I made my way slowly over to the three Uzbekistan guards who were watching my strange exhausted performance patiently. They were young, just like the Turkmen ones, and they stood outside of their small brick hut, which marked the location for the first passport check; the main customs buildings being far in the distance behind rows of parked trucks. I approached and gave them my passport, then motioned that I would like to sit down on their steps. Two of them agreed that I could, one thought that I should not. Sorry buddy, you're outvoted. To be honest I would have sat down anyway, even if I'd had three machine guns pointed at me.

But the guys seemed nice. I couldn't get up so I just let them flick through my passport having great fun inspecting all the visas whilst I tried to wonder what I was going to do. I needed to sleep right there, I couldn't go anywhere further. I asked if I could put my tent up next to their hut. They shook their heads and pointed towards the customs building, which appeared to be approximately 29 million kilometres up the road.

I remained seated but soon I had a familiar feeling in my stomach and found myself crawling a few metres away from the building before being sick once again. Luckily as the only thing I'd consumed in the previous four hours was coke and orangeade it tasted really good. It was like that orange-flavoured coke you can get in some countries. It was the most I've ever enjoyed throwing up ever.

Upon my triumphant return the guards, who had until that point been mostly trying to talk to me about football, started talking about ambulances and hospitals. "No, no, no. I don't need an ambulance, really, I just need to sleep." I was a little worried about being stuffed in an ambulance, that would really ruin the no-motor-vehicles thing. And the irony of having to take an ambulance across the border because I'd been too stubborn to take a motor vehicle to the border, that would be too much. "No, a doctor will come here" one of them explained, motioning that he could give me an injection in my butt. That seemed like a much better idea than me standing up, so I put my thumbs up to signal my approval.

Some time later a truck arrived and a few men jumped out; more young border guards and an older, bigger, balder man wearing a suit jacket over jeans. He looked like the bald one off Masterchef. He was my doctor. There was no common language and making a diagnosis was difficult. He gave me a little pink pill and I swallowed it. There was no further talk of injections in butts. The doctor instead beckoned me to get up and go to the customs building. Unfortunately his magic pill hadn't worked and I still couldn't muster the strength so I just kept sitting there. Then he took my bike and started pushing it himself, walking off with the border guards that came with him and indicating that I should follow.

Now I really hate people pushing my bike. Really, I thought I would never ever let anyone push my bike for me. It is really an indication of what an awful condition I was in that I raised no objections now, and it was all I could do simply to trot along behind. After the event I felt a little bad that I had let him push my bike for me, but I had a check of the rules challenges and its okay, it wasn't cheating. I only have to circumnavigate the planet using only my bicycle and boats, as long as I didn't use anything else to power me I was okay. "Christopher, you must get in the truck" the doctor said to me. "Get in the truck now!" 'Oh crap!'

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" I responded. The order to get in a motor vehicle had an extraordinarily reviving effect upon me and I suddenly jumped up and took my bike from him. "Then you must cycle" he told me, and, finding more energy out of thin air, I started to do just that. The doctor and his guards jumped in the cab of a big truck, probably the same one that had escorted them to me in the first place, and I rode ahead. It was surely the slowest, wobbliest ride of my life, the truck absolutely crawling along behind me the whole way.

Finally I made it to the building, where I was joined by the doctor. The first stage of the border procedure appeared to be a medical check where I would either be declared fit and healthy to enter the country or... well I wasn't really sure what the alternative was. Probably nobody had ever not been declared fit and healthy before. I was, however, a very strong candidate to be the first, particularly when I responded to the opening question by taking a seat on the floor.

The doctor, who was actually very understanding and sympathetic, seemed concerned. He said that I needed an ambulance and that I should go to hospital. I had to agree with the man, I probably did need to go to a hospital. But maybe not an Uzbekistan hospital. "No, no, no, no, no" I was suddenly revived again. I explained using sign language and the Russian word for tent, one of the few that I knew, that what I really, really needed, right now, was to go to sleep. He went away, presumably made some inquiries, and said it was okay for me to put my tent in an area next to the building. I was delighted.

There was a lot of noise around the building because there was a restaurant and a lot of truckers who were going to spend the night in their cabs milling around. Some even tried to talk to me. Forget that, it took all of my focus and willpower simply to get my tent up. Eventually it was done and I could crawl inside and lie down. Oh, it was bliss! I took a big drink of orangeade. Oh dear, my stomach didn't like that. I felt it coming straight back up. I reached for the tent zip. It was stuck. I yanked at it frantically. Too late. I puked in my tent. There was more coming. I got the tent open a bit, stuck my head out and puked up the rest. The doctor was standing nearby. "Normal?" he said, "Christopher, everything normal?"

"Yes, this is surprisingly normal for me."

I put a bin liner over the orangeade puke, pretended it hadn't happened, and slept very, very, very well. The only time I woke up in the night was when someone came to my tent and said, "Danger! Wolvas!" 'What an idiot' I thought. I was in an area that was completely fenced off with six feet high railings and I very much doubted any wolves would be remotely interested in coming anywhere near a place with so many humans. But now I was awake I needed to pee. I got out of the tent, opened the gate to my fenced off area and walked past a couple of trucks to the edge of the desert where I relieved myself. I walked back to my tent and lay down. 'Wolves! What an idiot!' And just then I heard a very, very loud howl from very, very close by. Probably just about where the trucks were. Oops! That was scary. I made a mental note to heed mysterious night time warnings more closely in future.