The South African Embassy in Tbilisi is located at 404 Ara Street.
That’s right. It does not exist. And DIRCO doesn’t have a consular visit planned.
https://dirco.gov.za/south-african-representation-abroad-g/
This is highly disruptive for a few South Africans here. Their best coarse of action is to contact Community Circle SA:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1301506863518612
To avoid this, please plan renewal of your passport 1 year in advance.
How to renew your passport in in Ankara
When: If you’re passport has only a year left, it’s time to renew: While the embassy in Ankara often completes the process in 3 months, it occasionally takes 10 months. When you apply ask them when you should expect an up date and when it doesn’t happen try to follow up with a friendly email every month or so.
Look up their phone number and make an appointment. Only the emergency number works. That number does have WhatApp and they usually read the messages.
Requirements: For Turkey you need a free e visa and medical insurance. Safety Wing sells travel insurance by the day (5 day minimum). Turkish immigration never asked me for either of these.
Trains and buses: There are many buses and minibuses to Batumi. Or book a train ticket on the TRE.ge app.
From Batumi you can take municipal bus 16 to Sarpi for only 30 tetri. Traffic in Batumi can be painfully slow (walking speed). On the Georgian Play Store is an app called Batumi Bus showing the routes and realtime data of the busses.
The Sarpi border is crowded and chaotic.
From Sarpi there are minibusses for 50 lira to Hopa. Cash only but they will accept lari.
From Hopa there are long distance buses to Ankara for $33 or less.
Once in Ankara, you can ride the municipal buses. Bus 114 (amonst others) goes to the embassy. Google Maps has all the routes.
The busses accept a Georgian and South African bank cards: You board at the front. When you tap your card the first time, it decline and say “Credit card”. Just tap it a second time and it will accept it.
You can find the new location of the embassy on Google maps.
Flights: Google Flights does not show all airlines that operate in the region. Searching with Skip Lagged is also recommended.
If flights between Tbilisi and Ankara are expensive, look for cheap flights between Rize and Ankara. Rize Airport runs a bus service called Havas that stops in Hopa. This bus costs 190 lira.
Once in Ankara, take municipal bus 442 into the city.
Money: This website shows which bank has the cheapest lira: https://myfin.ge/en/rates/tbilisi/all/TRY
When the passport is ready, the embassy will allow collection by courier. DHL charges crazy prices for this cross border door to door service (400 gel!). I guess it will be cheaper to travel to Hopa, stay a few nights and have the passport couriered there.
Roaming: I downloaded Google maps for Ankara before leaving. But I had to use roaming for getting real time bus info and that cost me a few lari every day.
Roaming also helps for check into AirBnBs, so enable it before departure. Most phones have “Data Saver” or similar feature where you can block some apps from using mobile data.
Annoyingly Magti doesn’t have and towers in Sarpi and I also had to use roaming there.