Baikonur Kazakhstan

In Baikonur we only stopped briefly, because access to the spaceport, the Buran and the huge Soyuz rockets is only possible with a long pre-booking and four-digit prices. But we have something planned in that direction on the way back. Otherwise, Baikonur is like a Russian city. Even the prices at the gas station are quoted in rubles. And today we have covered 5555km out of about 8000km. The E-Class estate car is running great and is as comfortable as traveling on a sofa. A group of village children has beautified our dusty car. But they also took off a smiley sticker as 'payment'. For lunch, we parked two hundred meters off the road. It's Ramadan and we didn't want to set up our 'luxury kitchen' so publicly. Yulan came to us and accepted the offered tea and noodle pan. About 50% of the people here are Muslim and about 45% are Russian Orthodox. He is hitchhiking all the way from western Kazakhstan to Astana, about 3000km for some professional reasons. Kazakhstan is after all the ninth largest country in the world. Hitchhiking is quite common here, almost at every bus stop there are people with their arm outstretched.