When I awoke I had had a good night's sleep, and so, I hoped, had Irina's father, as he had a lot of driving in store! Indeed, I felt almost euphoric and was even prepared to enjoy washing, after a fashion, at the bucket-contraption; and after breakfast I took a few photos down by Issyk Kul. As it turned out, and in contrast to the preceding 36 hours, this was to be one of the best days of the whole holiday. The plan was to drive back to Balychky along the south shore of Issyk Kul, stopping at places of interest on the way.

I think it was about 10 in the evening when the trouble really started, and I got little sleep that night; unfortunately, I fear that the same was true for Irina's father, with whom I was sharing a room. I gained a closer acquaintance with The Hut than I would ever have believed possible, and I was also running a temperature; I remember almost passing out on one of my panic-stricken nocturnal trips down the garden. The only good thing was that I was not actually sick, and that ample imodium and rehydration was to hand. My last minute dash to Boots, on the morning that I flew out, was amply justified!

Dawn broke, as it does, and my trips became more embarrassingly public, but also less frequent as imodium worked its magic. I confess to longing for a bottle of kaolin and morphine mixture, which I once took for a similar attack - the kaolin dries you up, and the morphine knocks you out for about 24 hours, after which you wake up feeling all better. At some point during the morning Irina, who acted as nurse, took my temperature - it was 103 deg F (39.4 deg C), so I was clearly not out of the woods yet, but I was definitely getting better and managed to doze for quite extended periods. I tried to encourage Irina and her father to go on a planned expedition, but she refused, and spent the day in quiet domesticity, chatting with the family and helping Nastya to read English.

Late in the afternoon I really felt a lot better, and although I declined dinner I wanted to get up and dressed in order to assess my condition. By dusk, at about 8 o'clock, I felt brave enough to go for a walk with Irina along the road that borders Issyk Kul. There was a beautiful sunset over the lake, but it was not all as idyllic as you might suppose. The youth of the area have nothing to do, and alcohol is to be had at all hours. Battered old cars overloaded with half-drunk teenagers roared up and down the road, and when as darkness fell we encountered some dubious characters on foot Irina thought that it would be prudent to turn back. However, the purpose of the expedition had been achieved; I was clearly fit to appear in public again.

We had not originally planned to return home the next day, but Irina and her father decided that we should do so if I was well enough, because one of the tyres had developed a slow puncture. With no repair facilities anywhere, and with the spare being 170 miles away in Bishkek, the idea was to drive home as soon as possible, pumping up the tyre whenever it was so flat that the wheel rim was in danger. It was refreshing to experience such pragmatic decision-making; instead of making urgent calls to the AA and worrying about the Construction and Use Regulations, the options were simple: either we spend the rest of our lives in Novo Pokrovka, or we drive home with a slow puncture. It was, as they say, a no-brainer; and as I was making a good recovery we determined to start back next morning.

Our destination was the dacha at Novo Pokrovka, a little to the west of the south-east corner of Issyk-Kul, about 20 miles from Pristan Przhevalsk, and as we approached I had something of a shock. To me a dacha had always suggested a large and luxurious dwelling, something like a Russian version of an English country-house, and I suppose Stalin's dacha by the Black Sea was the example that I had in mind, although I did not of course expect anything quite so palatial. Approaching Novo Pokrovka, however, all I could see were scores of miniature dwellings, some little more that shacks, some rather more substantial, but all of them on their own little plot of land at the bottom of which - this was the killer blow - was a small wooden hut, the purpose of which I immediately and correctly guessed. I had discovered that a Russian dacha is not so much a particular style of building as one with a particular purpose, which is to pass the time not doing very much.

The network of lanes joining all these dachas were un-named, so it was necessary to make an enquiry from a passer-by as to where exactly the dacha could be found, and in a few minutes we were drawing up outside. The dacha's owners, friends of Irina's family, were not there, but their four children were, in the charge of their grandmother. The dacha itself was provided with electricity for lighting - and powering the television! - but there was no water; that came from a standpipe a hundred yards away. Washing face and hands could be done using a bucket-contraption suspended on a post; it was filled with water from the standpipe, and depressing a valve on the bottom allowed a small quantity to issue forth. Any more elaborate ablutions had to be satisfied by immersing oneself in the waters of The Pearl of Central Asia, a couple of hundred yards away. The hut had precisely the function that I anticipated, and was basically a hole in the ground with a seat over the top, made of decidedly untraditional polystyrene - the theory being that it was never cold. Every so often men would come and clear the hole out. I admit to being somewhat apprehensive, because I'm a surburbanite to my fingertips and I had never before encountered such primitive conditions!

Irina and I then embarked on a small exploratory walk through the network of lanes in the company of Nastya, the eldest of the four children, who wants to be an air-hostess. Each dacha is different, many of them having been built by their owners, some of whom have take great care over the external decoration; we found one painted in homage to Camel cigarettes! Most of the gardens are given over to growing fruit and vegetables, and for some owners, mired in poverty, this is an important function of the dacha - ours was one of the few with a garden of grass and flowers. The whole dacha complex has a fierce supervisor who occupies a dwelling at the entrance. He seemed deeply suspicious of Irina and me, as unfamiliar faces, and she had to explain with whom we were staying. The lanes themselves have a few lamps, but wandering about after dark is not a good idea.

Then we processed en famille to the little bathing area by the lake; the shorline consists mainly of sandy soil and rough grass, but there is a small grass-free area where dacha-dwellers congregate to play, sunbathe and (presumably) have a decent wash. The water itself was not particularly tempting, and only a few dedicated souls were disporting themselves therein. Unfortunately I speak no Russian, and so conversation, as far as I was concerned, was impossible as the family spoke no English; after a time Irina took pity on me and we went for a wander along the shore.

Then it was dinner time. The dacha had a garage-sized outhouse that contained the cooker, a large table with forms on either side, and all the supplies; there was a carpet on the wall in traditional style. Irina's father took custody of the vodka bottle, soup was produced, and I realised that I was beginning to feel decidedly unwell. I don't recall whether I managed to eat anything, but when the meal was over I decided that an early night would be sensible. Even more sensible was to look out my cache of imodium and rehydration tablets, as I anticipated that they would soon be needed. How right I was!