Merv, Turkmenistan. It's with a sore head and a big 10-4 good buddy that we check out of the truck stop and head for Merv, the remains of a brilliantly-named and hugely important old Silk Road city, built and rebuilt over the centuries, as far back as the sixth century BC.
Ghengis Khan came here once and sacked the place:
'What are you staring at?'
'Dunno, it hasn't got a label.'
'Right, I'll slay you for that. You and your 300,000 mates.'
'Oh Ghengis, I love a man with a short fuse.'
Merv is a mental place, a series of walled areas of various degrees of intactitude, out in the middle of the desert. It's hot. The floor is covered in massive ants, zipping about the sand on spindly legs. There's an incredible amount of pottery shards and bits of ancient tile lying strewn across the ground. It's so barren it's hard to picture the place bustling with trade, or to imagine the carnage brought by one rampaging lunatic and his insatiable love of lopping bits off people.
Steve, the team's official Indiana Jones, is in seventh heaven. He vows to come back with a metal detector. I reckon he should bring a whip, a hat and a small Chinese kid too, do it properly.
It's hot. Our bottled water is practically boiling. We marvel over the genius of the watermelon, and then head off down another desert highway. Sand blows across the road. We drive past a bloke lying on his back on a sand dune, in the middle of nowhere. Just the sun beating down on him. Maybe his date has stood him up. Just give her another 10 minutes.
The heat is ridiculous. So we stop off for lunch at another concrete kafe. There's loads of trucks parked outside, and when we get in the girl shows us through a curtain to the bare-walled back room. She flicks a switch, shedding light on a load of dozy truckers, some lying on the floor, others sitting around tables, but all with jaded eyes fixed on the Jean-Claude Van Dam film on the little telly in the corner. 
As out-of-the-way places go, this kafe is right up there, and left a bit. Things are different here. Our salams are returned not with a beaming grin, but a stern nod. Men are together, so faces remain straight. If there'd been a juke box, the needle would be scratching its evil way across it as we order our noodles. One guy starts trying to speak to us, and the complete lack of common language forces us back into the familiar role of foreign goon. Pretty soon they're all blatantly taking the piss. 'It's good to hear laughter,' says Jeff. It is. We don't want to be in the middle of the desert with these truckers getting all Van Dam on our arses.
To be honest they seem too docile for that. They've clearly got the right idea lying down. Shows how dumb we are to be driving through this heat. Much better to lie around in a dark room watching violence. But we down our noodles and soldier on. There's no time to laze about like a bunch of pussies - we've got a race to win.
We keep on through the desert. The scenery doesn't change much. Yellow. That's pretty much it. It's hot. Did I mention that? With the windows open it's like sitting in a fan-assisted overn. At one point our drive is interrupted by a load of donkeys and black sheep running across the dual carriageway, followed belatedly by the shepherd kid waving a stick around. Little Bo Peep meets Frogger. It belies a beautifully casual approach to dealing with traffic: 'Fuck it, they'll swerve.'
We reach the town of Turkmenabad, heading for the border with Uzbekistan, and the road becomes an urban three-laner. We're getting some ace reactions. One guy pulls up to our left and drives along side, shouting across from the far side of his car. Not just a hello, but an entire conversation:
'Hello! How are you?!'
'Where are you from? From America?'
'How is everything?'
Ridiculous. Soon it's happening with all the cars. Like these dudes in a red car with matching shirts, and red curtain across the back window.
Another guy pulls alongside us:
'Do you know the Uzbekistan road?' Uh, no. We figured it was just straight. 'Follow me, I'll show you!'
He then takes us off the main drag, left down a load of bumpy lanes winding round a random collection of buildings. The pot holes are mental. Several km later, he pulls up: 'go over the bridge, pay the money, and then 40km later it's Uzbekistan.' Mental. There's no way we'd have found that without him, nor known we were even going the wrong way. Apparently he just likes tourists.
We drive on, heading up the road into more desert. We come to a fork, and with the lack of signs opt for the one that looks the mainest and most straight-on. About two miles down the road we're being flashed by a bus behind us. We pull over. He signals the other way. 'Uzbekistan,' he says.
Soon enough we're at the border. Putting our fate back in the hands of kids with guns. One border guard is very taken with our right-hand drive. He asks if he can get in. Ok. I wonder what he's going to do. He just wiggles the wheel a bit, like a kid in one of those 20p rides you get outside Asda, and helps himself to a toffee.
After the last couple of borders, we're braced for the worst. But it's a doddle. No money changes hands, and you have to visit each window in a logical sequence, starting with the doctor, who shoves a thermometer under our armpits, then makes us sweat before giving us a cheeky thumbs up. We all get through. I'm told to go back to drive the car through. As I leave the building I hear a soldier call me back. Tits.
'What is your name?'
'David.'
'My name is Islam.'
Shit, I've read about you in the papers.
He was just saying hello. Things are just as friendly at the customs office, and the car search, which involves one guy opening a wash bag and quickly getting bored, while the female inspektor chats in fluent English about our car and the trip. Apparently they've had shitloads of rally people through already, so they know the deal.
Our first taste of Uzbekistan - friendly, easy, and handy with the old anglais. This is a relief - it's always a bit weird heading into another unknown territory, but once you get your first beeps and waves and hellos out the way you're away.
We head for Bukara, an old town full of elegant mosques, bazaars and old bath houses. It's also well geared up for tourism - there's loads of hotels everywhere, and we park up outside a flash-looking restaurant next to the river, to work out what to do. A kid comes over and starts naming every footballer in Europe. He's soon joined by an old drunk, who keeps hugging Steve while letting out little tickly coughs. I pop back down the road to a hotel we passed - it turns out to be a lovely old C19 building, forming an octagon round a central brick courtyard. Tis ace .We stay there, in a room with unfeasibly ornate wooden beams.
We eat at the flash restaurant, fearing it's an unnecessary extravagence. Comes out at $5 each. That's ridiculous. On the way back to the hotel, we pass a group of young blokes playing backgammon outside a barbers. One speaks brilliant English, and ends up offering to take us around the town the next morning. 'You look tired,' he says. Yup.
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