Four

I can kinda see where Russia gets its reputation as being hard to get a visa out of. Their list of documents was pretty vague and sometimes contradicted itself, but once I went to the embassy they gave me two forms to fill out (application, proof of health insurance), and sent me on my way. A week later:



I've been on the phone to the Indian visa section four or five times since I last updated and that's solved too. I have to go to Tokyo again, unfortunately, on September 3. Having that as my issue date will mean my visa expires on December 2, giving me time to finish the training and then two days to get from Delhi to Kathmandu.

Next application: Burma, to post on Monday.

Brainwave

If I stay in Japan for an extra week, I can get my Indian visa issued a week later. This will be long enough to do the course, and I can go to Nepal when it ends and apply for a tourist visa to get back in. Booya.

Indian Visa Frustration

I've been waiting two days for the Indian Embassy to call me back with a "question" about my application. I got sick of it and called them, and eventually got put through. The question, it turns out, is "are you aware that the visa you're going to get is pretty useless and that we won't refund the 15,000 yen we charged you for it?"

Rewind! I can't get a tourist visa because I'm doing a training course in India. I need an "entry" visa, which does the same job of allowing you to set foot in the country, but costs three times as much. So I applied for this. On leaving the embassy, I asked how long the visa would be good for. Five months, the lady said. Five months, I asked again to be sure. Five months, she confirmed. Yeah, turns out it's good for three months, meaning the visa runs out a week before the training course ends, and six weeks before I had planned to leave India. And that's if I wait for the day of issue to be the day I leave Japan.

What can I do?

1. Accept the visa, since they're not giving my money back, and hope it can be extended in India. For more money. Quick investigation leads me to believe a 15 day extension can be given in "emergent circumstances".
2. Cancel the application, reapply as a tourist. Too obvious a scam.
3. Hopefully on getting the extension, fly to Bangkok after the training, apply for another visa, then fly back to India and continue as planned. That's about another 300 euro, and I'll have to spend a week (at least) in Thailand while it's being processed, if it can even be done at all.
4. Skip the month travel in India, just move on to Mongolia and catch the train to Russia? Whoops, my Russian visa is being processed for January.
5. Cancel this whole fucking fiasco and get a job in the Irish civil service.

Genghis Khan't

I called the Mongolian embassy and had to explain my situation in Japanese, which probably made me sound like a child.

Good news/bad news result:

Bad news, I've bought a useless visa and there's nothing I can do about it, rendering my Tokyo run that little bit more pointless.

Good news, I can apply for the Mongolian visa in India, when it will be within three months before I go there, so it's off the present to-do list and I'm down to three.

Conclusion: Vietnam embassy is still best embassy.

Almost Three

The Mongolian embassy was equally quick and courteous. They said they'd process my passport in a week, it took less than two days. All this would have been fantastic if I hadn't planned to enter the country in January 2010. Back to square one.

Two

The visa section of the Vietnamese embassy was a weird place. There were six or seven people sitting around waiting in complete silence. The lady behind the counter took my application with barely a word (though not impolitely). I sat down and waited, not entirely sure for what. Half an hour later:


Vietnam embassy is best embassy.

One

Updated with non-crappy picture!

China

Qingdao to Beijing to Xi'an to Shanghai to Nanning to out of China.

Checklist Time

Leaving Japan, August 28. Here's what I have to sort out before then.

VISAS:
China
Vietnam
India
Burma
Mongolia
Russia

China, I should have in the next day or two. Hopefully I won't have to go to Tokyo and back for every single one of the others because that would probably end up being the most expensive part of this whole thing. Burma, at least, told me they could do the whole thing by mail, in ten days. Russia won't be easy. India will. Vietnam & Mongolia are a mystery.

HOSTELS
Seoul
Hanoi (maybe, might just wing it)
Qingdao (my first stop in China)
Moscow
St. Petersburg

TRAVEL
Bangkok <-> Yangon flights. Oct 9-16, probably. This will be cheap and easy to do online, once I get the Burmese visa.

Somewhere -> Ulaanbaatar flight. Have to figure out the cheapest way to get here from, uh, somewhere. I'm open to trains too.

Trans-Mongolian Railway, Ulaanbaatar to Moscow. January 12 - 16. Booking this should be pretty easy once the visas are in place. Helps that I'm doing it way in advance.