Passports

There are five countries on our itinerary that required visas: Cambodia, India, Vietnam, China, and Egypt.  In addition, we were told we had to have 12 blank visa pages in our passport and we each had only 10.  So, to start the process, we had to get new passports.  That meant new photos, and to prepare for the visa requirements, several copies of each.  (That reminds me of a billboard I saw near LAX many years ago which said, "If you look like your passport picture, you NEED the vacation!") 

Fortunately, Viking contracted with a third-party company called GenVisa to take care of the process for us at a savings of $1,352.  We received a 30 page booklet with instructions on how to fill out the application for each country.  I think the fee part of the process would have been the least painful if we had to do it ourselves.

China's application was four pages long--they wanted to know, among other things, our current occupation: Entertainer?, NGO staff? Religious personnel?, Staff of media?, etc., and the level of education we had attained.  Oh, and did we have a serious mental disorder, or Infectious pulmonary tuberculosis?

Vietnam's application had to be filled out online, printed and signed.  Cambodia's could be filled out by hand, as well as Egypt's, but it took concentration to find the English instructions sandwiched between the Arabic writing and French.

The instructions for filling out the application for India, besides being 8 pages long, were specific that, "On page one, the applicant must sign completely inside the box located under the photo area; if any part of the signature is outside of the box, the application will be rejected!"  There was also a supplemental questionnaire with questions like, "Did the applicant or his/her parents or his/her grandparents ever hold the citizenship of Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Nepal or Sri Lanka at any point of time?"

We spent several days working on filling out the applications and collating all the forms and pictures, then got it in the mail on about August 4th.  At one point, India required that the passports be returned to us, then mailed back to GenVisa to be completed--don't ask me what that was about!  What a relief when we finally got our passports with the five visas last week, with all of 24 days to spare.