I dn’t recall any visas being particularly hard to get, but getting a Pakistan visa in Kabul was probably the most entertaining experience. The embassy was only open for visa applications one hour a day and after the endless security checks to get in there, you entered a dusty room straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. There was a small window and about 50 traditionally dressed Afghans there who had no concept of queue and attacked the window, and often each other, like seagulls fighting over a chip. Inside, a Pakistani official, endlessly disgusted with the crowd, would shout arbitrary instructions at the throng about who was next. Luckily Hamid, our fixer, was able to sidle up to the window and point out the sahib hanging back from the fray. He got me to the window past a lot of Afghan objections, and I got the last visa interview of the day before the window slammed shut.
More problematic was getting into Azerbaijan during covid. If you didn’t travel internationally during Covid you happily missed out on a whole world of beaurocratic pain. Azerbaijan had a list of countries who could visit, Australia wasn’t on the list, and it was all duly recorded in the IATA Timatic database. I was doing work for the Ministry of Economy, who evidently had communications issues with the State Migration Service who had to issue the invitation to visit that would bypass the entry ban. With about a week to go I finally was emailed a bad photocopy of an obliquely worded invitation that said something along the lines of “no objection is extended to Pineapple entering Azerbaijan”. The actual visa could only be issued electronically on arrival. Catch 22: can’t travel without a visa, but can only get a visa on arrival.
Checking in to CX in Sydney with a fine collection of paperwork, computer says no, but luckily it was a weekday and Cathay rang the Azerbaijani embassy, got the same ambiguous advice as the photocopy, but added this was the usual process, which was enough to get me on the first sector. Just - they were very edgy as it was an LH ticket. Computer said no again in HKG, followed by a similar rigmarole. Finally, boarding LH in FRA, computer said nein, but gate agent was familiar with the AZ process and tried to override. Computer said ‘which part of nein don’t you understand’, and multiple phone calls to LH bureaucracy finally got the override done about time to offload bags. Finally got the visa from a machine at Baku airport.
