The Final Frontier
March 31, 2010 by admin
Filed under Linger Longer
Linger Longer: Driving the Trans-Siberian
Chapter 21: The Final Frontier
‘Faster!’ Si yells, as I whack the Sierra into third gear.
The windows are down, the sunroof is open and Si’s
crazy hair dances in the wind. We skid back onto the main
road under construction and literally fly through the air,
hitting pothole after pothole like they’re little more than
small obstacles in our path. The suspension takes a
pounding, but determined to catch up with the Germans
we happily risk destroying the car. Less than an hour ago
we were driving on this road at 5mph, now it’s more like
50mph.
‘Come on, faster!’ Si screams, as rocks disintegrate
under the tyres.
‘I’m going as fast as i can!’ I shout back.
The risk of the suspension collapsing is high, but this
almost seems irrelevant to us at this moment in time.
Si turns to me with a smile. ‘I can see their truck up
ahead. We’re gaining on them, Vladivostok will be ours!’
All of a sudden, the front left tyre explodes. The Sierra
swerves sharply to the left, then to the right before sliding
across the highway and crashing sideways into a huge pile
of gravel.
‘Fuck!’ I stutter, gripping the steering wheel tightly. ‘Are
you OK?’
Si rubs his head. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
I force a smile. ‘Now we’ve blown it.’
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Looking extremely pale and feeling slightly shaken, we
push the car back onto the road. The tyre has been completely
shredded.
Si leans against the car and massages his temple. ‘Idiots!’
he spits.
‘Looks like they’ve won,’ I mutter, staring down at the tyre.
‘Fuck the Germans!’ Si cries. ‘What the fuck we going to
do now?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’
Si walks away from the car and sparks up a cigarette.
‘Hey, let’s not panic, bro. At least we’ve got two spares.’
Si looks over his shoulder and shakes his head. ‘Hardly.
The front right needs changing, too. It’s buckled to buggery.’
‘Yeah, but it still works … it still rolls.’
I dig out the jack and one of the spare tyres from the
boot. Si loosens the nuts and tries to remove the wheel,
but it won’t budge an inch.
‘I can’t get it off,’ he grunts. ‘The damn thing is welded
tight.’
‘Let me have a go.’
I grab hold of the wheel and pull with all of my might.
A sharp pain shoots down my left arm, so I let go and fall
backwards onto the gravel.
‘We’re really fucked now!’ Si cries.
We both stand back and try to think for a second.
Suddenly, a huge Volvo dump truck carrying mud and
rocks skids to a halt beside us. A muscular guy with a bare
chest leaps out of the driver’s cab and strolls over. He
looks down at the shredded tyre.
Si reaches through the driver’s window and grabs the
phrasebook. He flicks to a page. ‘Shina prakolata,’ he beams.
I frown. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means, “I have a puncture”.’
The guy nods and spins the wheel. He then tries to pull
it off without any luck. Rising to his feet, he walks back to
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his truck and returns with a crowbar. He’s built like a
brick shit house, and after a few attempts he manages to
wrench the tyre loose.
‘Spaceeba!’ I cry.
The guy seems pleased to have been of some assistance.
We try to communicate through the phrasebook, and from
what we gather he’s just finished work for a few days.
Thrusting his hips backwards and forwards, he dry humps
the car and kindly informs us that he’s now off to bang his
girlfriend from behind all weekend. We throw him a high
five. The guy jumps back into his truck and grins widely
before tearing off down the road.
Successfully changing the wheel, we both agree that if
we’re going to make it to Vladivostok in one piece, we
need to retire from the race and travel at our own – incredibly
slow pace. Heading off, we begin to pass fly-overs that
are under construction and cross over fast flowing rivers
and wide canyons. Workmen wearing yellow hard hats
sweat in the heat as they move huge concrete pillars with
cranes and shift millions of tons of earth. This is the first
time we’ve seen fly-overs on the Amur Hellway and it’s a
very surreal sight. We follow a dirt track that skims alongside
these huge concrete pillars, which sprout out of the
ground like bizarre monuments. The highway that will
run over the top hasn’t even been built yet, and it’s amazing
to witness this incredible feat of engineering with our
very own eyes. In a couple of years this dirt road we’re
driving on will disappear as it’s reclaimed by the forest
and returned to the wilderness once more.
