The air conditioning unit in the room had a sign that said not to turn it below 20 degrees, so we ignored it and turned it to 18 degrees like heat crazed people would. Chris had at one point apparently slept under a wet towel in an attempt to cool down. To make up for the $120 price tag we feasted on breakfast, and took the piss out of a local travel tv show with a Russian presenter travelling around South America visiting unusual places. The breakfast mainly consisted of beef stir-fry and tator-tots but we ate it all anyway. Since we had arrived late at night we abused the late check-out time and arsed around in the hotel. Some people went for a swim in the freezing cold puddle in the basement, but the amount of illness floating around the group spoiled the appeal. A group of us went to the bank handily mapped out on our key cards to change/withdraw money. The people changing Kyrgyzstan money to dollars didn't have any issue, but when I tried using either of my cards to withdraw dollars the lady teller tossed my cards back through the safety slot. I marched back to the hotel ATM and withdrew $300 worth of local currency, then went back to the same woman and slammed my wad of cash on the desk and shouted "Change it B*#&h". Well I walked back and politely asked if she would change my collection of new currency.

 

There was another team lurking in the hotels of Bishkek, one that the two other teams had convoyed with in Iran, and there were rumours their hotel served chicken nuggets and chips - so of course we had to go for lunch. We sat around for an hour exchanging stories collected while they weren't convoying together and waited for lunch. Then we sat around discussing rumours of shooting ranges in Mongolia and McDonalds in Almaty for another hour until our food finally arrived. After eating we set off on the road to the Kazakh border with our new, improved and larger convoy. 'The League of Extraordinary Mongoliers' are Matt, Jamie and Rob, who are well and truly cheating by driving a 4x4 Daihatsu Terrios. We carried on shooting each other with our BB guns like big adventuring children before we would have to throw them away, mainly because we didn't fancy testing the border guards humour. Once we got closer to the border we decided we would smuggle them across the border in our bags. Well the passengers decided they would hide them in the car that way it would be us, the drivers, that would need to learn Russian for "toy" very quickly or be spending a long time in a Kyrgyz prison. At the border there was a hidden stop sign that Chris didn't see or stop for, well it wasn't hidden but Chris sure didn't stop for it. The policeman, who had been busy scratching his arse in his building, noticed the foreign cars passing by his hut and saw dollar signs. Both us and the lion boys were pulled over by the policeman-officer and the drivers, Chris and James, were lead into the shed. I followed them inside because I am the legal owner of the car, that and I fancied a laugh watching what happened. Upon entering the man's office/house Chris was told the put his card into the chip and pin machine on his desk. Rather cleverly Chris ignored this request and asked what the fine was instead. The "fine" was $15 per person, including me because I was in the room too and this was hardly a legitimate fine. I told the man I was just watching and left Chris and James to barter down the price. They tried giving $20 for the two of them but the guard had bigger figures on his mind. Unfortunately a new officer came into the room, who was friends with David Cameron oddly enough, and upped the "fine" to $100 each. With figures like that being banded around I ditched them to be arrested while I moved on with my life. A few minutes later they returned to the car and told us how they had bartered him down to $50 for both but when payment came they had only tossed $40 in the drawer - all official fines are paid directly into drawers. After their sneaky move they both came running out before he noticed, we moved out of the parking space and straight into the massive queue for the border.

 

We sat in the traffic jam for a good hour or so bumping into each other until we got to the entrance gate. The main reason the queue was so long was the constant cutting in by large Russian 4x4s, unfortunately for them they underestimated how little we care for our cars and what we would do to stop them. At the gate to the border Miles and James decided to turn Russian and tried to cut in front of us. I wasn't having any of it, so we started shouting at each other and honking our horns. This didn't dissuade them, so I crashed into the back of them and smashed one of our fog lights. That will show them what sort of man they're messing with - an idiot. Once safely inside the border crossing the warfare stopped while I bandaged up our wound with duct-tape. The passengers were told to go through separately, probably so they could get their traditional border crossing cavity search which they have become accustomed. At the Kyrgyzstan side of a border gaurd asked for the car's V5 which I didn't have, then he asked for the customs declaration which I also didn't have. He seemed disappointed by my lack of important documents, but got over it quickly and asked for a nice souvenir instead. The only souvenir I have is my traditional Kyrgyzstan drive-by hat, and he would have to pry it out my cold dead hands if he really wanted it. Obviously I didn't offer that as a solution to the man holding a gun, so just shook my head instead. After another prolonged period of queuing we made it to the Kazakh side of the border crossing. The helpful guard had instructions written on a peice of paper, which he must have been proud of as he read them out in broken English for us multiple times. We were told the highly complex process of standing in a queue as it moved between two booths, but clearly we had not fully understood. While standing in the correct/only queue the same guard came back and took us to the side, he then whispered the same instructions to us like he didn't want the locals to know the best method for tackling this confusion. We rejoined the queue and reached the first booth. The man inside took details from my passport and car registration, he then took a photo to attach to the offcial paperwork. The first photo must not have captured my best side so he took a second photo and asked me to smile, I obliged with the most ridiculous face I could pull. I'm not sure which photo he used but I really hope I am known to the Kazakhstan government with a photo that looks like I should have adult supervision at all times. After waiting for the lady in the second booth to complete some paperwork I was sent to collect my car for a thorough searching. The guard who was waiting at the inspection area watched as I arrived, sighed, stamped a random peice of scrap paper, and told me to leave.

 

We had been told there was a McDonalds in Almaty by the internet, but having left the border crossing at 8p.m. we were facing the fact we wouldn't make it there for dinner. Luckily there was a burger stall just outside the border where we could get our fix with a wide choice of burgers and hot dogs. We each chose what we would get from the menu board, but the man in the stall knew what we wanted better than we did. I walked up to the window with my heart set on a hot-dog, when I asked for my hot-dog he shook his head like 'silly clueless tourist' and said "cheeseburger". Other people tried for other items and were met with the same headshake and repetition of "cheeseburger". Some people might put up more of a fight, we just sat and ate our cheeseburger instead. We drove to the city and tried to check into a hostel. James went to find the reception down an alleyway while we waited by the cars. A few minutes later James returned, sprinting back out of the alleyway being chased by a pack dogs.