Part I - The Planning - Entering Mongolia (Travel Dream!)

The key is flexibility!

I've heard too many horror stories, and experienced a few too, so we really wanted to make the Chinese to Mongolia border crossing an enjoyable but painless one.  If I were to rate the desired experience on a scale, I'd put it "somewhere on the scale of nothing like Thailand to Vietnam" and "more adventurous than Vietnam to Cambodia" (which it seems we never wrote about).

Originally, we were to traverse the great Eurasian continent by train, from Beijing to Ulaanbataar to Irkutsk to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.  Timetables and our own deadlines dictated that we would have only spent 5 days in Ulaanbataaar, something with which we were always a little uncomfortable.  In a strange set of circumstances, what with the Russian visa development, [maybe] meeting Oliver in Helsinki, Christine in Dublin and having already purchased tickets to connect the two; AND the Great Chinese Firewall standing between us and a functioning PayPal account* (needed to buy Beijing-UB train tickets from CITS), we made the decision to spend the period of time between our Chinese visas expiring (late May) and our flight from Helsinki to Dublin (early July), in Mongolia.  The Russians [sort of] didn't want us, so this plan really was the only semi-logical one that had the bonus of allowing as much longer in Mongolia than originally planned.

While making our plans to get to Ulaanbataar, we realised that the "Trans-Mongolian" itself was a rather loose term that we could redefine to meet our own needs.  As it was a travel dream, we decided that as long as we actually saw some of Mongolia by train, we could still say we did the Trans-Mongolian, even if not from Beijing and even if not literally to cross the China/Mongolia border. 

Thanks to the amazing help of this wikitravel article and TripAdvisor contributors, we managed to get ourselves to Ulaanbataar from Beijing through a combination of public bus, metro, long-distance sleeper bus, dodgy hotel, jeep, train and a right-hand drive car (Mongolians have both left and right-hand drive, depending on whether they are Japanese or Russian cars!).

As far as booking trains through China, Mongolia and Russia goes, there is a lot of fear and a lot of misinformation (some of it intentional and some of it not).  The process is so different and so confusing that Lonely Planet even have a book dedicated to the Trans-Siberian Railway and how you navigate the fear and confusion.  We wanted to avoid some of the high prices charged by the likes of Real Russia and Vodka Train - although I am sure they do a great job of making it easier for you.  Besides the high prices, we never had a fixed address to have anything mailed to, which seemed a pre-requisite for these services. PLUS who doesn't love trying it the "independent" way?

Trains from Beijing to Ulaanbataar only leave once a week, on a Wednesday.  However, from Zamin-Uud, a tiny border town in Mongolia, they leave for Ulaanbataar daily, all we needed to do was get to the Mongolian border via long-distance bus. For inexplicable reasons, I don't think you can book the bus online or over the phone but with the help of TripAdvisor and the ever helpful "King Kong" and "Sharon" from 365 Inn (our Beijing hostel) we hatched a plan.  

The Plan

1. 27 May - Muxiyuan Long Distance Bus Station, Beijing, China

2. 27 May - overnight bus to Zamin-Uud, "Outer Mongolia" as the Chinese refer to the Mongolian People's Republic.  We were very desperate to ensure that we took a bus to Zamin-Uud and not to Erlian, the Chinese border town; our understanding was that border processing would be a lot easier if we could just stay on the bus (you cannot cross the Chinese/Mongolian border on foot).

3. 28 May - overnight train to Ulaanbataar train station.

4. 29 May - pickup from Sunpath Mongolia (one of THE GREATEST organisations we have come across on this trip).

For "The Execution" you will need to read Part II of this entry!  Stay tuned!

*In a horror story that is still not resolved, PayPal suspended access to both of our accounts due to "unusual activity", a situation we were not able to resolve even with 2 weeks in Japan (outside the Great Firewall) and meant that we were unable to pay for our train tickets from Beijing to Ulaanbataar online.  I highly recommend anyone planning to go on a trip like this, that you setup multiple PayPal accounts, just in case they arbitrarily decide to freeze your account.  Here is a link to a discussion about where this has had nasty consequences.

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

Shang hai: the (very) good, the bad and the ugly

Shang hai was a real mixed-bag experience for Rob and I. It has probably been the only place so far where we were definitely ready to leave. This probably should not reflect on the city itself and more on some unfortunate happenings and frustrations that could have happened anywhere.

The (very) good

A highlight of our time in Shanghai was easily our viewing of the CircusWorld: ERA performance. Everyone we knew who had visited Shanghai had recommended this to us. It was very entertaining and the performers were extremely skilled. I could not fathom how they achieved many elements of the show! I was impressed with the artistic integration of live performance and video, as well as the effective use of space. My favourite performance involved a man using the crook of his ankle to lop several bowls onto his head, all this while balancing on several layers of wood planks with glasses wobbling in-between. (Oh and this was in a boat.) Rob most enjoyed an acrobatic ribbon dance that saw a couple flying round the stage, held up by the ribbons and each other.

