Wednesday 23 June

Set off nice and early.  Within half an hour stopped by one of the many police checks.  Got papers out ready to go through the ‘documenti’ routine but all they wanted to do was take a photo of us and Landy!!  No documenti requested!!

All going well with Landy.  Helen suffering from some continued Bristol Stool Scale No.7 (result of some dodgy eggs at the hotel yesterday morning). Helen ratty and depressed all day.  Both dehydrated in heat and not eaten properly since the dodgy eggs.  Both finding we are wearing our clothes a bit bigger these days.  Must be the inaccessability of decent tasting chocolate!!

Made it to Astrakhan after some long and tedious driving.  Surprised to find shops still open quite late.

Paul had lost his phone (did I tell you that before?).  Anyway, after some pigeon Russian, sign language, drawings, and help from other customers, we managed to buy a new simless phone.  On to the sim card provider shop only to be told that under no circumstances, under no conditions, no way, no how, not at all, could we ever buy a sim card in Russia unless we are holders of Russian passport!!!!  Email discussions with Natalie had already ascertained that we could not have either a phone or sim card posted to us as it would be confiscated by customs.  Stuck.  Now what? Demoralised.  Try to find Internet cafe to give Natalie the bad news about the sim card purchase when an angel appears.  We can’t tell you any more in order to protect our source but suffice to say that we obtained an illegal sim card that will work in Russia.  We still have to buy new sims in Kazakhstan and Mongolia but we will cross those bridges when we come to them.  Our technology woes already feeling a bit better.