Thankfully I’m travelling with two investors well versed in the practicalities of doing business in the CIS.

After a series of circular and increasingly futile discussions about the difference between the visa regulations in theory and practice, we are told to sit back in our car and wait for the arrival of the border guards’ “big boss”, who eventually pulls up in his own smart shiny car. We produce our flight tickets out of Bishkek, explain earnestly that we are due to fly out less than 36 hours later, and wait for the latest instalment in the saga to unfold.

As we sit in the darkness, the passing traffic consists mostly of beaten-up Ladas and occasional horse-drawn carts driven by children barely into their teens. Sitting in a highly visible and shiny Mercedes, even one several years old, won’t help the eventual price negotiations that the impasse is surely drifting towards.

Another difficulty is the distinctive Almaty number plates that our car carries; they previously belonged to Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s brother and were bought by our driver to keep the officious and frequently bribe-seeking traffic police from bothering him in Kazakhstan. But they will have an opposite effect should we actually manage to make it across the border to Kyrgyzstan. We have been warned that we are likely to be stopped multiple times on the short journey from border crossing to Bishkek.

The problem is this. We cannot get the necessary visa to pass through the Kyrgyz controls; neither, though, can we go back to Kazakhstan as our single-entry visas expired when we left Kazakh soil. Nevertheless the two investors are confident that we will finally get through. In the meantime, though, we must abide by the rules of the game.

It becomes clear that, despite the border guards’ protestations, visas are obtainable at the crossing – for a price. The bargaining – affecting only two of us since Russians do not need visas to travel anywhere in the CIS – begins at $1,000.

We laugh. For this price, we explain, we could return to Almaty, hire a presidential suite at the best hotel in town, and dine out royally at the most expensive restaurant. We have done our research, and work out that a visa purchased legitimately at Manas airport would set us back about $50 a head. So we come in with an opening bid of $200 for the two of us.

The border guard chief explains that to obtain the visas one of his underlings will have to drive to the airport himself with our passports and air tickets, get hold of the necessary stamps, and drive back again. We must therefore pay for this level of “service”. Eventually, a price of $300, $150 a head, is agreed. We settle back to wait while our travel documents are whisked away, with no absolute certainty that they will return.

Several hours later, after several cold beers in a soulless border bar – where we are entertained by groups of mainly large, mainly drunk ladies of a certain age singing and gyrating to cheesy Asian karaoke tunes – we are relieved to see our passports return, now bearing the official stamps we were lacking.

We jump in the car, grateful for the cover of darkness that with luck will prevent us from being stopped by over-eager traffic police and head along the bumpy road for the security of Bishkek.