saw our first camel today. Really hot day. We smell lovely Getting attacked by horse flies constantly. Going flamingo spotting now.x

finally left Aqtobe after a very kippery morning. Got a slow fuel leak and roof rack collapse. Having trouble find tyres. Apart from that all good.x

right, well it's been pretty mental so far. fully epic drive accross europe and now into asia.

each border crossing has seemed to take us into a different world. amazing post communist ukraine complete with stoic frowning ukrainians. russia has been awesome - friendly people, crazy language, good roads...

crossing into kaz looked really easy for about 5 minutes. met this guy at the border who spoke good english and helped us loads with the paperwork for the truck and even lent paul 200 roubles for a bribe. he seemed really sound and offered for us to stay at his house. we went along with him following his car in the dark on crazy roads. he stopped to talk to us and started changing the plan. we carried on for a bit but were getting suspicious, basically he was blatantly up to something (we reckon he might have been after the truck) so we ended up pulling a u-turn and legging it with a dukes of hazard style jump off some tram lines (all 4 wheels left the ground!) and burning out of Oral (the town he lived in) at 3am and caned it through the night...

but we are in asia now! it looks like half way on the map but it is becoming very slow. took us a long hard day to do 300km yesterday. lots of massive pot-holes, loads of long sections of dirt roads.

our car only has a visa in kaz for 10 days so it's tricky to figure where we are going next as we have no idea what the roads are like... hoping to pick up a little more local knowledge on the way today

love to everyone, thanks for all the comments, keep them coming it's great to see them when we do get a chance to look

xx

n and p

we are in Kazahstan! Hard work at the boarder, customs guys were totally shitfaced. Bribes left right and centre, amusing though. Story to follow. X