Hoorah! We both received our passports back to the Marriott Tbilisi, with 60 day single entry L type visas! After months of planning and organising and everything revolving around the China leg of the trip we finally have a visa and a confirmed itinerary!

And we have the carnet du passage! We have to say thank you to the Marriott for signing for our packages, even though we weren't staying there! The list of papers and documents to collect is getting shorter... never seems to end, but it is getting shorter.

This morning we headed out to the Azerbaijan embassy to get our visas for next week. O joy! An hour later (!) we found the office, and joined the throng of people queuing for visas. The office is only open between 10am and midday to accept visa applications, then from 4pm - 6pm for collection. The information we'd collected from the internet suggested we only needed 2 passport photos, a valid passport and a completed application form. O, how foolish are we?! To believe it's that simple...

No, we needed 2 passport photos, a valid passport, a photocopy of the data page from the passport, a valid application (different to the one online) and a letter of invitation!

O well, and the 1 day service... nope, 3 working days...

In the meantime, a visit to Prospero's bookshop meant we could sell (for a loss) our Europe guidebooks and roadmaps, and buy some more books to read along the way. We got The Survivors Club (recommended for those who liked "Outliers"), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and books on Scott and Shackleton's expeditions. A pretty good haul I thought.