Small World

August 7, 2012

This morning we are heading to the city of Khabarovsk. The fact of arriving to a big city after many days of small villages makes our mood a bit better. At lunch we decide that for the evening we all deserve a nice and comfortable hotel for the night.  While having lunch we are approached first by some Jehovah witness and right after a group of people that are traveling with a van from Moscow delivering bibles to the interior villages of Siberia. Arriving to Khabarovsk we cross the huge river called Amur. This river is important to Matteo and myself because it is much written about in the book from Tiziano Terzani  ” Buonanotte Signor Lenin”, that originally gave us the idea to start this magnificent journey. The river Amur defines the border between Russia and China. Thierry finds a good hotel for the night with great Internet. In the evening we went for a quick bite to eat where we meet two Italians that are traveling with the Tran Siberian railroad across Siberia. It is unbelievable how the world is small. It turns out that one of them, Nicola de Marinis, a professional photographer knows very well a great friend of mine that in 2009 traveled from Argentina to Alaska on his Honda Transalp. His good friend Carlo Otta Brambilla, is a journalist writing many articles about the Tran Siberian railroad.  The two were hired by the railroad to promote European tourist to do such a trip.

August 8, 2012

What a day today is for me. I basically sleep all day in a nice clean bed. Such a treat is allowed to me because Matteo’s, Akira’s, and Thierry’s bikes need some kind of tune-ups. They reach Max MOTO, a local bike shop where they plan to change Akira’s tires and also change the oil on Thierry KTM. Matteo on the other hands need to do some welding to his extraordinary 1989 Honda Dominator. For the first time we are noticing the change in the attitudes of the locals. They appear to be much more nice and amicable. The mechanics are so nice that they invite Matteo and the other for lunch. That would have never happened a few hundred kilometers before. The amount of people drunk in the City is crazy. People have hard time walking around us.