In the army there was a nice saying - never give soldiers too much free time or they think up something stupid. Seems like it's the same in ordinary life. Anyway, just another weekend, nothing to do and I was looking for some cheap flight tickets back home (I came by one-way ticket). But as usual - nothing cheap. Frustrated as I was I thought - what the hell I'll go by train then and continued to search the flight tickets.
Another day I was checking the "interweb" whether the Trans-Siberian railway is still going strong and of course it was and still is. Then I fooled a couple of my friends by saying that I'm going back by train and so on. The idea was too crazy to fit into my head. I think without Heleri and Kaspar I wouldn't reach the level of self-confidence to even start the planning. Not that I'm afraid of new adventures but because of the situation between Russia and Estonia:
The sign says: "No entry for dogs nor Estonians", hanging on a door of a restaurant in Russia. Read more from BBC.At some point I found myself calling different embassy's and checking out the expenses. Seems like the planning had already started. I had chosen out a route from Tokyo to Fushiki and then from Vladivostok to Moscow and Tallinn. I made a spreadsheet file where I wrote all the prices, dates, places, contact indormation - anything useful I could find from the "internets" related to the journey.
Quite soon I realized that it's gonna be more expensive than I thought. The price of the ferry to Russia was close to 40 000 yens and the train ticket price varied from 20 000 yens to 63 000 yens. Quite a downside until I found a ferry ticket from Osaka to Shanghai for 18 000 yens - great - yet another idea. So I made some "minor" changes to my route and added China as well. Certainly the China inclusion for the trip was greatly affected by Rong-Rong my nice classmate from Tokyo who was going back home to China and was more than happy to host me there. And for the train journey I must mention that Rong-Rong means Train-Train in Estonian - I took it as good luck for my trip :)After some consulting sessions with Rong-Rong and Mongolian embassy it came clear that Mongolia will be "no-can-do" on this trip just because the trains run quite SELDOM (a small inside joke) and the Trans-Mongolian route couldn't fit in. So my final route was on Trans-Manchurian: Tokyo-Osaka-Shanghai-Beijing-Irkutsk-Moscow-Tallinn.
Now for the hard part - visas. Yeah you can think that Russia is my neighbor country and it will be easy for me to get the visa but Russia is Russia. Reading different bulletin boards I understood that this is the most difficult part of the whole trip. I'll cover it just briefly. Things you need:* Passport
* Visa application form
* Passport photo
* Health insurance
* A voucher from the travel agency in Russia
It's gonna take 2 weeks and 5 000 yens.
The last document from the list is quite interesting thing. As the man from Seat61 (http://www.seat61.com/Trans-Siberian.htm) says:
A hangover from Soviet times is that to get a visa you need supporting documentation, usually just called 'visa support'. In theory, this is a letter of invitation from your travel agency setting out confirmed travel & accommodation arrangements for your entire stay in Russia or (for independent travellers) an accommodation voucher issued by your hotel(s) showing confirmed accommodation for each and every night you plan to spend in Russia. Having to pre-book all this would be ridiculously restrictive, so here's how it really works: You go to an agency such as www.realrussia.co.uk or one of the Russian agencies listed above and they sell you the necessary visa support for a small fee, which allows you to get a visa without any genuine hotel bookings, so you can travel around freely just as you would in any other country, buying tickets and finding hotels as you go. Behind the scenes, the agency usually has an arrangement with a local hotel, they make a dummy 'reservation' for the period you want to be in Russia so they can legally issue the visa support, though of course you don't pay for the hotel and everyone knows (apart from the Russian government) that you have no intention of ever using that hotel room. Crazy, eh
Sketchy, but finally I got my Visa support
from WayToRussia.Net for 3 200 yens, my second purchase before that I bought the Trans-Siberian LP for ~2 500 yens
After I checked the health insurance prices I realized it wasn't such a great idea to take the visa for a longer period "just in case" ~7 000 yens for 25 days covering Russia only. Quite frustrating until I found a special deal from Salva Kindlustus (just for information to fellow Estonians). They offer a special insurance for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and I got mine for 1 060 yens - sweet. A quick visit to photo booth and here I come Russian Embassy.Meanwhile I had checked out that I need 4 000 yens and 4 days for the Chinese visa and a filled application form where Rong-Rong had to write her contact information. The only problem was that I was short of time. I had the graduation from the JUSST program then on the next day my parents came to visit me and I had to arrange all the transportation, accomodation and other things so I didn't had any time for my onw planning. And on the next evening my parents left I had to take the night bus to Osaka. Pretty tense. However inbetween the Kyoto-Osaka-Hiroshima-Tokyo trip with my parents I could manage to apply for the Russian visa. After seeing my Estonian passport the embassy clerk wanted to speak in Russian but that is one of the big problems with me and the journey I'm going to take. At the end it went quite smoothly and my application was accepted. Even up to this point I couldn't believe that I'm really going to make it. Because of the relations between Estonia and Russia and the information of getting the Russian visa from the "internets". First time I realized that I'm really going to make it was 2 weeks later when I saw the Russian visa in my passport. On the same day I rushed to the Chinese embassy to apply for Chinese visa.
