The Great Paper Chase
Ok folks; let’s make this clear. There is a hard way and an easy way to obtain the necessary visas for the ‘great adventure’.
The easy way is to pick up the telephone, give a travel bureau or visa specialist company your itinerary and let them sort it all out for you. If money is no object, you half like the idea of letting somebody else do all the work and you want to remain unruffled then this could be the way.
If you are like me, a Yorkshire woman through and through, with Scottish connections (well, my son lives in Aberdeen) and you have the ability to split a fart, then you do it the hard way!
For our trip, we are required to obtain visas for most of the countries we wanted to go to, before we leave the UK. This means planning an itinerary so that entry to the next country happens before the visa for the one you are in, runs out. Sounds a piece of cake eh? Ha!
Some visas can be issued well in advance, and these can be applied for by post. Other visas need to be applied for in person. Sifting through the information on the websites, planning a course of action, deciding which visas to go for first requires precision planning – so I am told!
Most Embassies now have web pages, where information on visa requirements can be found and application forms downloaded, but it has been my experience that Embassy Consular Departments don’t want to talk to you! E-mail queries are either ignored or take so long to be answered despair sets in. Information is given on those premium rate telephone calls costing £1 per minute and why is the bit you want always right at the end of the call 4 minutes later?
I must admit the gentleman at the Uzbekistan Embassy was the exception to this rule. He was so friendly and helpful I rang back twice, just to make sure he was for real! Go to Uzbekistan folks, this guy was so enthusiastic about his country I thought he was on bonus! No visa support letters or anything required, just ‘get yourself there and spend some money’
The first visa applied for was Mongolia, my dream destination. Download the application forms from the Embassy in London, fill them in, send with passports, required fee (£40 each) and stamped addressed special delivery envelope and hey presto! Seven days later passports returned with Mongolian visa. It was big grin time; we had started! The Mongolians wanted us, no hassle, no additional visa support forms or booked accommodation, they just wanted us to go! All we had to do now was to get there - and home again.
I actually started applying for visas in November 2004, thinking there was plenty of time before our 25 March departure. Wrong! Panic is now setting in. At the time of writing, with four weeks before we go, we still need 3 prized pieces of paper, and with visa issuing times of 1 – 10 working days .......
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