Most places you travel to, it is pretty easy to get a tourist visa. Australia had a quick online application and you were good to go. Other places you get off the airplane and stand in line, pay a fee, and you are good to go.
India...not so easy. I guess they are not very interested in tourism, because if I had known how difficult (and expensive!) it was I would have come up with a plan B for meeting my boat somewhere else...
So, first I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork and send my passport off to the India Embassy in San Francisco, since I am from the west coast. Silly me, I put my grandparents address in Connecticut on so the passport would come back to where I was actually visiting while waiting for my visa...so they sent it back to me and said I had to apply to the East Coast Embassy in New York, and change all the information to a Connecticut residence...not going to happen.
So then I filled out all the paperwork again, with my Alaska information, and sent it in to a visa processing service (paid more $$), and it got kicked back again because I didn't have a physical address. Don't people know that 75% of Alaska residents don't have an official physical address? So without going back to Alaska to change my drivers license to add in my 'physical address,' which is basically a mile post marker, they said I had to have some kind of paper with a physical address on it, and it could only be a utility bill or a rental agreement.
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| This is a very expensive piece of paper. |
Changing a utility bill to put my name on it took time, and then it still has a mailing address without a physical address...
Needless to say, it was a headache, a hassle, and if I wasn't pretty committed to meeting up with the Liberty in Cochi, India, to help get the boat ready to sail, I think I would have just gone to Thailand or somewhere to meet them along the way.
It was a month long delay. Think twice before trying to travel to India. There are a lot of places in the world that are easier to get into. It ended up costing me over $300 just to get the visa approved, money that I now will NOT be spending in India, if anyone in the tourism industry is listening...oh, not to mention the vaccinations I had to get before traveling to that part of the world.
On the up side I spent some quality time with the family, and my sister came back from her travels to get her work visa to China (good luck with that sis!) and I got to visit with her for a few days before taking off on my adventure.
See her travel blog at: Alaska Rambling Rose
Finally, my bags are packed, I wrapped up the sail I purchased in Florida, and I have my ticket to India and will be on my way!
