Oh Hell With the Chinese Visa!

The train back to UB was definitely not the 'Trans-Mongolian' rail...it was more like a cheap Chinese knock-off of the Trans-Mongolian. Majority of the passengers were merchants transporting goods from China, in fact everyone in our car were vendors except for the three of us in the last cabin. At this point, I'm just glad to be on a train heading to UB...it's been a long day.

After all the craziness of trying to get back to UB this morning, I found out the Chinese Consular Office is only open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays...definitely not on Tuesdays. F*%K!


The Chinese Consular Office is open from 9:30 to 12 noon, and approved visas/passports can be picked up after 4PM for the same day service.

When I got to the entrance at 9am, there was a line of about 30 people deep...and I thought this was going to be a breeze. After waiting in line for almost 3 hours, I'm told that I do need a new visa and it would cost $140 for the visa plus $30 for the same-day service, and the officer didn't know if the 24-transit permit would allow me to leave the airport...what a waste of my time and energy. I decided not to apply for a new visa and just go directly to Vietnam, which meant I would have to pay a cancelation fee of one night for my hotel reservation (but this would be cheaper than paying for a new visa).

After all the crap, I'm not 100% sure if I can get a 24-hour transit permit at the Beijing Airport, but I took a chance and bought a ticket to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (departing from Beijing on August 18 and arriving on August 19). Oh shit, I had applied a visa to Vietnam for August 20 arrival, not August 19. I can't believe I just made another mistake! Well it was too late to make any changes, I needed to get on a plane to Beijing in few hours and to Vietnam within 24 hours. So far the best news was Hotel Kapok canceling my reservation without a charge...now that's customer service and why I would stay there again!

I must have been in some weird "let's live on the edge" mood because I was cutting everything close - a simple drive to the airport, which is only 18km from the city, became a nail biting journey as we were sitting in traffic for over 45 minutes (train crossing!) and I almost missed my flight. Luckily there was no line to check in and I was able to go through the security check without too much hassle, and had just enough time to pick up a bottle of 'chinggi'.

The moment of truth - I'm in Beijing. At the Customs desk, I found out that I can get a free 24-hour transit permit and I can leave the airport (again the Lonely Planet's information was wrong). I could have spent a nice night at Hotel Kapok and gotten back to the airport the following morning relaxed and refreshed, but now it's the airport lounge since I didn't have the hotel reservation anymore. 488RMB ($75) to use the airport lounge...WTF?!? The best/lowest rate for a hotel room near the airport quoted by the Tourist Information desk was 338RMB...for a shit room...WTF?!? With free transfers and supposedly free Internet, I decided to book a room at the hotel near the airport.

My top 3 reasons why airport hotels are suck - 1) it's over-priced for what you get (i.e., dirty, nasty, smelly room). 2) it's noisy from the planes flying over. 3) people who work at these hotel are never helpful. The hotel I stayed at didn't disappoint - the room was dirty and the bathroom smelled of urine, it's right on the take-off flight path, and the hotel employees were useless...oh and the Internet was "broken". Let's just say I didn't get much sleep!

Location:Zamiin Uud, Mongolia