Somebody help us! OK - we've not left the UK yet, but we seem to be getting ourselves in a muddle in our route through Central Asia.

THe wife has always wanted to travel through Russia, and I have recently fallen in love with the idea of travelling through the 'Stans. And because we are about to drive to Oz, we thought we could combine it all.

So the plan was drive through Europe, the St Petersburg, Moscow and then do a loop through central asia as per:

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan

And then finally onto Iran.

This all seemed very easy, but talking with David from Stantours and he isn't so sure.

The main sticking point is he recommends getting the Iranian visa in a western country, but you cannot apply more than 3 months in advance. We want to spend on average 3 weeks in each 'Stan (expcept perhaps Turkmenistan), and hence this isn't going to be feasable. he did suggest we could try and apply from Dushanbe and Tashkent, but this might involve waiting around a bit
So we did have a look at another route, this time cutting out Russia (sorry Jenny!!!). So this route would be

Turkey -> Iran -> Turkmenistan -> Uzbekistan -> Kazakhstan -> Kyrgyzstan -> tajikistan -> Afgahanistan -> Pakistan
This route fixed a lot of issues for us, but we asked David's advice again but he suggested the Wakhan corrider not to be feasible.

So anyone got any advice for us regarding how we can see all that central asia has to offer, without getting tied up in red tape.

Many Thanks - Please help!

__________________
Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009