June 8th, 2016

Sorry for the typos, I am rushing off to bed!....

Remember.. Life is precious - Early cancer screening saves lives :)

Tuesday 45km. Today I had a tough day as it's hilly, raining, and the road was mostly down to two-lanes. Traffic was very, very heavy and it was tough going pushing Karma uphill in the wet gravel which sometimes resembled sand or mud. Sorry for lack of updates, there has not been a lot to report, and besides the internet signal was bad today. Yesterday I walked through two large ugly cities which were back-to-back and so they were time- consuming. No, I am definitely not a city lover, though not a total philistine either. I like art and some history, but not for the sake of it, only places that have interesting architecture, like St Petersburg, Tallinn, Verona and parts of New Mexico. Nor am I a tourist either! The Volga river was nice, but it reminded me of the Danube, and I have seen that several times
I am told that in the interior that very few Russians have had encounters with foreign people. In the small towns, villages and cities I have observed a peculiar habit that many people just can't accept that I don't know the language. Most people continue to talk and lash out sentence after sentence, page after page of verbals even when I say I don't understand! One man got very angry when he picked up my "not" and for some reason he didn't like that I didn't agree with whatever he was saying, I was telling him I didn't understand him! I have not witnessed anything like this in a travel career which spans about 90 countries. Even in some Indonesian or Burmese villages where people have never seen a foreigner, they realise I speak a different language. Most travellers will have a potshot with a few international words for example: emergency, dangerous, hospital. Auto, kaput, cafe etc... But here it's like... " he doesn't understand, so I will give him another volley of words!" I am obviously not talking about in the affluent areas of Moscow, St Petersburg etc.
Today I came to a nice restaurant/ hotel a couple of Kilometres west of Niva. So I stopped at 41km. It was very hilly and perhaps the toughest day of the walk so far. The days are getting shorter now, perhaps I am due a time zone change as it's now dark at 9:15 instead of at almost 10pm.