Bureaucracy gone mad

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It all started with travellers cheques - we went to a bank in Xi'an to change $600. Six cheques of $100 each. After waiting an hour, we were eventually seen.

Having viewed the cheques with suspicion, the clerk asked Rhi to sign them, which she did. All six, one after the other. Ten minutes later, one of the signatures had apparently been forged, by Rhian, whilst she legally signed the other five! The whole batch needed to be re-signed.

Copies of passports, visas and the cheques were taken into a backroom and another ten minutes passed before the clerk returned again. One cheque needed another signature. This was clearly the signature of their dreams as a novel started printing in the background. Armed with a box of papers in quadruplicate, Rhian again had to signe her name on each of these. Eventually, after almost two hours, we walked away with our money.

This should have been our warning.

"Chinese visa extensions are easily obtained at any PSB office in the regional capitals" - Lonely Planet Guidebook.

So off we went to the PSB in Beijing. We filled out our forms, attached the photos and queued for an hour.

When we got to the window the lady informed us we were missing some important documents. A temporary residence form - which we can obtain from our hotel, and a certificate of depost from the bank of China. For 25,000 Yuan each. At 10 Yuan to the pound, that's five grand between us. Five grand we needed to put in a Chinese bank for a week.

We told them there must be a mistake, but they insisted. We went back to our hostel who gave us the residence form and told us they'd never heard of the certificate being asked for before.

We went back to the PSB and tried once more. When they asked again for the COD I tried to argue that it was the equivalent of two peoples annual salary in Shanghai. and that it was ludicrous. They didn't agree.

Even my subtle offer of a bribe was dismissed.

So 30 days was our lot, off to Mongolia early. We'll see what opportunities come from the situation.

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