Day 45: Team XPD covers 949 km from Kemerovo to Omsk amid chaotic traffic

The team started their journey at 7.45 am. Today's drive was about 900 km and covering that distance is quite easy for the team now.

Meenakshi cited that the Trans-Siberian has changed a lot since sometime back. "There are more petrol stations for one and more food places to stop too," she added.

The only thing that was a bad experience is unpredictable traffic.

Anytime you can encounter dangerous overtaking and excessive speeds in Russia. Roads and cars are often in dangerously lousy condition. "Police corruption is declining, but still exists, a dashcam is a necessity as evidence in a collision and as a defense against trouble given by authorities” noted Meenakshi.

The team had lunch at a lovely cafe, at a new gas station that is fitted with excellent new bathrooms. Meenakshi being a vegan, had buckwheat rice with potatoes and ‘Podi’ that she had packed from the home.

The team felt “that traffic had increased today when compared to a couple of days ago and it was mostly truck traffic that makes overtaking very difficult especially when driving a Right-hand drive vehicle and to top it off almost 90% of the roads were single carriageway”.