Party TownImmediately found an internet cafe as any new-world primate does. In the good old days you found the nearest bar, slaked your thirst and talked about the trail you had ridden and the women you intended to. Not so now, it's all e-mails and web-sites. We communicate more and more about the things we have time to experience between e-mails.
The serious task of finding a place to rest our weary heads beckoned so we set off on a magical mystery tour of the dead-ends and byways of Yakutsk. Eventually found a road west out of town and discovered a much-used camp site. The combination of discarded vodka bottles and a grave site prompted discussion but the mosquitoes soon made their presence felt.
A graphic example of 4x4 environmentalism was given by Frederik when turning the landcruiser around. I had ridden the bike over an area a couple of times with barely a mark but when he drove in, he was up to the axles. 4-wheel drive was engaged and a furrowed quagmire resulted as 4 tonne of Japanese iron showed who was boss. A quiet evening with no fire, I think all of us feeling a little deflated about the camp-site quality and the fact that we had reached our target.

We had heard about a festival 60km north of Yakutsk and so headed off in search of it the following morning. 10km north of Yakutsk, we saw cars turning into an enormous meadow with copses of silver birch. We turned in and parked with everybody else. We were immediately approached by a man who introduced himself as a policeman and showed ID. "Please follow me". Oh cripes, the rozzers! Here we were in just the right place to start a stretch in a Siberian prison. Our fears were soon dispelled, we had fallen in with the Medical Insurance Company Employees day and we must hurry to attend the opening ceremony. I commend the Yakutians on their hospitality and forebearance. I was sweating in the sun, unwashed for 4 days wearing clothes that had not seen soap for seven, my hair a tangled mass of grease and dust. Nevertheless, I was greeted and given samples of local delicacies some of which I suspect had been collected in the gelding process. We were escorted to a waiting table in the marquee, the table laden with juice, fruit, French red wine, German liebfraumilch, Russian vodka and Kognac (not the real stuff you understand). Eric the policeman was lubricating himself with the products of the Russian distilling business and engaging us in incomprehensible conversation. We did however get his cell-phone number with instructions to ring him if we had police trouble. Very handy!

Soon the dancing and entertainment began. I know that certain people became quite uninhibited and certain gyrations were performed that do not appear in "Emily Post's Etiquette" but good fun was had by all.
There were employee vignettes, mostly with a strong moral which was very Soviet-era. The one about the bad policy causing stress and loss of productivity being changed into a good policy certainly came out of "Animal Farm".

As the afternoon drew to a close, many photos were taken, the women quite fancying the bike but not the rider, forebearance only going so far. We gave our final thanks, two offers of houses having evaporated with the Kognac and headed up the road to camp in another part of the same vast meadow. We found ourselves a pretty camp among the silver birch and made camp, replete and happy. This was a great camp-site and one we would continue to use for the following days.

R & R on Sunday and then to the serious business of getting maintenance materials, oil, tyres, automatic transmission fluid for the leaking front suspension. The tyre was elusive but an open auto market on the outskirts of town yielded up a Russian-made 18" knobbly. It was constructed like a car tyre but with knobs. No knobs on the side as is usual. I was escorted to the auto market by a helpful customer in an auto shop I was visiting. He escorted me through a labyrinth of pot-holed backstreets only to emerge on the main street we had left but 500m further on! His truck was in no condition for those pot-holes but his reasons for the diversion will be forever obscure.

The Belgian couple Frederik & Josephine have been in search of someone to repair their wheel-carriers. A quote of 4000 roubles was declined and they were then given top-class service by some Armenians. Total price for two new pins and two spare pins - zero, nil, nothing, gratis! Now that is what I call service.

