From Almaty we spent two long days driving North back over the Kazakh plains to the Russian border. Immediately over the border the landscape changes, retaining the flatness but becoming cultivated with huge fields of wheat and sunflowers. I hadn't expected Siberia to remind me of Lincolnshire but that's what it resembles.

We spent the night in Barnaul before turning east to the Mongol border. From here the road follows a river valley and the area becomes quite alpine. It is also a prime Siberian holidaying area with coach loads of Russian tourists spilling out into the small holiday camps hidden amongst the woods along one side of the river. It being a holiday, the camps were full but we stayed in a wooden dorm room nearby where we were introduced to the delights of the Russian banya. It's a variety of sauna and we were lucky that some of our fellow guests at the house were kind enough to supply us with vodka and treat us to a traditional bashing with birch twigs, unless that was just for the foreigners!

To complete the nights entertainment we headed over to the holiday camp where we found more than we could have hoped for. This turned out to be a Russian Butlins complete with in house singers and dancers. The dancers who weren't quite as young as they appeared at first sight produced an exceptional Eurovision style routine whilst two males singers crooned away. All this set to a techno version of the Benny Hill theme tune. In-between the song and dance routines couples were pulled on stage to compete in mixed dancing and drinking games. The night was topped off with a fine cancan.

The next morning, nursing a bit of a headache, we set off again. The road continues to climb through the mountains until just short of the Mongolian border where it hits a high plain surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The Russian-Mongolian border closes for the weekend so we joined the camp of around 15 Mogol Rally cars already set up waiting for the border to open the next day.

Our journey continues at: http://www.hereorthere.com/members/...perience/942