AT LAST

Finally our visas for Russia and out passports have arrive with only 1 day to spare. That was a  very stressful experience. Of course we only have booked the Flight to Beijing and the return from Warsaw (our final destination). We will have to boook the rest as we go, hopefully that will work out.
We are now at the airport waiting for the first flight of our journey. There is hardly anyone at the airpot and no queues due to so many European flights being cancelled as a result of the volvano erupting in Iceland. We will be stopping in Singapore for a couple of hours before heading off to Beijing.
Oh the airport at Singapore is lined with sleeping people. these poeople can not get to there next destination beacuse of the ash in the sky from the volcano.  They do not look very comfortable or happy poor things. They all have matching sleeping bags so these must have been provided for them. The airport is in darkness as we step past sleeping people and make our way to our flight.

One Step Closer

Yah today the Russian Consulate told us the passports would be put in the mail from Sydney today. Of course no hint of whether they issued us the long awaited visa. I guess we will have to wait for the envelope to find out.

So near yet so far

With only a week to go before we depart we still have no Russian visa. We finally obtained a letter from the Russian travel agency which took weeks of emails and then finally a telephone call to Russia. The money then had to be transferred into their acount via three banks starting in the USA. We were very relieved to get our letter of of invitation.
We applied for our visas and these were rejecgted with a notse saying "date". So we have changed the dates and reapplied. We have heard nothing and so we sit here with no passports or visas wondering what is going to happen.
I have just emailed the consulate to make enquiry about the progress. Meanwhile my fingernails are bing bitten down to the quicks.
Fingerscrossed!!!!

Planning the trip

Planning the trip started months prior to departure. There was much to do, book airfares and hotels, get passports and visas, check train timetables and tickets and sort out warm clothing. Steve has spent many hours pouring over maps, train timetables, hotel websites and airline websites. 

Getting visas for Mongolia was straight forward. It took a letter explaining our travel dates and plans for Mongolia, an application form, and a fee. These arrived stress free in the mail within 2 weeks.

Visas for Russia on the other hand are proving to be more difficult to obtain. It is necessary to get a letter of invitation to Russia before a visa cen be applied for. It appears these are available from travel agents and hotels, if you book with them. We are having difficulty knowing who to trust in this process. There are many russian agencies online but there are many scmmers also, so how do you know who to trust. Already we had chosen one agency only to later find it listed on a scammers site. Fortunately for us we had not given them any personal information. So with only 4 weeks to departure we still have no letter of invite and no Russain visas!!!