* * *
The sun on my face stirs me from my sleep. It’s early
morning and we’re parked on an elevated muddy bank
overlooking the vast forest. Chris drives for an hour before
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we pass a large camp where the hundreds of men working
on this stretch of the road must sleep. Huge trucks and
diggers line up outside a long row of portacabins, and it
suddenly occurs to me that we haven’t seen a guardian
angel for ages. We begin to wonder if we’re going the right
way. I find myself distracted for a moment by chronic
stomach cramps. Feeling the need to release some pressure
from inside my bowls, I squeeze out a fart. My eyes
widen in sheer panic as I empty the entire contents of my
stomach into my pants.
‘STOP THE CAR!’ I shriek.
‘Why?’
‘Just stop the fucking car!’
Chris slams on the brakes. Leaping out of the Sierra, I
quickly disappear into the bushes and whip off my jeans.
How degrading I think to myself, as I squat in the long
grass and fling my soiled boxer shorts over my shoulder.
Returning to the car, I grab some clean underpants from
my rucksack and put on the pair of trousers I’d been saving
for Vladivostok.
Chris screws up his face and points at my shit stained
jeans. ‘What are you gonna do with them? You’re not
putting them in the car.’
‘Oh, yes I am.’
‘Fuck you, Si! This is my bedroom too, you know.’
‘They’re my favourite jeans. I’m not throwing them
away!’
‘Well, put them in the boot.’
Chris looks disgusted and sprays half a can of deodorant
over his shoulder.
‘How embarrassing,’ I grin. ‘I’ve just pooed my pants in
the middle of Siberia.’
Chris cracks a smile. ‘Yeah, how humiliating. You’re a
twenty-seven year old man, and you’ve just pooed your
pants like a child.’
Trying to put this awful event out of my mind, I get
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Chris to spray water from the car window washers so I can
wash my hands. The water rebounds off the glass and
jumps in my eyes. At this moment in time we both look
like dirty street urchins and, apart from splashing our
faces once in a while, we have neither changed our clothes
nor had a proper strip-wash in days. Chris’s hair looks
grey from the dust that covers the dashboard and the
entire interior of the car. I lick my finger and rub an area
on the back of my wrist, a white patch appears under the
dirt. Dusting down our rucksacks we attempt to clean
things up a bit, but we just end up creating an enormous
dust cloud.
‘Hey, Si,’ Chris coughs, ‘we’re running low on petrol.
When’s the next village?’
I glance down at the map. ‘Uh … about thirty miles
away, but its one hell of a diversion.’
‘It doesn’t matter, there might not be anywhere else for
ages.’
Putting some air into the buckled wheel, we continue to
drive along the dirt road and stop when we reach a long
track tailing off into the forest.
I throw Chris a look of concern. ‘Are you sure this is the
right road?’
‘It must be.’
‘You’re not too sure, are you?’
‘Course I’m sure. It must lead somewhere.’
Even though the idea of leaving the main highway
seems completely insane, we decide to risk it anyway.
Gritting our teeth, we make our way cautiously through
the forest. We drive in a straight line for about twenty minutes.
The thought of breaking down out here makes me
feel physically sick, as the chances of anyone passing by
are incredibly slim. At least if we get stuck on the Amur
Hellway there’s a small chance someone will come to our
aid within a few hours, but if it happens here we’ll have
to walk back to the main highway and persuade someone
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to come to our rescue. Much to our relief, we eventually
see a few wooden houses in the distance on the far side of
a river. Chris draws up in front of a rickety wooden bridge.
‘No fucking way, Chris! We’re not driving across that!’
‘Shut up, Si! Of course we are.’
I tap Chris’s head with my finger. ‘Have you lost your
frigging mind?’
‘What’s the big deal?’
‘Look at it, you crazy fool! There’s no way that bridge is
strong enough to support the weight of a car.’
