Monday 27^th September

Met Ian and Andy at 9.00 to change the front wheel bearing which they discovered needed changing yesterday. Yikes! All the mechanics were banned from working on cars so we had to do it very quietly out the back and not tell.

We then meandered off for lunch with Toby. Found a very strange little restaurant where we had to mime what we wanted and sat chatting for so long that it was nearly dinner when we got back. Went out for a drink and chips with Alex. Then back to hotel to blog, which won’t work! Try again in Shymkent…

Sunday 26^th September

Took car around the corner to a garage organised by James Elliott who has no car but has flown his mechanic, Tony, out to fix this vanished vehicle. All we really wanted was an oil change, but the garage owner spent 4 hours buying the oil, which was a bit embarrassing because there was a queue, followed by a bit of angst, for the ramp we were already on. There was lots of friendly chat other than that. We decided we rather like hanging a garage getting our hands dirty. A local pulled up thinking Rachel worked there from the state of her hands!

Alex Harvey arrived today so he took us to the green market where we bought dried fruit with a bit of a haggle from Alex, luckily because they wanted to charge £20!, a green fur hat and a pot of honey for our porridge.

Meanwhile Andy and Ian were fixing the bits we couldn’t get done earlier with the promise of the most expensive beer on the planet, ie from the Intercontinental.

We all went out to an amazing restaurant organised by Jorges which had very ‘tastiful’ food and belly dancers! We all got up and danced, only realising later that the entertainment was laid on for another party. Oops!

Can't add photos. Sorry. but will keep trying.

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In spite of the rather lumpy tussocks under our tent, we slept quite well which surprised us. Had a nice stroll int Almaty, keeping to our times almost perfectly. stopped for coffee in a cafe at first time control and couldn't work out why all the organisers were hurrying us on, but supposed they wanted to get to the Intercontinental for a feel of civilisation and not hang around waiting for us. Well, 2 gin and tonics, which we felt we deserved after the rigours of claiming a room without a double bed which had presumably been booked for 2 years, cost £50! Ha. The Kazakhs know how to get rich.

Came down to transport cafe style breakfast room to be presented with a bowl of cornflakes with warm milk and a plate of rice pudding!? Well, we ate the pud and saved the roll and cheese she brought out next for our lunch. There are some days we wont get fat.

Oh! The car didn't start at all! Not even a little whisper from it. The battery under passenger seat so frantic efforts to get to it, hammer, screwdriver.... but it didn't respond to charger and pump light on anyway. We are slow learners, but learning. Suzy ran inside and found Xavier who asked for a hammer, bashed the starter and away we went. New name Saviour/Xavier. Only 5 mins late for time control. Started on hideously bad tarmac road. Problem in these parts is they let you on to the roads while they are still making them so they are ruined before they start.

Most cars toot their horns and wave as they pass, but we trundled a long wondering where all the other competitors were when a tooting car appeared beside us with young men in it. They started driving in front, slowing down, swerving from side to side, indicating for us to pull over, etc. We were afraid. We bolted the doors and wondered what to do when, eventually the 2 Bruces hove into sight and Suzy hit the horn. They realised we were in trouble and came as if to drive them off the road which did get rid of them. Phew. The first time we felt vulnerable. More Saviours.

Camping again tonight. No showers. Delicious Kazakh food and a rather sweet folk singing and dancing display slightly made up for it. After our scrub in Russia and Semey we still felt cleaner than we had for some time.

alarm went off at 6am. Took minibus to our main hotel for breakfast and left at our correct time. Amazing that we could get going when in England we would never have lifted our heads from the pillow. Another long drive, but in daylight today so we saw a little of Russia- big,big farming country over huge plains with the longest belts of treeds we've ever seen, or couldn't see because they went so far. Border control into Kazakhstan only took about 3 hours which was a bit of a relief, but the hotel in Semey was a bit of a surprise, although we shouldn't be surprised any more. We were on the 2nd floor but there was no 2 in the lift. Up, down, up, down, found a cleaner who sent us up, another who sent us down and showed us the stairs! Rachel's room enormous and bizarre, Suzy's palatial with velvet armchairs and a coffee table. Went out for dinner, but falling asleep in our soup.

Wednesday 22nd September Oh my God we have never been so cold, ice on our blankets and rumours of it being -12C! Several people have hypothermia. However we changed the spark plugs yesterday, yes us all by ourselves! And the car was firing on all cylinders. We queued in number order at the border and queued and queued and it took 7 hours ugh! So we eventually got all the way through at 3.30pm and then had 700km to drive.It was very beautiful, such a contrast to Mongolia driving through woods and beside an amazing river with people fishing. This was completely mad. We said to each other we can do this if we share the driving and so we did but arrived exhausted at 2.30am- to be told that the hotel hadn’t allocated rooms. There was a lot of hand waving and frustration and we got on a minibus to take us to another hotel in the complex. In to bed at 3am after finally getting to scrub some of the filth off, even though we had dreamed of long hot soaks in delicious baths… not in these prison cells!