The Final Stan-d

Tomorrow's the big day and apart from the fear of a mythical beast dominating the lavatory at our farewell everything is going according to plan. Riots in Uzbekistan are down 35% this month and the yurts in Kyrgystan are serving some of the tastiest fermented mares milk in years. If we can get past the bribe loving border guards in kazakhstan it should all be plain sailing (if by plain sailing you mean 'agonisingly painful climbs over ridiculously steep gradients with wind and rain for support'). In an attempt to acclimatise to stan conditions we have switched to eating only horse flesh and downing a bottle of petrov vodka on the hour.