There was a little setback when we discovered that in order to get visas to China and Vietnam one needs to have hotel bookings for the whole traveling period. Well bookings are fine I guess, one can always cancel them. BUT due to the Olympic games it is not possible to book a hotel - one has to purchase the hotel up front :( Initially we got misleading information that this rule applies to whole China, luckily that was not the case and this restriction applies only to Beijing. So, I turned to my contact person in travel agency to get offers for hotels in Beijing as this is the first destination and it would be good to have hotel at least for the first night figured out. The cheapest offer we got for the hotel was 4000EEK (406USD/255EUR) per night :( and all the rest were way above that! Despair.
Started to go through all the forums and traveling tips on China that I could get my hands on. In quite many places it was suggested to use CTrip.com and so I tried this. And that worked like a charm - or so I think for now at least. I registered, found a hotel in central Beijing for 88USD (so 867EEK/55EUR) per night. Took the hotel for 3 nights and did the prepayment using VISA. It is probably not the best hotel ever, but it should do. And hopefully the booking will hold just fine and no misunderstandings will appear once at the spot.
All other bookings were made (will be cancelled once we have the visas) so visa applications could be sent in. Now the visa applications were not the easiest task either - lots of paperwork. Applications + pics + passports + very formal and specific guarantee letter from an employer where your income is stated and guarantee is given that your position will be there once you return and so on and so on. Oh uh. But all got done.
And today I received an e-mail that we got Vietnam visas!!! Now the documents go in for China visas :)
6 weeks and 1,5 days to go!!
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