Urumqi – Talas

After

Thank you. I wrote the names in the book, not on the internet. You know who you are.

I went on the 25th, Almaz took me in the lorry cab (a cab is a luxury, the seat is hot, there is a calendar of a Turkish singer). I sat in the Urumqi market with a loan in my pocket and thought: what is a robber doing with 1,400 dollars now. I decided: buying vodka, eating less.

I paid Ruslan back on 3 August. He was surprised I remembered.

What happened in Almaty

I do not want to write this but Bekzhan says it helps.

On Wednesday, at the bus station in Almaty at 5 in the morning, somebody cut my bag. A good knife, a clean cut in the corner. The bag with the money for the next trip, 1,400 dollars, which I carried for a week in the belt and moved to the bag for ten minutes to find the ticket. Ten minutes.

I did not scream. I looked at the people and nobody looked back, as usual. A woman with a baby came and gave me tea. It was not hers, she did not know me. It was a tea from the machine, in a paper cup.

The bus to Urumqi went without me. I came home the same day with nothing.