Warm it up, Chris...

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T-40 hours.

Well, it is good to know that I never seem to learn from experience. Here I am again, juggling all the last minute activities. I draw the nicest of schedules weeks in advance, make research yet somehow always get stuck on trivialities and formalities. Apart from trying to tie up some knots at work before I leave for a month I am also trying to finish payments for my two outstanding trips.

I went to my local bank today to transfer money to my trusted agent in Uzbekistan. Of course it didn't help that I took careful steps filling out all relevant forms when the clerk cannot even spell the country name. It also came as little surprise that the National Bank of Uzbekistan Samarkand branch office was not listed in their computer system, and I was told to return at a later point when they had confered with the head office in Stockholm.

Well, checking the status on the payment a few hours later I could tell from the teller's voice that he had more or less forgotten about, or taken little interest in my request, basically giving me the same answer again; they can send the money to one of the banks they have listed in their system, and this third party bank can then forward the money to the bank provided by me, the humble customer. Of course the responsibility to collect the correct bank branch office information rests solely upon my shoulders. Might as well have mailed the money in an envelope myself. Paying 35 USD for them to waste my time and then still throw the money into a black pit might be just as succesful. Sometimes I wish I lived in a big city.

I needed to make a downpayment for hotel in Tashkent and pay the commission to one of the local organizers of the trip, which took 20 minutes courtesy of Western Union at a local kiosk. If it weren't for their rather high fees and the fact that I would need to carry a big wad of cash around I might as well have used them for the complete transaction.

I had an ambition to complete the payments for the coming September trip to Bhutan as well, however I still lack some detail information which hopefully can be provided as of tomorrow. I decided to give Jasu a call and ask her to have a look at the trip plan I had been presented and let me know if she had any objections. Hope it can be sorted tomorrow.

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