The biggest hurdle to planning and organizing a trip like this one is, inevitably, getting all those darn visas. Central Asia is known among travellers around the world for being a visa and paperwork nightmare. Each country has its own complicated requirements, and obtaining tourist visas can be a lengthy, frustrating and expensive process.
We Canadians are fairly spoiled when it comes to travel. According to the latest Visa Restrictions Index, Canadians can visit 173 countries or territories visa-free or with a visa on arrival. That’s tied for second most in the world.
So with so many places rolling out the welcome mat for my Canadian passport, why bother with those who put up walls? Good question.
One reason is that many of these places are genuinely interesting. In some cases, the requirements come from bureaucratic government policies that really don’t reflect the reality of the people or the countries. In other cases, it’s a reciprocity thing — we do unto your citizens as you do unto ours. That may not be exactly logical, as droves of Canadians probably aren’t looking to illegally live or work in most of those countries, but you can see how it has a certain amount of poetic justice. And finally, in some cases, the visa requirements keep out so many tourists, that it can actually result in a pretty unique and unusual tourism experience.
It would be easy to avoid entire regions of the world in a fit of pique. It’s not something I really believe in, though. I think that cumbersome visa requirements shouldn’t be the only reason not to go to an otherwise interesting place. Complaining about a few minor visa forms and fees as I plan a trip of a lifetime would be an obnoxiously first-world problem thing to do; most people in the world deal with far more restrictions on their movement, and couldn’t afford the time or funds for a trip like this anyway. So this is one of those times when I feel like the best thing to do is just to shut up and suck it up, ’cause even being able to travel like this is pretty damn awesome, and it’s not as though I don’t appreciate that.
(My own compromise is that I won’t travel anywhere that wouldn’t allow an Israeli passport holder into its borders. That’s a personal thing for me; you may or may not agree, but I’ve based it on my comfort level. Anywhere else is fair game — if a place interests me enough, I’ll jump through the necessary hoops to go there. And the Silk Road fascinates me to no end.)
Long story short, this trip involves visits to China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. That meant I needed to read up and start the visa application process pretty much as soon as I booked my trip, in order to have enough time to get all the visas before departure.
Chinese Bureaucracy
Chinese tourist visas are relatively simple for Canadians to get. Sure, they require a lot of paperwork, including advance booking of all flights and hotels (so much for spontaneity) and lots and lots of paperwork.
But there’s a visa office conveniently located right in downtown Montreal, an online application guide, and detailed instructions in English. Even better, China has even recently signed an agreement with Canada to issue 10-year multiple entry visas that are good for the life of a passport. Easy, right? In theory, yes.
But that doesn’t account for Chinese Bureaucracy — not to be confused with Chinese Democracy (though, GNR, that might make a good name for a follow-up album. Just saying.)
See, China is a big country, and its government is pretty happy to have people visiting most of it. But there are a couple of notable exceptions. One of which is Tibet, which requires a special permit and which most travellers know is something of a crapshoot even at the best of times. No problem there; I’m not planning to go to Tibet on this trip (though I would love to someday).
No, the problem here is actually the much lesser-known issue of Xinjiang Province. The giant
remote northwestern province of China is home to a number of Silk Road stops, and I’ll be travelling through there on my trip. It also happens to be a semi-autonomous region of China that is home to a half-dozen minority ethnic populations, including the Uyghur.
The Chinese government is sensitive about any dissent against the One China policy, and has a recent history of crackdowns and oppressive policies against the minority populations of the region — something it claims is in the name of preventing terrorism, but which (like most governments who do things in the name of preventing terrorism) really seems to be more about asserting its power. And because China does pretty much whatever it wants while the world tries very hard not to say anything, suffice to say that Xinjiang is a touchy subject.
Now, unlike Tibet, Xinjiang can be freely visited by anyone with a Chinese tourist visa. Once you get your visa, you can just go there, no special permits or paperwork required. And lots of people do. It contains a number of fascinating tourist destinations, and Silk Road travellers go through there regularly. The Chinese ministry of tourism even promotes Silk Road tourism on its website and is running a “Beautiful China 2015 – Year Of Silk Road Tourism” campaign.
But — and here’s the kicker — even though there’s no official restriction and going to Xinjiang is totally legal, the Chinese embassy has an unofficial but fairly well-known habit of finding pretexts to systematically deny visas to people who say that they plan to travel there on their application.