‘Yes it is. If it can support a horse and cart, surely it can
support a car.’
‘But it looks like something out of an Indiana Jones
film.’
‘I know, isn’t it cool!’
‘No … it’s fucking dangerous! Let’s find somewhere else
to get fuel.’
Chris laughs. ‘Where? There isn’t anywhere else. If we
turn back now we’re in serious danger of running out of
petrol.’
‘What about the reserves in the boot?’
‘We’ve already used one tank.’
‘OK, so let’s use the other one, then?’
‘Si, that’s for emergencies.’
‘This is an Emergency!’
‘Hey, fuck you! We’ve got to have some reserves. We
need to get more!’
‘Oh my God, I think I’m losing my mind.’
Jumping out of the car, I step onto the rotten bridge and
peer over the edge.
‘This is suicide, Chris! How can we be sure it won’t collapse?’
‘There’s a petrol station in the village on the other side.
It’s marked on the map. Cars must cross this bridge all of
the time.’
I frown. ‘What cars? There aren’t any cars. Oh, how I
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dream to be on a tarmac highway right now … oh, how I
dream to be on the M25.’
‘Shut up and get in.’
‘No way, I’ll walk in front.’
Chris inches slowly forward, while I help him line up
the front wheels with the wooden planks. There’s a wide
gap running down the middle of the bridge and I can see
the rushing water below. As the front tyres mount the
wooden slats, they creek under the weight of the car.
‘Slowly!’ I shout.
With wide eyes, Chris lets out the clutch again and
crawls steadily across the bridge. There’s a hole about a
foot wide in one of the slats, but Chris skillfully maneuvers
the car around it. I can feel my heart pounding inside
my chest. This is ridiculous, what are we doing? The
bridge sways a little and continues to creek, but thankfully
we make it safely across to the other side.
Feeling relieved, we pass the deserted wooden shacks
and see a rusty sign depicting a petrol pump. A huge pile
of coal has been dumped in front of a house, obstructing
the view outside their window. There doesn’t appear to be
anyone around, and I wonder if the inhabitants are all at
work in the quarries or mines that surround this area. We
pass under a large railway bridge and see a small dirty
coal-mining town in the distance. Another sign diverts us
away from the town, so we follow the road until we reach
a big yard in the shadow of the railway line. Chris pulls
up beside an antique petrol pump, and we look in awe at
an old rusty steam engine deteriorating in the long grass.
While Chris sorts out the petrol, I stretch my legs and
decide to check out this incredible relic of Russia’s past.
It’s in serious need of restoration, but with a slap of paint
it would look great in a museum. Suddenly, I see something
in the corner of my eye. I turn and look in terror as
an enormous black dog sprints towards me across the yard.
Frozen to the spot, I’m virtually paralyzed from the eyes
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down and find I’m unable to cry for help. The rabid beast
leaps for my throat, but luckily the chain around its neck
goes taught and it’s pulled violently back. This only torments
the monster more, causing it to growl savagely and
foam at the mouth. It really is the biggest dog I have ever
seen. It’s twice the size of an Alsatian and looks more like
a bear. Its piercing bark penetrates my eardrums and its
sharp three-inch long teeth drip saliva. I return quickly to
the Sierra. The young lad filling up the car in a blue boiler
suit laughs at me as I approach. He has bright orange
hair and a splatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose.
He looks like a cheeky kid who used to live three doors
down from our house, which is pretty amazing considering
we’re less than fifty miles away from the Chinese border
and slap-bang in the middle of the Siberian wilderness.
We wave goodbye to the carrot-topped kid and return
cautiously back across the bridge to the safety of the highway.
We reach a section of the road that is relatively flat,
and after a few miles we blink in amazement at the sight
of a signpost in the distance. This is the first signpost
we’ve seen on the Amur Hellway, so we cheer loudly and
dance around it in wild celebration. It’s an amazing sight
to see, particularly as it informs us that we are now only
600 miles from Khabarovsk in the Far East of Siberia, and
a city that is within pissing distance of the legendary
Vladivostok.
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