I was going to open this page with the words of a well known late 19th Century poet where he reveled in the glory of Samarkand. I could also delight in Alexander the Great’s first impressions of a city that was even more beautiful than he had imagined.

Sadly my first impressions left me rather disappointed. We finally made the main drag which was rather gaudily lit up by the kinds of Christmas lights that would have made Oxford Street proud 50 years ago.

Miserably we have to leave early tomorrow on a mission to try and get to Almaty in Kazakhstan within two days. It looks distressingly like for time reasons we will have to miss out the beauties of Kyrgystan which is a huge shame.

The car I am pleased to say made it in fine fettle without a single major problem unless of course, you count the bonnet flying up and hitting the windscreen. It is now tied down with one of my trusty bungee cords and we are now all set to leave tomorrow early morning, where hopefully we may catch up with some of the other teams!

Other than that all is well.