India was surprisingly easy for me. I did the eVisa thing online and was done in under 24 hours. The directions were confusing, but I took my own picture and dealt with the weird payment thing. I think Burma gave me more trouble.

A vote for Equatorial Guinea now...

"Ashgabatsiyakhat" State Tourist Enterprise
This was the company. They provided everything needed (ie. visa/loi/hotel). Did not need to make any other arrangements.
They picked up at the airport, and dropped off at the Iranian border (taxi to Mashaad from there).

*disclaimer, things may have changed!

An after-the-fact cautionary tale on my Nepalese visa: Got it through the professional visa service recommended by my tour company. Got to Immigration at Kathmandu Airport and they were suspicious because it was missing a stamp. A proper Nepalese visa includes the piece of paper glued into the passport, signed by some consular dignitary and then stamped. Oops. The Immigration official acted as if I should have KNOWN it wasn't in order. Rule No. 1: Be polite to Immigration officials. I asked him (politely) how I was to have known it wasn't properly stamped. He decided to let me in but said to make sure it was correct "next time". My Aunt, also on the tour group, used the same service (different day I suppose) and hers was fine. Another couple had gone directly to the Nepalese Embassy in Chicago (Aunt and I had ours issued in DC) and theirs weren't stamped, either.

The Immigration official at KTM did acknowledge that some folks in the embassies weren't doing their jobs correctly.

I m not following, why did you use a "professional visa service" when visas for Nepal are beyond easy on arrival for $25 (or less)

Question - how common is the practice that, if you are visiting country A, and want to visit country B, you can't go to the consulate of B in A? Instead, you have to apply for the visa at B's consulate in your own home country, or the at B's consulate in the country where your home country is assigned to?

Today my brother, who has passport from Georgia, visited South African consulate in Singapore - he is is in Singapore for Asia travel/vacation. He went to SA consulate to get tourist visa for upcoming trip in December. There is no diplomatic representation of South Africa in Georgia.

His documents were not accepted and he was told that he needs and apply for visa in person in Ukraine. Now get this - he needs to:.

- Take minimum one week time off from his work
- Buy tickets to fly to Kiev - that's 3h one way international flight
- Book lodging and stay in Kiev minimum 6-7 days - visa processing takes minimum 5 full work days

So at the end it is minimum $500 spent just for attempt to get tourist visa.

No wonder that he/we are not doing this and are spending our dollars somewhere else.

The tour company did note that they were currently available on arrival but that laws can change without notice. I decided that getting one ahead of time was the safe shot. I was wrong! When I had the issue at Immigration that solution was in the back of my mind: if they didn't like the one in my passport I could just get one right there.

Laos was the worst visa I’ve applied for. The application was easy, but they wouldn’t release my passport for 5+ days after they’d processed the visa. I had to place some calls to my local congressman to get them to release my passport in time for an unrelated overseas trip. In total, they had my passport for roughly 3 weeks.

Assuming that you are a US passport holder that might be because the Laotians were shocked that you applied for one as they have been available on arrival for at least 15 years. Also I would highly doubt that they would care what a US Congressperson's office had to say about something, unless they had a reason to check you out;. When I last traveled there one person in my party was from a country that actually needs visas to visit, it took an hour.

Pakistan has this policy - visas must be applied for in your country of citizenship. Russia does too but it seems sporadically enforced.

How tough the Russians are about this varies with the political climate (or who you are), I have received several Russian visas in countries that were not my own and which I was not a citizen of...... When things are warm, its not that big a deal, when they are "cold" it is pretty much impossible.

I think even then it doesn't matter so much. I applied for a Russian visa via an agency in Saudi Arabia whilst I was actually there as a British citizen. Admittedly, I had applied for an Indian visa at the same time in my British passport so perhaps that made a difference.

Enforcement seems to vary by country. I know the Russian embassy in Canada requires proof of legal permanent residency from non-Canadian nationals applying there. When I applied as a Canadian at the consulate in Almaty, other foreigners had been denied just days before but I was approved. So it also seems to vary based on day of the week. :D