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Visa refused for Pakistan
I want to apologise to guides, drivers, cooks, porters who could have earned some income through my trekking trip.
BANGKOK, THAILAND: I am a Swiss travel writer currently travelling in Southeast Asia. I have always dreamt of visiting the K2 base camp but it seems that this dream will not be fulfilled any time soon.
I am currently in Thailand and I visited the Pakistan embassy in Bangkok to apply for a Pakistani tourist visa, which the embassy refused to grant me despite an official recommendation letter from the Gilgit-Baltistan Council in Islamabad as well as a trekking permit, which I have already been granted. Non-Thai foreigners can get a Pakistani visa only if they are permanent residents in Thailand or have a work permit. Further, a recommendation from Pakistan’s interior ministry is also required. The ministry, however, is refusing to issue any letter to me. Because of all this I had to cancel my trekking trip.
I want to apologise to all the guides, drivers, cooks and porters who could have had some income coming their way through my trekking trip. The tourism and hotel industry in Pakistan is already suffering because of the fear of terrorism that is keeping many Western tourists at home. This tourist visa policy will do nothing to improve the situation. I am writing to let the Pakistani people judge for themselves the practice employed by their embassy in Bangkok.
Willy Blaser
Published in The Express Tribune, June 27th, 2012.
Reader Comments (15)
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Tit for tap policy employed by Pakistan. No country in the world is issuing a visa to a Pakistani, for various reasons, mainly because of issues related to terrorism. So Pakistan is well within its rights to decline visa to the citizens of other countries. Only irony here is that nobody is willing to come to Pakistan unless it is unavoidable.
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To be fair, to apply for a visa, you need to be in most cases in your country of residence. No Pakistani is given the luxury of appealing to anyone. Your emotional blackmail quoting the porters etc who would loose income is in really poor state. Though personally, I wouldnt have such stringent visa regulations, but these regulations are based on reciprocity, just a taste of how Pakistanis are treated, with no luxury of writing letters to the editor, hoping to shape policy.
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I don’t think anyone in Pakistan wants your handouts after your condescending comments about ports and the like getting your money. Better to spend your money on your southern european neighbours who are all begging for bail outs. Pakistan did the work of the West in defeating thre Soviets and bringing an end to the Cold War for nothing. Europe owes Pakistan trillions so save the talk about giving some change to porters.
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Plenty of tourists still make their way to the country, and also without sounding like kids who didn’t get their candy on demand. While it is unfortunate that this gent couldn’t get the visa, I think the people reading this would utter a collective sigh of relief: we are already plagued with an influx of foreigners coming in, telling us what poor sods we are and how we are being provided a chance to redeem ourselves by serving them. We don’t need another one.
Also, try and look up visa rules for a change. You can’t be issued a visa for Pakistan when you are not in your country of residence. You should have made proper plans before you trotted out of Switzerland.
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Oh please should have applied form his home country.
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Part of me says HAH! while the other part says ‘tsk’, it is indeed a pity that we still have not managed to use our country in a positive way. Why can’t we refuse visas to the abundant asians that come to flock our Mad-ressas instead of refusing some Swiss dude who just wanted to climb a mountain?
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hahaha feel the taste of your own medicine!
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if most of the countries had this requirement of applying for visa from home country, no Pakistani living in UAE would be able to apply for European and other destinations visas from Dubai. so this is not really true. and it wouldn’t hurt Pakistan consulate to be a bit more accommodating.
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ONE foreign tourist is not going to save tourism in Pakistan. How about Switzerland open up it’s visas for us? Look for a shoulder to cry on elsewhere
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You have mentioned the procedure yourself, please follow it
Non-Thai foreigners can get a Pakistani visa only if they are permanent residents in Thailand or have a work permit
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Mr. Swiss traveler if you are not well equipped with the visa rules fault lies with you. If you are really interested in trekking the Pak mountains apply visa from your home country. rules should not be mended in general. No offence.
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@Atif Yousufzai
You are spot on. How can the author expect to get a visa for Pakistan through the Thailand Embassy when he doesnt work or live in Thailand?
Will a Pakistani national be ever given a Swiss visa from a place where he doesnt live or work?
And i agree that there was no need for the author to be so cheap, mentioning the drivers, guides, porters etc.Recommend
As a seasoned traveller he should have known.The rule that comes in his way to get the Pakistani visa from Pak embassy in Thailand is quite universal and not specific to Pakistan.And the emotional blackmail is in poor taste.
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you can always obtain parkistan visa from pakistan embassy in phnom penh, cambodia.they won’t reject you visa at all..
Do hop onto bus to phnom penh cambodia from bangkok, cambodia visa is available on arrival at border at 25 dollars still.
then you wait 3-4 days, parkistan visa ‘ll be ready.
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You gotta apply from your own country, dude. This is not unstandard practice for embassies. I tried applying for a Chinese visa in Hong Kong and got one that was three times the cost and one half the time-span for the expiration date. Plan ahead of time, do your homework/read up, and apply in your own country.
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