Edinburgh: Yeah! You weren't expecting that were you!!

When we headed back to the room on the day our visa got rejected we had some big decisions to make. Do we cut China out altogether and fly around it via South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and on to Vietnam? Do we hold out attempting to get a visa until Mongolia? Only for the option to get rejected and revert to option A. Or catch a flight back home and get a visa in our home country where we don't need a residence permit. This option seemed like the only fesable one.

Firstly, we had a look into London, but you need an appointment at the Visa Application Centre and there were none for the next week or so. Add this to the lack of direct flights and this option was quickly ruled out. Secondly, we looked at Manchester but again, the lack of flights were an issue. Our last hope, was Edinburgh, all the way up in chilly Scotland. There were plenty of appointments for the day after we would arrive and a couple of seats available on a flight from Budapest, so we went for it. Also, being the other end of the country we couldn't be lured by the temptations of home. A quick search for accommodation brought up two beds in a hostel right on the Royal Mile for the next week, all in all an opportunity we couldn't miss.

After an easy flight to Edinburgh we arrived late afternoon, we were hit by the coldest temperatures we'd experienced in our entire time away. We hopped on the bus which took us to Waverly Bridge, slightly put out that we were driving on the left side of the road. First port of call was to find an Internet cafe to redo our visa forms and make sure we had everything ready to get the application sorted the next day. With all that done, we decided to skip cooking after a stressful couple of days and have some home comforts for dinner. We hunted down the nearest Fish and Chip shop.

Our appointment was booked for 10 am so we woke early, and wolfed down some Shreddies in preparation. We thought we had the directions right for the application centre but headed a mile in the wrong direction downhill before we realised. We eventually made it rather hot and sweaty and burst into a room we expected to be full. It was quite the opposite. It was absolutely dead, so we got straight in and sat down with an advisor. We were full of hope until the lady told us it that there systems were down and they didn't know when they would be back up and running again. We handed all our documentation over anyway, hopeful that we'd be successful. We were told to phone back the next day to see if our application had been processed. We left the centre rather nervous with almost an entire week to spend in Edinburgh. The next day, after a quick phone call, we were told to report back on Monday to find out the news!

I'll put now that I'm not going to cover every day and just give a brief summary. We saw Edinburgh Castle, climbed to Arthur's Seat, which is a hill in Holyrood Park and caught up on some shopping and preparations for later in the trip. We also enjoyed the famous deep fried Mars Bar that is now part of Scottish cuisine. With all due respect to Edinburgh and the UK we really didn't want to be there and were thoroughly disappointed to miss out on our 2 stops in Romania. Fortunately we did manage to recuperate some money from Hostels and Transport in order to help fund the diversion. In many ways it was probably a good thing that we headed for Edinburgh and not Romania, as the day we were due to leave the train station we were leaving from was making international news. It had been overrun by immigrants and had been, for a period of time closed down with all the trains delayed.

Monday came around faster than expected and we were up sharp again to face the music. We walked in to nothing but clear space once more and were seated immediately. All she did was say how much we owed, we paid and that was that, all the worrying for nothing. And we were finally the proud owners of 2 freshly minted Chinese Double Entry Visas valid for 6 months. We took a couple of snaps brandishing said visas infront of Edinburgh Castle and relaxed for the rest of the day.

With all that palava over and done with, the next day we caught a late evening flight down to Gatwick (only 25 miles or so to home sweet home! But why would we want to go there!!) in order to pick up a connecting flight to Athens for 5:30 on Wednesday morning and rejoin our planned itinerary.

All in all we've got to say the trip was definitely worth it, disappointing to say we had to come back to the UK but worth it just to get a much needed Chinese Visa.