leap of elegance
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Woke up with a sore back and left the hotel. Everyone was still asleep, and the place had a sort of classy feel to it:
Then I made my way through the border:
I can’t show you any photos of the border controls, because they don’t like being photographed or filmed there. I can only tell you that it took two hours and involved a lot of talking and inspecting. Nothing bad happened though.
As soon as I was on the Kazakh side, I sat down next to the road and had a few huge tomatoes that Kyal’s mom had given me the day before:
This was also when I ran into Frank:
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At some point I lost him definitely, upon which I continued walking.
The road was good:
It was quiet:
And at some point it turned into a lovely tree-lined road:
That’s where I almost stepped on this tiny snake:
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The snake was white and very pretty:
But unfortunately, it seemed to have a death wish:
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I didn’t dare touch any snakes, so I could not think of any way to help it get off the road.
Feeling rather sad, I left.
Country houses lined the way:
I reached a mosque that was full of birds:
Well, only the roof was full of birds:
But I thought it was quite nice:
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Then I walked past this graveyard:
And next to the graveyard was a donkey:
I gave him an apple and he rewarded me with this:
I have always liked donkeys.
Then I saw an accident happen right before my eyes:
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It was a bit surreal.
These two dudes stopped for a photo:
And then I ran into a bunch of cows again, just like the day before:
There was a little dude who came running along:
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He told me he liked tourists. When I asked him why, he said that he liked the idea of becoming a tourist himself.
Yes, I thought, that actually makes sense.
And then I was in Merki.
This guy called Rusim rode his bike next to me for a little while:
And then some students from a local school found me, and we went into a huge selfie-taking frenzy:
I eventually managed to find a room in a nice hotel. And when I say nice, I mean it was clean and the furniture was new, it had (somewhat slow) WiFi and the shower worked.
I loved it.
Before I crashed on my bed, I went outside to get some dinner, and I was happy, because I figured that I had made it:
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Whatever “it” was.