We had a lazy start to the day. We went for a walk in nature reserve Stolby and it was shut after the bears had disturbed the area. Must have known we were coming!! So we chatted with a local who drove us to a ski resort to go walking. We went in the ski lifts and got to the top. The only way to walk was down hill and I was chuffed.. But hey the bears had gone potty again here and the walk was shut. So we took the ski lift and came down.

Fame found me at last as a chap walked upto me and wanted to take a photo with me!! He was a worker in the resort. Mojmir took the photo on his mobile and he was pleased.

Then we came to town parked the car and went for a walk. The town is busy and is all modernized. Nice chic shops and all the trimmings of wealth.
On the trams to my great surprise were advertisements from Akbar Brothers Colombo for Ceylon tea. I was proud of seeing that ad. Sadly I could not get a photo as on both occasions I was wrongly placed etc.
We then started off toward Irkutsk. Stopped on the way for lunch as we had no breakfast. Wow what a lunch we had in the cafe off the motor way.

Starters was Uzbek soup Shourpa. Meat with carrots potatoes and some celery leaves. Very good.
Followed by a salad which was accompanied by Armenian Dolma stuffed wine leaves. The stuffing was meat.
We topped it off with Shashlik and that was fine too. It is really a posh word for a kebab. Tea to wash it down.

I then drove the next 250km and our star driver Piotr needed a rest and he had been doing a lot last night.

Road conditions are good. Speeds upto 120 km.
We are expecting to pass another time zone tonight and stop say 300 km out of Irkutsk.

Some of you are asking for more pics. We have loads and video too of clips and will upload at some stage when we have good internet access.

Monday was spent with a lot of driving. We have reached the intended target but clocked a good 1000 km.
We drove into the city Krasnoyarsk and headed for a huge dam. It was unimpressive. It was getting late and we had decided to stay in a motel so Mojmir could rest and shower etc after his journey from Prague.
Our search for a hotel seemed expensive with rates of a 100 pounds a room for 2 were being quoted. Tired, hungry and getting towards 11pm we headed out onto the main road again towards Irkutsk. After 20 mins on the road we found a motel. Small and with no showers.. we call it Zero star. Then our luck turned, the owner said he had another place we could stay the night and we followed him there. It is a house and has some rooms. We had access to the sauna for free. Nice rooms, attached showers and clean linen. Decor is all in green, no suttle colors here. This I find is the general decor of the regions. It is by far the nicest room we had stayed in. The places are quite cheap at about 10 dollars per person per night. We had our dinner Russian pie which is like a huge dough and some filling and a starter.

Mojmir is with us and we all had a small bottle of beer each. He is from Cz and loves a good pint of Cz beer. More on Mojmir later. Nice guy. I have known him for a few years.

Andrei and I shared a room and went to bed watching David Haye fight vs Klichko. By round three Andrei was fast asleep I to turned the box off and went off to sleep.

Morning was a nice shower and I caught up with some news with regard to Murdoch, it looks like the journalist have nothing else to do but now attack themselves. Sorry Lawrie.. But he was scum what his organization did. There is a saying in the Balkans that a fish stinks from the head. How true. Saw the sad news of the Volga accident. Thank you to all of you who had a sleepless night over us and the incident and sent us emails to check if we were ok. My boss Wojciech was one checking on his staff..

Today we plan to spend some time in the city Krasnoyarsk. Then head towards Irkutsk. It is about 1000km from here. But close to lake Baykal, where we intend to stop for the day.

All the guys are doing good. Andrei keeps us all in place and is our navigator.