This flies in the face of typical travel advice: Never buy your plane tickets until you have your visa! Consider buying only fully refundable tickets if you have any concerns about getting the visa, timing (will you get the visa before your flight?!), or you could be seriously out-of-pocket on such expenses. Make sure your hotel reservations can be cancelled with a full refund if there's any visa hassle.
China
– like so many other countries – is cracking down on illegal immigration, visa
abuses and violations. With over 7
billion people on the planet, many seem to think “the grass is greener on the
other side of the border.” And some of
these have more greed than sense, more disdain for laws than respect for
others.
Here’s
the official Chinese website of their US embassy: http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/visas/adr/. Official Chinese embassy websites for Japan,
New Zealand, Thailand, etc, have also been updated with these new requirements. Check out their website for complete details.
Know
before you go – check official government websites of the country/ies you are
headed toward. Visa requirements are
undergoing a lot of changes in a lot of countries now, and you need to stay
current. For example, these requirements
have been instituted at some point since the first of August.
No sign of prior announcements, either!
May
your road rise to meet you!
Ann