Days 451-452: Movin’ On Up
27.03.10-28.03.10: Woke up at Baha’s flat wondering if anybody got the number of the truck that hit me before stumbling back to Fred’s. Her mate in Samakand (down south) had…
Day 450: The Incident
26.03.10: I had real trouble dragging myself out of bed this morning. I asked Fred to wake me up, which she did, but what I should have asked is for…
Day 449: The Great Game
25.03.10: The plan today was simple. Well, I thought it was. First up, visit the Kyrgyzstan Embassy and hand over my passport, while that visa is processing put my application…
Day 448: Paranoid? Who Said That?!
24.03.10: I woke to find the two guys that I was sharing a room with sitting on their beds staring at me like I had just dropped from space and…
Day 447: The Aral Sea Disaster
23.03.10: The train arrived at the town of Beyneu at about ten minutes to five in the morning, enjoyed a cup of tea in the little station cafe and after…
Day 446: Guns N’ Roses
22.03.10: I gave up all hope of a schedule months ago. When people ask me (and they do) when I think I'll be finished I just shrug and change the…
Day 445: The Naxçivan
21.03.10: This must be the most incredibly naff ship I've been on so far; all dirty floors, peeling fake wood wallpaper, murky corridors, broken lights, stained matress, rusty bulkheads, dripping…
Day 444: Shurely Shum Mishtake
20.03.10: So I had nothing important to do today, it was a big public holiday in Baku and the main road through town were shut. I was looking forward to…
Day 443: Bless My Lucky Underpants
19.03.10: I called Alex (whom I met at the Irish Pub the other night) and asked him if he could get in touch with the Uzbek embassy to see if…
Day 442: The Dolphins In The Dole Queue
18.03.10: The Caucasus – it’s where us whities get our rather daffy pigeonhole ‘Caucasian’, a term lampooned by Lewis Carroll in his nonsensical Caucus Race in which everybody wins a…