We're feeling pretty elated right now - after over a week in Ankara the Kazakh visa was issued this morning, we're just waiting for the Indian visa this evening and tomorrow we're off! It's hard to describe how dull Ankara is. Its probably a bit like Canberra which I've never been to but would assume exists purely for government and nothing else. Unfortunately we had no luck with the Azeri one, which they insisted required the ridiculously expensive letter of support so we're going to try in Tbilisi instead. Hopefully Tbilisi is nicer than Ankara though from what I've heard "more exciting" may be nearer the truth.

To fill the time we've had to find ways to amuse ourselves - there are no hostels in Ankara so its not like we can share tales of boredom with fellow sufferers. We saw the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations which is apparently the only tourist attraction in the whole city. We saw the new Bond film last night (not bad actually) complete with 15 minute fag break for the Turks. We've been playing strip canasta (thankfully for all concerned Grapes keeps losing). A nice game is a sort of paper scissor stones race - you find a (very long) staircase and play paper scissor stones. Each win means you can move another step. If you draw you save up the steps until someone wins. Great fun! We never played the poo game though. That was reserved for if we had to stay this weekend as well. The rules are simple - you both take laxatives and the first one to go for a poo wins.

Any additional suggestions are of course welcome...

Its taken a week, but we finally reaslised the other night that our hotel supplements its takings over the winter (and probably summer as well) by doubling as a brothel. We were up chatting to one of the staff one evening and noticed a stream of old Turkish men with young Turkish and Eastern European women going into the hotel and leaving less than half an hour later. This would go some way to explaining why its so noisy at night (not that kind of noise thankfully). If you ignore this it's actually quite a nice hotel.