29TH OCTOBER 2015- WAS ROBBED!

So…things, once again, have taken a turn for the worse…
 
The evening before I set off for my Mongolian escapade; the escapade I was so excited to finally begin; the escapade that I had finally got all the required visas for;  the escapade to see the Gobi bear, the moose, the weasel, the wolf, and the stoat, I was mugged outside my hostel.
 
A bloke crept up behind me, grabbed my bag, and made a run for it. I tried to catch up, and I blame smoking for the fact that I couldn’t…
 
Firstly, the mugging came about because I forgot fags in the local shop, and ventured back to get them.
 
And secondly, if it hadn’t been for smoking, I would have caught the bastard…as it was, I ran out of breath, and lost him in the forest!
 
I had been walking back from the shop with a nice Dutch man, who was so away with the fairies, that he hadn’t realized what had happened, until he witnessed mugger and myself, both sprinting across the deserted bus station, and leaping over the old wall into the forest. He soon followed suit, and we both split ways in an attempt to track the bastard down.
 
Failing to do so, a local couple called the police for us, and three officers arrived a while later. It was an eerie place, and a mugger’s God-send. A rundown neighborhood, half filled with trees, and half with narrow dirt tracks, timber houses, rubbish heaps, and derelict houses.


 
We searched the forest, and retraced our steps with the police offers. It was all rather alarming to tell the truth, and clearly the police have a somewhat ‘special’ way of doing things around here.
 
During the search, they would periodically brake into houses with guns, pulling out any man that might have met our rather feeble and unsure description of the mugger.
 
We would then um and arh, analyzing his backside, in order to decipher whether or not, he fit the frame.
 
My Dutch friend had seen him from a distance hobbling along behind us, but thought nothing of it; he was just another by passer. Unfortunately, I hadn’t seen his face, only a brief view of his backside in the dark, and I have to give it to him, for his method, precision, speed, and strength; It was a perfect mug.
 
They arrested one chap on suspicion. I don’t feel all that bad if it wasn’t him, since he had at least 5 driving licenses in his bag, and was clearly a dab hand at mugging.
 
Unfortunately however, no bag was found, and I am consequently stuck in Kyrgyzstan with no passport, no money, no driving license, no registration, and no visas!
 
Anyway, long story short…it transpired that the only option was to return to the UK, and fast track my new passport. Unfortunately, the fact that I have seemingly had three passports stolen in the last two years, means that I will now have to have an interview in London before I am issued with my fourth.
Having made a rather mad plan to drive across Mongolia in the depths of winter, and spend a merry Christmas in a nomad yurt camp somewhere between Ulgii and Ulaanbaatar, in order to reach my students by the January term, I reconsidered after speaking with a nervous wreck of a mother, a school director who clearly thought I had lost the plot, and a father who insisted on forwarding several grave email exchanges between himself and the British Ambassador of Mongolia.
 
So the plan as of today is to tuck Grettle up in Bishkek until the summer, and fly to Ulaanbaatar once I have sorted out my passport.  I will be late for school and have my fingers crossed I will arrive by mid-November. I am told my apartment is ready, and the kidliwinks are waiting...EEK!
 
I fly home on Friday, and will be greeted by my dearest darling Olivia Acland at the airport, then spend a few days in London, before heading down to Dorset to visit the stoats.
Extremely excited about the prospect of a Sunday roast…
 
Until then, adios X