Can I just pay for my milk and go please?: And how to obtain a Tajikistan visa in Istanbul

February 7, 2014

The next morning I was up early to get to the Iranian embassy at the 8.30 opening time to collect my visa. I knew that it should be a very simple process, just exchanging the card they had given me for my passport, but there were a couple of guys that got to the embassy before me. They were both also needing the visa window and so I took a seat and waited. And waited. The first guy only took a few minutes, but the second was clearly having some problems and was remonstrating with the man behind the counter for a long time. It was one of those situations where the official clearly wasn't going to budge, but neither was the determined man, who obviously felt he was in the right. I sat and watched all this, feeling like I was in the supermarket just to pick up some milk and the person in front of me in the queue has got two trolleys full of shopping, and then tries to pay with everything using coupons, and the checkout girl doesn't know how to process the coupons, and all I want is to pay for the milk and leave. Finally the man who welcomes everyone into the embassy waved me up to the counter and told the other man to step aside. I handed over my card and a few moments later had my passport back, complete with one Iranian visa.

Any joy I might have felt at this moment was lost when I looked at the visa and saw that it said on it 'Valid until May 7th' even though I had requested it for April 20th-May 18th. I had previously been told by the agency that helped me get the authorisation number that I had three months from the date that it was issued to enter Iran, and would then have thirty days to stay, even if those thirty days took me past the three months. Unfortunately the visa did not say 'Enter before May 7th' it said 'Valid until May 7th' and even if what I had been told was technically true, I was clearly going to get right royally screwed over by someone if I tried to stay longer than May 7th. This meant I was now going to have to change my plans and arrive in Iran sooner, and that was really annoying.

But there was no time to worry about that as I had to get out to the Tajikistan embassy. After what Dino and Suzy had told me I decided that it was worth staying an extra day in Istanbul to try and pick up another visa. The Tajikistan embassy was a good twenty kilometres away but the route out there was along the sea and I actually had a cycle path for a lot of the way, and when that stopped I mostly just cycled on the pavement anyway.

I found the embassy, although it looked more like a house, and I had to ring the bell. The door was answered by the consul himself who invited me in and showed me to an office. The first thing that he asked me was if I was cycling as well, and he told me about Dino and Suzy coming in for their visas the other day. I said that I knew them and that I was cycling, but not with them. He gave me a map of Tajikistan and a box of postcards of the country as a gift, and then gave me a form to fill in.

That's not how you spell Tajikistan! Or embassy!

The consul was a funny man. He was in his fifties with grey hair and wore a tie but with a black v-neck sweater, and he had a peaked cap like a railway station masters. The overall effect made him look like a very old Victorian school child. He constantly gave out the impression of a man who should never have been given so much authority. For example there was a Turkish man also in the office whose passport was completely full, every page had something on it. The consul showed it to me and said that this man kept going to get alcohol. He had the man's visa ready and flicked through the passport until he could find a page that had few enough stamps that the visa could be stuck over the stamps. I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to do that, although I did consider asking him to stick my visa over my unwanted Bulgarian exit stamp.

I filled in the form, requesting a 45-day visa from May 14th until June 27th, and handed it to him along with a passport photo and a copy of my passport. He also needed me to write out a short letter saying that I wanted to visit Tajikistan. He looked at my form and said, "Your entry date is May 14th, the same as Dino and Suzy!"

"Oh. Its a coincidence." I said.

"So, entry on May 14th. So you're exit date will be June 1st."

"Erm, thats not 45 days. Thats about 18 days. I'm pretty sure it should be June 27th."

"Oh, I mean July 1st, not June 1st."

"Okay. I'm still pretty sure it should be June 27th."

Then the poor man suddenly became terribly concerned that he had put June 1st as the exit date on Dino and Suzy's visa. He asked me if I could contact them to check. He even handed me his mobile phone to do this. Then he realised that there was a way for him to check on his system.

"Oh no, its okay. I put June 30th. Good."

"I'm still pretty sure it should be June 27th."

He looked at his calender and counted the days.

"Yes it should be June 27th" he finally agreed. "I thought May had 30 days not 31" he added, as if that explained why he was three days out.

He printed my visa on the spot. Then he smudged it when he put it in the passport. I looked at it. It said CHRISTOPHER M POUN. "The name wouldn't fit" he explained. "Don't worry, it doesn't matter."

Then he gave me a permit to visit the Pamir region and asked for fifty dollars, and everything was sorted. Two visas in one morning, now we're getting somewhere!

Not sure if this is meant as a genuine covering for the big hole in the pavement, or is in fact a trap designed to capture a cartoon character of some sort

Taking a break on the nice cycle back along the seafront

I just wanted to take a picture of the bike lane when these cats all emerged from the side

There seemed to be more stray cats in Istanbul than dogs

That evening I spoke with Chloe back at the apartment. She was a lovely girl, just visiting Istanbul for a week or so and every day she went out rushing around visiting mosques and museums and so on. She asked me why I didn't do any of these tourist things. I told her that for me I prefer just to wander around and see the people. The shoe shiners, the men who sold me freshly squeezed fruit juice in the street, the man I bought some cable cutters from and had a great conversation with, the kids I saw running in to a sweet shop and running out having stolen a handful of candy, the skinny aproned man who ran hopelessly out after them brandishing a spatula, the headscarfed shy women of the historic centre, the unheadscarfed, confident, beautiful girls walking down Istiklal, the old men playing chess in the park, the young boys who jumped on the back of the tram and had a free ride - in all of them was the beating heart and soul of glorious Istanbul before my eyes and who needs to spend their afternoon in a flippin museum?

One brave shoe shiner even offered to try and clean up my muddy trainers

Inside the Blue Mosque - its not even blue on the inside!!!

A cheeky kid riding the back of the tram down Istiklal, the busy main pedestrian throughfare of the modern centre

07/02/14 - 49km unloaded

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