“All, I can say is I hope Belarus is worth it”, Karen exclaimed as she closed the lid of the laptop and placed it back on little wooden table at the foot of the stairs. We had just completed our first major round of visa applications and the money was starting to add up.A week previously we had received a Special Delivery package from the Vietnamese embassy in London containing our passports and visas for legal ingress and egress to that country. However, due to the complexity and dependencies of the visa applications for Belarus, the Russian Federation, Mongolia and China, we had decided to engage a specialist visa application agency. We would apply for all other visas en route.
Having read Bryn Thomas’s excellent reference, ‘Trans Siberian Handbook’ we were completely aware that obtaining visas for some of the aforementioned countries could be particularly challenging. For China, we needed evidence of entry and exit to the country – but as yet, we had no idea of how and when we would cross the country. For Russia, we needed a detailed itinerary of our journey including details of our proposed accommodation – but for us, the whole point of this trip was to be spontaneous - consequently, the required level of detail is something that we would only have once we were actually there!
Oh yes, and then there was Belarus! If you look at a map of eastern Europe you will see that to get the Russian Federation overland you have two main choices: The direct way through Belarus or the long and costly way through the northern Baltic States. As we wanted to travel through Europe as functionally as possible so that we could maximise our time in the more ‘interesting’ places we were keen to pursue the most direct route. However, just for the privilege of passing through Belarus over a 48 hour period, the embassy wanted £166 from us and even then, we had to stipulate precise entry and exit dates – something that we were unable to do. Therefore, our only option was to ‘upgrade’ to a full tourist visa at the bargain price of just £253 for the pair of us! Karen quipped, “At that price - I’m determined to say at least one night in Minsk – just to get my monies worth!”
To help us progress through this sea of red tape we sought the help of Real Russia, a specialist travel agency with a wealth of experience in visa processing. Using there excellent event-driven on-line service we could monitor the progress of our passports as they passed from embassy to embassy.
Whilst we were very happy with the services provided by Real Russia, and whilst we would certainly use them again, writing the cheque still hurt. In total our visa application costs so far have amounted to over £840: Belarus, £253; Russian Federation, £170, Mongolia, £120; China £171, Vietnam, £130.
Ouch!
