Top Tips for organising a world trip

Passports and Visas

Hippy's Vaccination Hassles

A couple of weeks ago, I started checking over documents that we're going to need to get us as far as South Africa. This is the first natural waiting point on our trip where we'll be licking our wounds from the long haul down Africa and awaiting suitable transport to South America.

Besides birth/marriage certificates and all manner of other papers that Hippy and I take with us on the basis that if we want to stop somewhere for a while and work, the generally accepted minimum travel documents are as follows;

1. International driving permit - OK
2. International registration document - ongoing
3. Carnet de passage en douane - ongoing (see elsewhere)
4. Vaccinations + certificates - OK
5. Bike Insurance - no comment
6. Medical/travel insurance - OK
7. Passports + visas - better just check this one

No matter how organised you are, you get confused from time to time when you've got several balls in the air. My major mistake was somehow arriving at the conclusion that no visa was required for The Sudan. Where I got information to reach this conclusion is lost somewhere back in November of last year.

The thing is, visas are generally issued for periods of 30, 60 or 90 days depending on the country involved. Logically, then, there is no point in getting visas for countries more than 3 months down the line. So it follows that not having a visa for Sudan is pretty much unavoidable anyway and we'll have to pick one up en route. Logic does not necessarily reign in the world of international travel. Some countries - and I will update readers as and when I find them - require for foreigners to obtain a visa for entry in their own country. This would necessitate a return to the UK each time we hit an awkward border.

HOWEVER it is a little known fact that in some circumstances our wonderful passport offices will issue a second passport to travellers so that they can be obtaining visas in one while travelling on the other. This facility is usually accorded to business folk and requires sponsorship by their employers. Helen and I made a tentative application and although being initially turned down by the clerk dealing with our request, five minutes later, his superior granted this to us. Seemingly they were impressed by my application which enclosed the confirmation from VSO that this is a charity (ad)venture. Check out www.vso.org.uk

Another one of those days when it seems that the world is smiling on ones venture.

The same day, I received an email from Ted Simon. Those of you of a biking background may be familiar with his world trip in the seventies, which became the subject of the travel classic; "Jupiters Travels". He is currently following his same route again and is in South Africa. His advice was that obtaining a visa for The Sudan is best effected in Amman, which is on our route and, again, kismet seems to be working in our favour. We shall see.

Carnet (or can't)

A carnet de passage en douane is a document that is required by some countries in order to try and stem the flow of illegally imported vehicles.

The theory is as follows:

An individual travelling through a country may be required to deposit the taxable value of their vehicle with Customs and Excise, which will be returned on exit or completion of formal importation procedures. This would tie up rather a lot of cash at border posts and in many situations, border posts would not be able to issue refunds at the drop of a hat.

The alternative is to get a motoring organisation to vouchsafe the funds required should the vehicle fail to be exported. This guarantee is the "carnet". In order for the AA to issue me with such a document, they needed to be confident that they in turn would get their money back and so they offer several options to this end. Firstly, I could lodge a sum of money with them for the duration of the validity of the carnet. Alternatively, I could take out an approved insurance policy for the sum required. Finally, I could get my bank to provide a bankers indemnity to the value required. The first seemed a fairly major capital commitment, the second rather expensive, and so I approached my bankÖÖÖ..

The high street bank with a Welsh sounding name have improved their customer interface, so they tell us. In stead of speaking to ones branch and a member of staff who is familiar with your loyalty to the bank and their reciprocated commitment to serving you, you get to speak to a call centre in the heart of the North-East. Now I have no problem with Tyneside per se (refer to the recent run of the Trotters and the straighforward supply of three points by Middlesborough), however, the arrangement of a bankers indemnity needs to be handled by suitably qualified staff.

I attempted to get connected to my branch by phone on several occasions and was faithfully promised by a series of call takers that they would call me back within three hours upon receipt of a fax from the call centre. Bugger all happened and so I drove up to Nottingham to speak with my account manager. After queuing for 40 minutes, I reached the enquiries desk, explained my mission and was asked whether I had made an appointment. I had been quite mellow up to this point, pointing out that as I had not been able to speak to the branch, it was in fact impossible to arrange a meeting. Clearly under duress, I was met by my (supposed) account manager .

I explained to her the service that I required of the bank. She told me point blank that the bank with the welsh sounding name does not do bankers indemnities any more. I was somewhat crestfallen, but was pleased to arrange for a new charge free credit card and the upgrade of my deposit account.

The next day, I spoke to the AA to explain that I would not need the bankers indemnity forms any more as the welsh bank didn't do them any more. Margaret - strangely most of the employees in the AA's international section are called Margaret - corrected me and explained that she was processing a bankers indemnity from the self same bank as we spoke. She guided me in the direction of the Bonds, Indemnities and Guarantees department of the bank. I spent 4 hours on the phone to various parts of my bank including some very unfortunate Scottish ladies whose husbands had all passed away.

