A little taste of China

Back in Bangkok for the 4th time in my life, staying at the good old New Siam Guesthouse. Having got that much to do here really, the main reason i'm here is to sort out the Chinese visa.

Bright and early this morning i set off to my epic journey to the Consulate. Located the address (which isn't on the website) and find the underground station on that street, Got the river taxi, then the Skytrain, followed my a little walk and then the underground. Accidently got off at the wrong station but found my way to the correct place eventually. For some reason, i didn't think there would be too many Thais wishing to visit China - boy was i wrong. The Visa section resembled a rugby scrumb and the first thing i had to do was get myself a ticket - not too easy with 100 others trying to do the same thing. Didd't help that the machine was working so you had to fan it down with a piece of paper before it would give you one!

Eventually i recieved ticket number 184, and i looked up to see the number 247 above the booths. No problem i thought, it will go to 200 and then back down to 0. Oh no, i had to wait until 500 before it went back to the start (took even longer as tour agencies process 100s of passports in one go). Eventually it got round to number 80, and the Swedish guys who got tickets after me were in a queue. I asked what they were doing and they said if if was only 1 passport you could use this queue (with no one in it and absoluetly no sign above it). 35 seconds late the application was in and i was on my way - if only i'd been told of the express queue 1.5hrs earlier, i would have been a happy man! The best thing about it - i get to go back again tomorrow to (hopefully) pick up my Passport compelete with Visa!