Noooooooo, I am not at all angry at the French ambassy in Beijing... I can even give you their phone number : +86 10 85 32 80 80.
I can also give you their answer : "I'm sorry but there's nothing we can do". If you're lucky that might be "I'm sorry I am not sure but I think there's nothing we can do".

How come I know them so well?
Let's see, day by day, how you can totally mess up your so-well-planned trip...

Day 1 : Thursday
We arrived at Xi'an in the morning. I realise I don't have my passport. Oh I know!!! I think I left it in the drawer in our hotel in Shanghai... No problem! They'll find it and with UPS I can have it delivered in Beijing in 2 days...
Problem is after 5 phone calls and much ordering around... the hotel never found my passport anywhere.
1st call to the French ambassy : I have lost my passport, I will arrive on Saturday morning in Beijing... what do I do? Well they can have a new passport done in 30 minutes as I faxed them the copy of my old one. OOooooh even on Saturday? Oh gosh no I'm sorry not on Saturday. Come on Monday.
Well problem was the trans-mogolia leaves at 7AM on Monday. Not enough time....
Weel you can always come on Saturday as we have always somebody on call here for consulate matter. Maybe somebody can sign you passport but we can't garantee it. Just come as soon as you arrive. In the meantime go to the immigration office to declare your loss... and if you can jump on the next train today it would be better!!!

The Immigration never wanted to make that declaration because I was not sure I lost it in Xi'an. Whether go back to Shanghai or to Shenzhen, were you entered China....

No place in the train leaving today, can't take the plane without passport. I'll arrive in Beijing on Saturday. Nothing else I can do...

Day 2 : Friday
Lots of phone calls to get a plane, to be sure somebody can sign my passport but "we can be sure there will be somebody". So why is their Consulate on call officer??????

Day 3 : Saturday
I arrive in Beijing at 7AM... go to the immigration to report the loss of my passport... AGAIN. I wait a bit but still my story is about losing my passport at the train station at 7 and already being there at 9, it makes the lady police officer raise an eyebrow...
at 9:30 I got it and go to the Ambassy. No Miss, you are not an emergency.... come back on Monday.

Luckily, even if I can't take the train I got a plane at 3AM on Tuesday so I can still arrive even before Louis in the train.

Day 4 : Sunday
Nothing to do... enjoy Beijing

Day 5 : Monday
I run to the Ambassy, get my passport done, almost throw up looking at all these old creepy guys who speak English like a Spanish cow to an almost mute young Chinese girl tryning to get a marriage authorisation, a visa or whatever.

"Do you need a chinese visa?" asks the French girl at the Ambassy. "Oh nooooo. I leave tonight... I'll stay in China less than 24h" (you see I am from a country where we force people in planes so they get out of the country...) "Ah ok" she says....
I run to the Mongolian Ambassy. Get a rush visa.
At 5PM I got everything, as well as my plane ticket for tonight.
I go the airport and say bye to the guys.
Get to the airport, check-in, go to the boarder control... "why don't you have a visa?" "Because I lost my passport, this one was made this morning, here is the copy of my original visa..." "wait a minute" she says...

And here starts 2hours of talks and negotiation. The thing is, I guess, if they had a clear procedure and had told me straight away "we can't let you out, you need a new visa" I would have been less angry.
But there it seemed they were delibarating for hours and finally, looking at me, thought "ok you can't get through".
I call the ambassy... "Sorry there's nothing we can do..."

So after hours of negotiation and depression, I am not allowed in the plane, they give me my bag back. It's 4AM and I am at the airport, not even with an address because I left my travel guide at the Hostel, I thought I wouldn't need it anymore.

