The Russia has been suffering the last couple of days. I think he’s consummated every toilet in the last 200 miles. So I left him to sleep and went out for a walk, and another shave. I’m determined to get a good wet shave this trip and it’s not happened so far. Walk in. Very hot towel. Good start. He’s not a Master but he’s doing ok. Feels nice and smooth, just a spray of something nice to finish. He grabs a can from the table, covers my eyes, and in an impressive slight of hand swaps the can for a petrol pump and pours 95 octane into all my open pours.

FUUUUUUUUCK THAT!! It’s a bloody good job I chose an S&M barber that’s for sure. If he hadn’t bound and handcuffed me to the chair and put a pool ball in my mouth when I sat down, then I’d have surely bitten my tongue clean off and hit the sodding roof.

I wander back looking for dinner. As I walk past all the queueing traffic, every car I pass starts revving. Must be my new cologne. Still, it does t stop me having the best meal of the trip so far. Oh yea. I need some new socks, so I spent 4 hours in here looking for a new pair. They only had some rubber ones, in different flavours apparently, and some with spikes on the inside. I presume that’s to aid circulation. I went for the spikes. Bit uncomfortable with my bike boots on but I quite like to suffer occasionally,  it makes me feel alive.

The Russian took some drugs last night, but this morning he’s still Russian.. to the toilet every 2 minutes. Poor bugger. It all stems from some Plov that we had at the rubbish dump in Murgab the other night. I ate one forkful and it tasted off. It tasted vaguely sweet like it had been retrieved from a month old takeaway box left on the sun. I only had the one forkful and it was enough to force me into leaving a big deposit of fly food during an emergency evacuation at the side of the lake the next day. But the Russian ate the lot.

So this morning I went for a huge fat boy English breakfast at the place I ate last night then we went for a tour of the Bishkek public conveniences. Just another city. Same same but different.

I only bought my ‘day’ eyes with me because I didn’t think we’d be riding at night. The Russian wants to stay for a while to try and wring his bowel dry so I leave him to join me later and head out of Kyrgystan and back into Kazakhstan. It’s a very busy border but it’s as quick and simple as it gets. In. Out. Shake it all about.

The road initially runs west for 150 miles back along the Kyrgystan border. It’s quite sad looking at the mountains. It’s like looking over your rich neighbours fence, when his athletic wife is playing tennis, after a swim. Forget I said that. That’s what happens when my brain has little to do. It wanders. It wonders. And she doesn’t play tennis either. She’s the captain of the Yummy Mummies beach volleyball team. Forget I said that too. Look at some mountains from afar like I did.

Tonight’s hotel is in the basement of the bargain basement’s basement again. It looks ok. But it has just a couple of minor flaws. The door to the room looks normal, but has a problem in that it only lets 80% of my body pass through it.

The enclosed shower cubicle also seems to be mounted on 2 marbles. When you get in it moves, tips and has you falling about all over the place. It appears, using only the powers of deduction you understand, to be an anti self-abuse prototype. Should someone be foolish enough to start burping their worm in the cubicle, it will fall on its side trapping the incumbent inside until the masterbation police can turn up to arrest them.

Yep you’re right…. It’s a slow news day.

Today is a head down, arse up day. As luck would have it there is an uncommon event happening this evening that the Russian and I are keen to witness if we can. We are in the vicinity anyway. In Kazakhstan, 450 miles away definitely counts as ‘in the vicinity’.

So it’s fuel, tarmac, and a long day playing catski and mouseki with the police.

With a short stop in Kzylorda for plov. The Russian will we riding alone tomorrow as he needs to do some big miles to be home in Moscow in 5 days.

I did think about going with him. Back in the mists of time when I was young and owned a comb, my arse was rock solid. It was so hard you wouldn’t be able to drive a nail into it. After I did an iron butt bun burner gold ride of over 1500 miles in 24 hours, Penzance to John O’Groats and back to Penzance, my wife very kindly suggested she’d like to put that theory to the test. She hired a nail gun, voluntarily dressed up like Sarah Connor, which was nice, and tried putting a full clip into my backside. The result? Bent nails. But now I’m over 60 and my arse is soft and wrinkly like a deflated balloon you find behind the couch three weeks after a birthday party.

So I decided I’m going to just keep the miles down. We did 450 today and the balloon just about stayed inflated but I don’t want to push my luck any further. A burst arse would be a problem to fix out here.

Anyhow. We eventually get to the semi-derelict building that will be our beds for the night. It’s a tip. It’s falling apart, the bathroom has biohazard written all over it and the place smells like it was decorated by Bobby Sands. There are probably only 3 or 4 other people I know that would stay here, and 2 or 3 of those live inside my head with me.

But the Nana in charge tells us we can watch the even out of the bedroom window.

We need to negotiate a price. These rooms are obviously in high demand. This isn’t something you can see every day. If this was  in the USA we’d have had to book it 2 years ago and sell a kidney to pay for it. I’m wondering if I have enough cash on me. But then she says ‘3000 each’.

‘What? Pounds? Dollars?’

‘Niet. Tenge’

So, that’s about £4.50 for the room for the night with a (long distance) view of the Baikonor launch site out the window. I think that’s what would be generally considered to be a bloody bargain.

I don’t know what the ‘right place right time’ odds are for this sort of thing, but, I was randomly in Florida on holiday and managed to see a Space Shuttle launch. Twice.  And now I’m here in Baikonor on a launch day too. My life does sometimes seem to be a series of very fortunate events.