Sorry for the Group Email

I lost my passport once. It was awful. Everything was packed, the tickets were booked, and I was set to fly to the ‘States within the week.

I could have lived with it if it had been my fault. If it had fallen out of my pocket while I was bungee-jumping with Reese Witherspoon, or beating the high score on one of those dance-mat arcade machines, I would have felt that the loss of a passport was a worthwhile sacrifice.

But I didn’t lose it. The Americans did. Not all of the Americans, you realise, but the ones in the American embassy in London. I was applying for a student visa, you see, and at some point between them receiving my passport, and sticking a visa in it and punting it out of the door again, it got lost.

Maybe someone had a wobbly desk and decided a passport was exactly the right thickness to shore things up, or perhaps it was the final piece in a forty-foot high tower of cards-style endeavour. Either way, one day it was mine, the next I was in the fast-track queue for a new one.

So it was with some trepidation that we set off on getting our passports for the trip. It’s true that the world is incredibly open – the fact that you can get from London to anywhere else on Earth within a day is always a jolting realisation – but despite that, arrive at many countries without the right paperwork and you’ll be turned out instantly. In many cases you won’t even be able to get on the plane.

The first stop was the Russian embassy. Like a huge number of embassies, it’s in Kensington, and like just as many, operates a bewildering assortment of opening hours. The Visa section is open between 8:30am and noon, for instance, but you collect your documents between 4pm and 5pm. Practically any other activity has a different set of opening hours.

We arrived bleary-eyed at eight in the morning. A queue of ten people had already formed. A light drizzle fell, and there was nothing to do but watch countless near-misses on the main road.

Once we were in, things went smoothly. There’s an imposing list of Things To Bring when applying for a Russian tourist visa, not least details of the agency that’s invited you to the country.

It was all reasonably clockwork-like, though. I had visions of being hauled into a dimly-lit room and questioned for hours about the minutiae of life (my favourite colour, for instance), but in fact once your forms are across, your receipt tells you the date to come back, and you pay.

In theory. In real life, we expected to pay £45 for my visa, and £25 for Mendy’s, what with her being American, and that being what the consulate’s website said. Instead, we were charged £90 for both. But that’s not right, we protested. Hers should have been cheaper, we said.

The dappled old woman behind the glass held up a piece of A4 paper covered in Cyrillic and pressed it against the window expectantly. The Russian embassy is not the place to make a scene. We nodded uncomprehendingly, paid and left.

(The website has since been updated: Americans pay the same as everyone else. Incidentally, there are claims that you need to prove you have travel insurance when applying for your Russian visa. We didn’t take any such proof and had no problems.)

Next up was China, and the first uncomfortable look-the-other-way episode of the trip. The line outside was immense – perhaps thirty people long, and a crowd of Falun Gong (a spiritual group banned in China) supporters walked its length, offering leaflets. It all looks interesting, of course, but what if someone’s watching? Paranoia got the better of me. Inside things were much the same as with Russia, albeit on a larger scale. Lines of people, largely Chinese, populated the room, although an English-speaking-only line makes things go quicker. Things were just as efficient as with the Russians – a receipt tells you the day to come back, and there were people on hand to soothe my fears that our passports would be used as heating fuel if we returned after the due date.

The passports were ready on time. In the case of the Chinese embassy you pay as you collect your documents. The Chinese need fewer pieces of supporting evidence, but it’s worth noting that all of the embassies we’ve dealt with so far insist on cash payment. Turn up with a perfect set of documents and a credit card and you’ll be sent hunting for a bank.

All of which left the Mongolians. Mendy doesn’t need a visa – Americans are exempt. The Mongolian embassy is on a quiet backstreet in Kensington, and, perhaps as tacit acknowledgement that Mongolia is generally lower on tourists’ lists than some other places, it doesn’t open till ten. The visa office is a dilapidated affair – a single man behind the desk, and a row of tourist information leaflets line the flaking back wall. There’s nothing on the door except for “Visa Office”.

“Is this the Mongolian embassy?” I asked the only other soul there as I poked my head round the door.
“Hope so!” She replied.

I hoped so too. The Mongolian visa form is a pig to fill in. The Mongolian embassy website has a Word document you can fill in and print, but the only way you can successfully print it is if you have the Mongolian character set installed on your PC. I’m willing to bet you don’t.

Instead, head here and get the PDF version. It works just as well, and the chap didn’t blink as I handed him a hand-written application.

I asked when it would be ready. “Same time tomorrow,” he replied. That couldn’t be right. None of the other visa offices offered next-day completion for the standard fee. But

he insisted, with the weary air of a man used to dealing with idiots, that everything would be fine.

And so it was. I arrived the next day, and there it was. The final piece of paperwork for the first leg of the trip. We still need visas for most of the countries in south-east Asia, of course (Thailand is the notable exception), but all of them (apparently) can be obtained from the adjacent country.

The Americans remain the only ones to have ever lost my passport.

VISA LINKS

www.rusemblon.org/logon_en.htm The Russian Embassy in London
www.chinese-embassy.org.uk/eng The Chinese Embassy in London
www.embassyofmongolia.co.uk The Mongolian embassy in London
www.overseasbusinesstravel.co.uk/mongolianvisa.php The only place I could find that offered the Mongolian tourist visa application as a PDF. The link is at the bottom.

Dave has moved out of London. I’m guarding my passport with my life. And my wife’s if necessary. Incidentally, I’m looking for recommendations for music to listen to on the Trans-Siberian express. If you’ve got anything good, pop it in the comments below.

Tags: american embassy in london, embassies, embassy in london, fast track, kensington, passport, passports, reese witherspoon, russian embassy, student visa, trepidation, visa section