Flight to Urumqi
Posted by Claudio on August 30th, 2005We are finally on the plane from Novosibirsk to Urumqi. Not exactly the latest model of Airbus, probably it has some 30 years of service. At least the price was adequate
We are finally on the plane from Novosibirsk to Urumqi. Not exactly the latest model of Airbus, probably it has some 30 years of service. At least the price was adequate
Finally out of Russia, heading to Urumqi in China
On the way back to the hotel we only found dark and desert streets. Really time to sleep. Once in our beds, the phone rang a couple of times and, while the person on the other side only spoke Russian, we understood that she was offering us some kind “extra room services”. Funny, in Russia, and especially in these remote places, certain habits will never disappear.
Besides all the cloppete cloppete on the dark streets and the very lound music coming from an empty bar in the park, the city was quite dead. At least, we couldn’t find a better place than an almost empty pizzeria near the park where they actually served us an excelled pizza with no mozzarella(it was finished).
There he is. Stil alive. In the wind, watching the rising sun from the East while holding the left fist. Perfect statue. I thought you could only find them in museums or in Belarus. Just wondering why it was left here…
If in the early morning we were struck by the silence of the forest, in the afternoon the silence was broken by something that cannot pass unnoticed from St Petersburg to Vladivostok even to a distracted traveller: the ubiquitous sound of “cloppete cloppete” produced by the high hills of the Russian women who are constantly trotting up and down the big avenues while wearing their extremely short and provocative mini-skirts… This definitely scored as cultural shock number one.
We spent the night on the plane. It was actually a very short night due to the time difference. But we are finally arrived in Novosibirsk, Siberia. Really a different place than Sp. It’s cold, humid and foggy. It’s also very silent here. It’s very early morning, about 6 am, yet it’s like if all the sounds have suddenly softened from the noisy Sp. There is the huge Siberian forest, taiga, around us. That must be reason for such a silence. We don’t say a word like the other passengers and silently we walk to an old soviet construction that looks like the terminal of the airport.
for 500 ruble we are going straight to the airport to catch our tupolev to siberia.
No doubts: one of the most beautiful city in the world
We’ve decided to change our flights and fly one day earlier to novosibirsk. So, we’ll spend the night there and we’ll have some time to visit the city. It’s always nice to have changeable tickets.
tonight we go to siberia. We’ve already changed our plan but i guess it is gonna worth.
there are not ugly girls in the world but just few vodka.
we are leaving to saint petersburg! Thanks for coming to say goodbye!
Not very nice news coming from Northern Pakistan. We’ll probably stop biking in Gilgit and avoid going through the Chilas region.
Hello, my dear readers. Welcome to the weblog of our biking trip on the Karakoram Highway. My name is Claudio and I’ll try to be the storyteller of this adventure. So, what is it all about ? During the next few weeks, Simone and I will bike along the famous Karakoram Highway, a marvelous road that stretches from the city of Kashgar in China to Islamabad in Pakistan. The whole road is about 1.600 km but we’ll bike only the first 700 km from Kashgar till Gilgit. The road traverses some of the world’s highest mountain passes and it is sorrounded my the highest peaks of the Karakoram range.
In the next posts we’ll explain the details of the trip. Honestly, the trip needs still some organization but we still have couple of weeks time. Our passports are in Sweden at the Pakistan Emabssy for the visas (Simone got his new passport two days ago). We don’t have yet the flights tickets but, at leat, we have a rough idea of the route we’ll follow (only low cost airlines). We also need to think of the equipment. Anyway, our weblog is up and running. We’ll try to keep it updated during the trip and hopefully your attention will be rewared with some beautiful pictures from the Karakoram range. We hope you’ll enjoy reading the posts of this adventure. That’s all for now. Cheers