The Failure of Sycophancy

Following my last post the other day (below) I rolled the Chinese visa dice one more desperate throw, sending this grovelling missive to my contact at the official tourist agency:

Oh no this is really terrible news!  So I am not welcome or wanted at all anywhere in China?  I am greatly saddened, many friends here who have visited China have told me about the wonderful welcome I can expect in your country.  I wonder why the authorities are so worried about a man on a bike wanting to visit your beautiful country and discover your culture and language and food and famed hospitality.  I have already invested much time and money in planning to visit your country, I have been trying to learn some basic Chinese, and I have been really looking forward to the China experience.  I am a harmless tourist wanting to visit your land by the world's most eco-friendly vehicle, ubiquitous in China, the humble bicycle, so I will cause no pollution in your country.  I will spend money and help your economy, and I never drop any litter so there will be no trace of my passage other than some happy memories left with people that I will meet along the route.  This is a very sad day for me.  Is there really nothing else that you or anyone else can do to help me realise my dream to cycle across China which I have cherished for ten years?

The reply was not long coming:

As I said before in Xinjiang we only can get the invitation letter from the tourism bureau for the normal tourists that we are going to receive. My partners in Gansu also say the same. So I am sorry again that I can do nothing for your visa in this case. Some people say maybe you can try the business visa. Good luck.

I think my chances of getting a business visa are vanishingly small, though I have asked my visa agency Scott's to look into it.  They brought further bad news yesterday: the Belarus Embassy also rejected my visa application - because I did not have a hotel booking.  So I booked a hotel.  Today they rejected it again - now they want a signed letter from the hotel manager to confirm the booking.  I've written to the manager to ask for that.  I wonder what they will want tomorrow?

One month to go, so much to do

I'm off on my world cruise one month today, I can scarcely believe it!  Here's what's keeping me busy at the moment:

• Visa for China Plan A: I have come to accept that this has failed and I cannot cross the border by bike from Kazakhstan into Xinjiang, China (see earlier posts). Hugely disappointing but SFA I can do about it.
• Visa for China Plan B: I'm trying now for a special visa to train or fly from Almaty (Kazakhstan) into Gansu, in central China.  I still need a Letter of Invitation from the official tourist bureau there, if I can get that then I will go along to their Embassy in London with it and my passport and visa application form and fees and crossed fingers... Thanks are due to my MP Stephen Hammond who found me an excellent contact in the Foreign Office to help with this.
• Visa for China Plan C: give up and fly from Almaty to Hanoi or Bangkok.
• Visa for Belarus: I am applying for this today so that if Ukraine still looks on the brink of WW3 I can give it a wide berth.
• Vaccinations: the programme is well underway, I'm seeing the nurse every Friday and getting everything I need which is quite a long list and too boring to write down here. I had a sore arm last week but did not feel ill.
• Buy more kit: it's difficult squaring this with the objective to carry less than I did last year around the Baltic.  Recent purchases have included a mossie net, sterile medical kit, dog whistle, money belt, stuff sacks, brake pads, zip ties and duck tape.
• Get some miles in my legs: fulfilled by the daily commute and a Kingston Wheeler club run or 200k audax most weekends.
• Read the stack of guide books that I have borrowed from libraries around London - the inter-library loan system is brilliant!
• Handover work to colleague at LB Hammersmith& Fulham as we head towards final day on 28th March - they're planning a leaving party for me that day (even though I told them I am planning to come back...)

In any spare time  remaining I'm enjoying following the progress of the riders in this year's World Cycle Race.  I went to watch the start on Saturday 1st March and rode the prologue with them from Marble Arch to Greenwich where we waved them off at around 12:20.  It's early days but none of them yet look to be any kind of threat to Alan Bate's 127-day Guinness World Record or Mike Hall's spectacular 107-day win of the 2012 WCR which I do hope he will get ratified with Guinness one day.

Ride to Harwich Anyone?