The Next week :
back to the immigration, I still have hope I can get a rush visa, be 1 day late. I would miss the Naadam Festival but I still have 2 weeks in Mongolia.
The officer tells me they don't do rush... A visa takes 1 week. Then the other one tells me "No no... ask him if you want quicker". I ask again and the guy starts screaming at me... Most pleasant!
So I call the Ambassy again, I had not gave up on them yet... I get the girl who did my passport and talks to me as if I was the last idiot on earth not to know I need a visa to get out (you could have told me before bitch, not as if you didn't know I was suppose to leave the same day). So anyway, do they have any leverage on the speed of the visa? Is there any case when they could speed that up? "Sorry, there's nothing we can do"

The immigration gives me my receipt for the next Tuesday. I haven't slept in 48h... evrything is cool!!!! I have to go and register at the police station next to my hotel.

So there I go; and they send me to another immigration sub-branch, who doen't know why I am coming to register. They don't do it.
So I call the ambassy again. They might know what a French citizen waiting for a visa has to do with the local authorities because there is no way the next Tuesday the immigration tells me I can't get my visa because I didn't do some stupid registering somewhere. "Sorry we don't know this kind of things, but we know Chinese officers are a pain in the ass..." Thanks for the help!!!

But if I have trouble the next Tuesday I can call them. I guess so they can tell me again there's nothing they can do...

I got my visa the next Tuesday, got on my plane for HK with 1h30 delay, almost missed the connection to Taipei. Lucky I got it otherwise the next plane was at 11PM instead of 5PM.
I am here in Taipei, and Louis just told me he forgot his camera in the Jeep, with all his picture of Mongolia...
I can access blogger in china, no censure, no problem... I just can't access my blog page... How surprising...
As I had to admit my blog is not the most read on the internet, so I decided that this story would be written in French so at least the few persons who check my blog could read... thanks Dad...

Ah j'en etait fiere de mon organisation. Les billets de train etaient prets et achetes. J'avais meme pense que nous arriverions a la gare de Shenzhen un dimanche et qu'il fallait donc s'organiser avec l'agence. J'avais le numero de portable du responsable du CITS (China International Travel Service, l'agence nationale pour les etrangers) qui devait nous retrouver a la gare pour nous donner des billets.

Nous arrivons donc a Shenzhen plein d'espoir, trouvons une cabine et appelons... mauvais numero. Nous esayons avec "0", sans "0", avec tous les indicatifs de pays, de regions et de quartiers possible et imaginables sans succes. Nous voila bloques a la gare avec notre train qui part dans une heure et pas de billets... et pas de place disponible dans aucun train qui part aujourd'hui sauf les plus cheres.

Mark va chercher de l'argent au ATM, je commence a parlementer avec les employer de chemin de fer pour avoir le roit de monter dans le train et d'acceder a nos places meme si nous n'avons pas nos billets. On appelle le monsieur de l'agence par les haut-parleurs de la gare sans succes.
Alors que nous attendions qu'il se montre mais sans grand espoir, Anneleen et Robbert entrent dans la gare. Et une fois de plus Anneleen nous sauve la vie (puisqu'elle parle chinois) et nous sommes autorises a monter dans le train. Nous pensions avoir nos couchettes mais en fait nous entrons et payons 4 nouveaux billets STANDING.

Standing cela veut dire que pendant 17h on est soit debout, soit assis par terre avec 50 personnes dans la meme situation. Nous ne sommes pas au top mais enfin au moins on est dans le train.
Je commence a avancer dans le wagon pour trouver un peu plus de place au milieu des sieges du milieu, je fais ma petite impression: une blache dans un wagon assis dur qui envisage de rester debout pendant 17h avec un enorme sac de 15kg sur le dos.

Et Louis m'appelle et me dit " Mark et Hugo sont descendus". Pourquoi? Nous sommes montes dans le train au dernier moment!
Hugo s'etait rendu compte qu'il n'avait plus son sac a dos et est donc sorti en courant le chercher, Mark l'a suivi et les portes du train se sont fermes aussitot.

Bon eh bien le train commence a bouger alors autant chercher ou nous allons nous installer! Bien sur l'employe de la compagnie nous a repere et s'empresse de faire enlever tous les sacs sur les compartiments superieur pour que Louis et moi puissions poser les notres.

