Barnaul rest day Not a great town this, old style Russian, they even still have the warders on each floor of the hotel, just like Moscow 20 years ago. Nobody speaks any English not even in the hotel and at first they all seem very stand offish but actually underneath it all they are friendly they just have this "face" on. We find a sports shop selling tents and eventually I buy a four sleeper that has since been nicknamed "the cathedral" I ...

Semey to Barnaul Today's a badly planned mess. It's a border crossing into Russia which apparently is renown for its delays. It seems that the Kazachs and the Russians don't get on so the Russians limit the number of vehicles thru the border to 3 or 4 per hour so when 13 bikes turn up it causes chaos. The problems start when the Kazach computer goes down because someone turned off the power. In their defence the mange to find a laptop so we all rush to get pro...