obtaining a china visa in mongolia

From what I understand, you should be able to get 30-day single-entry Chinese visas in Mongolia. I've heard you need to show proof of entry tickets into AND exit tickets out of China in order to successfully receive a visa. You should confirm this, however.

Visa fees are the same everywhere -- 160RMB ($33) for most countries and 940RMB ($130) for US citizens.

I would not recommend taking a chance that the visa cannot be obtained in Mongolia. You must have the tickets for travel into and out of China and may need to show proof of funds.

I highly recommend that your American friend sit tight in Poland for 2-3 weeks and send his/her passport back to the US to a visa service specializing in obtaining Chinese visas. My recommendation for such a service is mychinavisa.com. The cost for a US passport holder is 131+ USD just for the visa. The service will chanrge additional but it is worth it as the likelihood of obtaining a one year multiple entry visa for this same price is high. Also entries might be valid for 60 rather than 30 days which is nice.

For you as a UK passport holder, you can send your passport back to the UK or you can try applying in Poland since it is also an EU country and as such you are entitled to live and work there whenther you have documents to substantiate this or not.

Ruth

Do you mean that the Chinese Embassy in Poland won't give you a visa unless you are a resident there? Have you asked a local travel agent if they can process one for you?

In SE Asia it seems that anyone (within reason) can get a one month visa to visit China - it just takes a few days and some dollars through a travel agent. That's how I got here. No onward ticket was required for issuing the visa, although the airline seemed to have such a requirement [we still did not haev an onward ticket].

I'd also suggest you use a search engine to track down a travel agency in Mongolia and ask them.

BTW: If you leave your passport anywhere whilst travelling for visa processing, do make sure you have some photocopies to use for hotels etc. A scanned copy kept online is also useful.