Russian and mongolian visas for Trans Siberian -June 2008

trip_trap

Hi,

I'm planning a 21-day trip to Ulaan Baatar sometime next year. I'll be travelling from India. Has anybody been there? I'm thinking of flying to Beijing and then taking the Trans-Siberian train across the Gobi to Mongolia. Any tips ????

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venivedivicky

Hi Indiamikers,

My friends and i plan to do the trans siberian trip Next year in June lasting for about 20-25 days. We plan to start from Moscow and make stops at Ulan Bataar and Beijing and also stop at a few places in Siberia on the way.

If anyone's done this trip before,can you please provide the details about obtaining visas of Russia and Mongolia for Indian nationals?

Also it would be excellent if anyone could provide us with the details of cheap flight tickets for Beijing-Delhi and Delhi-Moscow sector.

We plan to sort out the visas and tickets latest by the end of March.

looking forward to your responses.

-V

jyotirmoy

Tho Off topic I decided to write as I was surprised to find you guys planing this.

Your trip would require atleast 12 or 13 days. The Chinese visa would be a tricky one, Mongolian visa is easier to obtain but it takes a long time. The cheapest way to fly to Moscow would be flying Aeroflot. The Aeroflot office would assist you with Russian visa. The requirements for Russuian visa are:
Your original passport with at least 2 blank visa-designated pages (passport must be valid for at least 6 months after intended departure date from Russia).
Two copies of Russian visa application form, completed and signed.
ONE passport-size photo signed on the back.
If Tour Group or Cruise Passenger: Letter from tour company or cruise line confirming itinerary and including a copy of the confirmation from authorized Russian travel company which shows the reference number and confirmation number for the visa.
If Individual Travel: Confirmation of hotel arrangements from authorized Russian travel company, or directly from the Russian hotel, showing reference number and confirmation number for the visa.
To avoid Chinese & Mongolian visa you may consider travelling up to Lake Baikal and return to Moscow from there.
Your train will depart from Yaroslavl rail station. After the night two full days in the train, you reach the shores of breathtaking Lake Baikal. Another over night journey and you are in Mogolia.
Doing this on your own would be quite difficult, because of many formalities etc. Be very careful and always on your guard while traveling.
All the best & good luck.

Mickey S

In my experience, the trans-Mongolian train journey is extremely difficult to organise individually. The tourist "season" for this train is very short (June is peak time), and by the time the train tickets go on sale to the general public, many of the berths are already reserved by travel agents for their clients. This is one of the very few occasions when I would recommend using a travel agent rather than trying to do it yourself. Unfortunately, many travel agents charge ridiculous amounts of money for a train journey that is extremely inexpensive - but try Intourist, the official Russian state tour operator, who seem to be significantly cheaper than everyone else and who are very experienced in obtaining visas, etc.

venivedivicky

Thanks for the quick reply jyotirmoy.

We are a group of 3(one would be joining us at moscow from Sweden).the rest of us are from Bangalore.
Our plan is to fly to Moscow or st. petersburg from delhi and then take the train. Make stops at Irkutsk and Ulan ude in russia. UB in mongolia and then Beijing.
From Beijing we would be flying back to india.

We plan to do this on our own and not through some travel agency or website.
Our train ticket bookings will be done online a month before the trip after we sort out our visas and flight tickets.
We would be booking our stay at youth hostels online.

We hope this works out.We would be getting in touch with Aeroflot and the embassies for help regarding the visas and stay.

jyotirmoy

The Aerflot office will take a lot of time and many phone calls so start early.
As Mickey suggested try Intourist, being a state agency it will make your life infinitely easy getting all formalities done.

venivedivicky

Thanks for your inputs Mickey

We would be getting the train tickets through a travel agent itself.We found some websites on lonelyplanet forum too.
We first want to get the visas and flight tickets sorted.

Mickey S

And what happens if, after you have bought the air tickets and paid a lot of money for the visas (and they are expensive), you can't get onto the train you hoped to? They only run once a week.

It really is much (much!) easier to do everything through Intourist. Believe me.

nayan

I think the transiberia train ticket cannot be booked online. someone please correct me if I am wrong.
BTW, I am also planning something like this in 2009.
paris---- moscow-----ulanbator----- beijing----fly to India. its still in pipe dream stage. No proper research done yet.

jyotirmoy

I have gone through the hassles once and won't get in to that again.

machadinha

A site that you may find helpful: http://www.seat61.com/Trans-Siberian.htm This is from London, but you'll find other helpful sections and countries covered etc. on that site too, so browse around there.

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jyotirmoy

The guy at seat61 had helped me immensely while we had taken our first Eu-rail pass vaccation in Europe

Mickey S

seat61.com is an amazing resource. Definitely recommended for every overseas trip.

venivedivicky

Thanks a ton for your responses.
We need to prioritise things and plan our bookings accordingly.
intourist and seat61 are excellent links.
Thanks
Vikram

rahul_venky

any inputs on www.waytorussia.net and the agents they offer??

they seem to be popular and quite professional, but I'm wondering if they charge really high compared to the other agents.

thanks