~EXP~ Three hours before...

Transsiberian, google

Rushing, rushing!

12:34pm - Caffé Bene, Ulaanbaatar

Three hours before taking our train from Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) to Novosibirsk (Russia), we just picked up our visas! Everything was fine, we have almost nothing to reference, excepting that we feel now like experts in customs and that our passports are getting fuller and fuller! We are counting the pages left, hopping it will be all right.

Five days ago

The welcoming Russian embassy

As soon as we arrived in the capital of Mongolia, we ran to the Russian embassy to apply for our transit visa. We were very well prepared in spite of some incertitude on account of the very bad information on the different websites!). But we needed only:

• insurance
• tickets in and out of Russia
• itinerary
• visa of the third country (which we didn't have because German and French citizens don't need a visa for Kazakhstan!)
• ID pictures
• application form filled online

In fifteen minutes, it was done!

A nice week-end

Because we applied on Thursday, we had to wait till the next week – indeed, the whole procedure is 4 working-days long. Therefore we decided to plan a nice week-end as far as possible from the cities: we took a bus to the Gobi desert and forgot everything about the urban and administrative world! Such an experience! However, we won't reveal this story here. Let's keep a bit of suspense!

Ok... just for the foretaste:

 

Camel waiting for the visas

1:17pm - Almost on the street

We need to go to find some food for lunch... which is not an easy task: indeed, today is the beginning of Naadam, a very important national festival and almost all the shops are closed. Let's see if we will find something!

See you in three days