Thursday 18th July (Joanne birthday) Following last nights nearly disco experience, we were the only other people in the restaurant with two Russian ladies who wanted a dance, obviously I was up for it the other two wanted an ice cream, so I went for an ice cream. With the supermarket shop also added some pot noddle stuff to the shop as we were all still not sure what we had eat. Breakfast in the room fruit, muesli, fruit and coffee all good. We all had the normal ablutions in the eastern fashion hard on the legs, until Keith said the next door is a European one! On the road around 07:30 with a view to going to the local supermarket to pick up some water, it did not open till 08:00, so we moved on to the local garage. Then started the ride to the border, on rough un made roads, with 80 miles and a border crossing this could be a long day, We were soon passed my the guys who stayed at the same place as us, they waved and tooted with good luck. Before we knew it we were at the Russian border, all went well, then passed on to the Kazakhstan border control, with a mile ride in between. We queued up behind about 20 cars, then a nice girl came up and said in perfect English have you got a problem, Keith said are we in the right queue, she said go to the front,so we did and they let us through. On we went through an open gate when the shout went up stop! linny and I turned around, the guard just said wait here. We had to wait there, showed are passports to the guy, then waited and waited for around 3 hours. The border control guys were all quite nice and had a chat a laugh with us one even had a go on Linny`s bike, it was just so slow. Then they waved us through, another little wait as we went through the passport control procedure. All through in around 3 ½ hours, not to bad. Had a little snack, then set off on clear flat rolling roads, best we had seen since Germany, seems so long ago. The quality of the road and the tail wind made our minds up to head for Oral, another 60 ish miles, with a decent speed and a few little breaks we were soon on the outskirts of the city. With Linney in full map reading mode we made our way to a Hotel, the guy was really helpful, but they had no rooms, he made a few calls,but the hotel was to far away. Next plan was find a bar with WIFI,have a beer and find a place to stay, the plan worked and beer was excellent (bit like the end of the film "Ice cold in Alexdra Next plan was find a bar with WIFI,have a beer and find a place to stay, the plan worked and beer was excellent (bit like the end of the film "Ice cold in Alexandra) Linny booked an apartment we spent the extra £1, we tried to phone the guy but got into some language issues, but thought we had to meet him in 10 mins at the apartment just around the block. Keith went to the ATM, as this place will break the bank! As Linney and I were waiting this guy came out of a bar, with a smile introduced himself as an English language teacher, result we got him to talk to the apartment owner, all sorted in10 mins. Arranged to meet the guy in the bar, when we had all showered and cleaned up, took Keith & I about 5 mins, Linney a bit longer. The guy (Kanat) was really keen to chat with us, then invited us to his school the next day, so we arranged to meet him at 10:30 the next day, all quite convenient as we had arranged to check out of the apartment at 10:00. The guy then walked with us past his School (Number 7) on to a fancy restaurant, we really are living the high life today. All had a great meal washed down with a few beers, then back to our apartment.