Well, after a few days of exploration in and around Moscow, we found out that we had issues with our visa's for Kazakhstan. After three months of being told everything was going ok we found out on monday that all our files had been lost (appearently the visa issueing department had been shifted to another city). So with our 4 day visia for Russia up we hastily booked flights to Istanbul - which is not far off the track to Almaty. At this stage no grumps with adding another 'stan' (i-stan-bul) to our jouney :) With the morning spent at the Kz embassy yesterday we are hopeful, but not overly optimistic, that we will have visas by 3pm today. If so its onwards to Almaty overnight ready for a 5am start to Taraz (around 600 k ride). If visa's still not through then we will kick on another night or 2 here. On the understanding that Turkish bathhouses have a reputation of being something a bit out there they might well be on the hitlist - having a thirty stone dude sitting on u giving u a backscrub must surely be entertaining.
