It;s been 6 months since I've been on the road and a few things happened to me today soI thought I would just share these few morsels with you to hopefully help anyone in the same boat.
Visa Extensions: Both in Iran and Pakistan I’ve had problems extending my visa. Not getting the extension but the date you are able to extend. Both these countries have been unwillingly to extend my visa until a few days before the current visa runs out. This doesn’t always fit in with where you are in regards to the nearest visa office. I pleaded bicycle in Iran and with the help of an Iranian I was able to persuade them I would be in between towns near expiry. Today in Pakistan I had to wait for the visa to actually expiry before they would renew it. This actually worked in my favour and was partly due to the visa officer helping me get a few extra days by telling me to come back after the weekend even though my visa had expired. The side effect of having your visa actually run out is……………
You can not go anywhere that might involve an over zealous army/police checkpoint . In my experience they hardly ever check the date or even look for the stamp. A casual flick of the pages is usually enough to satisfy the mini power trip that lurks within them ?
The other side effect in Pakistan at least…and this may apply to other countries is thus. In Pakistan it is an offence to use a sim card registered to somebody else. Therefore when I registered for mine I had to show my passport and my visa expiry date was entered into the system. When my visa came up for expiry I was sent a text saying my number will be blocked unless I go to a service centre. I went to a service centre when I got this message and they said just come in when you have a new visa. Unfortunately the phone gets blocked until you can do this. Even more unfortunately when you go back to the service centre like I just have it is then that they tell you that they can not unblock it here. I have to go to a main city service centre. In my case that is a 24 hour drive away. I got a 1$ refund but its not the money as I’m sure you;ll appreciate. I will now go and try and register a new sim with a new company.
Whilst in India I had my wallet stolen. I had about 200 pounds in it but more importantly all my credit cards. I had a stash of cash in several other places so was not totally stuck. Once I had contacted all my card issuers and had all the new cards sent out to my home address I got somebody to UPS them out to me. I also had a new tyre sent to me at the same time. This cost me upwards of 50 pounds but was it I kind of killed 3 birds with one stone as I had already had a credit card blocked at the beginning of my trip. This plus the other cards plus the tyre softened the blow of the cost. The parcel arrived in Lahore in 2 days. I got a message saying that I had to pay (7 pounds) 1000 rupees tax (fair enough) although totally disproportionate to what the parcel was worth. Knowing this might happen I was prepared and just swallowed it. There was a catch though. It had to be paid in person by cash. Again I’m 24 hours drive away from Lahore. I only managed to overcome this by some helpful people at the hostel im staying at helping me out. Cheers Ashad and co
Medina Guest House 1 ,NLI Chowk ,Gilgit Baltistan. 300 rupees for a dorm bed per night 3$. The pound sign does not work on this keyboard!
So that is my 3 pieces of bad luck, I hope this might help someone else avoid a similar problem.
A few other gems I can share with you after 6 months on the road:
Using credit cards to get cash:
I have a Santander Zero Mastercard. The beauty about this card is that there are zero charges for using abroad. What I do is pay cash into the card creating a positive balance and then withdraw cash from ATM's this way I am not charged interest on the cash withdrawal. This was the plan. However I used this card to buy something at a supermarket in Turkey and had my card cloned. The card was immediately blocked but It meant I had to pay for cash withdrawals and foreign bank charges from then on. I now know to stick to using this card strictly for cash withdrawals.
Well I can't really comment on anything bicycle related as I haven’t done that much cycling, but apart from a split tyre on awful terrain the bike has of course been fine.
My 2 pairs of Merino boxer shorts at 30 and 35 pounds a pop where fantastically comfortable for about 3 months, dried very quickly and looked good, but they both started to fall apart after that. Not at all moth induced, just through wear. Rapha and Iceberg brands and they both started to go about the same time. They’ve had a few repairs but its bin time now. On the other side of the Rapha merino coin I have 3 short sleeved base layers and they are all still like new having been worn virtually everyday in rotation with 2 quecha sportwool tops which have started to find holes in the armpits and a few other places. But not through moth. I mention this as I had a merino dhb long sleeve base layer that got mothed after about a month.
I’m now on my 3rd pair of second hand hiking boots. Iraq :Lowa, lasted 6 weeks, good bit of use cost 10$. Salomon bought in Tehran Bazaar 22$. Sole snapped in half today. Serious use, worn non stop since I bought them about 2 months ago. The hiking has killed them.
Bought a new pair of Hi-Tec today, 1 size too big,need 3 pairs of big socks. Cost 5$.
I looked at my lovely, new ,just worn in Salomon boots as I was packing to leave in October and decided against them at the last minute. Doh!
When I get back to Iran I will by a brand new pair of good European quality boots. There is a bit of a premium on the price compared to home but with the joy of hindsight I know it will cost me that in tax to ship over my own and I will have them from day 1. I am learning ?
PHOTOS and DATA:
I have my laptop and a portable hard drive and regularly back up to at least 3 different places. (After losing 6 months work when I used to make music in the 90’s I am a backup fiend!!)
Still my portable hard drive started to pack up so I posted it home immediately and waited to hear it had arrived home safely before I could relax. Before I left I had planned to back up all my photos to google drive as I went. This was fine in turkey. But Iran,Iraq and Pakistan have had painfully slow internet connections and backing up original size photos has been impossible. I have resorted to 2 alternatives.
1: making small internet friendly size copies of everything and uploading interesting ones to Facebook. Then if connection allows uploading the >1mb copies to google drive and as a final back up…
2: copying the originals to new memory cards and posting them home. This opens another can of worms. In Iran and in Pakistan they have been a bit funny about what you post home. Today in the PO in Pakistan I was getting a letter weighed to find a price. The clerk had seen me put my memory card in the envelope and asked me to come behind the counter. He explained that memory cards were forbidden. As were all electrical items. I kicked up a gentle fuss and I was asked to go to the managers office. He either turned a blind eye or had a different idea of the rules and I was allowed to post my letter. This did come at a cost. I mentioned to him that I had posted a letter back home to the UK and it had got there in 10 days. I was very impressed. He asked me to write a letter of thanks to him so he could pass on the excellent work his office was doing to his superior. We then had tea.
Hopefully these little nuggets of info can go some way to help anyone else in similar situations.
If all goes well when I return to Iran I am going to travel super light on the bike as an experiment and see what happens. I will take tent, but no cooking items. It will be interesting to see what I can go without.
I'm now off to pickup a motorbike and ride on the highest paved road in the world. The KKH to China.
Toodle Oo
