The Indian visa process. Or how to bring bureaucracy into the 21st century.

India requires visas from most countries, including the US and UK.  Before we started our travel planning, I vaguely recalled this from my discussions with other travelers, so once we were committed to making India our destination for this summer, I knew that we needed to take care of arranging our visas.  

At least in the US, the Indian consulates have outsourced the application process for most visa types to a third party called Travisa.  The process goes something like this:
a.  Fill out the appropriate application on the Indian government website, one for each person.  Be prepared to provide your religion, information about multiple generations of your family, your occupation, your port of arrival in India, your address in India (remember - they tell you not to book any travel until you have received your visa!), shoe size, favorite TV show, ....  Perhaps my favorite question was list all countries you have visited in the last ten years.  Suffice is to say that the space allocated for this ran out well before I got to the end of the list.  Since there wasn't enough space to list every country we have visited in that time, what was the point?
b. Certify the application online and get a reference number.
c. Have a passport sized photo and signature for each applicant.  Scan these together (individually won't work!)
d. Complete an online processing form with Travisa including the application reference number and re-entering some of the same data from the Indian government application form.  Choose whether to do everything by post (estimated processing time up to 4-6 weeks), or in person with theoretical same day service at your nearest Travisa office, which for us is a 2.5 hour drive away in Houston.
Rinse and repeat once per person, without being able to save any data that would be same across all applications.  With everything I needed to do, I estimate it took me about 1 hour per application.
e. Submit everything online and then print the application, which includes 10 pages of instructions.  Either bring in person to your designated appointment time, or send in the post along with your passports and other documentation.  Since 4-6 weeks would be cutting it very close for us, we chose to make the drive down to Houston.  The granting of visas is at the discretion of the Indian consulate so they tell you there are no guarantees, but applications made by 11am are usually ready for pickup that same night at 5pm.  Accordingly we made an appointment for 10:40am a few days later.

Let me pause for a second to note that the complexity factor in doing visa apps goes up big time when you have two sons, neither of whom live at home.  Luckily I had visa/passport photos that were only a year or two old for all of us, but how to get the signatures?  For Ben this could have been done with a cross town drive, but for Aaron, who is in college in Atlanta, I suppose the expectation of the Indian government was either that he would take care of the whole process at his local consulate/application center (good luck with that, especially since his passport was in our safe in Austin), or that we would mail forms back and forth.

To give you an idea of how finicky the process is, there are a couple of places where you have to sign, including a box where if you go over the edge, even slightly, your application will be rejected.  

The solution was for me to get scans of everyone's signature and layout a document that placed and scaled the signatures to be exactly where they needed.  Something that isn't too difficult for me since I work with visual editing software all the time, but a pain none the less.

After I had filled out an submitted each of the apps, I noticed that there was a small problem with Ben and mine.  On Ben's I think I listed his birthplace as Austin, rather than Tarzana, CA and on mine, I had listed my parents by their first names, but it turned out that for the parents' name only, this should be first and last name.   A long wait on hold that was never answered and some online research revealed that applications could not be edited and that I should redo the process and reprint the forms.  Grrr.

Our appointed appointment time arrived - we had picked 10:40 am  to get in under the 11am deadline, yet give us time to drive to Houston without getting up in the middle of the night.  I must say that the Travisa process was pretty painless at this point.  A receptionist looked over all our paperwork to double check it.  Copies of everyone's drivers' licenses.were also needed, but I had made sure to bring those.

Then we dropped off everything (forms, photos, passports) at the counter and paid our fees (something like $70 per person for the recommended  6 month multiple entry visa).  From there we did a little shopping, and art viewing and came back after 5pm only to find out that two of the passports had come back with the visas and the other two were still in progress.  Which ones came back?  Ben and mine, i.e. the ones that got resubmitted a day after Kelly and Aaron's!  We paid an extra $25 or so to have the other passports shipped back to us and they arrived two days later.   Had we known this, we could have simply had all the passports mailed back to us and driven right back to Austin, saving ourselves half a day.  Oh well.

One nice thing is that Travisa provides the ability to track everything on their website, so you can see where you are in the process.  Likely this would have been much more useful had we done the whole thing via post, but in the end we got the visas we needed.  To be honest, I can't really understand why doing this via post should take 4-6 weeks when if you show up at the counter it can be done in a day (or two).  Perhaps they are just being cautious on their website with the processing times.  Either way, the only difference in cost is that actual shipping fee (FedEx).

India has a reputation for lots of bureaucracy and (from a western perspective) inefficiency, so maybe this is just another step in the cultural acclimatization process.  Keep in mind that if you have a very large population, finding jobs for people may be more important than saving a few minutes for each applicant.   I've experienced this before in other places I've traveled and it takes some adjustment.

As the prayer goes, "Oh Lord give me patience, but I want it right now."

Getting ready for India

Normally I start blogging once our trip has started, but I thought I would start my first post a little early.  By the way, if you are reading this, please leave a brief comment - it really makes a big difference.  On a previous trip, I just about gave up blogging as I thought no one was reading it, but kept it going if nothing else as a personal journal.  Turns out that lots of people have told me that they enjoy reading about our travels - if you are one of those, please let me know.

Our eldest son Ben just graduated from university and will be starting his full time employment in August, so this will likely be the last time our family is able to make an extended trip.  We will be traveling as a group of 4 - me, my wife Kelly, graduate Ben, and our youngest son Aaron who will be returning to college in the fall as a sophomore.  In all, we will spend about five weeks traveling to a variety of locations throughout the country.

