Which Countries Government's Take Least Real Estate In Your Passport?

[hermespan]

and make them easy to find... I notice that Indonesia is very considerate-- the visa stamp takes only half a page and they are kind enough almost superimpose the entry and exit stamps on the same half page (or maybe I just had a nice border guard?). Myanmar is somewhere in the middle. They give you a nice visa with your portrait, stamp the exit stamp in the visa, and the distinctive oblong entry stamp is put sideways so as not to be the rude fat lady on the bus. Don't know how big a Japanese visa is (most of us never need one), but their 90-day 'landing permissiin' is an odd size taking up a quarter page instead of the usual sixth stamp (could be worse). Laos's red rectangle visa on arrival overland are easy to spot and small enough, actual visa is a pale maroon full pager. Thailand's purply-blue triangles take up only a sixth of a page and are also easy to find with all the signatures and hand-written notations. Should one need an actual tourist visa they take up a whole page like virtually every state's one, but the distinctive red Garuda makes them easy to spot. Malaysia's very similar one is red so that's smart. China's wins the ugliest visa page. Their red stamps take up 1/8th of a page and exitvand entry ones are discernable by shape (entry oval, exit square). Hexoganal stamp is transit airport stay? My favourite is Singapore--twelfth of a page green circle. Ultimate in space efficiency. It's as if they are trying to make life easy for frequent business travellers nd Malaysian and Indonesian workers. Nope, I'm wrong, the green circle is exit, the entry takes a 1/6th page and is purple ink. Cambodia's oblong hexagon entry and oval exit are 1/6 page and get hand-written squiggles. Full page green visas. India's is kind of ugly--don't know about stanos where and what size. Taiwan blue square entry and blue circle exit 1/6. won't win any design awards, but easy to spot as dates stamped in contrasting red ink (as indeed are Cambodia's). Bangladesh looks like something out of 1955-- STAMPED visa, stamps take 1/4 page, easy to spot entry and exit stamps by shape (rectangle vs. oval, contrasting red date stamp). Nepal's cheapo paper one *could* take a half page if they designed it a little more carefully, but as it isthe odd size means taking up a full pagevwith a lot of squiggles, stamp and sticker. Charming in a budget kind of way. And at least they get it all on one page. My Philippines ones (1/6 page each stamp, don't know about actual non visa on arrival sticker) are easy to distinguish, jumbo green exits and rectangular red entries. But mine were placed like tge border guard was drunk.

Edited January 2, 2013 by hermespan

[hermespan]

tablet not working well with forum, continuing here... Vietnam yellow with red seal easy to spot. Very functional entry and exit stamps 1/10 page but border guard didn't use space efficiently. Actually a design fault--add on line of 'permitted to remain until' takes up space, so actually all takes upalmost half a page.

East Malaysia domestic 'immigration' seems to have added a green sticker for a visit to Borneo.

[IMA_FARANG]

When I worked in Saudi Arabia back in the 1980's I had the Saudi equivalent of a Work Permit.

Every time I left Saudi on vacation it took two pages in my U.S. passport .... one for the actual Saudi exit and rentry stamps and one for my Iqauma stamps (the then Saudi equivalent of an exit re-entry permit).

Usually i took at least two vacactions a year, sometimes three.

So, with the Saudi exit and entry stamps, the visas, and the Thai entry and exit stamps between 4 and 6 full pages were filled every year

Not sure if that would be still true today, however. I think Saudi Arabia has changed it's procedures today, Berween 1980 and 1985 it certainly was,

I am an American and we can get new pages put into or passport at an U.S. embessy. In those 5 years I worked in Saudi Arabia I went through two passport additional new pages inserts, a total of 20 new pages.

That job in Saudi was the job that took up the most space in my passport of any country I have worked in.