Travel Info: Songpan Visa Extension

Just a quick reminder that we will be horse trekking for the next three days and will be out of email contact.

SongPan VISA EXTENSION info

I wanted to verify for people that the Songpan PSB office does provide visa extensions. I also wanted to provide a little extra info.

Overall very quick and painless. It only took a total of about an hour (compared with the five or six days of Chengdu or XiAn) and there was no line. The PSB officer was very friendly.

We were required to have the following information and money (note we are Americans).

1. Passport
2. Photo copy of Passport ID page and China Visa page (or previous visa extension).
3. Stamped copy of the hotel registration form for where we were staying.
4. He specifically made us prove that we had the finances to support staying in China for a month. He wanted to see proof of $100 USD per day of the extension (it was unclear whether that was per person) but he had no problem when we showed him our 2 ATM cards, Visa credit card and AmEx. He did make us go and photo copy the cards and write the USD amount available per card. ONE NOTE: we overheard someone in Chengdu complaining that, they too, had to provide proof of finances. It was harder for them because they didn’t have a credit card and they had to spend a day getting the info together.
5. 760 RMB per person (1520 RMB total). That is just about 100 USD for each visa. We only paid something like 300 RMB per person in Xi’An last month. Again, dont forget our visa stuff is usually more expensive because we are from the USA.

China visa extension limit: One important piece of information the PSB officer told us was that, since we were getting our second visa extension, we would not be allowed another visa extension on this trip. I don’t think I have read about this limitation before but maybe I missed it. Or maybe this is just for Songpan. Dunno.

Pimpin’ my ride

I got some great ideas today on how I can pimp out my motorcycle better when we get back to Seattle. Maybe I should try and bring “streamers” back in style! The “comfort rug” on the seat is also a good idea. A little extra cushion for those long rides would be sweet.

Puppy photo: LONG OVERDUE

I hope I haven’t dissappointed you people by not posting a puppy photo for awhile. Ya know what? I would have posted many more but there are really not that many dogs in China. Well, at least not as pets… In Wolong we saw several big dogs chained to construction equipment that the road builders didn’t want anyone messing with. And I don’t want to think about what all the ragged dogs chained behind people’s houses were for…

But on the brighter side, here is one happy little furball that is living it up in Songpan!