London to Saigon 2010

VISA WOES...

The day was spent in London yesterday, thanks entirely to the Uzebekistan embassy.

Despite sending our passports to them over a month ago, with an expected turn around of 10 days, it turns out they had done precisely nothing with them. Twenty-seven calls to the embassy later, and I never once managed to get anything other than a "Sorry...this mailbox is full" message.  With time running low, the only option was to pay them a visit.

A chain smoking Uzbek character in the office finally located our passports amongst a pile of others, and somewhat reluctantly processed the application there and then.

This unexpected delay put our remaining visa applications off of schedule. Next up was a dash to the extremely helpful and professional Azerbaijan embassy in Kensington...The quickest they could possibly process our visa was now Wednesday 22nd, so our planned 6am departure has been bumped to 1130am.  No great hardship, and it will save us waiting three days for a visa in Tibilisi.