How to get a Tajik visa in Bishkek (in 15+ easy steps)

Step 1: Spend two and a half hours riding around the suburbs of Bishkek on your bike (dodging people, busses, cars, and manholes without covers) with a scrap of paper with a street name on it, and trying to follow directions given in a clear-as-mud mix of russian, kyrgyz and sign language.

Step 2: Arrive at embassy just in time for it to close for lunch, back track to the nearest food stand and enjoy some delicious samsas while waiting for it to reopen in an hour and a half.

Step 3: Fill out necessary forms and hand them in, only to be told that Canadians now need a letter of Invitation from a tourism company in Tajikistan (this wasn't the case about a month ago).

Step 4: Return to the city centre and spend the rest of the day searching for a tourism company in Bishkek that could help us get the letter. Find none.

Step 5: Eat and Sleep, business hours are over and there's nothing you can do until morning. Sleep in a -30 down sleeping bag in +25 degree heat in order to escape the mosquitos in your hotel room.

Step 6: Continue the search for a letter of invitation, this time via internet. Frantically email all of the english-speaking tourism companies in Tajikistan for help.

Step 7: Become so frustrated that you take a break over a cold pint of beer (9 %) at 11am.

Step 8: Get a reply from Tajik Tourism that they will write the letters for 50 USD each, wired through Western Union. Get your hopes up that everything will work out before the weekend (this is Friday afternoon, by the way).

Step 9: Return to the embassy to hand in our applications and tell them that a letter will be faxed to them soon. Once again, arrive just as it is closing for lunch (at a different time, we didn't really make the same mistake twice).

Step 10: Eat pizza (it's the most common food around here!) because you've been on such a rat race that you're starving.

Step 11: Begin the search for a Western Union, following the same method as to find the embassy. Finally track down a Western Union sign, only to find that there is no longer actually a branch there.

Step 12: Return to the embassy. Determine through some rough hand gesture and even rougher russian that lunch was actually turning into a full day affair and that we'd better come back on Monday.

Step 13: Race back to the city centre to continue the search for a Western Union. Arrive just as they're closing at 5:00. Consider crying, but laugh instead.

Step 14: Eat and sleep. It's the weekend now and there's nothing you can do until Monday.

Step 15: Stumble accidentally upon an open Western Union on Saturday morning when you're not even looking for one (we were actually looking for a toilet since the water and power in our hotel were off). Wire the money for the letter of invitation. One small success!

To be continued(on Monday, when we can go back to the embassy)......