fun and frolics at the embassy

On the morning we were leaving Istanbul, we had to pop in and pick up our visas for Iran. Sounds fairly simple.

We were waiting outside the door at 8.30am when it opened and all 40 of us headed into the embassy clutching out passports. After waiting around for 2 hours, we were all told that the cost for Brits had increased again. Good.

A little later, I was told by Karen, our tour leader, that my authority number had not come through and therefore I was not able to apply for my full visa. Gill had hers and I was literally the only person in the group that had mine declined. No Iran for me!

So 6 hours, a few telephone calls to Tehran and a resubmission of my application later, I had verbal confirmation that the visa would be granted the following day . Great news! But it would take 10 days to put a stamp into the passports so these had to be kept for this period, meaning we had to leave them behind. So a further hour later and we were on our way and Karen would be flying back from Cappadocia to pick them up.

So after a total of 8 hours sitting in a room with nothing to do, we had a promise, and a verbal promise in my case, of our visas. Good stuff but we fear this may only be the start of problems with boarders and visas.

Now to get out of Istanbul.