I love bureaucraptic gymnastics, don't you?

after 2 weeks (a number totally made up by the Iranian consulates... I've heard of people waiting for any amount of time between 5 days and 3 weeks) of hanging around awaiting my precious visa, on Thursday they said "yes your visa approved" but of course i could only get it on Saturday because Friday is an Iranian holiday. So I didn't take a chance and took a bus to Erzurum (where the consulate is) on Friday and stayed a night at a hole-in-the-wall, waking up bright and early to get my visa. and so i did, getting to the consulate at 9am. the plan was to grab my visa, get the next bus for the 5-hr journey back to Dogubayazit, and the next day we could make our way into Iran.

see this is why I don't plan.

got to the consulate, and i got my visa easy enough. the guy even saved me a trip to the bank by letting me pay my US$15 at the consulate, and changing money for me. he spoke some english, and everything was fine till he picked up my passport and said "ok come back at 5 o'clock for your visa". SLIGHT problem: the buses stop going to Dogubayazit at 1pm. so i asked if it could be done earlier. he looked at me with the I'm-a-public-servant-they-don't-pay-me-enough look and said "ok, 4 o'clock". Not good enough. so I lied and said "my bus leaving 12 o'clock, 12 o'clock". to which he countered, "don't worry. Turkmenistan people come for visa. they go Iran. they take you Dogubayazit. you come, *pause* 3 o'clock" and disappeared into the back room.

so what was I to do? no point making a fuss in an empty room in front of a locked door, and the possiblity of a free ride back to Dogubayazit (all of S$18) was too tempting, so i went back into town and enjoyed my last taste of broadband.

seriously, giving a technogeek slow unreliable internet is like making Schumacher drive a Lada. it'd be better to ask him to walk.

at 3p.m. i went back to the consulate. which, of course was closed.

kanasai.

i talked to the security officers, but all they could say was "come back, 4.30". but the officer in the consulate asked me to come back at three. shrug: "come back, 4.30". but i am supposed to meet some Turkmenis at three. shrug: "come back, 4.30". Have you seen any Turkmenis? shrug: "come back, 4.30"

so i went to talk to some walls to regain my sanity, and came back at 4.30. of course, it was still closed, and the security officers had made shrugging an olympic sport.

ten minutes later, with as much effect for me as moses parting the red sea, someone opened the consulate door, and i rushed inside. the question of why a consulate re-opened 15 minutes before it closes at five was at the tip of my tongue, but soon disappeared when i saw that the guy behind the counter was not the one i had dealt with in the morning.

here we go again.

i went up to him and said: "Singaporean". got my passport and my visa. 40 days as opposed to the 50 that Alex got in Istanbul. ah, Bureaucraptic inconsistency. that was easy enough. "are there any Turkmenis waiting for visa?" he was apparently a shrugging decipel of The Security Officers (they deserve the proper nouns). "Turkmenis go Iran?" complete with hand gestures, was responded to with "no, no Turkmenis visa". just then the Turkmenis arrived, and they looked like proper third world Mafia. heavyset, unsmiling, unshaven and wearing jogging suits (i didn't ask) they rushed up to the counter, got their visas, and rushed off. i ran after them, saying "Dogubayazit? I... go... with.... you..? (i was playing charades again) with classic gangster-like pompousness they waved my stick insect frame aside and i quickly decided that spending 5 hours in the same car as four of these Sopranos rejects was not my idea of not putting myself in harms way, so i grabbed the next dolmus to the otogar (minibus to the bus station) to see if i could catch some super-last-minute bus back to Dogubayazit

I don't know why I bothered, seeing how my luck was so far. there was of course no more buses to Dogubayazit, but there was a bus to Agri, about 70km shy of Dogubayazit. so i asked if there was a bus from Agri to Dogubayazit when I got to Agri, and the fella behind the counter looked down and said, "yes, yes". yeah right. but what was i to do but try? even if there was no bus from Agri, i knew a cheap hotel there, and the 2 buses would be cheaper than one direct bus. besides, there was nothing more for me in Erzurum (except broadband. no biggie) so i took the bus and it wore my butt down to nothing as it jolted its way to Agri.

once there, the bus driver was nice enough to tell me that there was no bus to Dogubayazit (i think he knew this, but didnt want to go against the guy behind the counter, who was obviously da big boss) and drove me to the hotel where i paid 6milion for a bed. i woke up early to catch the first bus back to Dogubayazit - maybe if i got back early enough we could still cycle off today - and walked in the cold, misty morning to the main road a kilometre away to flag the next bus.

which didn't come after 2 hours.

I had met an old man by the road who was also going to Dogubayazit, and we tried to hitchike. after an hour plus a truck stopped, but would only take one of us. so i stood at the road for another hour, tormented by the looks of the truck drivers who wouldn't take a weird, unkempt foreigner into their truck even if i was cargo.

that pretty much was the anticlimax in the story... the bus finally came and i'm back in Dogubayazit. I was welcomed back to camp by alex and the belgian family that was here when I left (the guy has malaria, but is recovering, and they have the 2 cutest daughters in the world) Although its still the armpit of Turkey, it feels like home.