Wednesday 4 June 2008

Logistics

I'm leaving tomorrow morning. Exciting! I've spent the past few days running around DC, visiting embassies and getting documents ready. It's starting to feel real: I now have my first two weird-looking visas (Kazakh and Azeri):



What else? I've worked out some more specific dates for my trip. Some of you have mentioned that you'll be traveling in the area. If your path is going to cross mine, drop me an email and we can meet up.

Here's the current plan:
June 5th - fly to Boston, then London
June 6th - London
June 7th - Riga, Latvia
June 8th to 12th - Almaty (getting visas; hanging out)
June 13th to 18th - Kyrgyzstan (staying in yurts; horseback riding)
June 19th to 30th - Tajikistan (traveling the Pamir Highway; doing Dushanbe)
July 1st to 12th - Uzbekistan (seeing the big Silk Road cities)
July 12th to 17th - Turkmenistan (crossing the desert; enjoying relics of Turkmenbashi)
July 18th to 29th - the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia)
July 30th to August 4th - either Capadoccia (weird underground homes) or Greece
August 5th to 8th- Macedonia and Albania (Lake Ohrid, Tirana and Shkodra)
August 9th - Travel to Split via Ulcinj, Montenegro

4 comments:

piotr said...

How hard was the azeri visa process?

Capyboppy said...

In Turkey, I highly recommend Cappadocia. It is one of the most amazing, unique places I have ever been.

I'm not sure how much there is to "doing Dushanbe." Beer and shashlike near the opera, most likely.

Alastair Green said...

Azeri visa was simple, but insanely expensive ($131 for the crappiest stamp ever).

All you have to do is get a photo, fill out the application, and a hotel booking (can be cancelled later). The consul in DC is a really nice dude and can do it in two days if you ask.

piotr said...

ah, thanks