I will start with a brief overview of deep optical and NIR (2MASS) galaxy searches and their effectiveness in uncovering the galaxy distribution behind the Milky Way. While the ability to identify galaxies in the optical surveys becomes quite ineffective for absorption above 3 mag, this effect is much less severe in the NIR. However, confusion due to star density is a strongly delimiting factor. 2MASS does not recover galaxies in regions where the star density is higher than 10000 per square degree, leaving the extragalactic sky unmapped in the wide area around the Galactic Bulge (-90 < l < 90), where optical surveys still do quite well.

We will see that even if galaxies are identified at low Galactic latitudes in either optical or NIR surveys, spectroscopic follow-ups are hardly successful in obtaining redshifts when the optical absorption reaches 3 magnitudes or more, leaving us thus with a a similar ZOA in redshift space. Here only HI surveys prevail. After a brief review of the results from the deep Parkes MultiBeam HI ZOA search for galaxies, I will continue with a progress report on the currently ongoing extension of this survey to higher latitudes around the Galactic Bulge as well as an update on the spiral galaxy HIZOA J0836-43, the most massive HI galaxy detected in the HIZOA and deep HIPASS survey, which, however, lies behind an obscuration screen of 10 mag.