I'd never applied for a visa before, and any process that could deny us access to these beautiful countries filled me with a huge amount of caution and trepidation. The visas in question were for Vietnam and India. These are the only two countries out of the six we intend to visit which require tourist visas BEFORE you go (the rest can all be obtained at the border, or at least so we hope!). So with a massive sigh of relief and clench-fisted thrust of triumph, I can inform you that both my applications were successful. I can now open my passport and wave it at anyone who should care to acknowledge, two beautiful visas. The Indian one even has my face on it!!!!
They're not cheap to obtain. The Indian and Vietnamese visas cost a hefty £42 and £49 respectively. In addition to this, I can't say that they're all that easy to get hold of either, although fortunately, the Vietnamese visa was relatively simple. It involved turning up at the Vietnamese Embassy on a leafy street in Knightsbridge, grabbing a form from the pile, filling out the necessary details and then attaching a passport photo to it with the provided Pritt Stick. I then handed this over to the Vietnamese lady behind the counter, who seemed to smile at everyone else apart from me, along with my passport and pre-paid Royal Mail Special Delivery envelope, (with my name and home address already scribbled in blue biro).
After wrapping the precious documents and passport into a neat little bundle and binding them with an elastic band for Vietnamese-style security, the lady then handed me a ticket which looks suspiciously like one you'd get at a raffle. Then I was shuffled along to the 'paying' counter where, in exchange for my £49 and raffle ticket, I'd receive a little scrap of paper which I presumed was the receipt. Feeling a little bit insecure at no longer having my passport in my own pocket, I stepped out of the embassy and through the high metal gate back onto the street.
I must say that the Vietnamese Embassy is a mightily impressive building. Above the entrance doorway, waves a massive red flag with yellow star, and the writing on the wall reads, "The Socialist Republic of Vietnam". I couldn't help but feel excited when I previously entered. The interior to this impressive building was oddly at sorts to the street outside which it shared with numerous Ferraris and Porsches. It had a distinctly communist feel to it. The inside was dark, which had surprised me, as it was a sunny day outside, and it possessed a similar atmosphere to that of a library. Strangely though I had felt at home, due to the dozen or so other blatant backpackers-to-be that resided within, each infused with the same dose of excitement as me. I enjoyed the experience.
The same could not be said however, about the Indian Embassy. The building was not an impressive monolith, representing its glorious nation. It was not filled with quietly excited backpackers. It was not situated in leafy London suburbia. It was none of these things.
Even before visiting the embassy, George and I hit problems.
The application process for Indian visas involved pre-booking an appointment, and filling out your application online on an almost unusable website. After several failed and repeated attempts at this, George and I eventually ended up at the doorway to the Indian Embassy. To be fair, it looked more like the side entrance to a launderette. A burly English man sat behind a desk in the scant hallway. He gave us a ticket like the ones you get while waiting for cheese and meats in Tesco. It read 061. The room beyond was much larger and lighter than the Vietnamese one and resembled an airport departure lounge with many rows of chairs all facing the same way. We then consulted the next Indian official behind a desk, this time a woman.
It turned out I’d still epically failed the application. There were issues with my employment, size of passport photo, and “itinerary”. Some of these were issues for George too and he actually started to show his frustration at the woman (which is unlike him). After much debating, we finally managed to sort it all out. I had to re-apply online AGAIN!
Nightmare times.
About 2 hours later, both George and I had paid for our visas and were gladly on our way; fingers crossed that after all the hassle, our applications would be successful…
They were. One more thing ticked off the list,
Ewan.
oh the LOLs
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