The end of my adventure is in sight

Wednesday 6/08

So after having reviewed all of the information that my brilliant wife has extracted from the British Consulate in Almaty, the general conclusion is that you cannot leave, destroy or sell a motorbike that has come into Kazakhstan as a temporary import. You can only pay to have it taken out to another country where the same rules apply!
Reading between the lines, you can only go home by donating the bike to charity, and even then the charity may not know you have done it.

The problem with my current situation is that there is 7000 miles of rough road between me and the Mongolian finish, and with my right thumb in plaster, this is a bit of a non-starter.

I left the mighty Sinnis registration plate over the bar in the Guns and Roses Music Bar in Atyrau.

The next problem is the marble sized kidney stone that the last fall dislodged, which is now causing internal bleeding and a significant amount of pain. Inflammation of the kidney is growing daily, so I need to get back to the marvellous NHS ASAP.

At the start of this adventure, my greatest desire was to get "out of bounds" and the people I met were more important than the destination. So all of the goals have been met; I have made the most marvellous friends from all walks of life. I have experienced huge and savage times, and revelled in my own solitude for days upon end.
I have also found loneliness, despair and pain in situations that I never wish to visit again.

In all my experiences I have found that even in the difficult abused countries kindness exists in the vast majority. I have been offered small meals, tea and companionship when no words of language joined us.

Tonight at Atyrau Airport I am saying a prayer of thanks to Angie & Scarlett for organising my escape and yet in the back of my mind I regret that I am leaving this different world to rejoin our place of comfort and safety, where small kindness is seemingly so rare.
I doubt I will push myself into the great unknown to this degree again, but I have learnt more about myself than anything else and I am definitely not the hard man that I have aspired to be.
One or two of my road companions called me 'a kind man' and that seems like a better and more worthy goal.
A massive thanks to all of the other Rally teams that have helped me!

Wish me luck tonight in clearing Kazakhstan immigration! I can't wait to see my family and friends; it seems like a lifetime has passed.