I've had enough of London, it stinks! The West (Europe)
sucks too. It's too damned expensive. I'm now trying to
plan a trip overland from here home to Australia, but can't
decide on a route. There's about 3 possibilites: through
the Middle East; through the Central Asian 'stans; or
through Russia and Northeast Asia. I'm pretty keen on
taking the 2nd or 3rd options, but, from what I understand,
getting visas would be too much of a hassle/expensive. I'm
not into planning things too much, and if I was to go to ex-
USSR, that would be exactly what it would require. I'd
prefer to get visas on the way, keeping my options open.
What are these routes like for Australian passport holders?
What's the story when it comes to border crossings (eg.
turkey->iran/iran->pakistan/ pakistan->china...) Can
anybody please offer some advice?
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Last year I rode from London to Tehran on my moterbike, my
brother then went on to Australia, so I know a bit about
that route. I'm guessing you're going by pulic transport.
That basicly means railway in Eastern Europe and then buses.
As far as visas go, most take about a day each, for
Austalians it's sod easy (regarded as a small inofensive
country, although how they work Oz out to be small or
Astralians to be inofensive I don't know.) Iran was a
tricky one, it took a month and cost a bomb, but we later
found out that transit visas are much easier to get and can
be extended at police stations. Boarder crossings are slow.
Iran - Turkey is a fun one. All the lorry drivers comming
out try to sell you their currency and tell you that inside
you'll have to do it in a bank for a crap rate. Don't
belive it, boarder towns everywhere have a big currency
black market. Make sure you go to the front of the queue's
it's expected. everyone who speaks any foriegn language
will try and make friends, buy you ice cream slag off the
officials for you, it's great. Busses in Turkey are great,
in Iran they are less so but flying is unbelizably cheep
($15 from the boarder to Tehran). I think my bro said the
Paki - Iranian boarder was similar, but the China - Pakistan
one was very very hard, may not be possible. Paki - India
is possible but slow, India - Nepall OK, India - Burma
absolutely impossible overland.
I think the 'Stans are bloody hard to do, anything's
possible, but almost unheard of (not a bad incentive that).
Talk to the expedition advisary centre at the Royal
Goegraphical Society, they'd know who to talk to.
Some planning's vital but is you have no time limit you can
get arround most problems. Good luck old boy, it sound like
a laugh.
We went from Holland to India at the end of 1998 overland, via Czech, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India.
Had a fantastic time. There were ups and downs, of course, but it was an unforgettable experience.
We decided it was the safest, easiest and most interesting route to take. We needed visas for every country except Turkey (although the Czech visa is free) and I think it cost a total of about AUD$300.
We arranged the Hungarian, Bulgarian and Czech visas in Holland (where we had been living). We arranged our other visas in Istanbul.
We got a 5 day transit visa for Iran ($US50 I think). It takes about a week, but we were getting sick of Istanbul, so we arranged to collect it from the Iranian embassy in Erzurum (east Turkey). That worked out well. Australians are generally accepted by Iran etc. We got our transit visas extended twice, once in Esfahan and once in Kerman. The extensions are free, but take all day to get to the police station, find the right person, wait etc. Every other traveller you meet will be going through the same routine and will be able to tell you stories of success/failure. For some reason, the police in Tabriz were very hostile, but don't panic, just get to the next town and try again (but not in Tehran).
Pakistan was the quickest, although we needed "Letters of Introduction" from the Oz embassy for both Iran and Pakistan.
The Indian embassy was the slowest (get used to it - an introduction to hopeless inefficiency). We ended up arranging to collect our visa in Tehran. Got there, and the embassy had never heard of us (of course), but with much persistence we got them to ring Istanbul and sort it out.
Border crossings are fine. I don't remember having to wait for very long anywhere. The worst crossing was Iran to Pakistan, where we had to wait for the next bus to leave. It was a 14 hour overnight bus from the border (in the middle of nowhere) to Quetta (the next town) across a non-existent road. Found out when we got to Quetta that the road is notorious for bandits and we were lucky to have survived, so the train is worth considering, but that can apparently take 20 hours or more.
A couple of Aussies I met travelling mentioned that sport
is a great way of breaking down barriers with officials.
One guy I knew had his wait for an Indian visa cut down
from 7 working days to 1 day after having a chat to the
official about cricket(Indian Embassy Vientiene Laos).
Another guy I met thought if he knew the members of the
Iranian team that defeated Australia in the qualifier for
the Soccer World Cup in Melbourne he would have received a
longer extension on his visa.
So you never know.