"Chance is the providence of adventurers."
I don't leave to chance things that are important to me. If it affects me and it can be influenced by planning and preparation, then rest assured it will be planned and I will be prepared. The collective response from those reading this who know me is probably "no shit".
I don't leave to chance things that are important to me. If it affects me and it can be influenced by planning and preparation, then rest assured it will be planned and I will be prepared. The collective response from those reading this who know me is probably "no shit".
Earlier, I expressed to my fixer, the reservations I have about handing my passport over in order to secure my Chinese visa to enter Tibet. I'll explain his encouraging response.
 |
| Sample Group Visa |
One of the reasons he collects passports from travelers like me with similarly-aligned itineraries is to process them all at once for a group visa. This is also why we have to cross the border as a group and appear as a group at every Chinese checkpoint while we're in Tibet. Think of it like taking a cruise. You can pass into and out of the various countries' ports of call without the formal customs screening you experience at an airport, but every passenger has a finite time frame to enter and exit under the terms of the group visa agreement, which is administered by the cruise line. Your citizenship and travel plans have been pre-validated by the cruise line, who is an acknowledged and government-trusted agency. In my case, the group visa obtained by my fixer will cover the entire group of six riders whose itineraries are loosely aligned to match the prearranged entrance and exit dates that the group visa covers. Two copies with a list of riders will be issued. One is for entrance into Tibet and is handed over to Tibetan Customs upon entry. The other, with the same list of travelers, is handed over upon exit from Tibet back into Nepal. The two copies are reconciled and away we go. Under this process, neither my individual passport, nor those of five others in my group will be stamped with a Chinese visa. While I'm encouraged by this news, I will probably hold my breath for a day until my passport is back in my hands. The online resources I've found seem to corroborate this process. Thus, I am optimistic that I will indeed see Mount Everest.