I'm setting off on Saturday 5th April at noon from BikeFix in Lambs Conduit Street.  If you can manage 125km - about 70 miles - at gentleman's pace then you can join me on the ride to Harwich for dinner, possibly in the Samuel Pepys (we are researching this, recommendations welcome). Thence choice of ferry to Holland at 23:15, last train back to London at 22:28, or find lodgings and ride home via some nice quiet Essex/Suffolk lanes on the Sunday.

Special Circumstances in Xinjiang

The project has hit a rather large bump in the road: due to “special circumstances in Xinjiang” my contact in China is unable to obtain the invitation letter I need to get my visa.  I'm told that if the China Tourist Service in Xinjiang is unable to obtain the letter, it is unlikely that any other agent will be able to obtain the letter, and therefore crossing the border into Xinjiang "may prove impossible at this point in time".  This, I am told, "would have been a high level decision, which also means that it is unlikely that there will be a later change of heart."

Definitely not the best news of the day.

The maps are back out. China is now a big obstacle between Kazakhstan and Vietnam. Suggestions welcome!

Ukraine in Crisis / Chinese visa / Donations to RoadPeace

As I write, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders have just signed a deal leading to an early presidential poll before the end of the year, and hopefully putting an end to the terrible toll of recent days as the country looked on the brink of civil war.  Hopefully things will be back on a more even keel by mid-April when I am planning to pass through, and the FCO will no longer be advising against all but essential travel... but I do have a Belarus visa application form ready just in case I need to re-plan my route.

I've still not got my Chinese visa, but am making progress and now in touch with people in China who can get me the invitation letter I need, once I have answered all their questions, which seem to keep coming on an almost daily basis.  Not sure why they are apparently quite so worried about a harmless bicycle traveller, ho hum.

Donations to RoadPeace are steadily trickling in now and I have set a target of £5,000 - can you help me reach 10% of that target before I leave?  Click here to sponsor me if you can please!

China, please let me in!

So the days are getting longer, the 5th of April looms larger, and the red tape of visa bureaucracy grips ever tighter.  I only need five visas; on the bright side there's been no trouble at the Vietnamese, Russian or Kazakh embassies, and I should be able to pick up the visa for Laos en route at their embassy in Hanoi.  The Chinese visa however is proving more problematic.

Unlike most tourists, I'm not flying into China, nor do I have any hotels booked. So their embassy in London has asked me to obtain an authorisation letter from the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) in the district I enter China, which is Xinjiang Province, and without this letter of approval the embassy will not accept my visa application.

Googling CNTA Xinjiang got me to this page full of contacts, which looked hopeful but most of my emails bounced back with bad addresses and none of the others have sent any reply.  Two visa agencies in London have not yet found a solution, my hopes are currently pinned on the China Travel Service on Euston Road.

Helpful suggestions welcome!

Around the world in 142 GPX files

The RTW route is planned - 142 GPX (satnav) files are loaded onto the garmin and beckoning to me: Go East Young Man!  It feels like I have spent every spare minute since my visit to Stanfords Map Shop back in September poring over the pile of maps I came out with.  It's been a sobering and sometimes scary exercise.  I'm probably most anxious about China.

I've Google Streetviewed my way across the deserts, plains and mountains of the globe and found advice and tips from a host of fascinating cycle touring blogs and sites like www.warmshowers.org - there's no shortage of info out there!

I've purchased bike bits and tools, clothes and kit, serviced the bike, got air ticket advice, done a bike box test, set up the RoadPeace charity page, sorted the business cards, made warmshowers friends around the globe, opened a youtube account...

Still to do: build a new back wheel, get visas, get jabs, get new phone, insurance, learn Chinese, pack my panniers, weigh them, unpack jettison and repack until weight halved...

Frankly it will be a relief to get going on April 5th.  Planning a noon departure from BikeFix in Lambs Conduit Street.  Anyone fancy joining me on the ride to Harwich for dinner in the Samuel Pepys?  My ferry to Holland at 23:15; last train back to London at 22:28.