Stopping for R & R (incomplete entry)
31 JulUp at 8am and into hand washing our filthy clothes. The hotel provides breakfast. The lady says omelette, but it turns our to be 3 fried eggs with some bread. Still good nonetheless. We’ve made the decision to stay here for an extra night. Tim needs to come up with a plan for his passport, and I need to try and solve my digestive issues.
Tim chats to Moscow. It appears he can get someone to verify a photocopy of his passport in Almaty. Although we haven’t fully confirmed our plans, we will continue to Uzbekistan. He will catch the train to Almaty, get his passport sorted, and then fly to either Tashkent, Samarkland or Dushanbe to meet us. Depending on the condition of the car when we arrive in Dushanbe, we’ll decide on the Pamir highway. We can always leave Tajikistan by a different route.
I’ve just been down to the car which is parked out in the sun outside the hotel. To give you an idea of the heat, a cigarette lighter which was in the dash has exploded and blown part of the plastic off the dash!
The rest of the post:So Tim leaves on the 5pm train for Almaty.
It’s 12-15 hours from here on the train. Tim tried to book a top class sleeper ticket, but there was confusion, and the ticket seems too cheap. Cattle class perhaps? In Almaty the British Consulate will issue him with some sort of emergency document. Although he’ll be there in time for Friday, the Consul is away until Monday, and only he can help. Stephen and I find an internet café, a chemist to buy some lip balm, and then head for the bazaar. It is shut, so instead we find a bar, have a beer, and then catch a taxi to a restaurant from the Lonely Planet. We eat up big! We guess from the menu. We want some more lamb. The only way we manage to order it is by saying baaaaa to the waitress. Stephen enjoys a couple of massive tea time white beers.
Then it’s off for another restless night of sleep in our inferno of a hotel room.
