We just got our Chinese visas in Luang Prabang! After wandering around town asking every single travel agency whether we could get visas here and being told by every single one that we would have to go back to Vientiane, we happened upon a very real Chinese Consulate-General with a big and very permanent plaque outside listing their opening times for visa applications. Mysterious! The tourist information office in Luang Prabang can tell you roughly, but not exactly, where the consulate is, so I will do my best to describe the location here.
It is on a seemingly nameless little side street of Phu Vao Road, one down/east from Manomai Road. If you are walking from the city centre eastwards along Phu Vao Road, this street is one after Manomai and just after the big Manoluk Hotel. There are no signs for the consulate on the corner, but there are signs for the La Pistoche swimming pool. You can see the consulate immediately after turning the corner, it is less than 100 m down the street and it is big and yellow with enormous Chinese lanterns at the front. Hope that's clear enough!
The visa hours are Monday to Friday 9-11:30 am. We arrived at 9, handed over our documents, requested an express visa, went to pay the fee (usd 62 per visa, though normal 4-day processing would have been only usd 32) at the bank down the street and were handed back our passports with visas at around 10 am!
The documents we needed:
- 1 copy of our passports
- flight bookings in and out of China (we got these at All Lao Travel Service, 13/7 Sisavangvong Road, for usd 5 per person for two fake flight confirmations in and out of the country)
- confirmations of hotel bookings (we booked six hotels on Booking.com and printed the confirmations)
- an itinerary (just a word document stating where we were planning on going on which dates)
- a copy of a bank statement (print out from online banking is fine, as long as it mentions your name)
We also brought copies of drivers licenses, proof of employment and insurance papers but they weren't interested in those.
The staff at the consulate are really friendly and helped us to fill out the application form, then sent us off to pay the fee at a bank 10 minutes down the road. When we got back, we waited for about 15 minutes and then walked away with our visas in the pocket!
