Last summer, I completed a 50-year mission: I had officially, and legally, visited every recognized country on earth.

　　去年夏天，我完成了长达五十年的旅行任务：我真正的，在法律认可的情况下，游遍了世界上的所有国家。

　　I’ve had hundreds of adventures inside these countries, but for certain countries, the adventure started before I could even get in. Here are the five countries for which I had the hardest time obtaining visas.

　　在这些国家里我经历了许许多多的事情，可是有些困难在没踏入这些的国家之前就已经开始了。这里是我总结的5个最不容易拿到签证的国家。

　　Saudi Arabia

　　沙特阿拉伯

　　Saudi Arabia was truly tough. I tried, from 2000 to 2009, without success, or even explanation for my failure, to secure a tourist visa to the Desert Kingdom—though at the time the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities had no history of granting tourist visas to non-Muslims. Because I had to get in to complete my quest, I worried that I might have to convert to Islam, memorize the Koran, study with a mullah, attend a mosque, and forget I was an ultra-liberal Jewish atheist.

　　沙特阿拉伯真的很难拿到签证，为了弄到张去往这个沙漠王国的旅游签证，我在2000年到2009年之间一直没有停止过申请，但从来没有成功过，甚至连拒签理由都没有。那时，沙特旅游和文物管理委员会从来没有给非穆斯林的人给过旅游签证。但是我必须完成自己的追求，我担心自己也许怕是要去皈依伊斯兰教了，熟背《可兰经》，向毛拉(伊斯兰教神学家)学习，去清真寺，忘记我曾是个极端自由主义的犹太无神论者。

　　Chad

　　乍得

　　Chad required, and still requires, the visa applicant to submit a letter from a sponsor or hotel in the country’s capital, N’Djamena, inviting him or her to visit, and setting forth the relationship and the purpose of the trip. When I went in 2012, only two or three hotels there were issuing such a letter.

　　申请乍得的签证，你(仍然)需要提供出自赞助人或者旅馆的邀请证明，而且必须来自首都恩贾梅纳。除此之外还要提供此行目的以及同行人关系的相关材料。我2012年去的时候，只有两到三个旅店可以出具这些证明。

　　Russia

　　俄罗斯

　　Russia wouldn’t have made this list but for my fourth visit there in 2010, when I discovered the liability of being an American seeking to enter Putin’s land: While most of the rest of the world’s peoples can apply for a visa to Russia using a simple single-page form of 21 questions, U.S. citizens must use an arduous “new form implemented on the basis of reciprocity” that has 41 often-intrusive questions.

　　俄罗斯其实没有必要进入这张排名表，但是在我2010年第四次去的时候，我发现了作为一个美国人踏入普京领地是有多么的困难：世界上的其他国家申请俄罗斯签证只需要完成印满单页的21题申请表。而美国人必须费尽心力完成一张“全新的的表格，所有问题都建立在互惠的基础上”并有41题具有很强干扰性的问题。

　　Sudan

　　苏丹

　　Sudan was a hard nut to crack. From 2004 to 2007, whenever I asked the Sudanese Embassy in Washington about the status of my application, I got the same terse reply: “It is being considered in Khartoum.”

　　苏丹真的是难啃的骨头。在2004年到2007年之间，每当我询问位于华盛顿的苏丹领事馆我的签证进程，我总是得到同样简洁的答复："喀土穆还在考虑中。"

　　Angola

　　安哥拉

　　Angola was the most difficult of all the countries I visited. Its stingy visa policy perhaps reflected a widely held belief that foreign visitors only want to steal the country’s diamonds. Furthermore, Angola’s government granted Americans almost no tourist visas for years because of American support for Angolan rebels in a 27-year civil war that began in 1975 and killed more than half a million people.

　　安哥拉是我去过的国家中最难获得签证的，他们不肯放开签证办理政策，也许正反映了他们小气狭隘的想法：外国游客来到这个国家只是想来盗取钻石的。此外，安哥拉也禁止了来自美国的一切旅游签证，因为美国支持了1975年的安哥拉反叛军，这场战争维持了27年，近50万的人牺牲了。

　　更多精彩内容 >> 新东方网英语频道 

　　全国新东方英语课程搜索

（编辑：何莹莹）