Well, I knew it was too good to be true. I thought that the process for getting my Indian Visa was too easy and ran way too smoothly. I should have known, after all, this is Thailand and nothing is easy. I applied 3 weeks ago for a one month tourist visa for India, I've spent a lot of time and money going back and forth to Bangkok to take care of this over the past few weeks. I dropped my passport off yesterday to have the visa put in, and I was all excited to pick it up this morning. But when I picked it up, I noticed something was wrong. The visa expires before I even leave for India. See, what they didn't tell me at the application center was that the visa is valid for the amount of time you request from the day they issue your visa. So, since I asked for a one month visa, they made the validity of it February 4th 2010- March 3rd 2010... one day before I leave for India. After lots of arguing and stressing out, the man who was helping me told me that I could just pay a fee of 500 Rupee once I arrive in India, and everything would be settled. I asked him repeatedly, "Are you sure???" "I'll be able to enter India and stay there???" Yes, yes he kept telling me. I was skeptical so I did some of my own research, and discovered that not only is this not true, but I wouldn't even be able to board my flight to India without a valid visa. And if it expires while I am there, I would be detained at the airport when I try to leave the country. Thanks a lot, stupid India visa application man. I'm not happy about this at all. This means that I have to go through the entire process all over again, spend another 100 dollars, plus transportation to and from Bangkok. AND I still need to apply for and get by visa to Vietnam. Now I don't know when I will have the time to do that after this whole fiasco. I was going to go to the beach this weekend, but now I can't because I need to save money and pay the visa fee again. UGH... I'm just going to be hanging in my town this weekend, shooting the breeze, and try to work on some art. Maybe I'll make a piece entitled "Stupid Visa Application Center in Bangkok," it could be my masterpiece.
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