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On the morning of the 10th November we got ourselves down to Tian'namen square, we walked from one end of the square to the other. at the far end of the Square through and arch way and under the Chairman Mao picture is the enterance to the Forbidden City. We speant 4 hours wandering around huge buildings, through arch ways and over bridges in the very impressive Forbidden City. After we took the long walk back to our hotel.
We woke up early 11th Nov in order to get ourselves down to the Mongolian Embassey to get our visas. Having had problems with the taxi drivers already not being able to understand any form of English or even read and address on a map we got the receptionist in our hostel to write down the address of where we needed to go in Chinese. We went out onto the main road and hailed down a cab, we jumped in a showed the taxi driver where we needed to go, so we were a little surprised when we pulled up out side the bloody silk markets again 9this was the last place we wanted to go back to!) so after much confusion the taxi man radioed through to the taxi controller and we managed to get across where we needed to be. It turned out the receptionist had totally got it wrong and put the wrong address down. I dont know what part of MOngolian Embassy sounds like Silk Market, but none the less we eventually got there,but not without further problems. We arrived at the Embassy at about 11:15am only to find out that they shut at 11am! what a stupid bloody time to close! so we went back to the hotel.
Again the following day we made our way to the Mongolian Embassy, this time at 8am, to be sure not to miss them! we filled in our forms and paid our fee ad The Bank Of China down the road (nothings simple in China, why we couldnt have paid the Embassey Ill never know) ready to collect our passports and Visas later that day. In the mean time we did venture back to the Silk markets in order to buy some Termals for Mongolia. Having returned to pick up our Visas, we went and had some dinner in a resturant. On sitting down and looking through my passport at the various different stamps and visas in there, it suddenly dawned on me we had mad a big boo boo.
Ok we had our Chinese visa and now our Mongolian Visa, we had neglected to notice that fact that our Chinese Visa was a single entry and that if we left China for Mongolia we would either have to fly from there down to Lao which is not an option, reapply for a visa in Mongolia (and maybe not be granted it) or go to the Chinese Embassy in Beijing to get it changed over to a Multiple entry visa (sound simple?!) The next day we headed over to the Chinese Embassey in Beijing and went over to the information desk to explain our situation. We were told that yes we could apply for a multiple entry visa in China but we would each need to open up a bank account with The Bank of China and each put in $3000 USD!!!!!! To which I couldnt help but laugh and say, no thankyou we will get them in Mongolia, following by a sharp exit!
So after much deliberation we decided to risk it and go to Mongolia and get another China Visa when there. So with that we went to the Train station to book our train tickets, easy? NO! They couldnt understand where we wanted to go or when so we gave up and went back to the hotel.
IN the end the Hotel booked the tickets for us, but with a slight change of plan. before heading up to Erlain and the Mongolian Border we booked tickets to go down south to Xi'an t see the Terricotta Army just incase we couldnt get back into China. So with our train tickets booked for the following day we packed our bags and got an early nights sleep.
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