Texts a plenty today:
" Exhaust back box fell off car just had it welded back on. On way to border just North of Semey. Bannans birthday today gonna have a glass tonight. Camped last night between motorway and railway.....F****** nightmare. Steve.
Glad to here it's not just the occupants, but the car too, that is having trouble with back boxes.
"In no-mans land. Russians won't let us in until Saturday. Visas don't start until 13th"
Before they started the rally it was expected that most of the hassle that they would encounter would be on entering Russia. Previous rally competitors painted a bleak view of bribery and general awkwardness amongst the Russian border police although if the visa don't start until 13th August then there's not at lot you can do.
I'd envisage that there is limited opportunity for entertainment in a strip of wasteland between two countries other than have a little drink, and considering where they are, vodka must be the chosen tipple.This is of course if they've got a bottle stashed, as it can me confidently surmised that they won't find a Tescos Metro in the vicinity.
As I was typing this message came through:
"Allowed to re-enter Kazakh. Just drank a bottle of vodka to celebrate Bans birthday. Back at border at 11pm tomorrow night will drive through the night to make Mongolian border"
Kazakh officials probably now very aware of Mr Bannans' presence in there land have kindly agreed for the team to backtrack into their country. As Paul has honoured Kazakhs with his presence in their country they perhaps have laid on a bottle of gutrot for his birthday shindig. We await news of the aftermath of the vodka party.
A strange message from Jim indicates that they did indeed imbibe a bottle......or two:
"All the Kazakhs think I am a Rusky. I am most perturbed to be thought of as a Slav also yesterday at Kazakh border they thought we were all professors"
 |
| The arrival of four English professors provokes much hilarity among the local students |
Professors? professors of what exactly? Four of the most dubious looking characters that these isles have ever spawned have turned up in their country wild eyed, and after the vodka presumably legless. The indigenous Kazakhs must have thought it was a re-run of the Crusades. Uncouth northerners in their army surplus, fair haired, well one with fair hair, one fair-ish and balding, one grey and balding, and one completely bald, in a bloody Peugeot 206 and Mr P concludes that they think he's a professor. He must be a professor of Asian languages to be able to decipher what the locals were rabbiting on about in the first place. I suppose some allowance must be made after swilling the gutrot but James seems to have been in the sun to long. Still he must have recovered somewhat as:
" We are in the Soviet Union!"
This is the last country before they "blaze" into Mongolia and have only the trivial matter of traversing the Gobi Desert and then on into Ulaanbaatar where hopefully they will be able to bathe for the first time since upsetting Svetlana's family in the Black Sea, Romania.
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