What a difference a day makes. This morning we were greeted by bright sunshine and as the day wore on it became warm. An early start got us into Irkutsk by about 10:00 and we easily found a parking place on Gagarin Boulevard right next to the Inturist Hotel and right beside the Angara River from where we walked about 1 km to the Mongolian Consulate and within 10 minutes had submitted our visa application; pick up passports with visas 3:00pm Friday.

Not long after finishing with the visa stuff we got a phone call from Yuri (a cousin of Vladimir's) who was going to look after us in Irkutsk and we connected with him a little later.


With Yuri's help we talked to reception at the Inturist hotel and organzed to park the truck in their parking lot behind the hotel building. Nice and secure and out of sight of the general public. There were two other overland vehicles there, both German. A Toyotal Landcruiser and a small pickup truck with a slide in camper.


We spent some time at an internet cafe and then met Yuri for a tour of the city; very thoughfully he arranged for a young lady named Alexandra to accompany us as designated translator. With their help we spent a couple of hours touring the city and getting the lay of the land.

Back at the hotel car park I did a small repair job on one of the kitchen cabinet doors (a little more on this below) and then we went for a walk beside the Angara River joining a healthy throng of locals who were also out enjoying the warm spring afternoon.

It seems that today was high school graduation day and during our walk we saw many young women dressed in their graduation celebration gowns/clothes.

It really was a very pleasant and interesting walk just enjoying the sun, the spectacular views of the Angara and also some people watching. Nina and I reflected on just how lucky (or maybe priviledged) we are to have the health and resources to travel like this.

The next "small" problem

Ok so today we had another "small" problem with the camper. One of the doors fell off a kitchen cabinet. This happened because the hinges being used are typical domestic kitchen cabinet hinges and the hinge is fastened to the cabinet wall with 3/8" long screws that are driven into the plywood walls of the cabinet. Well with all the vibration this vehicle experiences the screws have enlarged the screw holes until they no longer hold. The solution is not elegant but I hope it will work. It is; longer screws that go all the way through the cabinet wall and construction cement on the screw thread so that (I hope) it is permanent.

In each of the three so called offroad-motorhomes we have owned (Tiger, Earthroamer, GXV) screws are used extensively in the construction, particularly in the interior cabinetry. Yet in each of these vehicles we have seen (and experienced) that vibration eventually works screws loose by enlarging the screw hole and making a tidy repair almost impossible.

I have discussed this issue with a couple of owners of European campers over the years and their perspective is "that one should never use screws that only go into wood/plywood/composite board. One owner told me that all of his cabinets used threaded inserts and bolts, while another said he used screws but only where they could be driven through wood into a metal backing.