Terranova Expedition: Day 19 and 20: Chita, Russia

Chita has proven to be another amazing city. It has a population of approximately 300,000 people, and is semi-modern, slightly less than Khabarosk, but more than Vladivostok.

We didn't have any contacts here, so we've been staying at a hotel. We arrived yesterday evening, just as a wedding reception was in progress, so the whole wedding party all came out and gawked at us. We'd left Cory with the bikes while Petar and I went in to register, and by the time we got back, he was surrounded and a bit taken aback by the amount of people. He was trying to keep an eye on all three bikes, while answering 10 questions all being shouted at him at the same time by a crowd of excited Russians.

Hey look, it's the Circus! Nope, just smelly Canadian (and Croatian) bikers!
After we had gotten set up in the rooms, Cory and Petar went down for Dinner, and I spent some time preparing some updates to the Website. When I went down, the Security guard (there are 2 on at all time in the lobby) saw I was looking for my friends, knew what I wanted and escorted me out the building around the corner, and up the elevator, and into the party.

Now, we've been on the road for 5 days without access to any kind of laundry, so I had on a pair of short, my stinky shoes, and a MEC long sleeve base layer, that looks like the top for long underwear. So he brings me through the wedding party, to this side enclave where Cory and Petar, equally dumbfounded are having dinner. So we look like three disheveled street people, sitting at this lone table off to the side, eating dinner, among a bunch of dressed to the nine Russians at a wedding.

Again... bizarre.

We stayed two days here, both at the hotel, which is brand new, very western and obviously built to exacting North American standards. The hot water ran out after 2 minutes in the shower.