Traveling from the edges of Kyrgyzstan to the western frontier of China is for those looking for beautiful scenery and unique experiences. Flying is just too easy. But, be aware. There is a mental and physical price to pay. Many foreign passport holders are still required to hire a private escort to take them through the area south of the border and then on to Kashgar, The journey usually requires a long wait at the top of a chilly mountain and a possibility that a truck full of uranium could be sitting next to your car the whole time. Start the journey from Naryn before dawn, bring some snacks, maybe a face mask and a whole lot of patience. Border guards usually have no knowledge about what’s going on and take a large break at lunch time. Remember, this border is primarily used for shipping goods back and forth between the two countries. No warm welcome here.
Of course, there are rewards to all the aches and pains. Endless views of barren pastures featuring packs of wandering wild horses, playful yaks, remains of ancient Caravanserai’s and occasional sightings of a local family packing up their yurt as the sun comes up. This is probably one of the best ways to experience this part of the ancient Silk Road. Now, it’s really all about the journey.
The American University of Central Asia is housed next to a phantom shadow of the Lenin. Its main building was once headquarters the Kyrgyz’s communist party and supreme council. Eager students here study journalism, law and politics as the larger than life Lenin statue looks on with disapproval.
Kumamoto-Jo Castle in Kyushu – JapanMt. Aso – Kyushu
Japan will always be on the top of my travel list. June was spent traveling around the southern parts of Japan. Previous visits were short, but we now had the ability to spend as much time as we liked or could afford on the weak USD. We started in Osaka since a couple of friends were getting married in May on Lake Biwako near Kyoto. After that, we grabbed a Peach Airlines Flight to southern island of Kyushu and spent a couple of weeks hopping around the volcanic island. We ended up just skirting the usually wet rainy season they experienced just a few days after we flew to Tokyo.
We ended the Japan trip in Tokyo. We decided to rent out a service apartment in the Shinjuku. Here, we planned out our upcoming Fall trip and sorted out most of our visas to the “Stans” of Central Asia, spent our days hanging out with friends, enjoying the city, local food and the luxury of having access to real high-speed internet.
Departing Gate at the Narita Airport – TokyoArrival Gate at the Beijing Airport
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Bumpy ride to Beijing!
It’s been a few years since I have experienced one of those flights that makes you swear you will never fly again. We landed after the pilot decided to head straight through a storm that was heading towards Beijing. When we landed, most passengers were flushed and blurry eyed as we streamed into to arrivals terminal at Beijing International. Some fellow passengers were stained by the flying sodas, juice etc. that flew through the air as our plane made an unexpected drop during dinner service. I managed to escape unscathed. I was just so happy to be on solid ground once again. The pilot did manage to get the plane down ahead of the storm, but the dark clouds caught up streamed in and opened up just as we arrived into the city.
The downpour started just as we got off the metro. We got trapped at the metro station without umbrellas or a small boat to get us through the flooded streets to our hostel. We ended up spending about 1 hour waiting for an opportunity to make a run for it. The journey from metro to hostel required some puddle and sidewalk sink holes dodging but we finally made it.
We managed to drag ourselves and our stuff safely to the Hutong west of the Forbidden City that first stormy night in Beijing. We got soaked but our stuff wasn’t. I’m not sure how we pulled that one-off, but we did thankfully.
Waiting on a Visa…
We had just one night at the Hutong Hostel and later moved to an apartment on the other side of Beijing until we headed west towards Central Asia in a couple of weeks. Hostels are great but having a washer, kitchen and quiet work area were necessary this time.
We were here to get our Turkmenistan Visa and see more of post-Olympics Beijing. It was a lot of work for all the back and forth, waiting, some more waiting all for a 10 day required tour. Beijing is a large city so there’s much to see and do while we wait.
Tiananmen SquareMilitary Museum – Beijing
The National Museum, the Olympic Park and the Military Museum were the top three on our must see list this time. We got our Turkmenistan visa, saw the top three, and managed to see both the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square again.
Our time in Beijing soon came to an end. With our visas in hand and better idea of what direction we will be going in the next few months, we boarded an Air China flight to Urumqi. In Beijing, we managed to survive both the elevated AQI levels and a couple of storms that pummeled the city during our two-week visit. I’m sure Beijing will all be a totally different the next time we stop by for a visit or maybe not?
