In Duchanbe we have been kindly looked after by an American couple, one of whom works at the US Embassy.

In a true Foulerton moment we decided to visit him at the Embassy and it was only as Rebecca saw the soldiers running towards us at the entrance and the tannoy blasting "Intruder alert - unidentified vehicle approaching - await further instructions" that we realised that we should have telephoned.

Only after Nick was escorted inside by soldiers in Flatjackets and the ambassador got out from under his table that we managed to find our friend.

After serviceing the bike we begin the big push though the 18,000 ft passes of the Pamirs, where the tempreture has already dropped to -10c. I suspect the next update from Kyrgyzstan could be an interesting one.

From the spectacular city of Bukhara we pressed on to Samarkand, sadly missing out on the isolated city of Khiva because we did not have time for the 1000km round trip. Samarkand held yet more incredible Medessas and Mosques, this time the work of Timur and his decendants.

From Samakand we had to avoid the Fan mountains in northern Tajikistan, due to roadworks and so we crossed the dry Steppe across the border to Dushanbe.