Dave’s Reise nach Osten

1. Learn to understand Indian English. It will be of much use to you when you deal with the embassy folks. If you don’t understand it you might find yourself in dialogs like the following:
   

   Embassy staff member: “***some really tough subcontinental English*** – do you understand?”
   Me: “No, I don’t understand.”
   He: “Can’t you speak English?”

2. Go to your own embassy and get a recommendation letter. Or first call the Pakistanis and ask if it is still needed: 66944888. In the Swiss case, it costs you 40 Swiss franks (today: 360′000 IR) and you can get it between 8.30 and 11.30. Have a look at the current opening hours.
3. Get a visa application form at the Pakistani embassy and fill in everything needed. To lower confusion:
   • It is necessary to provide an address in Pakistan, any hotel will do.
   • And they want the address of two persons coming up for the costs in case of an accident or such. That these two addresses were exactly the same, only the first name of my parents was different was not a problem.
   • There are also lines for the same thing with addresses in Pakistan, I left them blank, that was ok.
4. Next they want you to write a personal application. They gave me a blank sheet of paper and I wrote an application with my hand.
   

   Dear Sir
   I hereby apply…

   It feels weird.
   You should state why you want to visit Pakistan, how long, when and especially why you did not apply for the visa in your homecountry.

5. Hand in:
   • the application form
   • the handwritten application
   • three photos of you
   • the recommendation letter
   • a copy of every page of your passport that has a stamp or anything on it

   Hand it in between 9.00 and 11.00. But too early does not make a lot of sense, because they will let you wait until 11.00, then ask you a few questions and then tell you to call again in about 3 working days. They told me to call 4 days later, between was also the weekend (Thursday and Friday).

6. You call, you go to the embassy. They tell you to deposit money on a bank account. In my case 32 Dollar respectivelly 320000 Rial. Walk south from the crossing until the end of the street, then right, and just over the crossing you find the bank, badly signed. You go back, hand in the receipt from the bank and your passport and they tell you to pick up your passport a few hours later with a receipt they give you. This time use the main entrance.
7. For Swiss overlanders: Apply at home! You can get a three month visa with a flexible entry date within the next year.

Address of the embassy of Pakistan on Teheran:
Block No 1
Ahmed Etimadzadeh Alley
Dr. Hussain Fatimi St.
North Jamshidabad
14118 Teheran
www.parepteheran.org