It was an emotional goodbye on the
morning of Day 35 as for the first time since Romania we were parting ways with
the convoy and going it alone up to Astana, Kazakhstan. Saying that it was a
case of waving goodbye and then awkwardly moving off in the same direction as
we re-convened at the supermarket. When we were eventually alone we hit the
open road towards Bishkek. The independence was a refreshing change from
sponging off someone else’s route as we could stop, eat and piss whenever we
wanted. Caleb made full use of this liberty, stopping every few kilometres to
relieve his sieve-like bladder.
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| More sheep |
It was all going swimmingly until a
golden-toothed skinhead wearing pikey three quarter lengths and a fake Rolex
aimed his speed camera at us. Fifty metres beyond him stood a policeman who
beckoned us over with his flashing toy lightsaber. Shaking more with fear of
his impending strike than being shafted by the state police Caleb, who was
driving, was clocked doing 70 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. Naughty boy. Rather than
fighting our case, we slipped 1000 Kyrgyz Com (about $20) under a blanket into
the corrupt policeman’s rainy day fund and he unashamedly waved us on. What we
had just witnessed was utter filth but being already fully accustomed to ladies
jumping Club XL’s queue with a saucy peck on the bouncer’s cheek, we thought
nothing of it. Lesson learnt, or so we thought.
Only a few hours later Rich, who was
now driving, was caught by the same cunning trap. This time he managed to
haggle the fine down to a pack of Marlboro Reds by conning them into believing
it amounted to the same price, the gullible clown. They were actually bought
for $2.50 in Bulgaria, so yeah that was 1-1.
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| Standing at 10,000 ft on the mountain roads towards Bishkek |
Posted by: Rich