Carnets 'R Us

The carnet (technically, the Carnet de Passages en Douane) arrived in the post today which is good news and I've already managed to bend the cover which is less good. Interestingly, it does have "EX IRAQ, EX ISRAEL, EX LEBANON, EX KENYA, EX EGYPT and EX SYRIA" printed on each page which you would think means I can't use it in those countries because I've not forked out an even larger fortune (this cost £1600 as it is). To be fair, Egypt wants a premium of 800% of the market value of the vehicle however, Kenya and the Middle East are listed as 200% and Iran, Pakistan and India all want 500%. So I don't quite follow that but as I'm not going to any of those countries it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

That leaves the last jigsaw piece I absolutely require to travel being my passport which is currently with the Indian High Commission. There was a bit of a palaver with VFS (their outsourcing company) the other day which I'll address in due course but it was suggested I'd either get the passport back today (Special Delivery) or I'd get a phone call. The postie's been and I've not had a phone call yet. Maybe it's still in the post.

Finally, if you're about to leave the country for four months, the last thing you should do is hit a deer around midnight on the way home and have it ding your car. And sure enough...