Visas - Done & Dusted... well nearly!

The last two weeks have been somewhat of a rollercoaster, starting with the news we had been waiting for, for so long. The return of our passports!!!

Our passports came back last Thursday - I watched the postman come towards the house clutching the silver envelope - Adam & I gathered in the lounge to rip it open together.
My heart sank as I saw a piece of paper in the envelope with our passports. I knew instantly what this meant - we had been refused our precious visas for Iran.

Although Adam had tried to prepare me for this, I was totally shocked & distraught.

With out over dramatising the situation, the Whole trip was now in jeopardy.

As with all visas, when refused the consulate in question has no obligation to offer any explanation as to why you have been rejected. We have surmised that perhaps the current political tensions between Iran & the U.S have had some bearing on it.
We spent the next day or so trying to plot a different route to our final destination - Mongolia. It was a really tough time for both of us, as we tried to hide our disappointment & distress from each other.
Finally between us we came up with a plan. Instead of travelling to Syria, Jordan then Iran on to Turkmenistan before arriving in Uzbekistan.... we would now head to Russia first, then directly into Kazakhstan.

This would mean changing one visa that we have from a single to a double entry (still pending) but apart from that everything else managed to just about fit together.

So Monday morning I left for London to apply for our Russian visas, Uzbek visas & to get the Kazakh ones amended.

I went to Real Russia first to collect our visa support letters. They provided us with a great service, friendly efficient & helpful, then straight on to V.F.S who deal with all applications on behalf of the Russian embassy.

I was pretty nervous when I got there & didn't have to queue long. I gave the woman our passports, visa support letters & application forms. She glanced at them and told me I was missing a document. I had no idea what she was talking about!

It turns out that as we had applied for an unusual visa we need some extra documentation, also our visa support letter said we were going to Russia for Cultural purposes and our application forms said Business.

I was stressed but not defeated!

I then decided to carry on to the consulate for Uzbekistan to try my luck there.

In this instance we were required to present a letter of invitation from a company in Uzbekistan. I got this though a lady called Alena at Stantours. She has been an incredible help to me throughout this daunting process, and has since provided us with a similar document which hopefully will help us amend our Kazakh visas.

I was really keen to get this one as there are so many places in Uzbek that I am interested in seeing - particularly Samarkand, Bukhara & Khiva.

I was able to get this one urgently by paying a little extra, so my first day in London wasn't a complete write off!

I spent Tuesday chasing up the extra documents for our Russian visas, and lodged those on Wednesday a.m - ready to collect on Thursday p.m.

Finally, Friday I spent over an hour queueing in the Kazakh consulate to submit our forms & passports. I was told these would be ready for collection on Monday & as my parents were in London this weekend, they will be collecting those on my behalf as I had to return that day.
I am uncertain as to whether or not my covering letter and letter of invitation will be sufficient to get those changed to double entry, but we can only hope. The biggest downside of those not being changed will mean that we will not be able to enter Uzbekistan as it is effectively inside Kazakhstan. (Those not so hot on geography - check out our little route map - top right of page - by clicking on it to see our original routeplan)

So we pretty much have everything we need now - and dare I say it.... think we will actually be leaving early doors on Tuesday 28th April 2009 ;o)