Circus night

We also really enjoyed the contrast of old and new in Shanghai, the flowers and gardens, some fabulous dumplings, scrumptious pancakes and the waitress that spontaneously stroked Rob’s arm to touch his hair!

The new!

Enjoying a garden break

Spring: a nice time to visit Shanghai

The bad

Shanghai promised to be the place we would finally, after much hard work on an application initiated in 2014, receive our visa’s to Russia. The backbone of our trip and a part of both our travel dreams was to across Russia on the Trans-Mongolian route. It was how we described our trip before we left. However, as we found out in Shanghai, it was not to be. More details here.

Our attempts to doing anything on the internet in Shanghai were continually hampered by the Great Firewall of China. I had no idea it would be this hard. We had set-up a VPN before entering- it did not work. The biggest problem was not being able to reliably access gmail and use google maps to organise our onward travel. I now truly understand how much command Google has over us and a multitude of websites!

The ugly

A day after our visa disappointment, we met some con artists. I like to think our experience with the well-known* tea ceremony scam is further evidence that anyone is susceptible to the work of such people. (I have done a little bit of research in the psychology of sales.) All the signs were there (distraction: check, “you’re like us”: check, reciprocity effect: check, likeability: check, etc, etc.) but somehow we kept going. I think we felt defeated after our visa let down and wanted someone to be friendly to us. We also hadn’t found too many people to hold a conversation with in awhile. All that said, and despite the fact I know that this is what these people do for living and that they are good at it, we still felt stupid afterwards. And though this could have happened anywhere in the world, it has left an impression on us that we will always somewhat associate with Shanghai. On the positive side, we did see short tea ceremony, have a conversation that day and it didn’t leave too much of a hole in our pockets.

*Well known but well…we didn’t know!

Not a parade: manning the crossings on a busy Shang Hai night. We (maybe) needed one of these guys in our tea "party"

Such tourists! 

We still enjoyed much of our time in Shanghai but it probably not somewhere I will hurry back to.

SHANG HAI TIPS:

* Go to ERA performance: you will not be disappointed. 

* Shang hai is beautiful in Spring.

* There are friendly people in the world but some that appear friendly in Shang hai will be the infamous tea ceremony scammers-  be on alert!

The Worst Experience Yet

Thinking back to my comment on 'shiny new visas' in our post on Chinese Visas for Australians (Phnom Penh), you might be forgiven for thinking that I spoke too lightly of how the visa run is the bane of existence of the long-term backpacker.  It gets worse.

Once we got to Vietnam we decided to alter plans somewhat so that we could visit Phnom Penh at the same time as Tim and Steph, and then return to Vietnam for a visit to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay before China. If we had planned this in advance, we would have acquired a multi-entry visa.  Instead, while in Ho Chi Minh City at the start of our Vietnamese adventure, we approached a travel agent to acquire a new visa for our return trip in early March.  

Paying more than we thought we should for the service, and persisting through some difficult communications with hand gestures and sulky looks, we walked away with two new single-entry visas after a protracted processing time. We then spent the rest of our time in Ho Chi Minh and Cambodia before flying out of Siem Reap for Bangkok.

After a harrowing overnighter in Bangkok (including a heart-stopping 130km/h ride with a nasty taxi driver who pretended to be lost) and a delayed flight, we finally made it to Hanoi on April 3. Tired and hungry it was only passing through immigration that we realised that there was anything wrong with the visas we had purchased all those weeks ago.  According to Immigration, what we thought were (and I still insist look like) new single-entry visas, were in actual fact visa extensions on our original entry visas (which had NOT been stamped as cancelled). This means that we had no visa on which to enter Vietnam.  Without the local language skills to negotiate or explain properly, we were faced with a frustrated, grumpy and 'you foreigners do this all the time' attitude  immigration official who was who was dis-inclined to sympathy, particularly when a nice fat $$$ sign was flashing in his eyes when he looked at us.

I didn't feel like shaking my fist in the air and screaming "Dolphin Sands Road!", I was too busy trying not to burst into tears but I was screaming so loudly inside I thought I would psycho-symptomatically go hoarse.

Waiting three hours at Immigration, with no one talking to us except the occasional official who would take our passports away and not give them back for a disconcerting amount of time was nerve-wracking and incredibly uncomfortable.  It was not an experience I wish to relive. We saw another couple just prior to our arrival shouting and getting quite angry at the Immigration staff, which obviously got them nowhere. Determined to maintain an appearance of calmness, we managed to work out our 'options'.  

Option 1 - Return to Bangkok

Option 2 - Purchase a conveniently available 'Hanoi City Tour' which comes with immediate visa approval and processing.  

You don't need to stretch your imagination too much to understand the implications of option number 2.  Insulated from such corruption in Australia, and in uncomfortable circumstances, it took us a little while to fully process it, and really it was not an easy decision to make. Feed the corruption to continue with booked plans and commitments, or give it up and find some alternative way to spend the time, with the cost of a new flight thrown in to boot.  

