Barnaul, Siberia (Center on Interactive Map)

Large city.

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Trips

Siberia

7/29/2008: Pretty quickly after getting off the train in Novosibirsk, we were in a shared taxi heading to Barnaul to meet the rest of the eclipse group. I insisted on riding in a Toyota after seeing what happens to Ladas when they hit something.

The problem with the Toyota, however, is that the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car having been built for the Japanese market. Whenever the driver wanted to pass (which was often), he would start driving into the other lane until he could see around the car that he had just been tailgating. That, of course, put the front seat passenger (me) into the line of fire. It took three hours of terror, but we finally made it to Barnaul.

Highlights of Barnaul were the sushi restaurant (avocado rolls!) and trying to drink horse milk.

The next day, a few of us hired a taxi to drive us for six hours to the area where we planned on viewing the eclipse. A short way into our journey, however, we encountered a traffic jam. The Russians know how to handle such a traffic jam, and some kind of free-for-all with cars driving into nearby fields ensued. After we drove in the field for awhile, we noticed a bunch of soldiers taking positions on the road with their Kalishnakovs on the ready. It turns out that some kind of truck carrying a very large missle was broken down in the middle of the road. Several cars got bogged down in ditches, but we were able to infiltrate the army line! Once we were back on the road, it was mostly smooth sailing to meet our friends in Elekmonar.



8/6/2008:

Previous Visit (Tuva - Kyzyl: 7/26/2008)
Next Visit (Elekmonar: 7/31/2008)

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Lifelists

Asia
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