Idiots Abroad

In bidding farewell a few days ago I quoted one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., to the effect that unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God. Since then I have discovered, painfully, that when the couple doing the dancing have approximately three and one-half left feet the performance is not destined for a featured spot on “Dancing With the Stars.”

We departed from San Francisco Monday afternoon (January 30). We arrived in Beijing approximately 22 hours later. As you may well imagine we were pretty well jet lagged at that point. So you can probably understand our shock and dismay when we were told that we would not be allowed to enter China because we lacked the proper paperwork. Apparently, unlike the countries we had previously visited, a visa is required to enter China. Somehow this fact was never communicated to us either by the sponsors, the airline or anyone else. Apparently all assumed that we knew this. As none of our previous overseas adventures had required a visa our ignorance was quite innocent and genuine but it was ignorance nonetheless.

Now you might imagine that the Chinese, who must encounter this type of blunder on a somewhat regular basis, would have some sort of procedure in place to deal with it. You would be wrong. Instead we were taken to see an officious policewoman who bluntly informed us we now had two choices – go home or go to Hong Kong where, unlike on the mainland, a visa can be obtained in a little over 24 hours. Hong Kong it was. We sat in the restricted area of the Beijing airport for about 10 hours. We were then escorted by a policeman to the van that ferried passengers from the arrival building to the departure point for the plane to Hong Kong. Nancy confessed later that she was sorely tempted to ask the cop to pose with me but thought better of it.

Our sole companion during this extended wait was a young woman from Taiwan who had arrived in Beijing for the sole purpose of changing planes from the one bringing her in from a visit to the USA to one for Taiwan. For some reason the authorities objected to her passport and would not allow her to enter China, even for the purpose of changing planes. She was there when we arrived and, although arrangements had been finally made for her to depart; she was still waiting when we left.

The flight to Hong Kong took about three hours. During the flight Nancy related the reason for our visit to Hong Kong to one of the stewardesses. We were concerned that we would be unable to begin the process of obtaining the necessary visa as our arrival in Hong Kong was to happen at about 5 p.m. their time. The stewardess took pity on us and arranged for us to get off the airplane first and had someone to meet us and escort us to the office where we could apply for the necessary visa. When we arrived at that location we were amazed to discover that there was a thriving industry generating visas for entry into the mainland. Whether the customers of the over one half dozen businesses located there were other individuals who found themselves in our situation or just people who were in Hong Kong for other reasons but had decided to visit the mainland on the spur of the moment we had no way to determine.

We chose the booth with the name recommended to us by the young man who had met us at the plane. After completing some forms and forking over a fairly large sum we were informed that we could pick up our visas the next day after 7:30 p.m. Having a day to kill in Hong Kong we signed up the next morning for a tour of the island. It was great fun and we met some interesting folk from around the world. Then, while returning to our hotel which was walking distance from the visa supermarket, the van broke down. More tension ensued but we finally got to visa world and obtained the necessary paperwork.

The next day we flew to Kunming and joined the camellia group expecting to be the laughing stock of the tour. To our amazement others had encountered the same problem. The only difference was that their situation was diagnosed before they left North America. In fact they were not allowed to board the plane. One individual simply flew directly to Hong Kong and pulled our maneuver. The other couple was already in Canada so obtained the necessary visas there. Others in the group had used travel agents to book their flights and were thus saved the agony and the humiliation. Apparently the whole visa required rule is only about three years old.

Once here and able to log on we discovered that neither Facebook nor our blog site can be entered from China. Censored. If you are reading this you have probably deduced that I have figured a way around that problem. Photos are a bit trickier and will probably be posted after the fact.

Rest assured that all is well now. Nancy is renewing acquaintance with some of her fellow camellia enthusiasts that we met in Japan two years ago while I stumble around taking photos and tasting exotic food. Due to the technical difficulties these posts may not be as frequent as I would like but if you are reading this one hopefully the technical difficulties have been overcome and there will be more to follow. If we are not home as scheduled by February 15 please, in the immortal words of Warren Zevon, “Send lawyers, guns and money.”

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