Sudan visa - London or Cairo
 

Hi ya,

I have been asked to drive a landy down to Kenya from the UK for a charity. The route will be Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya.

Getting a visa for Sudan appears to be hard work and a bit hit and miss for some people from the research I've done so far, not helped by the current situation within Sudan.

Is it best to apply in London (seems some people don't get a visa) or along the way in say Cairo (we are only going to take about 3 months over the whole trip so don't want to wait about for weeks on end whilst on the road etc)

I have both a NZ & UK passport and my mate only a NZ passport - he is going to try applying through the embassy in Indonesia as it is the nearest to NZ ;-) - but if he has no joy has anyone who isn't a UK citizen had any luck getting a visa in London or Cairo etc

Any help appreciated - and using an agency is not out of the question...

After a six month wait in London, I gave up and then applied when I got to Cairo.
I had it within less than 24 hours.
(Saffer passport)

Thanks Geoff, how long ago was that?

The London website says "Validity of visa one month from date of issue. Period of stay is one month from date of entry to Sudan" which isn't any good - assume you can ask for validity of three months...

in 1999 i was ignored in london, refused in germany and they lost my application in cairo. am on uk passport. ended up flying me and the bike cairo to addis ababa.

not sure as to your govs official policy ref usa/axis of evil/war on terror etc. if they are on the uk/usa side, then no chance of a sudan visa IMHO. otherwise, you might be in luck.

good luck,
ChrisB

Thanks Chris,

'1999' wasn't that long after the US bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan claiming it was being used for producing chemicals weapons, based on evidence that makes Iraq's apparent recent foray into WMD seem set in concrete.

So perhaps no surprise ;-)

NZ doesn't really count on the world stage, so it's usually quite a good passport to travel on. We are of course seen as being 'western & white' and to explain where NZ is to most people you have to say 'next to Australia' which isn't currently that great a thing to say, in Muslim countries at least.

Though we still have a ban on anything Nuclear, which includes all US military ships, and withdrew the 35 odd engineers sent to Iraq quite a while ago when it became obvious that rebuilding Iraq wasn't on the agenda. And most of our military (12 blokes and 3 sheep) has been dismantled and retrained for 'peace keeping duties'. We don’t even bother buying the Ozzie’s military cast offs and more.

So we Kiwi's are peace loving and all round fabulous people, but I doubt this counts for anything in the Kartoum visa sorting office ;-)

Now, back to getting a visa....

I'm headed that way too. What about applying for the Sudan visa in Syria or Jordan? Anyone ever tried that?

I have always had real trouble getting visas at the embassy in London. Cairo on the other hand is a piece of cake. If you have an invitation from Khartoum, the visa in London is pretty easy. I suggest contacting Globtours, a great travel agency out there who do this sort of thing for travellers (globtours_sudan@yahoo.com). Thr guy is called Midhat Mahir.

If you want to know how tricky London can be without an invite, I failed on my last attempt to get one without an invite. I am the author of the forthcoming Bradt guide to Sudan (http://www.bradtguides.com/?page=sho...product_id=130) and despite promises from consular officials that they could fast track my applicationas I would be 'helping' Sudanese tourism, they still failed to come up trumps. I got mine in Cairo in less than 24 hours.

But if you have the invite it's very smooth.

Does that mean that an ýnvite isn,t necesary ýn Caýro? Would ýt help to have one- even ýn Caýro?

To reiterate, a visa in Cairo takes 24 hours to issue. An invite is not needed.

hi all
ok visa to sudan go ask for it in aswan with recommendation letter from your embassy and you will take it in less than few hours ,contact mr mahmoud edris on 002-0106845201
also he is the best man to arrange you the ferry boat to wadi halfa (i dont think he will charge any one of you for helpin to get the visa ) as he did to many friends i sent to hem ,maybe koz they mention they are my friends hahaha,
cheers
omar

Darren, when we went trans africa in 2001 / 2002, we all got our visas in Ndjamena within 3 hours including Wendy travelling on a kiwi passport. They didn't seem at all fussed about a NZ passport so I would guess you would get the same experiance in Cairo. What happened to Mongolia, are you back camped up in Gloucestershire enjoying the delights of the local post office?

Thanks Toby,

OK, seems all roads point to trying our luck in Cairo. Fingers crossed nothing changes before we get there...

Funnily enough I am sitting at Allisport as I type this putting in a new engine for the 110 for Kenya! ;-) It's a joy to be in a muddy carpark in the middle of winter.

Mongolia will miss out again this year sadly, I won't be finished with the Kenya side of things until at least June, and then will have 2 or 3 video's to edit...

I case your interested, I recieved this today:

"Also, I just heard this morning that people are having difficulties getting Sudanese visas in Cairo now. I also heard that the overland trucks are no longer running through there due to visa difficulties.

All this is second and third hand information - and maybe hearsay - but it may be worth making further inquiries, or attempting to get the visa in London."

From http://www.kusafiri.net/

*

Hi,

friends got their visa in November in Cairo within hours for 100 us on German passports

best regards
Bernd
www.afritracks.de

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www.afritracks.net

Update: I got my Sudan visa in Cairo in a couple of hours for 100 dollars on an Irish passport about a week ago. So did an English guy that was there the same day No problems at all