you here. This isn’t a garage, you know!’
By the time she made her phone calls, we had already spread our gear across the tiny two-bed room and parked the bicycles close to the window. Sleeping bags were up and drying on a makeshift washing line, bags of food were piled into a corner, and a mountain of dirty clothes sat in the middle of the floor. When she returned we were stripped down to shorts and preparing for a wash. She had no choice: we were foreigners and could be excused for our lack of manners.
When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognise myself. Black grease stains framed my eyes and my hair was a giant mop that moved as one mass. A rough beard pierced the brown and black muck on my chin.
We divided the washing into two lots. For several hours Chris scrubbed at our socks and pants. It took six or seven bathtubs of black water before any sense of cleanliness was restored.
After a quick dinner of fresh fruit, we slid between the crisp white sheets and fell asleep. It was comforting to know that my legs wouldn’t have to face more torture in the morning.
We spent one day in Kirov. It was a relief to be among crowds of people. Our shrunken universe of two had expanded dramatically. Rich ‘New Russians’, in their slick clothing and polished cars, looked positively shiny in the sunlight. Babushkas waddled around in shoals, selling potatoes along the street. Young women pranced about, straight-backed in stylish dresses, some flaunting long slender legs for the first time since winter. It is said that the end of spring, with the onset of warm weather, is when most car crashes occur in Russia, especially among male drivers.
I have always been fascinated by faces and found the Russians’ to be especially expressive. When they are wrapped up in fur hats and coats all that remains is their large dark eyes and infectious smiles. Hours passed as I wandered about, feasting on the sight of such a compact display of life.
However, by the end of the day, I had made no real personal connections. On the empty roads and in the villages we had connected with many people, and I had never felt isolated. I knew that lingering on would only make me feel alone in the crowd.
Apart from the people, I relished the availability of ice-cream, the opportunity to rest my legs, and the chance to give Baba Galya a call; we had promised to keep in touch.
I made the call from a telegraph station in a little wooden booth. ‘Hello, Baba Galya!’ I boomed down the crackly line.
‘Hello … Tim … is that you, Tim?’ she shrieked.
‘Yes, yes, Baba, it’s me, we have made it to Kirov!’ I said loudly.
‘To Kirov! Really, you are already there? How are your toes? You didn’t freeze them? How did my toe warmers work? You know I have been worrying about you the whole time. Oh boys, oh boys, my good boys!’
‘Everything is fine, just fine, don’t worry about us. We will ring again from Perm.’
‘Okay, boys, be careful. I will let the rest of the village know. Good luck and thank God!’
Later on, in a small Internet centre, I watched in amazement as Chris leaned over the keyboard to tap furiously at the keys, his eyes gleaming. The points of his mouth rose and fell abruptly, and it looked like he was about to reach out and hug the screen.
As soon as he was done, he would be in a mad rush to get going again. I could see that his mood had lifted, and that he just wanted to get back out there, where he loved it most: on the bike. In light of this, I could understand why he was always frustrated by my meandering. He had a clear idea of what he wanted, while I was more keen on taking it slow and keeping my ear to the ground for unexpected opportunities.
As much as I missed sleeping under the stars it was with some reluctance that I packed up to leave the hotel. After donning shorts for the first time in six months, and baring blinding white legs, I set off after Chris. I cheerily waved at pedestrians and crowds lounging in street cafés until the air filled up my shorts like a parachute. I dared not look back at the spectators; I still didn’t own any underwear.
The next destination lay 900 kilometres to the east, just shy of the Ural Mountains. We were heading for the city of Perm. Only by breaking the journey into a series of short goals did the larger aim of reaching Beijing seem remotely achievable.
Thirty kilometres or so out of Kirov we pushed the bikes effortlessly into the forest and camped in snow-free conditions. The following day, I removed my beanie and felt the air rush through my hair. It felt great to ride for hours on end without stopping to warm my toes. Finally, I could use the thermos water for drinking tea and not as a crude way of preventing frostbite.
The increased sunlight brought life back to the forest. Streams glimmered through the trees and we woke to a cacophony of bird song. Several times I saw a V of geese migrating north. The snow was melting by the second and lay in scattered patches like the shredded remains of tissue paper. Plants and rich green mosses reappeared on the forest floor, some still bearing ripe berries from last season.
