Having traveled a good distance yesterday, I awoke fairly tired with sore legs to the sound of a solid headwind. I packed up the tent and headed out on the fairly bad road, managing to rack up 30km in the first three hours of cycling (a great score by any account). Had a bit of lunch, which helped a little bit, and then stopped another 30km along the road to have a beer/Sprite faux Shandy with water and cookies. At this point I was in contact with Perry, my HC host for the evening, who told me that I was invited to dinner at 2000h and that I could meet him at the bazaar. Sadly, I ran out of money on my Russian mobile phone and had to head into a little village to find a Kazakh SIM card. After much arm-waving and miscommunication, I was able to convince someone to give me one of their old SIM cards. I got a little bit of cash on it and then called Perry to say that I would arrive in about 45 minutes.
I came into town through a 5km long industrial section with thousands of miles of above ground piping carrying who knows what delicious chemicals. Finally made it to the bazaar and called Perry, who told me that he would meet me in five minutes.
Sadly, we had not really understood that there are a number of bazaars in the town, and I was at the exact opposite end of the city. Having worked this out, I jumped a taxi over to Perry's flat, where I had a shower, and then we sped off to dinner at one of his fellow Peace Corps friend's house. 
We had some delicious Thai food, and some even more delicious samagone (basically Russian moonshine), and some fine witty toasting to go along with. Jumping into the car of one friend's professional driver, we headed home with much mirth and indifference to how the morning would feel.
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