Hi everyone,

Following an accident in Istanbul which delayed our trip we decided to use our extended stay in the city to apply for our Azerbaijan and Turkmen transit visas (we'd already applied and got the Uzbek visa before the accident.) Having applied for the Turkmen visa we were told it would take 2-3 weeks to process and we could pick it up in Baku. It's now been almost 4 weeks.

Anway, finally back on the road we called the Turkmen consulate in Istanbul when we got to Tbilisi as requested to let them know we were there and were told the visa hadn't arrived so we stay in Tbilisi. The next day we were told that it was in Baku so off we went just missing the embassy opening hours on the friday. So, having spent a weekend in Baku, during which we've had to put our bikes in customs as our 72 hours are up, we finally went in to the Turkmen emabssy this morning to be told that our visas have NOT arrived! The Istanbul consulate doesn't open til 11am local time (an hour before Baku closes!), our Azer visa runs out in 3 days, and our Uzbek in 10.

Having a bit of a panic whilst we wait for Istanbul to open, as don't want to have to pay the penalty for overstaying, and once our Azer visa expires (assuming we're still here) we'll be syuck in the customs area and won't be able to go and pick up our Turkmen visas.

Advice and experience desperately required!

thanks in advance

__________________
www.motoventurers.com

Their blog suggests that this is resolved:

"Our pleas fell on deaf ears and we were told to call Istanbul when it opened at 9am (Istanbul is 2 hours behind!) So, cue 2 hours of helpless panic as we paced around waiting for Istanbul to open. When it finally did and answered the phone we were told (in English) that nobody there spoke English and the phone was slammed down on us – Not good! Given that the Baku embassy closed at midday we now had less than an hour to resolve the problem and niether embassy seemed prepared to speak to the other! In desparation we asked the girl at the reception desk at our hotel to call Istanbul as she spoke both Turkish and Russian and having relayed our problem was informed that our visa HAD been delivered to Baku! As you can imagine we were preparing ourselves for being the pawns in a game of pass the buck. We went back to the embassy and after 15 minutes of searching the consul ’found’ our fax!! "