A new race has begun! I have to regroup and find a way out of the disaster. It is now five weeks until I depart and I don’t even have a passport! Next working day I have my documentation up and ready and am waiting at the Rosebud Post Office for their opening only to discover that my passport photo does not pass muster because of fine shadow behind my head. New photos are taken and I race back to Sorrento to get them endorsed and to back to Rye Post office for processing. A new passport, priority processing and a very painful penalty for the loss of my existing passport leaves me $560 poorer.
Now its back on line to start the tracking process. Nothing for 24 hours so I phone. No word as the it has not yet made it up there. Ring tomorrow. In the meanwhile I am rejigging my travel plans to excise Uzbekistan and Afghanistan and am becoming increasingly enamoured of spending that time in western China. Tomorrow comes and my call yields a positive response but wait, there is a hold up and someone will ring me back. I am barely able to concentrate on my work while waiting for the call and when it comes another bombshell hits! Yes all the documentation is complete including copies of my citizenship papers. I was born overseas and naturalised as an Australian citizen in 1964. Despite the copy (I have the original) of my glossy citizenship certificate that I have sent, the Department of Immigration have no record of me at all and therefore the passport application is on hold! To be fair to the passport officer who must have sensed the near suicidal despair in my voice she promised to chase it as a top priority but could not guarantee that they could make the 5 day express deadline. True to her word she rang the next day to confirm that the problem was sorted and my passport was ready the next day.
I email David again with my new passport details to get the Turkmen LOI redone with an explanation why. I have wiped Uzbekistan and Afghanistan off the schedule. I plan to fly out of Turkmenistan back to China and do the Karakorum Highway from Kashgar to the Pakistan border. It fits into the alloted time beautifully and is scenically spectacular! I am happy again and console myself that Uzbekistan could be paired up with a future trip to Iran. After getting close to Afghanistan 7 years ago atop the Khyber Pass perhaps this will never be attainable in my lifetime. I am inwardly a little disappointed but have come to terms with it.
David has a counter proposal. A minor readjustment of my time in Turkmenistan leaves me enough time to get the Uzbek and Tadjik visas in its capitol Ashgabat and suddenly my original plan is viable again. I am like a withdrawing, convulsing heroin addict who is offered a hit! A microsecond later I am emailing back to go ahead. My passport goes back to the Afghan embassy in Canberra for yet another visa which arrives back in record time. At $125×2 I have provided the Afghan economy with a huge boost!
I fly out tonight, and it was only 2 nights ago that I received my Tajik LOI and permits so that I can at least apply for the visa while over there. Outstanding was the deposit for my arranged jeep and guide through the Pamirs in Tajikistan. That was originally sent as a direct deposit a month ago. A couple of days later it bounced back into our bank account. When we inquired from the NAB as to why the response essentially was “are you kidding, who sends money to Tajikistan?” When we repeated the effort the transfer took 3 weeks with an email only as late as last night to confirm receipt over there. The last piece of the puzzle is laid down at the 11th hour.
It is ironic and brings to mind John Steinbeck’s famous quote “the best laid plans of mice and men are apt to go awry”! This “mouse” had grandiose plans, six Stans in six weeks which equated to five visas in 3 months. Here I am 2 days from departure with just one visa in a sparkling new passport and somehow all six Stans are still in play. Does all the hassles I have had mean that the trip will run smoothly or, more likely is it a harbinger of the hassles I will experience in the next six weeks! Either way, all say is roll on Friday! The next time you, my readers will hear from me I will be in the most secretive, Stalinist Stan, Turkmenistan.