Visa Problems

Originally I was hoping for online forms for requesting a visa. Unfortunately, none of the countries I'm visiting allow this. I need tourist visas for China and Vietnam, and a transit visa for Russia. The Chinese and Russian visas aren't much of a problem, since NYC has consulates for both. However, the Vietnamese only have a UN mission in NYC. Their embassy in DC is too far away, and their consulate is apparently in San Francisco. Fortunately, the embassy does mail in visas, so it looks like I'll have to do that for Vietnam, and in person visa for China and Russia. Kind of a pain, but should all work out. Everyone else is recommending I hire a travel agent to do this. I could do that but there's the problem of me being broke. Meh.