Firstly, our driver informed us that it would take 25 hours from the border for him to get to Osh, due to the terrain and slowness of his vehicle.

Then we were hailed down by some very stern-looking military officials.

We had heard stories but here it was in reality; passports handed over, drivers smiling nervously and shaking hands with crumpled notes handed over as bribes. We were already 3 quid down each.

Lets put the record straight. Kyrgyzstan, or the Kyrgyz Republic as I believe it is now called, is a nation 15 years old, 85 per cent of which is mountainous and the majority of the people therein being nomadic and extremely friendly.

But this reception was a different world.

Following the corruption we found ourselves stuck at a barrier bang in the middle of no man's land.

Our driver went to sleep underneath the truck on a blanket. We woke up in the front of the vehicle two hours later, my head trapped between the gear stick and handbrake.

We got to immigration, and felt like we had been taken as prisoners of war. But for all the jumped up macho officials with new-found power, the British passport still goes a long way and so we got through without further intimidation.

Our driver stopped for food soon after at a barren caravan site. But Pauline's Russian instantly came in handy and we befriended a resident here who took us into his family's corrugated iron home for a slap-up (and free) meal of the national dish Plov (mutton, rice, bit of veg, and this had potato too) and some much-needed tea.

We gave them some Chinese tea I has bought as a gift, as is the custom, and its fancy box hid the depleted volume.

Soon we were off again in the wretched truck but very shortly after were stopped by yet more officials. They were more friendly now but as they checked the passports the bus pulled up.

We had rejected it because we thought it was no cheaper and would take longer but here it was, and so we boarded and as we passed the beds full of Chinese tourists to the back we were reunited with two laughing Bulgars.

The journey was slow-moving, steep and bumpy, the ice-capped mountains spectacular, the rolling green pastures reassuring. We had entered a different realm.

The Bulgars had befriended sardor, an Osh lad about 20 years old. When the bus stopped to aid a broken down colleague (as was fairly standard here) he darted into a field grasping a big red container and a 500 som note.

He returned with a gallon of Kymys, fermented Mare's milk, a national delicacy. I didn't even know horses had udders.

While weak in its alcohol content, a couple of gulps of the cheesy-tasting drink sent me into a doze, it had been a long day and we were yet to be let loose on a new nation.