Russian visa in my passport I started to book tickets. Nightbus to Osaka for 3 800 yens (www123bus.net). Ferry from Osaka to Shanghai 18 000 yens (http://www.shanghai-ferry.co.jp/english/fares.htm) + Fuel Surcharge 1 500 yens.
Geting the travel insurance was another problem. I couldn't get the insurance from Japan because I wasn't coming back and I couldn't apply for the insurance from Estonia through the internet because they've got somekind of rules that you can't apply when you're already traveling. Several phone calls to different insurance companies in Estonia couldn't change the situation. My explanation about the fact that I'm not traveling in Japan but living and at the point I left Estonia I didn't even thought about going to China was not convinient enough. And even if I had planned it 1 year in advance I couldn't buy the insurance for so long time in advance. Finally Heleri could somehow get me the insurance for 4 000 yens. Great. Now I just need the train tickets :D
I had planned to stay in Shanghai, Beijing, Irkutsk and Moscow. The most crucial ticket was from Beijing to Irkutsk. For buying the tickets there were different alternatives. The most cheapest was offcourse to buy the ticket in person from Beijing. Even though it wasn't a high season I thought it would be a nice idea to get the ticket in advance. And then there are different types of tickets I went for the cheapest one - 1 berth in a compartment for 4 people (2nd class it was an international train and it was the lowest class available). Fortunately Rong-Rongs friend was so nice and bought me my ticket for 1 599 yuan (25 000 yens).
Even though I was going to spend "a few" nights on the train i still needed some accommodation in Shanghai, Irkutsk and Moscow. A great deal here was couch surfing (http://www.couchsurfing.com/) . What a great project it is. Not that you can spend a free night somewhere but meeting someone who knows the place and can show you around is priceless. And I'm really happy that I could find Lea in Shanghai and Spike in Irkutsk. What comes to Moscow I had family acquaintances living over there. Last time I met them was more than 10 years ago and at that point I couldn't speak Russian and I still don't but I could get their contacts and arrange a place I could stay a few days.After my parents left Tokyo I had 1 day to do all the necessary procedures to leave Japan (Closing all my contracts, packing my stuff, leaving my dorm etc). And still I had time to spend quality time in Yoyogi with Senjor Arki and Shinya and others. Even on the last day Japan can surprise you. I visited 3 banks in Chofu and 2 in Osaka and I couldn't change any Chinese money. So I left for China whithout a single yuan. Sounded promising.
I think that's it. And it's just the planning. I'll add the expenses to the end to you and myself to see how much approximately did I spend. It's gonna be in Japanese yens as in the story. For fellow Estonians just take 1 zero off from the end and you'll get the price in EEK.
List:
2 500 yens Trans-Siberian LP
3 200 Voucher for the Russian visa
1 000 Health insurance for Russia
5 000 Russian visa
4 000 Chinese visa
4 000 Health insurance for China
3 800 Tokyo-Osaka night bus
19 500 Osaka-Shanghai ferry
25 000 Beijing-Irkutsk train
-------------------------------------
68 000 yens so far
to be continued ...
No comments:
Post a Comment