Hello all! We have finally made it to Ulan Bator! After 14,645 km, 31 days, 8 time zones, two broken suspension springs, one annihilated set of shock absorbers, 5 punctures, two decimated rims, one spin-out and a one-way argument with a Chech tram, we are right here at the finish line!

So, from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, be headed to the Kazakh border. Due to a 2-year long road closure at the main crossing, we were forced about 200km back the way we came to find the nearest border crossing. SLightly frustrating, but not as much as the actual crossing. The guards, pleasant as they seemed, made us fill out form after form after form, although we were invited to watch some of the Olympic cycling with them in a small back-room... they should have been working, no wonder it took so long for us to cross.

Kazakhstan was very different to Uzbekistan. The first thing we noticed was the amount of white Russians living there... blonde hair and blue eyes was a very strange sight after so long in Central Asia. The scenery was fantastic: mountains surrounding rolling hills dotted with farms and villages, the sun glowing on everything in sight. However, we quickly heard that another team had been robbed in this country losing nearly everything they owned. We remained alert as we set up camp on the road-side in a lonely area south of Almaty.

Almaty was welcome. Suddenly, we were presented with functions we hadn't seen for quite a while. Mechanics, internet cafes, hotels etc. Trying to decypher a French version of Lonely PLanet the Franch hitch-hikers had given us, we eventually found a hotel... $200! We declined and set out searching for another. After plently of stressful wrong turns, we found a couple of other hotels (one which had shut down)...[Read More]