"When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money.
Then take half the clothes and twice the money."

SUSAN HELLER

Three weeks and counting! Time is really beginning to fly by. Nevertheless I have now managed to secure my visa to Turkmenistan which leaves just Iran (possibly the most complicated one) still left to get and have also spent a fruitful weekend up in the North of England travelling the UK's (and indeed world's) only living "Silk Road".

Obtaining the Turkmenistan visa actually couldnt have been any simpler and yet I was preparing myself for bad news. I got a taste though of what travel in Turkmenistan will be like when I arrived at the rather small embassy hidden away on the second floor of a building in a street just behind Oxford Street. The Turkmenistan flag just about flying off the wall was about the only notice I had that I had indeed arrived. I'd planned to turn up at 10am, when the embassy officially opens, in order to avoid the hordes of people I assumed would be applying for their Turkmen visas. I needn't have bothered since the queue never got longer than three - I should have known that of course very few people actually travel to Turkmenistan for a relaxing holiday - less than 3,000 I was told! And so the three of us waited patiently in line but it wasn't until 10.30am that the Ambassador and his attractive young assistant actually pitched up and let us in. Timing was very casual indeed and it didnt bode well for how quickly my application  might be processed.

 Indeed I needn't have worried. Naturally money talks and for $71 dollars I could have the visa processed (though without guarantee of acceptance) within 4 hours. I decided to go for this option and find out if my travel plans were to be scuppered by bureaucracy or not. As I was counting out ridiculously small denominations of US dollars and apologising profusely for the inconvenience, the Ambassador simply smiled and replied "No problems. It's money afterall". A few simple questions as to why on earth I might want to travel to Turkmenistan proceeded and then 4 hours later I returned to have my passport returned with visa.

Buoyed by the success of this transaction I decided to head up north to Manchester and visit a friend of mine. The real reason however for my trip was to visit Macclesfield. Again probably not a place that many foreign tourists would visit but for me it was especially significant. It used to house the now declining UK silk industry and boasts the only living "Silk Road" in the world. The photos completed and a few interesting museums visited I was off again, via a refreshing beverage in the pub congratulating myself on having travelled several hundred miles just for a photo. It doesnt seem too crazy I suppose as I am, afterall, about to travel several thousand miles just to end up in Beijing - for the fun of it!