Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Visa chaos as Pete eventually submitted the visas as they were approved but yet to be issued. After being told to come back the next day we have now found out that the man that can issue the visa isn't around until Monday (its now Thursday). With the Uzbek visas expiring on Saturday Pete and Kirsten went back to the embassy and pushed their way to the front of the queue with a little help from the British embassy on the phone. They were told that we couldn't even get our passports back to get the Uzbek visa extended as the man with the key was away on business. Most recent update is that we should be able to collect them tomorrow but with one person saying that and another saying something else who knows when we will get out of Uzbekistan. As the hotels will not let us stay if our visas have expired and as we have to register with the government on check in, we had planned to camp in the Uzbek mountains till a new visa was issued. Turns out there is a lot of military patrolling due to proximity to border so we are just hoping to get the kazak visas tomorrow and get out of Uzbekistan.

We have had 2 nights in Tashkent and will definitely be leaving tomorrow with visas or not. I think everyone's pretty glad to be leaving as there's not alot here. I've not found the department store and the water park that some of us got to was really not worth the money so we didn't go in. On the upside I found tea and cake, the ice creams are cheap and the metro was pretty cool as there was a different style of light in every station! That's as far as the excitement goes.
Some of us did enjoy a night out in the FM bar. Ben who's my truck little brother getting many a lap dance is an image that's going to be burnt into my head for eternity! He did enjoy himself though!