It will be shut on 6th January for a day again - it's Christmas there. I daresay they may make a weekend of it! I think that is when my other half is intending to take himself off from Siberia to Kyrghyzstan for a bit of skiing in the Tienshen mountains and to check on the car he left in Bishkek. He is looking into the possibility of driving it across the Gobi desert into China in March when he transfers full-time to there. He says there is a good rail link and if the car (an old VW Golf) packs up, he'll carry on by public transport. He has already driven it across the steppes and back from Kyrghyzstan to Siberia and ran it around Kemerovo all last winter. He says its a reliable and economical car. Trouble was, he only had it on a temporary import licence, so he had to take it back to Bishkek before a year was up.

Andrea