We have had the idea of cycling from Göteborg to Bangkok for at least three years and during these years we have read blogs and books about cross continental cycle touring. The ideas went from dreams to something highly plausible about two years ago and the decision to go was made about one year ago.

The last year we have carefully planned everything from choice of route to what equipment to bring. The route has been changed a few times and we have exchanged a lot of our old equipment in order to make our luggage lighter and less bulky. We knew what lay ahead of us and nobody could say that we did not know what we were heading into.

We have flown across the euro-asian continent so many times that we have lost count and with a minimum of hassle and effort you will board an aircraft in Copenhagen in the night and arrive in Bangkok the following morning. This smoothness is all gone when traveling overland and everyone who has ever tried has run into the visa hassles of central asia.

All this was known to us and we made our best to make a good plan for visa applications. We knew we would have to wait for the visa process somewhere so we tried to make it coincide with longer stops in cities we wanted to visit anyway.

What we didn’t plan was to make mistakes…… 😉

When applying for a Uzbek visa a letter of invitation (LOI) is needed and travel agents recognized by the Uzbek government can issue such documents. Already in April we contacted one company and they carefully informed us what we needed to do in order for them to be able to issue a LOI. When the LOI never came I checked our e-mail correspondance I found out we hadn’t sent in all required documents. We had forgotten to mail them the letter proving our employment and the clock hadn’t started to tick yet, but it does as of today….

Getting a LOI takes 10 working days and we can’t apply for the Uzbek visa until we have received the LOI which probably will be on Friday June 21. The Uzbek visa will then be ready around June 28.

We still haven’t applied for our visas for Kazakhstan, but we will do that in Baku. Rumours say it is a straight forward process that takes 4 days since there is no requirement of letter of invitation. Our initial plan was to arrive in Baku today and start the visa process for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It will take around 7-9 working days to get both visas and then we would try to get on the unreliable ferry connection across the Caspian Sea.

I got very upset when I understood that my negligence to provide all required documents will delay us with one week, but this mistake also provided us with an opportunity for Wej to let her knee rest properly. If everything would have been according to plan there would be a risk that we had pressed forward too early.

We planned 10 days (Monday-Wednesday) for the visa process and then budgeted 7 days to get onto the ferry. Now we will have to spend the 7 days waiting for the ferry to wait for the LOI instead and to make up for the time lost we will try to find a flight that will take us across the Caspian Sea.

It is very frustrating to have to wait for nothing, but we are in good company of a lot of other travelers and cyclist who are stuck in the same situation.

So there is not much to tell more than that we are stuck in Tbilisi….

Meanwhile, please enjoy some photos of Tbilisi.