Why would one branch of government deny visas to visit the very places being promoted by another branch of government? Because, Chinese Bureaucracy.
This put me in a bit of a quandary. China’s visa application requires a detailed itinerary supported by either confirmed hotel bookings or a letter of invitation from a tour company. I got my letter of invitation quite quickly, but it listed my real itinerary and all my stops and hotel stays on my route, including those in Turpan and Kashgar (both in Xinjiang province) as well as my internal flight via Urumqi (Xinjiang’s capital). Furthermore, my itinerary involves departing China overland, crossing into Kyrgyzstan and flying home at the end from Uzbekistan. China requires proof of onward travel in the form of a plane ticket out of China, and a route stating an intent to leave by land (via Xinjiang, no less) was going to be an issue.
I asked around for advice, and got a lot of conflicting information. My tour company told me that they’ve never heard of a Canadian having a problem using their LOI, and urged me to simply apply with it, since it’s really only independent travel to Xinjiang that the Chinese government has a problem with. A visa agent I consulted said no way, don’t even think about mentioning Xinjiang on your application, because, tour or no tour, it will be turned down.
Ultimately, I decided not to take the risk. Instead, I put Plan B into action: I sketched out an entirely different itinerary, one that involved just the “normal” tourist destinations of Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu and Shanghai. I made cancellable, pay-later bookings at hostels in each of those cities, and printed out the confirmations. I used Acrobat Editor to turn my one-way flight to Beijing into a convincing-looking round-trip ticket. And, most importantly, I submitted my application and passport before I applied for my Uzbekistan visa. China and Uzbekistan are on perfectly friendly terms, but an Uzbek visa in my passport dated the week after I leave China would have been a dead giveaway of my real route.
Did I feel comfortable about doing this? Not so much. But it worked. I got my nice, shiny visa in four business days, and nobody batted an eye. And once I enter China, I’m free to travel wherever I want. There’s no requirement to actually stick to the itinerary that I submitted in my application.
After all, if it’s totally legal for me to visit somewhere as a tourist, then it should be totally legal for me to state my intention to go there on a visa application. But, Chinese Bureaucracy.
Sometimes it’s better not to think about these things too hard.
Kyrgyzstan, my new favourite Stan
The ‘stan’ countries are notorious for causing visa headaches. All of them except one: Kyrgyzstan, which welcomes tourists from more than 40 countries — including Canada — completely visa-free for up to 60 days.
You’re my new favourite Stan, Kyrgyzstan, and not only because your name is so much fun to spell.
The Fortress Uzbekistan
Then, there’s Uzbekistan, a country that seems determined to prove that the Soviet Union is still around with its epic levels of restrictive bureaucracy. Uzbekistan was recently ranked #11 on a list of the world’s hardest countries to visit. Getting an Uzbek visa requires jumping through a gazillion hoops, to the point where you get the message that they really don’t want people to visit.
First, I needed to get a letter of invitation from my tour company’s local affiliate in Uzbekistan. To obtain this, I needed to send in all my information and also provide a letter of employment. The LOI had to specify the exact dates of my travel, and — the kicker — it needed to be signed by the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This took a nail-biting three weeks, during which time I wasn’t even letting myself believe I would actually get to go on this trip at all.
Then, once the LOI arrived, I had to apply for the visa itself. There’s no Uzbekistan embassy in Canada, so Canadians need to apply via Washington, DC. To help me with this process, I chose to use VisaHQ, an agency which has an office in Ottawa. I chose them partly because their pricing was competitive, and partly because they helpfully answered a bunch of questions for me even before I’d submitted anything or paid them a dime.
That turned out to be a good decision: I sent my documents to their Ottawa office, they forwarded them to Washington, prepared and submitted my application on my behalf, and got my visa back the next day — an almost unheard-of turnaround, considering the it was supposed to take a week and a half. I don’t know how they did it, but I’m certainly not complaining. My passport arrived back to me yesterday via FedEx, visa inside.
Fortress Uzbekistan: Unlocked. I guess this means I’m really going.
All visa’d up
So anyway, I now have both my visas with three weeks to spare. My route doesn’t take me through any other visa-requiring countries, which is probably a good thing because the other Central Asian visas are — if you can believe it — even more complicated to get than Uzbekistan’s.
I do look forward to a day when crossing borders is easier for everyone. Until then, though, it’s just part of the process. I’m glad the paperwork is taken care of, so now I can focus on looking forward to the trip.