Sur ce un autre employe arrive, parle avec le notre et nous dit de le suivre. IL A NOS 4 BILLETS COUCHETTES! La deuxieme employee parle un peu anglais et nous installe dans notre compartiment puis nous demande de la suivre dans le wagon restaurant ou nous rencontrons le chef de la securite, la caissiere/controleuse et quelques autres employes de passage qui se demandent comment nous avons pu faire: voici 2 etrangers avec 4 billets couchettes + 4 billets standing...

Elle nous explique qu'il faudra demander au CITS de rembourser les 2 couchettes et a la gare de Shanghai de rembourser les standings. Mais Louis et moi n'avons pas d'argent du tout alors nous y allons avec la corde sensible des chinois : nous n'avons pas d'argent pour manger, il nous faudrait un remboursement d'au moins quelques billets maintenant.

1h de parlementation et negociation plus tard avec en moyenne 7 agents de passage, on nous recommande de vendre en cachette nos billets couchette a des passagers puis de les retrouver a la prochaine gare pour revendre nos billets standing.
Nous choisissons 2 gentilles jeunes filles trop heureuses de nous acheter nos 2 billets pour 400Yuan... c'est toujours ca de pris!

A la gare suivante nous rejoignong notre amie qui parle anglais et les controleuses. Encore une fois nous faisons l'animation : 4 controleuses et 2 etrangers qui traversent toutes les voitures de 2nde classe en essayant de ne marcher sur personne.
Et une fois arrives au bout on repart "Controle des billets, qui n'a pas de billets' (en chinois of course). Nos billets avaient coute 238Yuan chacun mais comme nous etions a la gare suivante un standing pour Shanghai ne coutait plus que 205Yuan. Chaque passager sans billets voyait la controleuse demander aux 2 etranger si 203 suffisait car celui-ci s'arretait avant Shanghai, puis demander l'argent pour nous le donner en echange de nos billets.
Du racket par les touristes!

Finalement avec l'aide du personnel, Louis et moi nous retrouvions a la tete de 1269Yuan soit plus de 120EUR, alors la c'est sur nous n'allions pas mourir de faim! Les couchettes etaient tres confortables et nos 2 voisines tres silencieuses, Mark & Hugo quant a eux ont passe le nuit a Shenzhen et arrivent demain.
So we left at 5AM on Friday morning. Of course once again I forgot to set up my alarm clock so it is the taxi driver who woke me up at 4:50AM. Luckily my backpack was finished, after 3 days of trial-packing.
We took our plane at 8AM as planned and arrived in Macau and got directly to have our visas for China made.

Then we got to our great hotel. We started with a 3 stars Best Western. Let me introduce my fellow travellers:

Mark

Hugo & Louis

We went for a walk in the old Macau, it was raining if course but it's not as if it was anything new...

Then we went back to our hotel for a little nap to be ready for the dog race at 8PM. Well it was actually only one race but still funny.
Diner at a cantonese place on the Largo de Senado (the plaza with black & white pavement). And after that, of course: Black Jack. I like it really. We ewnt to the Wynn Casino, one of the most luxurious. I lost 15EUR... loser... but the guys won some money.
The next day was Hong-Kong day. We needed a little time getting started as Louis & I had forgotten our passports at the hotel so Hugo & Mark took the Jet ferry first and then we met in Hong-Kong.

Once again a little stroll in the city under the rain. A little beer in Lang Kuai Fang and then Indian diner in the wierdest place on Kowloon. A kind of Indian cover market with a little restaurant at the 7th floor in an aprtment written "members only". I guessed that you had to be member to find the place anyway.

After diner we went on the bank to watch the lighting of the buidings on the other side of the river on Hong-Kong Island. It is amazing, more than 10 buildings light up togetherfor the music & light show.
Powered by Blogger.