So...We're Not Going to Russia

The TO DO list for Shanghai was pretty simple, clear and with extreme emphasis:

 See the Bund

 Eat dumplings

GET RUSSIAN visa!

Go to the circus

Our Russian visa was one of the first things we researched before leaving Australia.  We have spent a long time on the application, updating the itinerary, investigating train timetables, updating the itinerary, looking at accommodation, updating the itinerary, finding our favourite AirBNB no longer exists, updating the itinerary.  We even tried to apply for visas very early, in December 2014.  But on the back of the G20, the processing was delayed and the final result was that we were not allowed to apply in advance of the 3-month window, in spite of this helpful post on Lonely Planet about how they got theirs early - a cynical person might think they could have told us that at the start of the process, rather than after holding our passports for 5 days.

One cannot get a Mongolian transit visa without first having a visa for the next country, so we were on a strict timeline as we only had so many days in Shanghai and then Beijing.  Shanghai was a Russian visa, Beijing is Mongolian visa.  The plan was then to get on an overnight train from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar on 27 May, explore for 4 or 5 days and then continue to Ulan-Ude in Russia, eventually making our way to St Petersberg by 27 June.  Some might remember us describing this plan as kind of central to our entire trip.  June is around the half-way mark.  The Trans-Mongolian represents the connection of Asia and Europe and even forms the (Dragon's) backbone of our Round the World adventure.  We really wanted to pull this off.

Alas, despite extreme effort and fretting over how to prepare our visa applications and appearance for a rock-solid performance with the consular officer at the Shanghai Russian Consulate, we were utterly disappointed to discover that while our paperwork was all in good order, the processing time would be a colossal 10 working days.  I think Melbourne was the last time we were in one place that long!

The consular website said processing could be 5-7 days, the poster on the wall INSIDE the consulate said 5 days and with urgent processing 3 days.  On the way in, things were looking good.  We asked the very well-dressed man (with a beautiful fountain pen) behind the counter if we could pay extra for the urgent processing service.  [Here is where the punch comes] "I am sorry, if you had a 90-day Chinese visa, we could offer you Urgent Processing, but you only have a 30-day Chinese visa".  Helpfully, he added, that if we wanted to get a Chinese 90-day visa and then come back, we could get urgent processing.

Obviously, the Chinese extension idea was unachievable, it would take us even longer and be extremely costly; discussing things over a coffee from a cute and nearby hole-in-the-wall, we realised quite quickly that our best option was to skip Russia and the Trans-Siberian altogether, despite the extreme disappointment. 

No Russia for us

Extra time in Mongolia!

Our efforts now need to be dedicated to re-allocating precious travel days to the beautiful Mongolia.

Can't be all bad - Reproduced from nomadicexpeditions.com