It’s been a long time (a few years actually) since I’ve written anything substantial in a blog post, so please forgive me as I get my ‘blog legs’ back in order. Oddly enough, this will start off with a case of deja vu from early 2008. Back then we were traveling around Laos and Vietnam and were trying to do some forward planing for the next few months. Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, and China were on our wayward list, but what about after that? How about Central Asia or “the ‘stans” as they are colloquially known? Thoughts of Mongol hordes, glorious Persian architecture, and towering mountains filled my head and invoked some serious wanderlust. We could travel by land across China and fly out from somewhere in the region (Tashkent perhaps?). A great way to spend late Spring/early Summer. Easy, right?
A few days of detailed Internet searching put that notion of ease quickly to rest. Central Asia is definitely not high on the tourist/backpacker roadshow and gathering information on a general route through the region was few and far between. Tales of “Letters of Invite”, mandated tours, and Soviet style bureaucracy left a distinctly dry feeling in ones mouth. We would either have to get visas as we went (less than ideal given visa constraints) or would have to get them all at once in Beijing (the only place in East Asia with all five consulates). Given that we were coming into China on a 30 day non-extendable visa, logistics among the embassies would be tight. This was right before the Olympic games and the Chinese authorities were starting to clamp down on giving out/renewing visas. Ultimately, however, our hopes were dashed when we arrived in Beijing in early April. The March 2008 events in Tibet resulted in the closing off of western China to foreigners (i.e. anything past Chengdu). We decided at that point to move on to North Africa and would revisit the plan for Central Asia at a later date. The one upside was that we started following the Uncornered Market folks, as they were one of the few blogs out there with information about the region.
Fast forward to 2012 and we’re in East Asia again. After spending three months last year dealing with visa/tour fun for our September trip to Iran, acquiring visas for Central Asia is easy by comparison. It took us a total of 10 calendar days (i.e. Monday to the following Wednesday) to get four visas for Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakstan in Tokyo. This can be done a few days earlier (say 7 or 8) if you’re prepared and quick enough on the metro.
Keep the following tips in mind when getting visas here:
Plan, Plan, Plan. Specifically the order that you will be traveling to these countries, the number of entries desired, etc. Central Asian visas are date specific (i.e. 1-Sept-2012 to 31-Oct-2012 for 1 entry with a maximum time in country of 30 days).
Visas for these consulates normally take a week to process (up to two in the case of Uzbekistan), which would mean a month or so for all four. However, you can call ahead and explain that you’re getting all four and kindly ask if you can leave a copy of your passport instead of the original with the embassy. This way you can apply for all of them in parallel, cutting it down to a week. The consulates of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan were happy to do this for us, but Kazakstan said they would have to keep our original passports.
If you apply in parallel you should do it in the following order: Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (which are a few blocks from each other in Nakameguro) and Tajikistan and Kazakstan (which are a few blocks from each other in Roppongi).
Pick them up in the opposite order. When we picked up our passport from the Kazak embassy, we dropped off our passports at the Tajik embassy. The next day we went back and picked them up from there and then went to the Kyrgyz and Uzbek embassies (who put the visas in on the spot).
When speaking to the the person from the embassy and using English, please be very polite. Most of the staff speak Japanese as their second language, so you might be getting the ambassador (him|her)self!
Most of the embassies expect ‘bank transfers’ for payment. This is quite common in Japan and can be done at any bank ATM machine (you can pay in cash and it is directly deposited into the consulate’s account). The catch here, however, is that the transfer option is only available in the Japanese language ATM menu. If you don’t read Japanese kindly ask someone there (the guard, etc) to help you or bring someone who does with you. Keep the transaction receipt as this is what you will present to the consulate for proof of payment.
Some consulates expect the payment receipt at time of application and some expect it at pickup time.
Emails to any of these consulates routinely go unanswered; call instead.
A Kyrgyzstan visa is very straight forward and simple to get in Tokyo.
Cost for Americans: ¥8000 JPY for a 30 day single entry tourist visa, payable by wire transfer (ATM) with receipt due at pickup time. NOTE: The consul will tell you that you don’t need a Kyrgyz visa if you have a multi-entry Kazak visa. Getting a M-E Kazak visa is a bit of a pain and as this is a new policy as of July 2012 (which means that border enforcement might be iffy), we just got a straight visa from Kyrgyzstan (costs more, but potentially less hassle).