Nimmy was a god send. She confirmed that they did indeed arrange indemnities for just such situations, however they needed to be arranged by my branch and submitted to her for rubber stamping. Moreover, upon hearing my impending breakdown approaching, offered her direct telephone number for the use of my account manager to avail herself of the requisite knowledge.

I tried to get in touch with my bankÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖ.. We drove up to NottinghamÖÖ

ÖÖÖÖÖ( To be fair, this time, we were going up to Nottingham anyway as Hippy had to get her yellow fever jabs. Therein lies a tale!) ÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖI waited 20 minutes in the enquiries queueÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖ.. I did not have an appointmentÖÖÖ.

This time I was directed to an extremely charming fellow in the business banking section who arranged indemnities for businesses on a daily basis. He rang Nimmy. He saw no problem. I sat in an interview room for 25 minutes. My account manager came and interviewed me about my creditworthiness - which she had already done on the previous visit). I sat in the interview room for 30 minutes before finally blowing off and had to depart to rescue the car from a restricted parking zone. As a parting shot, I asked that the manager ring me the next morning in order to try and persuade me to keep my accounts with them.

He rang and I reeled off all of the above (plus other annoyances that I just can't summon the energy to relate). The reason for my difficulties were nothing to do with him or the welsh bank in general. They very rarely handled requests of this sort. He totally dismissed my comments that rather than tell me that this facility did not exist, my account manager should have gone away and found out. The call centre was beyond his jurisdiction. He was new to the bank, blah, blah, blah, blah. Essentially, I was an awkward customer who was asking for a banking service beyond the realm of a current or deposit account and I simply did not have the right to expect any more than basic banking facilities.

Regrettably, in this day and age banks know that once customers are tied up with direct debits and the like, they simply cannot be bothered to fill out all of the forms and bail out to another bank. I would have, but time was an issue. I am sure that with the longevity of my connection with them, I appear as a statistic attesting to customer satisfaction.

OK, rant over. You want a carnet. Go into your bank and tell them that you need a bankers indemnity and that if they have not processed one before, they should speak with the head office Bonds, Indemnities and Guarantees department. Easy as thatÖÖ..Once you get to speak to your bank that is.

Well, in order to book my yellow fever vaccination (Pat's was still in date - hence the lone search) it had taken many phone calls.

At one stage it was looking like I would have to travel to Birmingham or London to visit a Travel clinic.

Those of you who do not know, yellow fever is one of the only vaccinations that is demanded by a number of countries, so even if I had been willing to take the health risks, I could not have got into a number of countries without it. It transpired that the yellow fever vaccine was in short supply. Leicestershire appeared to have run dry, so I moved on to my old haunt of Nottingham and called my old health centre, where I had fond memories of Dr. Varnam who had always been very helpful, when we last went to live abroad. Anyway, they gave the name of a health centre in Nottingham, I would give its name, but I would not like to be responsible for a telephone surge of yellow fever avoiders ringing up. Anyway, they said their current supply all had customers, but I was on a short list if they got in some more, and I'd have to ring in 2 days to check. Two days later and more vaccine were in and I got an appointment.

On the day I arrived early, which is unlike me, concerned that if I were late I'd be 'wallyed-out' of the yellow fever queue.

Anyway in the waiting room I met a lovely woman, by the name of Marianne Overton who was also waiting for her vaccine with her charming mother for company - and chatted. It became clear the she was also a teacher, who had left the profession to set up field trips and educational tours abroad, having field centres in Malawi and just organising a rainforest trip to Brazil. We got into discussion about Guyana and at the time I thought - what a coincidence - then on leaving the health centre I realised I had on my 'Hands uniting Guyana' T-shirt which give a bit of a clue that I may have some knowledge about Guyana and S. America. Anyway, I gave her some names of people and places to contact if she wanted to set up a field trip to Guyana - for as those who know the country will be aware, in order to organise things, in this Caribbean-on-the-mainland, you need to know the right people.

In exchange, Marianne was suggesting that 2 teachers who had worked in developing countries, like Pat and I were the sort of people that would be a likely workforce at an in-country field centre, it felt strangely like I was being semi-offered a job - odd when you are going somewhere for a vaccination (it reminded of an incident in a butchers shop where it seemed like a fellow customer was trying to sell me a house - but that's another story). She also intimated that she had friends in Malawi and if we needed accommodation on route to contact her. Anyway, I came away feeling positive and having enjoyed my time talking to an interesting lady. Any of you teachers or undergraduates interested in her field courses - they did sound diverse and well managed and although we didn't discuss price I got the feeling they were fair:- here are her websites

For schools: BRITISH SCHOOLS EXPLORING SOCIETY

For undergraduates: BIOSEARCH NYIKA is an on-going conservation research project