|
How long does (tourist) visa issuance tend to take? Does it cause problems/delays if you've been to Taiwan before? There are ROC stamps in my current passport, so definitely no avoiding them knowing. I see there's a Past Travel section in the application, but annoyingly I can't see what's in it without filling in everything else first, which I don't really want to do until I have a better sense of whether I'm going to do this trip. (got laid off, want to head over on short enough notice that I'm not staying out of work for months waiting for approval) Also, I'm the kind of person that likes the unusual, distinct or remote regions of countries (I made it to Greenland before Denmark proper, included Christmas Island on my Australia tour, etc). I am guessing it would be frowned upon for an American to say I want to check out Tibet and Xinjiang... Is it even worth looking for a place that will host a foreigner in either of those places? Are there any other similarly distinct but less sensitive parts of the country you could recommend? Alternatively, seems like Hainan has their visa-on-arrival thing going again. Might consider going to a different SE Asian country, but dropping in there for a bit. Is there anything interesting there, or is it VoA precisely because it's a blandly anodyne tourist park full of carefully managed money-extracting bullshit?
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2024 00:56
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 3, 2024 03:27 |
|
|
Thanks, all! Good to know to maybe not let on I'm between jobs. But 10 days' processing even with a past criminal charge means this should probably be quite doable on a month's notice! I probably will get a guide for a fair portion of the trip, possibly the whole thing outside of the top-tier cities, as long as it's not exorbitant. I don't know any Chinese, and presumably can't learn too much in the next six weeks (although I'll give a solid try) so I expect outside the major cities (and maybe often within?) I'd start having trouble accomplishing anything complex. Any suggestions on where to search for one? Hainan sounds like a skip since I don't really do beaches. Atopian posted:Can recommend the Kunming-Dali-Lijiang-Deqen run, with Deqen (Shangri-La) being decidedly Tibetan-looking. Eminent DNS posted:edit: also these places are cool there But Yunnan was already on the list of regions I'd like to see, so I'll make a note of that route and those spots! I will probably try to get permission to go to Tibet, as I kinda want to ride the Himalayan train and also would like to see Potala Palace, but it's nice to know the culture has spread further than just the official region so I can enjoy a piping hot cup of butter regardless of whether I make it all the way up there.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 20, 2024 07:44
|
|
|
A friend ended up inviting me to spend a couple weeks with her in Nepal instead, so I won't need to figure all this out just yet. But I do want to do China and I've made a note of all the suggestions, so thank you all!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2024 17:13
|
|