Day 33

Distance Covered: 357miles

Total Distance Covered: 6865miles

The trip to Semey was long and tiring, though the scenery was more varied than that of western Kazakhstan, with tree lined rolling hills, masses of golden eagles, and lilac beasted rollers (type of bird) lining  the pilons wires along the road. The final secion of road to Semey was a dangerous combination of smooth tarmac with the odd, hidden pothole. The road smoothened out as we entered Semey’s suburbs and we managed to get our speed up ( Keith was on form) only to be court by a speed camera, Hugh and I (Jeremy) entered the polices cabin to see a screen with a video of our ambulance cruising at 89kmh in a 60! Our arbitary fine 7560  Tengi ( where did they get that number from?)  was eventually wavered after our charm offensive which covered topics such as the dodgy road we had just cobered and the standard of the Kazakh lasses in Almaty.

Once in Semey, we frist tried to registered : Fail. then stayed in a partially derelect former soviet hotel were the ronly redeeming feature was the colossal amount of marble that formed  all the  8 flights of stairs to our room. Struggled with the menu for dinner out in town, but managed to make our way through 3 main courses partly because we never got what we though we ordered!