It ended up being probably the most expensive tour (that goes nowhere) you've ever seen.

The process, if that's what you call it, was relatively simple, and involved paying cash for our 'Hanoi City Tour'. Visas took less than 10 minutes and we were out the door with some tips from the remarkably helpful and polite VietJet staff member Ms Pham (who had been trembling when it came to any interaction with the intimidating Immigration team on our behalf).  

On the way out, I asked the 'travel agent', (with a cynical smile) "when will you pick us up for the tour?"

Her response was a knowing smile, "Haha. No." And she walked away.

Chinese Visas for Australians (Phnom Penh)

I officially hate visa applications.  If you have read my blogs from the past, you might already be familiar with my frustrations at this process (see "Ma American Hoina"), but I'm now making it official.

Getting visas sucks, big time.

When living in Nepal, I remember for the first time meeting people who were doing a "visa run".  Baffled, I asked for more detail. "Well, you know, there's no reason for me to be in Kathmandu, except that I need a visa for X & Y..." (Then again, perhaps it is not a good idea to get travel advice from people that think there is no reason for them to be in Kathmandu).

The process is the bane of a backpacker, because while you probably care little for weekends, it seems that many embassies and consulate's do.  Even more so, they have incredibly strict opening hours, dodgy looking websites, out-of-date addresses, long processing times and unpublished rules that all factor in to whether you will find yourself making multiple trips.  Also, while it is generally pretty easy to get passport photos, filling in forms is a dull and sometimes complex task, made all the more complicated when you need to print the form first, and try to keep it in a somewhat neat condition.  Let alone actually having an itinerary to present alongside your application.

Before Kat & I left Australia in January, the Vietnamese visa was the only shiny new one in our passports.  We tried applying for Russian, Mongolian and Vietnamese visas before we left.  Russia would not provide one more than 3 months in advance of our arrival, even with a very polite letter that this Lonely Planet Forum post suggested would work. Mongolia would not provide a transit visa without us first procuring a Russian visa.  Luckily (haha or so we thought), Vietnam obliged.

Our first crack at Chinese visas in Ho Chi Minh City was thwarted by the lengthy process it took to get a new Vietnamese visa (more on that later).  We only had one specific day where we would have to drop our application and passports at the Chinese consulate in HCMC, allowing for 4-5 business days of processing before we needed passports again.  Unfortunately, after waiting in a security line for 30 minutes (where I was waved through upon reaching the end) and a further 30 minute wait in a very confusing waiting room, China would not accept Kat's application unless she dropped it off in person (despite there being a section of the form that suggested otherwise).  With Kat working at the orphanage every day, this proved an impossibility and we made hasty plans to re-apply in Phnom Penh, once we had made it to Cambodia.

In the end, this proved to be far more convenient, and I would suggest to other travelers faced with similar problems, that they should apply in Cambodia. When we applied in March, there were no lines, the process was more or less straight forward and it was easy.  Let me stress that.  Easy, if still frustrating .  After all the schmozzle of Russia, Mongolia, Vietnamese extensions and new ones and reprinting forms for a Phnom Penh application instead of an HCMC one and the genuine fear of being in a place without your passport, this was easy.  You really do not need your hotel to do the process for you (SLA Hostel - where we stayed) offered the service for $US88/pp, we did it in person for $US45/pp +2x$US8 round trip tuk-tuk, one of which we combined with a visit to the S-21 Khmer Rouge prison/museum (former school).

• Make sure you have:
  • a fully completed application form
  • glued on your passport photo ahead of time
  • have an itinerary attached (including names, addresses and phone numbers of accommodation providers)
  • have evidence of any planes or trains attached (they would not accept our application for a double-entry visa unless we had plane tickets in, out and into China again). I did manage to explain that it was too early for us to book our onward train tickets.
• Tips:
  • AirBNB is unlikely to be viewed positively on the application - I suggest picking a hostel, at the very least for your first night (although we did receive our visa, our AirBNB host that was booked ahead of the visa application, spontanesously canceled a few days before our arrival in Guangzhou citing that "local police don't accept me having foreigners" - we suppose perhaps our application with his phone number on it had something to do with the cancellation.
  • Pay when you pick up (cash in Phnom Penh), not when you drop off.
  • We wrote a cover letter which they ignored and gave back to us before processing.
  • Plan your Phnom Penh visit around drop off and pickup at the Chinese Embassy.
  • I've read that looking smart (shave, collared shirt etc) helps.
  • Know a few words in Mandarin - politeness helps!
  • The visa processing section is at an unsigned side door down a road to the right of the main entrance (our tuk-tuk drivers both took us to the main entrance), the security guard outside is the only indication you are in the right place.
  • Address: No.156, Blvd Mao Tsetung, Phnom Penh, Cambodia (P. O. Box 26)
    Duty-Phone: +855-12-810928
    Website: http://kh.china-embassy.org
    Open Hours of Consular Office: 08:30-11:30 Monday-Friday