I felt a part of myself come alive again, as if it had long been in hibernation. The sun caressed my shoulders and face like an old friend. The world was again a three-dimensional picture with millions of shades of colours. By comparison winter had been like a black and white graphic in low resolution. Even Chris’s face underwent a dramatic change. He had often looked pale
and sallow in the grey light, but now, almost overnight, his cheeks shone like shiny polished apples.
East of Kirov the forest parted to reveal a series of open fields – green grassy pastures! The transformation had been so quick. A newly arrived tourist from the southern hemisphere would have wondered what all the fuss was over winter. There was absolutely no trace of the cold.
Despite the change we were not yet free of the legacy of winter. Perhaps worse than metres of snow and ice was the viscous mud left over after the snow melted. The unsealed road became more like the path of a mudslide. In some villages stagnant pools had risen above the base of houses, giving the impression that they were sinking.
Once again, we spent more time pushing than actually riding. The mud was so thick in places that trucks had become irretrievably bogged up to the axle. It became obvious why winter is the traditional season for travel in Russia. At least then the earth is hard and the layers of snow and ice render river, forest and swamp navigable.
Not far from the border of the small forested republic of Udmirtskaya the road inexplicably turned into smooth bitumen. The melting snow had drained away leaving a surface that seemed just too good to be true.
‘Can you believe this, Chris? That’s it, from here on riding is going to be a joy!’ I turned to him as he clicked into top gear and shot off down the hill. I followed, roaring down, leaning into the corners. Above the forest, the sky even appeared hazy. We rode abreast, hogging the road and falling in and out of conversation and moments of contemplation.
By the time my senses were reawoken by hunger, we had covered fifty kilometres. And yet I could remember almost nothing of the landscape. Was I finally beginning to understand Chris’s love of cycling? It struck me that the recumbent was perfectly designed to promote thought. With my legs broken in, all we had to do was fill up on food now and then and keep going.
That evening I clambered up a treetrunk with the axe, in pursuit of a dead pine branch. Once among the branches, I decided to drop the axe to the ground and hang off the silvery grey limb until it snapped.
‘Look out, Chris!’ I shouted, as a loud crack echoed through the forest and I dropped to earth with a thud.
Later, as I was chopping the wood, I happened to stroke my ear in a bid to ease a slight itch. My fingernail came across a hard lump that felt like a scab. I tried to peel the scab away but it stuck hard to my skin. I dug my fingernails in until it hurt. Finally, it came free with a small gush of blood. Inspecting my finger, I noticed what appeared to be a tiny bug with claw-like legs.
‘Chris, what do ticks look like?’ I asked, calmly.
‘I’m not sure. I think they’re small and round with flecks of red,’ he replied, not taking much notice.
‘You think they look something like this?’ I asked.
I was furious. Why the bloody hell did this have to happen to me? Suddenly, everything irritated me. Chris’s breathing, the crap firewood and the insect-filled forest. I knew that ticks in Russia were rife with encephalitis and lime disease. How long had the tick been on me? What were the symptoms of tick-borne disease? Worst of all was the thought of revisiting a Russian hospital.
I awoke early in the morning and lay still until the light revealed gaping holes in our loue shelter. They must have been freshly burnt by the spitting spruce fire. As I cursed everything under the sun, a peg loosened and the shelter drooped down onto my face.
There was no point in panicking. We washed in a stream and prepared to spend a day in the large town of Glazov, only fifty kilometres away.
The town came into view just as the road disintegrated into roughly laid slabs of concrete. Smokestacks and apartment blocks rose above the treeline. Derelict buildings with broken windows lined the road closer to the centre. Piles of garbage had been dumped clear of the residential quarter, forming a charming decoration.
After following vague directions towards the city centre we parked our bikes on the street. As we stepped off the bikes, a short middle-aged man pulled up on a small collapsible bicycle. He had short silvery-grey hair and a subtle moustache that blended almost without trace into his pale, drawn face. He wore an old but clean shirt buttoned up to the neck. His name was Mikhail. ‘Wow, look at this thing,’ he said, eyeing the recumbent. His eyes darted behind slim-lined spectacles. He looked remarkably like a mouse.
We quickly got through the rigmarole of explaining every oddity of the bike, ourselves and about our travels. Then I explained the tick situation.
‘I can show you how to get to the hospital if you want,’ he offered.
In a second his wiry legs were whizzing around in a blur of speed. A small dust cloud trailed behind his bike and the old cane basket on the back rattled furiously. Locals on bikes always seemed to conclude that because we were long-distance travellers, we were also incredibly fast.
