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Visa, anyone?

Dec 4th 2008
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Running around Delhi trying to get my visa done!

Running around Delhi trying to get my visa done!

Happily couched in Delhi, it was time for me to try to fix my Indian visa. As some of you probably don’t remember, I got my visa back in June, in Milan. The form I filled had a field for «Starting date» and «Ending date» of my stay in India. I put «October 1st» and «April 1st» and asked the guy at the counter if it was OK: no problem, no problem, they will give you six months. After a couple of weeks the passport eventually arrived in my letter-box at home, and I discovered that my six-months visa was already started, on the day I was asking for it in Milan! That means from June 23rd to December 23rd.

Me not happy.

Today, after more than three hours standing in the line, the visa guy sent me back to provide them a residence proof. That means either a letter from my host, with an electricity bill at his name (providing that he owns the flat) or booking a hotel and have them filling the «C Form».

I politely told them to stick their lousy 15 days extension in that place and bought a ticket to the Nepal border. And the first available will be on Sunday.

I really couldn’t afford another day into those offices:

  • First day at the Italian Embassy, they told me a telephone number with nobody answering, and sent me to the wrong ministry.
  • Second day at the right ministry, queue at the reception, queue at the woman collecting forms, queue for the officer, back in the afternoon and queue for collecting an envelope.
  • Third day queue for identification, queue for delivering yesterday’s envelope and getting a token number, then queue waiting for my number to be called by a guy who wants more documents. It reminds me of Italian bureaucracy.

Another rickshaw day

Another rickshaw day

Add to this that it takes around one hour to get to the (all different and far away) places from my couch.

I gave up.

So my plan is now going Sunday to Kathmandu, arriving on Monday, applying at the Indian Embassy on Tuesday and —hopefully— get my new visa done in the same week.


Note: starting today (2009-01-12) the date in the posts will be the date of the events the post refers. I changed some posts, so the comment date will be a bit strange—but I seriously doubt that somebody will notice/care.

This post is filed under Asia, India and tagged , , , .

One Response

  1. Ally says:

    Hello Pi,
    nice to see my old friend battling as usual.
    You giving up is strange, but shows how hard it must have been!
    Now you are back in India so the Nepal strategy has worked out!

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