26May 2005
Where: crossing the border between Mongolia and Russia.
We left Olgi early in the morning, running after our crazy kiwis on their motorcycles. At 12, we reach the mongol side of the border. We still have the kiwi's luggages in the van, and decide to keep them until the russian border.
At this stage we're pretty confident: since we're exiting Mongolia, there shouldn't be any problems... As well as we have more papers than found in an edition of "La Pleiade".
It takes us four hours! Four hours because a young bitchy custom officer have never seen the official yellow transit paper done in Ulaanbaatar. She thinks that we counterfeited this same yellow paper and that we're french bandits who stole a van in Mongolia! While Tom uses all his charms to try to arrange things, Greg keeps Zayo's engine running as we have a starter problem. Tom's charms won't do any good. Everything unlocks when we present her the blue card showing the vehicle belongs to Baacka! We leave with a pink paper stamped by eight different persons... hmmm, where's the logic?

We finally drive past the mongolian border, feeling less confident.
First russian checkpoint, niet problem. We drive the 15 km of no man's land, a real pleasure as it is bumps-free!

We arrive at the russian border post. This side is clearly more organized. We first have to make Zayo decontaminated by a sort of liquid that smell badly of old urine. We go throught numerous offices, with our best smiles on our faces, repeating "tourist" to any questions we're asked.
After a few hours (2 or 3, we can't remember) we reach a dead-end: we have to be escorted by a custom officer as the van bears "transit" plates. This have a price, rather high: 0,5US$ a kilometer and ther's 1000 km to the kazakh border. We first think that they're trying to blag us and come to realise that we are a real problem for them. The law is the law and there's no other way.
The border is closing. They tell us that we can spend the night in the nearby village but we have to leave Zayo at the post and come back the next morning to meet the big boss. They kindly arrange some free accomodation for us in an isba: Lisa's palace. We get to the hotel, put our bags down and head for the "magazin" to buy some food. A new problem arise. We only have american $ and Azil, the superovercutty owner, doesn't accept them. While Tom discuss with her, losing himself in her eyes more than really worried about having no roubles, some custom officer arrives. We explain our problem, they try to arrange things for us but Azil won't accept our green bills.
We're back to the hotel feeling miserable and hungry. We manage to change 20 US$ with a friend of Lisa. At this very moment, another custom officer in plain clothes enter our room. He looks at us with a big smile and makes us understand that he invites us for dinner at his house. Off we go with him to the magazin to buy some food with our fresh roubles. He insists to pay for the food, some beer and some vodka. We spend our money on beer and vodka.
It looks like a great night is ahead of us. We cannot stop thanking Sacha for his generosity.

After diner, we are joined by Alexander, Dimitri, Alexei, all of them we recognize from the border post, but without their uniforms. We'll cry all our tears drinking barrils of vodka, and singing russian songs, english songs and french songs on Sacha's Karaoke machine.

Our host Sacha is the first one from the left, with the blue outfit.
We end our night quite... really drunk, arm-wrestling and loose every time but its really good fun.

27 May 2005
Where: Ru border then Gorn Altaisk.
At 2 P.M., Big Boss says:"NIET". We'll have to pay if we want to keep Zayo on the Silk road. OK Boss, no worries, we'll pay. At 6, we finally drive past the russian border, escorted by Armann, our bodyguard, heading for the kazakh border, 1000 km away. We have now converted to every religion, praying all Gods that the kazakh story will be different... naive?
We stop in a restaurant on the side of the road, where we'll have a typical russian diner. A full three courses and varied meal since a long time. As Tom's dad told us before we left, if you ever feel down, have a proper meal, it will give you the strenght to carry on. That was damn right!

We'll drive to Gorn-Altaisk reaching it at 4 in the morning. Do we have to mention that we had some problems with Zayo? We'll sleep in Zayo, on the parking lot of the custom building.

28 May 2005
Where: Gorn Altaisk.
Armann will stay there and two new custom officers, in their blue outfit and with their aging Lada jeep, will escort us.
After a long stop in a garage to... fix Zayo (we're sure the russian mechanics is still laughing after having seen how mongolians keep their Yaz running) we hit the road again.

But we have to find the kiwis to give them their luggage. We finally find them in a tourist base, close from Gorn Altaisk. There, we meet Xsenia (no picture, that one would burn your eyes). We decide to have a break and spend the night there. Helped by Xsenia persuasive skills, our custom officers agree to pick us up the next morning.

29 May 2005
Where: from Gorn Altaisk to the kazakh border.
A long drive througt the grassy hills of russia.
We reach the kazakh border at 7 pm.
Please go to the kazakh section.