day 29-33, Around Kurgan and Ishim, in total 610 km (about 120 per day)

I start with a summary of the last five days:

The weather has been very good. About 25-30 degrees, rain only one evening and a refreshing wind. Unfortunately the wind was fro North or NE, so I had sidewind or headwind almost all time. Only today my road tuned towards SE, so I had almost wind from behind. That let me know how sensitive my bicycle is with all its seven bags. I thought something was wrong with me but it was only because of the wind!
The sun was not too intense because it always has been a little misty, I could ride with only my bicycle-shorts. Now I am "as brown as gingerbread" (as you say in Sweden). But my stripes on my feet will not disappear although I take off my sandals as soon as I rest. My pedals make it impossible to bike without them.

Especially my right foot has been exposed to the sun

The landscape is very flat but there are thousands of lakes and ponds where one can take a refreshing bath. They are not deep but it feels wonderful to just jump in for some seconds. I usually do it with a soap in my hand and also wash my shorts and sometimes my t-shirt at the same time. Then I let them dry on my body and think about that six t-shirts maybe were too many. I have had the same for the last three weeks.

One problem I have had is that the last three days I have been persecuted by giant, 2-3 cm large flies. First there were only two or three at the same time who often flew very close around me and sometimes wanted to rest on my map. Or did they want to read it? They flew so close that they touched me almost all time. When the got hungry they bit me so it really did hurt! Then it became more and more. Finally I had about hundred around me. It felt as if I was in a cloud of angry bees, which stressed me a little. So occasionally I tried to escape from them. But it was impossible. Although I reached a speed of 35 km/h I could not escape! It almost seemed as if they liked highspeed racing, because they became even more! Sometimes they tried to investigate my ears, my nostrils an my mouth, which was quite annoying.
But hundred flies were hungry about hundred times more than one fly, so I could expect to become bitten about every second minute. They made me moving fast and I did not dare to stop. But when I finally was forced to it (to visit a toilet), almost all of them disappeared! As soon as I continued again I had a cloud of biting huge flies behind me and could not do anything against it.

I have met MANY kind people the last five days. Not only staff at gas-stations but also truck-drivers and café-staff who -after they heard that I planned to bike around the world- invited me for dinner.

These truck-drivers invited me for dinner. They were convinced that Volvo and Scania made the best trucks.

A modern building in Kurgan

 In a city called Kurgan I met two teenage schoolboys who just wanted to exercise their English and asked me about everything they could think of. 

Two musicians in Kurgan

They were tired after they had been singing and playing English music all afternoon but they were astonished that they really could understand all my answers. They also wanted to know if I thought they had good English pronunciations, which I thought they had.
In the same city, just some minutes later I met a very important person in my life. I was on my way to a quiet place where I had planned to sleep in my tent, when I met guy called Anton.

This is Anton with his GIANT. It has run 12000 km on the same tyres!

He asked me in English were I was going. Since he also was a biker I told him how it was: I was going to find a place to sleep because the bicycleshop already was closed and I wanted to buy a new chain next day.  He had been riding around the world too, he said, so he really knew what I needed. He said that he knew a much better place to sleep, about seven kilometres away. There also was a pond where I could wash myself. Then he showed me a nice forest and said he could meet me  next day and help me.to buy the chain. 
We found out that his way around the world was about the same as mine, but the other way around. He passed California and Mongolia in the same time of the year as I am planning to. And he knew exactly what I was expecting 4000 km in front of me. We also discovered that I had built a house before I made my trip and that he was doing it now, nine months after he had come home. So he was doing everything the other way around.
Next day he brought me cakes, strawberries, tomatoes and cucumbers. We rode to the market an we both knew that I also should change all chainrings because the chain had become so long that it had worn out them and a new chain probably would "jump" as much as the old chain. I said that I really would like to do it if they had suitable spare-parts at the shops. He warned me that in Kurgan it was difficult to find parts. He usually ordered them from Internet, sometimes even from ebay in England.
When we came to the market there were many shops who sold bicycleparts. Anton had called his friend Vadim, also a biker who met. While we went to the shops he watched our bikes and equipment. We looked at different shops but no chain was declared to fit a bike with 24 speeds (they all were good enough for 18 speeds). And the chain-rings on the cranksets were bad quality and would only fit if I also changed the crank-axis. 

Vadim took this picture on the market, where I tried to change my crank-set.

Finally we came to the conclusion that it was wiser to change in the next big town, called Omsk.
Anton said that he had a chain at his house so we went there. We tried his new chain but it jumped even more than my old one. But he also had a chain which was used 50%. So we changed to this and it was perfect!
If you want to know more about Antons trip you can visit www.wakeupyourdream.org. I really recommend it!
In the afternoon I said goodbye to Anton and Vadim and wondered how I could have such good luck to find a 50 % used chain, exactly what I needed? And that I got another one (a new one) and many many good advices without paying anything?

Two days left to Omsk...

Now I am about 190 km west of Omsk and actually I checked in at a cheap Motel this night to be able to write this and to be able to contact some couch-surfers. On Friday I am planning to have a resting-day there and fix my bike!