Barnaul or Bust(ed)

A nervous day of travel lay ahead of us for the unknown that was the Kazakh-Russian border at Rubotsovsk. Typically though, having been wrapped up in a Kazakh birthday bash the night before it was a bleary eyed Holly and Martyn that boarded the bus at 8am. Needless to say by the time we reached the border our hangovers were peaking. Fortunatley things moved swiftly and before we knew it we were back on the bus waving our Russian Migration cards and visa stamps.

So here we are 5 hours later pulling up at Barnaul bus station - looking decidedly run down and Soviet scratching our heads for what to do next. Our spoken Russian had now reached an understandable level for the listener so we were none to worried, though getting to grips with the change of currency was the first hurdle. At this point I remembered a contact e had been given from Jens - our German friend in Almaty. After some confusion with the lady at the phone centre I dialled Christian - another German - and was greeted in broken English with a message to hold tight as he would come and collect us! Result.

What followed was nothing short of a miracle. Chris & Sasha took us to a cheap hotel got us booked in and more importantly got our visas registered - an arcane hangover from the soviet system - and then whisked us off round Barnaul on a sight-seeing jolly. Barnaul is a fairly average Siberian city with nowt to do but hang on street corners drinking beer. Big and fairly ugly in appearance the city and it's people opened up to us like a box of lucky charms. For three days we swanned around like virtual celebrities with all of Chris' Russian friends desperate to talk to real live English people. In our first night we met the entire representative of the Siberian Drum n Bass Crew: Barnaul Chapter, and randomly two Brits who were recreating Ewan & Charlie's 'Long Way Round' motorcycle odyssey.

Chris was an absolute legend, speaking excellent Russian, and helping us fact find for the border crossing into Mongolia and our entry into the Altai Republic for the Khan Altay festival we were en route to. He was backed up by all of his Russian buddies who on top of street corner drinking, home cooked meals, boat trips down the River Ob and even a live drum n bass jam from the 'Liquid Crystal Faith' made Holly and I feel so welcome it was really sad to leave. One last night of fun though at a Drum n Bass club saw us up till all hours and bumping into fellow festival goers. And on the fourth day Chris helped us to the bus station with our heavy loads and slung us on a bus full of nutters headed to Khan Altay and the eclipse....