Warning about Lonely Planet Thorntree Forum

[steadhamp]

to LP!
I would like to report my negative experiences with the Thorntree here.
About a week ago I posted something there about my extremely negative experiences with the Cameroon embassy in Berlin regarding my visa application in order to warn other travellers about this. When I revisited the Thorntree, I found out that my post had been removed by LP, I did not receive any notification from LP why my post had been removed. From this I can only conclude that the information on TT is highly unreliable as I am sure there are many other instances when posts have been removed.
I went to the Cameroon embassy in Berlin 3 times and they lied to me each time I went there. On my first visit they told me I need a return flight and a hotel reservation for 1 night in order to get a visa, when I came back with this they demanded a hotel reservation for 3 nights, when I came back with this they demanded a hotel reservation for the whole of my stay in Cameroon in every single town. It was quite clear to me at this point that they were just trying to annoy me and that they would have thought of something else if I had indeed brought such reservations. I should also add that on top of the travel time I waited around 1 hour each time I went to the embassy because the staff there spend most of their time not working.
So my advice to all travellers is: Avoid the embassy of Cameroon in Berlin!
Just for the record: I have been to more than 100 countries, I have NEVER been asked to supply a hotel reservation to get a visa for any of those countries,which goes to show how absolutely ridiculous it is to even ask for something like this.

[mbravo]

Perhaps it is just shows that you are a lucky holder of a nice passport? Say, for me to get most (not all) visas I need to provide a thumb-thick sheaf of forms, often in triplicate, including return tickets, hotel reservations, bank statements and notarized confirmations that I actually work where I say I do, etc.

So I wouldn't be so generous with blanket statements of what is ridiculous :-) even if I'm all for cutting down on the red tape everywhere.

[brclarke]

Have you written to LP and asked for an explanation? Maybe it is not censorship but a simple case of a technical glitch with your account?

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

[markharf]

Or you complained so vigorously that it appeared offensive to at least some readers. Thorntree mods remove posts without notice, usually based on complaints received from other posters. If you care, contact the mods directly--although don't hold your breath.

FWIW, I've had to provide hotel reservations, and this is not unusual. Neither is waiting around for hours while embassy employees appear to have nothing much to do. But when the rules keep shifting from one day (or even one minute) to the next, it often means someone is looking for a bribe of some sort. It happens.

Mark

[chris]

Interestingly the identical post to http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...y-beware-71975 that I posted on the LP Thorntree has also been deleted....

Everything about LP stinks. And their guidebooks are utter garbage too.

[colebatch]

Said it before, will say it again ... those books are nothing more than ballast ... or kindling if you can keep them dry.

There may be some areas of the world where they are useful, but for the parts I go to, they are total rubbish. If the info isnt a decade out of date, then its plain false.

[noel di pietro]

Originally Posted by steadhamp

to LP!
I would like to report my negative experiences with the Thorntree here.
About a week ago I posted something there about my extremely negative experiences with the Cameroon embassy in Berlin regarding my visa application in order to warn other travellers about this. When I revisited the Thorntree, I found out that my post had been removed by LP, I did not receive any notification from LP why my post had been removed. From this I can only conclude that the information on TT is highly unreliable as I am sure there are many other instances when posts have been removed.
I went to the Cameroon embassy in Berlin 3 times and they lied to me each time I went there. On my first visit they told me I need a return flight and a hotel reservation for 1 night in order to get a visa, when I came back with this they demanded a hotel reservation for 3 nights, when I came back with this they demanded a hotel reservation for the whole of my stay in Cameroon in every single town. It was quite clear to me at this point that they were just trying to annoy me and that they would have thought of something else if I had indeed brought such reservations. I should also add that on top of the travel time I waited around 1 hour each time I went to the embassy because the staff there spend most of their time not working.
So my advice to all travellers is: Avoid the embassy of Cameroon in Berlin!
Just for the record: I have been to more than 100 countries, I have NEVER been asked to supply a hotel reservation to get a visa for any of those countries,which goes to show how absolutely ridiculous it is to even ask for something like this.

I say skip Cameroon entirely. Been to 30 African countries and Cameroon was the worst for us! Not the people themselves but the police are the worst, they make the Nigerian police look like amateurs with respect to corruption! The aggressive violent kind of corruption.

Cheers,
Noel
Toyota Off The Map

[Surfy]

Originally Posted by noel di pietro

I say skip Cameroon entirely. Been to 30 African countries and Cameroon was the worst for us! Not the people themselves but the police are the worst, they make the Nigerian police look like amateurs with respect to corruption! The aggressive violent kind of corruption.

Hi Noel

Too bad that you had such bad experiences in Cameroon.

I watch the sitation on the westcost, read any german and english language Blogs that i can get, and use sometimes Google Translate for Blogs in other languages.

There are many older and much more newer Blogreports from Cameroon (also i wrote a blog) - without such experiences.

Just because you had such a experience, that means not that that is the same experience other travellers usually had there.

When you mean your Blog entry from 2011: Thats looks like an "usual" case of a bribe scenario - nothing who sounds too crazy?

Surfy

[noel di pietro]

Originally Posted by Surfy

Hi Noel

Too bad that you had such bad experiences in Cameroon.

I watch the sitation on the westcost, read any german and english language Blogs that i can get, and use sometimes Google Translate for Blogs in other languages.

There are many older and much more newer Blogreports from Cameroon (also i wrote a blog) - without such experiences.

Just because you had such a experience, that means not that that is the same experience other travellers usually had there.

When you mean your Blog entry from 2011: Thats looks like an "usual" case of a bribe scenario - nothing who sounds too crazy?

Surfy

We are no novice travellers or naive and we know about bribary but when they are shouting through your car window with machine guns pointed at your tires from both sides of the car, then it's not a 'normal' case of bribery anymore! One time I got stopped for speeding while I was driving 25kph over a massive speed bump. We got fined and I lost my internation car registration papers because we said we did not have all the money and had to get it ($ 10,- but that is not the point). 100m down the road I got stopped again for driving too slow, we were holding up traffic, which wasn't there btw, etc. We didn't get fined on that occasion but it show how powerless you are against "local law". We managed to get 6 fines in the whole of our 60.000 km trip in Africa, one in Morocco (which was justified) and five in Cameroon which were all bogus! When they take away your passport and / or drivers license sometime under thread of a gun, to make sure you pay the bogus fine, then you don't feel too welcome anymore! We even went to the dutch Embassy the consult what we could or should do about it! Other people got locked up for 2 days until they were reported missing in Yaounde because they were not carrying their passports on them (passports were at an embassy for Visa processing, duhh) and I can go on and on! You have 2 types of police in Cameroon, with green uniforms (gendarms) and blue uniforms (police). The green guys were the worst!

No Camroon was a nightmare (for us) albeit that we also heard of people who enjoyed it. We found ourselves in some kind of negative bubble in Cameroon all the time which was cleared as soon as we entered Gabon! After that the Congo's and Angola were a blast, no problems at all with local law enforcement!

Normal people in Cameroon are friendly though as in most of Africa.

Cheers,
Noel.

[gazza171]

we also had problems with fines for not carrying passports or authenticated copys, but this is not a new problem....decades old....but i will say Nigeria was far worse, they tryed to Jack us 2 times in Nigeria but only 1 time in Cameroon

[Dave The Hat]

It is the law to carry either your passport or an authenticated copy of it (with entry visa and entry stamp) whilst in Cameroon. We were arrested at 2am in the morning for not having ours with us and taken to the local station (Douala).

2 hours of waiting and smiling and humouring them and making a general nuisance of ourselves and they let us go with a warning!

But worth noting for people going through in the future.