Tuesday 29 April 2008

"It's India, same as last week"

Phew... looked like we were screwed for a moment there.

We couldn't get a visa for India before we left, like we were supposed to, because it would have expired by now, so we planned to get a visa in Singapore, a week before our departure. Erm.

We turned up at the Singapore High Commission of India and were locked out for the afternoon, faced with the message that they'd outsourced their visa services to agencies - agencies, that on further investigation, employ complete dumbasses, who don't know anything about visas to India. Great!

After talking to the two agencies, and checking the website of the embassy, we were seriously worried because they all told us that visas are only available to Singapore residents. Shit. We're due to fly on Monday, and don't have visas.

So, bright and early, trying not to panic, we trotted along to the embassy the next morning, wearing our 'nice' clothes and waited in line in the sweaty waiting room, watching each person in front of us leave, without a visa.

When our turn finaly came, we were a little flustered (even Ben had pink little cheeks) and the guy behind the desk was on the phone, ignoring us - not a great start. We kept our cool though, and when he eventually saw fit to look at us all he said was "Why didn't you get your visas in England", which we explained, then he seemed to take a shine to us, asked us what we did back home, grated us our visas which we can pick up on Monday morning, and bid us a very pleasant farewell with the words "We need nice intelligent people like you in India. Enjoy your trip". How nice. Although we're still terrified of what's to come, we're looking forward to India more and more each day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNDs56H3cA8



Yeah!

Debs and Ben

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