The following day Frederik & Josephine were photographed in the internet cafe by a photo-journalist, garage-owner, Japanese-car-part-importer named Sasha. His mechanic Viktor began work and discovered many faults with the Land-cruiser that will take time to fix. Woe!
No problem, Frederik & Josephine were invited to stay with Sasha and his family (and by extension the lonely biker prowling the periphery).
Yakutsk is a funny old town. The apartment buildings are anchored in the permafrost but the traditional buildings are on a wooden raft-type foundation. The area surrounding Yakutsk is made of many small lakes and tributaries of the Lena so dry land is at a premium. Hence Sasha's yard is part submerged and his neighbour's almost completely submerged except where the house stands. There are no water or sanitary services, only gas and electricity. Water is carried from the nearest municipal font, and the toilet is an outside "long-drop". In winter when the temperature is -40C some concessions are made and the inside bucket employed.
We spent two nights at Sasha's house, meeting his friends and the next day we were invited on a fishing expedition on the Lena. Sasha is justifiably proud of his inflatable boat and 25hp Mercury 4-stroke outboard. Russian time is invoked and the 2 pm start stretches to 3. Taking into account the logistics involved and the distance that we drove south over worsening roads, it was 8pm before we arrived at the launching area. We have so much gear and 6 people that two trips are necessary so we travellers amuse ourselves on the shore, skipping stones and talking until Sasha arrived back 2 hours later. There has been a slight problem with the boat returning with no load so the first job is to remove the ballast of rocks. We set off and arrived at "turtle Rock" about 11pm. Costa and Kola have set up camp and the billy-tea is brewed.
The local lads set to preparing for the nights fishing, the best hours being the twilight between sunset and sunrise (11:30 - 4:00). This is something of a quandry for Sasha. He wants to entertain us AND fish all night. It is resolved by him sleeping for only 2 hours.
The next day, the nights catch is gutted and a nourishing fish soup is prepared to an ancient and secret recipe. I can say that it involves vodka and the plunging in of a burning birch branch. Now I will have to kill you! The majority of the fish were a sturgeon-like cartilaginous fish that looks like a sand shark but with catfish-like feelers and extendable mouth parts to suck up all that bottom-dwelling goodness. They started out ugly and after partially disintegrating in the pot looked positively gruesome. I manfully sipped and sucked my way through the clear soup with the bright yellow fish-oil proclaiming it to be very good and ate my share of the detritus. What a duplicitous fellow I felt myself to be!
The rest of the catch were sugared and salted for the evening barbeque.
We walked to the nearest falls and climbed a bluff overlooking the river. The whole area is a very hard layered sedimentary rock. This is the same type of rock that is used for road repair. There are thousands of layers from the river-level to the top of varying thicknesses. One layer was over a metre thick. That must have been one big flood!
Back at camp, Sasha has decided to stay another night. Since this will be the day of the festival, a compromise is reached, He will deliver us back in Yakutsk in time for the opening ceremony at 1pm the next day.
We explore more of the waterfalls and islands from the boat with Sasha photographing each area in advance of us. Maybe photography is a matter of averages but I must admit Sasha has an eye for composition. He sees views that I don't even initially consider. I end up plagiarising by taking similar shots (more roguery).
Get back to camp to find that the evenings barbeque is off... literally. The flies have beaten us to it. We are spared a meal of tiddlers. Sasha steps up and prepares a hearty dinner of macaroni and spam. I have to say, Sasha is a real man in the most manly sense. He is dominant, tirelessly hard-working and kind. I have nothing but respect for him. I don't think I have ever met someone who embodies that pioneering spirit quite as grandly as he does.
Dinner is followed by a huge teapot of chays molokom (strong billy-tea with sweetened condensed milk) and to bed for us hardy travellers. The REAL men get to fishing. Our nights slumber does not produce many fish for us or the fishermen. We break camp and because we have eaten so much food, travel back to the launching spot 6-men in a boat (actually 3 men, 2 boys and a girl).
Sasha drives us back to Yakutsk on a sleep-evading diet of cigarettes and sunflower seeds. The last bit of road to Sasha's is clogged with festival traffic. We unload and head off to our camp which is about 500m from the festival site in the same huge meadow. We have missed the opening ceremony but there is plenty going on in the main stand and all the ethnic displays. I watch the wrestling, hop-step-jump, stick-pulling and lassooing contests.
The hop-step-jump is won by travelling the greatest distance when doing 3 hops, 3 steps and 3 jumps.
The stick-pulling is done on a platform with a 300mm x 100mm beam placed edge-up across the platform. Contestants sit one either side of the beam and both grasp the same stick. The winner is the one who retains hold of the stick and remains on his side of the beam. It is also possible to win by pulling our opponent off the end of the beam. Some bouts were won in an instant by a sudden snatch at the beginning, others went on for minutes, traversing the length of the beam.
The heat became unbearable and so I splashed my face in the lake. As soon as done, I felt a breeze and saw the thunderheads approaching. Made a quick selection of shelter and then it pelted down. My choice wasn't that good so I joined the screaming multitudes heading for the exit. I joined Frederik & Josephine in the 'cruiser and then headed off to make camp.
The festival recovers later and there is music until late at night. Not for me, the hardy fisherfraud, I'm in bed by 8:30 and asleep by 8:31.
The festival continues the next day with the finals in the main stand. Exciting stuff seeing all the top guys. It looks like the finalists compete in all events because some of the ace stick-pullers are making only token efforts in the hop-step-jump.
Tire of the festival by 5pm and head into town for one last internet before my departure tomorrow. I buy the makings of a slap-up meal and find a bottle of red wine for the occasion. I have enjoyed camping with Frederik & Josephine immensely. They are good company, funny and genuine. I hope that we can meet up again.