It wasn’t long before I was trailing behind, squinting to see which streets Chris and Mikhail were taking. I watched Mikhail’s short skinny arms shoot out to indicate direction. With just one hand on the handlebars he almost wobbled out of control before veering out of sight. Inevitably, I lost them. My legs felt like swollen water balloons and I was puffing heavily when I finally spotted them outside the hospital.
While Chris waited outside, I went into the building with Mikhail. My first mission was to find a toilet. Inside the hospital, a series of dingy corridors were cramped with queues. We approached a woman in a white coat, but she didn’t seem to be aware of what a toilet was and just shrugged her shoulders. Then we asked a tall man with a moustache that sprouted as thickly as a hedge from below his nose.
‘Excuse me, can you tell me where is a toilet?’ Mikhail asked.
The tall man broke into a high-pitched cackle before pulling one of the nurses aside. ‘Beautiful woman, hey! Just damn beautiful!’ he said, looking her up and down.
Soon the journey from office to office was underway. From the chemist we were sent to the head doctor, then to the registrar and back again. Eventually, we wound up in the office of the Infectionist.
The woman behind the desk was stunned by my presence. ‘Are you really Australian?’ she asked, over and over again. She prescribed some ‘gamma gobulin,’ which was to be injected immediately. I was then rushed to the front of a queue and into the Injection Office. ‘We have a guest from Australia!’ my entourage announced. A nurse in a mask looked up with glee. Her legs rose from the floor like two giant spruce logs, and her elbows rested comfortably on the broad shelf that jutted out from her chest. She was halfway into injecting the withered bum cheek of a babushka.
‘Take your pants down!’ she demanded, as I lay face down on a bench. Without warning she thrust the needle into my bum. By the time I pulled up my pants she was already injecting an old man who was standing by the bench. ‘Are you really from Australia? Good luck to you and getting to China!’ she bellowed, as the man winced in pain.
Armed with the knowledge that there was a twenty-day critical period during which I needed to check carefully for symptoms, I thanked her and hobbled out.
When we finally disengaged ourselves from the hospital, Chris was pale with hunger. Mikhail said that he would invite us to his house, except that he no longer had one; he now lived in a rusty garage. Apparently he was a devout Christian who had resigned from his position as a doctor, left his wife and somehow lost all his possessions. The least we could do was buy him a meal.
We should have asked Mikhail to guide us out of Glazov, because it took two hours of circling around the maze of streets to find the road east again. By that time we were irritable and desperate to find the first possible camp site. We knew not to speak before dinner.
For no particular reason we rolled out of the wrong side of bed the next morning. After bickering over whether or not our rolled oats were precooked, I rode off in a stink, relieved not to have Chris in front of me. I stopped only once, when a car pulled up and the driver passed me a litre bottle of vodka. I gladly filled up my empty drink container, kn
owing it would come in handy at some point.
As I rode, I tried to think of why there was such animosity between Chris and me at times. As tolerant as we were of each other’s foibles, we got caught up in petty arguments that could destroy the day. In the scale of things it seemed ridiculous that such insignificant differences could bring about the downfall of our friendship.
It was almost time for camp when we rolled into the village of Igra and stopped outside a shop. Chris handed me the group wallet and I darted inside to find a rare delicacy – pryaniki filled with dates! After munching away on two or three biscuits, we looked at each other and laughed.
‘Bloody hell, Tim, aren’t these just the ultimate!’ Chris boomed with crumbs rolling off his chin.
‘Bloody oath. They’re from heaven!’
The next morning we rolled into a village nestled in the forest. It was a typical northern settlement with greying log houses and unpaved streets.
As we turned into the dusty dirt track that wound through rows of homes, I was overcome with nerves. We had finally decided to pay a visit to a school. Right from the beginning of the journey I had tried to impress on Chris just how important it was to me that we speak to students. After asking a couple of babushkas in the street we headed towards an old two-storey log building. I put on a jacket to hide my dirt-stained white T-shirt and strode into the schoolyard.
I had taken only two paces into the yard when I was surrounded by a growing semi-circle of children, all smiling and whispering. Chris followed and we stood in silence waiting for something to happen. Eventually, a teacher stepped forward. He was an old square-shouldered man with a greying beard, and looked just as eager to ask questions as the kids, only he was a little less impatient. ‘So where are you from?’ he began.
Off The Rails Page 8