Caravanistan

After a bit of delay I finally finished up all of my posts regarding our time in Afghanistan. It's a bit lengthy but if anyone is interested here is the Wakhan Corridor through my partner's and my eyes. https://thephotographyjournalblog.wordpress.com/category/stories/the-stans/afghanistan/ or here a...

In the Afghan Wakhan Corridor at least, the influence of China is impossible to miss. Especially in the Kyrgyz camps everything is Chinese branded. Anything electronic they have managed to get their hands on is Chinese and the solar panels that charge them are Chinese. When we stopped by at the bord...

I was there with my girlfriend in August last year and the whole Kurdish territory felt extremely safe. After visiting Sulamaniyah and Erbil we rented a car for 6 days and drove to Lalish, Amedi, Rawanduz and Akre. Never felt unsafe anywhere and were welcomed everywhere with open arms. Frequent secu...

So I've finally gotten around to writing about Afghanistan, if anyone is keen on reading up on our time here I'll be uploading posts over the next couple of weeks.

Crossed this border today with my partner. Like most foreign tourists we were pulled aside for questioning, although the man who spoke to us was actually quite friendly. Perhaps it was because I knew some basic Russian, but compared to when we crossed into Russia from Mongolia this was a breeze. Nob...

Yep, 30 days visa free on arrival at the border. Only for Iraqi Kurdistan of course though, not valid for any other region in Iraq. It's just a stamp in the passport as well, no physical permit or anything. All the main roads in Kurdistan are very good surprisingly. The only annoying thing is the in...

Via e-mail: Last Friday ( 17.08.2018) they opened up a new embassy. http://www.russianconsulates.com/consulate.aspx?ConsulateID=1123 There was a TV crew outside the old one filming for the local TV. Today I walked passed the old one and it was the same chaos as always. I don't speak the language bu...

Yeah fortunately one of the girls at our hostel saved us and kindly helped with it all, translating everything for us. We returned in the afternoon with the documents and thankfully they didn't ask for anything else. Visa costs were $39 for my partner and 163GEL for me (I paid at a bank nearby as th...

Another update to this While Australians don't need the original letter of invitation, we do need extra documents. Went again today to apply only to be told that I need a detailed biography written in Russian explaining who I am, what I do, who my family are etc. I also need to fill out the online v...

Crossed this border about a week ago with my partner from Erbil to Diyarbakir on a bus. Despite reaching the border at about 11:30pm, there was plenty of vehicles trying to get through and it was incredibly slow and inefficient. The Kurdish side was easy, a simple stamp out and on your way. Turkish ...