Well the news from here is I have been refused my China visa. There has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes, a lot of people like Tey passing on contacts to friends in China who kindly issued invite letters. Also thanks to certain other very helpful people who I know would rather not be mentioned here. I say refused, not really they never say no, just give the run around and ask people who are running across their wonderful country to provide an accommodation confirmation slip for each night of the run!

So you see this is the way of refusing a visa without actually saying no. Last week I read an article where the USA and China have bilateral tourist visa agreements. While the US was abiding by the agreement the Chinese have to be constantly reminded of their part of the agreement for they were reneging on it.

I rarely use the word ‘impossible’ but some things are because even a millionaire would not be able to book places online,  besides many westerners I have met on the run have told me they are often refused accommodation in hotels.  I have been told the hotels have to register them, so they just would rather do without the business.

It was very complicated even if I was successful as they have tightened up a lot in China, issuing mostly 30 day visas so I would have to leave and come back after say 27 so as not to overstay as I would need travel time in and out. Foreigners are not allowed to use GPS devices, including my Spot. They are also forbidden to drive their own vehicles without a guide costing around $10,000/$20,000 for a car crossing.

Motorcyclists that want to cross wait till they have a large group and split the cost.

In the Australian Outback a German woman gave me a book by an Australian ABC radio presenter who drove from Sydney to Paris. I had been joking to my support driver there, Michael Gillan that he could get his car on a ferry to Indonesia and crew me from there through South East Asia and across China. (Bet he is delighted he didn’t after reading the Indo blog!)

Well he never refused, we joked that shopping in China would be easy, just a 50kg bag of rice and some tea, for Michael usually never got enough supplies!

Then we read the book and that was the end of that conversation. The book was called ‘ From Here To There ‘

Michael if you are reading this what was that guys name? He actually drove it with his teenage son whose music drove him nuts in the car all the way across Asia!

I was also informed that there would be areas I would need ‘special permits ‘ for and there was still a big danger they would pull me off the road as the Chinese authorities are a pretty humorless bunch. After there it was more visa hassle with Kazakhstan and then Russia.

Some of the readers to the blog may remember Alexander the Swiss skater I met several times in Patagonia this time last year. Well we discussed this and his reply was…

” I wont go to those countries, after all you wouldn’t beg an old girlfriend to have you back if she didn’t want to be with you, would you!? ”

Well I have done that, but never again!

So the new route, plan B ready to go at the drop of a hat and yet there are many that say I don’t prepare and would surely die in Australia. Yes I had a chuckle there when I touched the ocean in Darwin with a record crossing time across Australia, south to north.

The new route will be Thailand to Myanmar formerly known as Burma. I got my Myanmar 28 day visa today in only 5 hours. Many people like my great friend and seasoned world traveler Greg Havely knows of the difficulties of previously visiting Burma as it was then, almost entirely closed off to the west except for a 7 day stopover which could be had in the capital Rangoon with special almost impossible to get permits need for other travel.

Well he will tell you himself as I asked him to help me with this Plan B over a year ago… It gradually bit by bit it got easier because when we started discussing it, it was still not possible to cross from Thailand to Myanmar but there was a 28 day VOA, Visa On Arrival at a couple of airports. So the best option was to run to the border double back to Bangkok fly to Yangon and return to the same border but on the Myanmar side missing just a small piece of the route in a so called ‘no mans land’  which would be the first land gap on the run. Then I heard of a border town that allowed 4 hour day trips from Thailand and considered taking it to finish a day at some marker to finish that day and then returning to that same spot in the Myanmar village after a VOA flight there for at that time there was no VOA at the land borders.

To digress I had considered making a so called ‘visa run ‘ to that Myanmar day border crossing as the Thai land border crossing are only 15 day visas (30  days at airports) So that’s why I got the 60 day visa at the Thai embassy in Singapore. I ran by that village used for the day trips and visa runs  last week.

15 days would not have been enough time or me to get to Bangkok to make that visa run to get the extra month I require.

To be honest it is unclear about any remaining restrictive areas, I could be pulled off the road, but all I can do is live in hope as there is no template here. Today at the embassy there was a sign listing 4 new opened Thai/Myanmar border crossings, so you see, there is so much to keep up in an ever changing and bureaucratic world. That’s why I asked Greg to help me with this plan B last year, thanks Greg, Great work.

I could add a lot more now.. Lets just say it was suggested we approach a certain International Organisation for help. But I declined as I didn’t want to be seen to be jumping on the bandwagon.. Readers would be astonished by that one, we gotta keep a bit of interest for the book!

No I am not talking about the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, they let me down, Ah yes, great Irish support!

From Myanmar to India. I am in the process of applying for the Indian visa now, perhaps this posting is a little premature. It would be smarter to wait till I had my visa in hand but I would not expect this one to be refused although it is much to my surprise no piece of cake and some very strange questions were asked on the form.

From India to Pakistan. This visa is possible but is necessary to apply in ones own country, so a bit of hassle there. It may be possible to courier my passport to a visa agent in Dublin and perhaps get the Iranian one also at the same time. Next up will be Turkey, a country with aspirations to join the European Union and we still need a visa but not a worry just a surprise.

This means that my eastern European route will change radically as I wont be running into Europe from Russia to the Ukraine as planned.

Press HERE for my most likely new route from Bangkok to Calais,France. From there I plan to cross on the ferry to Dover,England run to Scotland, ferry to Northern Ireland and then a little tour around Ireland

To be honest I could probably do the rest of the run as I have been with a small backpack as its going to be chilly and nothing like the cold Siberian winter I was facing. And closer villages and towns.

So now I got all my cold weather clothes,sleeping bag etc and don’t really need them! Ah yes, always a problem.

Many thanks to my great hosts here Danny and Sookie, his South Korean wife for their wonderful hospitality an helping me with the Indian online visa application as I made a mess of it.

Also to Danny’s personal assistant a very helpful woman called Cake who made many phone calls, printed my print outs and translated my addresses into the Thai script for the taxi drivers to read

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013 at 4:54 pm and is filed under jogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.