Visas

Australian Emergency Passports
Are issued so that you can return home!
They have 6 pages for visas and 7 months before expiry and not designed for continued travel.
When I advised the Australian Embassy in Moscow that I wanted to continue with my original itinerary to Mongolia, China, Tibet and Thailand before returning to Australia and they were surprised and had not heard of anyone getting extra visas and traveling other than returning home.
According to them I was only supposed to get the new Russian visa so that I could exit the country then go back to Australia.


Getting new visas for my planned travel was quite a challenge.


Russian Visa:
I went to the Russian Federation office with Ana my Russian translator and she completed all the forms for the visa.
It would not be possible to complete the forms without the aid of a translator to assist you.
Once the forms were completed I had to then pay for the application in a bank that was about 500 m away then return to the Russian Federation office to show them the payment so that they could progress the request.
Each time in the Russian Federation you may have to wait in a queue which is long and slow.
I was fortunate that I arrived at 3 pm on Friday afternoon and managed to complete the forms and payment prior to the office closing at 4 pm, I suspect it is not normally that quick.
I had electronic copies of all documents and visa which was extremely helpful.
My original visa expiry date was the following Wednesday and I had to keep to the original departure date otherwise that may cause extra problems.
I was advised to return on the Tuesday to collect my new visa and I was able to keep my passport.
I returned early on the Tuesday morning so that I could be the first in the queue.
When the counter opened at 9 pm and I presented my passport the woman then started talking in Russian ... I had no idea what she was saying as I no longer had my translator to assist me. She eventually wrote down 14:00 and I assumed that she meant for me to come back after lunch at 2 pm.
That started getting me worried and wondering if I would receive my visa today.
I arrived back early again and managed to get to the front of the queue again and when the counter eventually opened at 14:15 and I presented my passport again and this time she had a visa for me.
Now I could book a flight out of the country.
There is an extra immigration departure card that you have to complete on arrival, that is supposed to be presented to passport control when you leave but this card was lost with my passport.
I was lucky that the person at the airport did not ask me for this card.

Original Russian Visa

Emergency Passport Russian Visa

Mongolian Visa:
This was the easiest of all visas and it was a pleasure to visit the Mongolian Consulate in Moscow.
When I first lost my passport and visas I returned to the Mongolian Consulate to check if I had lost it in their office.
When I could not find my documents the woman behind the counter said that if I returned with a Emergency Passport that they would just give me a new Visa without the need to submit any more documents.
Lucky for me that when applying for a new Russian visa that they let me keep my passport.
On the Monday afternoon I returned to the Mongolian Consulate and was reissued a new Mongolian Visa ... what a pleasure to receive it so easy.
So now I had an Emergency Passport with a Mongolian visa so once I received my Russian visa the next day could continue to the Eagle Festival tour that had been booked in Ulgii Western Mongolia.

Emergency Passport Mongolian Visa

Chinese Visa - Russia and Mongolia:
This was the hardest Visa to get a replacement for and was complicated.
The Chinese Embassy in Moscow was far too big and my online research suggested that the queues were long. I went to the Chinese Embassy in Moscow but soon realized that it was going to be too difficult to get my visa from Russia knowing I had limited time on my Russian visa.
My next opportunity to get a Chinese visa was in Mongolia.
But there were two problems in Mongolia.
First is that I needed to keep my passport with me for the internal flights and travel and when I did return to Ulaan Baatar the Chinese Embassy was closed for holidays.
The second issue is that I would be unlikely to get a new visa as the rules changed in Sept 2016 and they were no longer issuing Chinese Visas.
The owner at the hostel where we were staying said there were many tourist that arrived from a Trans Siberia and Trans Mongolia trips that were wanting to continue to China but were all rejected.
So what to do ...
I already had booked tickets for the Trans Mongolian train from UB to Beijing.
But the problem would be at the border crossing ... I was thinking that I could show them my old visa and ask if they could use the information from it for my entry.
I am quite glad in hindsight that I did not go through with this option.
The second option was that I fly to Beijing and either ask them for entry based on my old visa or request a 72 hr transit visa since I would book a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong.
I could just cancel the flight to HK if I was able to get entry based on my old visa.
As soon as I got to the immigration counter at Beijing I showed them the copy I had of the old visa.
They ask me to stand to the side while they called an airline representative.
About an hour later a representative arrived and advised me that they were wanting to deport me back to Mongolia.
I showed him my onward ticket to HK and said that if I couldn't get the 30 day visa then I could apply for the 72 hr transit visa.
The airline had made a mistake and not documented my onward flight to HK.
I eventually was allowed to go to the 72 hr transit line but when I submitted my passport that caused a lot of issues and many people were involved in the eventual approval of the 72 hr visa.
The Mongolian airline representative said that I should not be traveling on my Emergency Passport and that I should only be going home back to Australia.
He took photos of my passport and visas and I was now on my way to join the others for a couple of days until my departure to Hong Kong.

China 72 hr Transit Visa

Chinese Visa - Hong Kong:
I arrived in Hong Kong and at this stage did not know where I was going to next.
Lucky that I do not need an onward ticket.
I had a couple of options ...
To apply for a visa back to China so that I could complete my original itinerary with the others through China and on to Tibet.
If a new China visa was not possible I would just go direct to Thailand.
As soon as I arrived in HK airport I went to the booth where you could apply for a China visa.
I arrived at 1 pm and after the application was completed they advised me to return at 7 pm.
The fee was quite expensive but they advised that I would be refunded the payment if my application was not successful.
I returned at 7 pm and had the great news that my Chinese visa application was successful.

Emergency Passport China Visa

Tibet Visa:

The Tibet Visa was given to me by the tour operator but did require an update of the passport number. The Passport number was only updated manually on the documentation we received which caused a problem when trying to get on the train in Chengdu to go to Lhasa.

Tibet Visa

Tibet Visa

Thailand Visa:
I arrived in Bangkok from Chengdu without any issue.
Australian Citizens do not require a visa if they will be staying for less than 30 days however I was worried that there was only 5 months of validity on my passport.
But I passed through immigration without any issues.


Singapore Visa:
When I arrived in Singapore from Bangkok there were no issues and passing through the immigration was a breeze even though when I bought my ticket the airline had a lot of concerns.

Thailand and Singapore Visas

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