Borat country here I come!

[Cyclefrance]

Sorry for the delay in posting - the Internet connection in Kazakhstan left a lot to be desired so I decided to wait until I arrived back home - then the last-night meal at a mountainside restaurant left its toll on my digestive tract - still suffering, but can at least get on with the posting.

First the map of the route to Almaty - one of our airlines, BMI, now flies direct,, but has to make a fuellinhg stopover at Ekaterinaberg until it gets long-distance aircraft on the route from May - so the flight was an hour longer than needs be. As Ekaterinaberg was recording sub-zero temperatures itwas encouraging to know we didn't have to get off the plane - managed a couple of photos on the way back when it was a daylight stop there:

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