After an exhausting three day tour of Turkmenistan I knew that today would be one of those “do nothing” days.

A chance to relax and reset.

A chance to gear up for the last stretch of the trip through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan over the next week and a half.

Also a bit of a reprieve from those long and time consuming blogs I’ve been putting out lately.

Yeah, this one is gonna be short and sweet…

No access to money

I noticed last night when we arrived back in Uzbekistan that my credit card was no longer working.

My Google Pay setup on my Yandex app (their version of Uber) was declined and it also didn’t work when I tried to pay for dinner last night.

I went into my online banking only to discover that I now have 2 credit cards assigned to my account with the same purchase history but different numbers.

Despite my current credit card not expiring for 2 years from now, it appears that TD Bank has sent out a new card with a new number for me and rendered my current card useless.

That’s my hypothesis anyway.

Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on with the card but it’s not the end of the world.

I can just use my debit card to take money out when I need it.

Well, funny story…

It also appears that my Tangerine debit card doesn’t work either.

The two cards are from completely different banks and aren’t connected at all so to have them both locked at the same time is crazy.

Sure enough, when I checked my emails, there was an email from Tangerine saying they detected suspicious activity and needed me to confirm that my card wasn’t compromised.

I can’t text them.   I can’t call them.

I’m in card limbo.

Luckily I still have USD in my wallet and I also have a travel companion with me on this trip but, still, it’s incredibly frustrating not being able to access any funds.

A late breakfast

When we checked in late last night we were told that free breakfast would be served between 7 and 10am.

I already knew at that point that I probably wouldn’t make it.

I didn’t get to bed until 1:30am and, with nothing planned today, I was gonna get up whenever I decided it was time to get up.

And that time was 10am this morning.

So, with the hostel’s breakfast deadline missed, it was off into the old town to find some on our own.

We walked into a few places only to find that they weren’t opening up until lunch time.

Finally we found a place that, while it wasn’t serving breakfast, at least we could get some food in our bellies.

For me, it was yet another place of beef with onions and rice.

It’s one of the common meals I’ve found on my travels in this region and it’s pretty yummy.

Dinner

Yeah, you know it’s a “do nothing” day when the blog sections go straight from breakfast to dinner.

After breakfast which, let’s be honest, was more like lunch we just hung out in the hostel the rest of the afternoon.

I was three days of blogs behind and the last thing you want to do when you’re blogging daily is to fall behind because it gets hard to remember events from earlier in the day let alone a couple of days ago.

So, blogging I did.

One after the other and, tada, I was all caught up!

It was 4:30 and it was time for dinner.

We went to a fancier restaurant here in the Old Town because, well, frankly we deserved it.

We each had lamb along with some sides.   I had a vegetable ragout and roasted potatoes.

And, of course a berry lemonade.

And a milkshake.

We deserved it!

After dinner we played cards out in the courtyard of our hostel and then just turned in around 8:30.

That was the day.

I told you it was a lazy day and, honestly, it was exactly what we needed.

Sometimes the lazy days are the best days…