Days 162 and 163 (Uzbekistan): Tashkent (playing the waiting game … again)

Another couple of uneventful days - so I am folding them into one posting again. There are also no pictures again. Taking a bit of a break from that as well. But more pictures will appear again soon (bandwidth permitting of course). Actually, there is one …

So, Monday I showed up early at the Chinese embassy to drop off my application for a visa. All forms in order, all the paperwork in one place it was a bit of a no-brainer.

“Application form?” - “Yes.”

“Passport?” - “Yes, here you go.” 

“Flight ticekt?” - “Yes.”

“Hotel reservation?” - “Yes, that one too.”

“Come back on Wednesday, one-day is not possible. The consul is not here.”

Bonk. The nice idea of making this as quick as possible just got thwarted. Same day was out of the question now. Oh well, let them keep the passport for two days (others have had it longer) and pick it up early morning on Wednesday. That’s what I did. So, keep your fingers crossed that two days from now I will at least have a Chinese visa. Then I can take care of the Tajik one - maybe that’s enough to cool the tempers there. That ’s the mild way of putting it I guess.

The problem is that I am running out of time on my Uzbek visa on Saturday with no onward visa at the moment. Who could have known that this process would take this long for the Tajik one? I had prepared things three weeks ago while still in Iran. You would think that it would be enough.

The remainder of the day was spent in an internet cafe - the large part of day 163 as well. I am downloading some podcasts for the next few days and weeks - this time without having to go through itunes, thank goodness. For all those owning an ipod and wanting to do without the big clunky program (or those who simply want to update on more than one computer), head over to podcastready and download a program called mypodder. Small, easy to use and not tied to one computer as you install it on your mp3 player as opposed to the computer you are using.