vizazista.info

According to the Fly China visa service... (I'm going to be using their service to get my visa) the consulate does not grant 12-month multiple entry X visas. But everywhere on the internet I am seeing that they do. Does anyone have recent experience with this, that they could confirm?

Has anyone had experience with Fly China's visa service? Is there a better one you would recommend?



Also, for the sake of not making a second topic... I saw a "记者随身携带器材申报表/Equipment Declaration Form" on the consulate website. Do I need to claim every belonging I bring? All I will probably be bringing with any value are my cell phone, laptop, PS3, Wii, digital camera... Do I claim these on this form? The limitation before being taxed on DVDs is a count of 100, right? Do video game discs count in this? Not that I have a lot of games I will be bringing, but I do have a good number of DVDs, so I will have to slim down the carrying case.


So much to take care of, so little time remaining until September... Thanks as always for all the help! Cheers

Johnny Ward of OneStep4Ward.com shares the story of when he and two mates hitched a ride with a Chinese cargo boat for a whole week.

Written by Johnny Ward Photo Johnny Ward

Now I was settled in Chiang Mai, Christmas came around and I had some time off from teaching so my two housemates (Max and Swede) decided to do a little hardcore backpacking… my first real adventure…

I wanted to go to China all my life but on 25,000 Baht per month teaching salary I couldn’t afford to fly from BKK to Beijing so another route must be found! I looked at a map and saw that the Mekong river runs from a little town in Thailand called Chaeng Saen and then the river ‘becomes’ the border between Burma (Myanmar) and Laos as it runs north until it reaches the Yunan province in Thailand. I hatched a plan.

“Right boys, I know how we can get to China and not spend shit loads of money.” – Me

“Awesome, hows that?” – Max

“We’re gonna hitch a ride on a Chinese cargo boat from some random town in Northern Thailand and get off on the first port in China.” – Me again

“Oh shit…” – Swede

And so we got our ‘plan’ underway. Quick trip to the embassy to get our Chinese visas, surprisingly easy but this was 2007 (i.e pre-olympics, so no forged documents needed for this trip to China, we saved that one for the next trip to China), a week later we were set.

Bags packed – Check

Chinese Visa – Check.

The vaguest idea of what we actually do when we get to Chiang Saen – SHIT

And we left early in the morning, got a public bus from Chiang Mai bus station to Chiang Saen near the golden triangle and 8 hours later we were at the skanky port town of Chiang Saen. We found the cheapest accommodation possible (around 100 Baht) and hit the sack. Next morning, we grabbed a tuk-tuk and got him to take us to the port where the real fun was about to start…

By this point I had been in Thailand for about 9 months and I had been studying Thai for about 4 of those so I could get by if and when I needed, and right now I needed, and needed and needed! We managed to discover that the boats were heading to China (result!) and that some of them were leaving today (another result!) and that the entire crew of every boat were Chinese, spoke zero English and pigeon Thai (not such a good result!) but we had come this far, so we gave it a crack.