On Monday morning I walked to the Turkmenistan embassy, an acceptable three kilometres away, to organise the last of my 'Stan' visas. I once again found myself in a small room with a window behind which sat a man to whom I should submit my application. However, this man lacked the subtle slapstick charms of the Tajikistan consul, or the warm cuddly cheerfulness of a Kazakhstan teddy bear. He instead came across as terribly serious as he handed me my application form, which was very short, and a sample letter which I had to copy, filling in the dates that I wished to transit the country and the border points that I would be using. Turkmenistan is a bit of a pain because it is only possible to get a five day transit visa, which is just enough to sprint the 500 kilometres of desert between Iran and Uzbekistan but leaves no time to actually see the country. On the plus side I could apply for my visa here and collect it later in Tehran, so there would be no need to hang around in Ankara any longer.

I went back to the window with my completed form, letter, passport photo, and photocopies of my passport, Iran visa, and Uzbekistan visa. The serious man handed me some scissors and glue to cut and fix my passport photo to my application form, as he certainly wasn't going to do more work than he had to. Once I had done this he handed me back my photocopies, which were black and white, and told me that they needed to be in colour. I asked if he knew anywhere that I could get copies done. As helpful as ever, he said, in a very serious tone, "No."

I wandered around some streets nearby and stumbled upon a copy shop where I got the necessary colour copies and returned them to the embassy, where I was told I would soon receive an invitation via email. I was relieved, all of the visas that I needed to organise in Turkey were finally complete and there was now no reason to hang around any more in Ankara. The city had given me plenty of new friends and there were parts of it that I really liked, the parks in particular, but it was time for the journey to continue. My brief flirtation with the idea of giving everything up to become a consultant was now a distant memory (and in truth was as brief as my flirtation with Catherine Zeta Jones) and now I had actual real female company too. Yes, it was time, the show must go on.

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