Our general rule for summer travels has been to try to go to places cooler than Austin, Texas during the summer, but we've violated that once or twice.  We've always wanted to go to India and this seemed like the right time, although we expect it to be very hot and possibly quite wet, especially at the tail end of our trip.  Although we have not been to India before, we have spent a significant amount of time visiting Indian communities in different locations around the world.  We have also had some of our most memorable meals in Indian restaurants in odd places such as Bangkok, Thailand; Szeged, Hungary; Melaka, Malaysia; and Quito, Ecuador.  In Quito we ate there with an Indian family who now live in the US and they thought it was some of the best Indian food they had ever had.

However, visiting "Mother India" will of course be a different experience and one that I am anticipating with eagerness and some trepidation.  Mostly what I wanted to include in this post is some of the ways we try to prepare for a trip, but I thought it might also be interesting to record some of my expectations and then look back on them as we experience the reality of the world's second most populous country, and its largest democracy.

I am expecting India to be one of the most diverse, if not THE most diverse country in the world.  Certainly this is true of religion, with notable communities of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Christians, Jews, Parsis, and others, as well as a wide diversity of economic conditions, geography, architecture, dance, music, language, food and all other aspects of culture.

Some predictions:
- We will be awed by the culture
- We will taste some incredible food (and hopefully learn how to make some of it).
- Each of our senses will be overloaded, and not always in a good way!
- At times we will find ourselves very tired and frustrated
- Attitudes towards time and details will test our patience
- We will be better for the entire experience

The process of preparing for a self guided trip of this nature is quite a bit different from joining an organized tour.  Rather than just show up at an appointment place and time and be whisked from point A to point B, all the research and planning is our responsibility, which although a lot of work, is also one of the things I enjoy as it requires me to learn a lot more about the places we will be exploring.  The key advantage of traveling our way is that we have complete flexibility to go as fast or as slow as we want.  When an experience might be greatly enhanced by the knowledge of a local guide, we'll hire one.

The preparation for these kinds of trips happens a long way in advance.  Informally, I've been doing the research for a few years.  There are various places that are on the dynamic list of locations we ultimately want to visit.  Often the opportunity to go there doesn't occur for a few years.  In the interim I talk to people who have visited the country to listen to their experiences and mentally note the sorts of places and things that we might want to do or try to avoid when we eventually make the trip.  In the case of India, I've also done a fair amount of research on intercultural issues as I have helped Indians relocate to the US and Americans prepare for ex-pat assignments in India.  These programs have also created interesting opportunities to talk with native Indians about their attitudes and expectations between Indian and US cultures.

Next in line is usually reading.  India has been on my radar for a while and so I purchased a good India guide  a couple of years ago that I've browsed from time to time.  My two preferred travel guides are the Footprint series out of the UK and the DK Eyewitness Guides, which are much more visual and useful for people who don't like to do lots of reading.  Of course websites are important too and for general information I like wikitravel.org

After listening to some of the history of India (see below) and the importance of its traditional texts, I found a book at Half Price Books on Hindu Tales that looks very readable.  In preparing for a previous trip to Thailand, I read the Ramayana in translation, which is a key Indian text in the form of a saga, sort of comparable the Iliad or Odyssey.  Also while at Half Price Books, I found an audio course and a book on Hindi language.  I have no illusions of becoming fluent in Hindi, but learning a little of the language provides insights into the culture and being able to speak and understand some phrases goes a long way to trying to create a cultural bridge with individuals.  Many times I've found people who claim not to speak any English, so I use my limited knowledge of their native language. Usually after a few minutes, it turns out that they do speak some English, but weren't confident enough to use in until they saw me butcher their language!  Even though English is widely spoken in India, I suspect I'll have a chance to say a phrase or two while we are there.  India has more than 400 distinct languages and dialects, and every Indian I have previously met spoke at least 3 languages - their local dialect, Hindi, and English, and often 5 or more.

Once the decision to make the trip has been made, probably the first logistical issue is booking the travel.

UPDATE:  I realized this morning that I left out a very important step.  The first real logistical issue is to figure out if there are any special travel documents required, such as visas, which for India, there are.  In fact there are many different types of visas, even just for tourists - single entry, multiple entry, 6 month, 5 year, 10 year, all at different prices and some with different requirements.  The Indian government warns not to book travel until the necessary visas have been received.

Booking travel could be a whole series of posts in and of itself.  Suffice is to say that the days of really great travel agent service is behind us.  The nature of travel agent compensation and the huge variety of contemporary travel options means that travel agents don't much incentive to do detailed research.  It can be helpful if you are able to find an agent specializing in the area to which you will travel, but I had no success in this regard.  When I had a travel agent price out the basic US-India flights, they came back with a quote that ended being nearly $900 per person more than what I ultimately found.  And the flights that I got were on our preferred airlines, shorter, and to the specific locations we wanted.  Bottom line is that if you are planning your own travel you need to be willing to do a lot of research (and maybe get a bit lucky with your timing) if you want to get the best deals.

Having the major flights in place, the next concern is health.  Most tropical areas have specific health risks and require certain inoculations.  Luckily we have an excellent Travel Health Clinic in Austin which I have previously used.  They were able to reference all our previous records and determined that for most of us we just needed to do a Typhoid booster, remind us about healthy traveling, and setup malaria protection.  It turns out that I needed some additional shots, but our family doctor was able to take care of those once we knew what they were.

I've previously written about malaria protection, and in reality the goal is to avoid being bitten by any insects due to a variety of diseases that get spread that way and for which no inoculations exist.  But for malaria specifically, we generally use the medication Malarone in addition to bite avoidance measures.  Since we are traveling as a group of 4, one way to save some money on what can be expensive medication ($6 per pill per day at retail) is to order a 90 day supply for 2 people.  Since we need less than 45 pills per person, these two prescriptions will cover all of us.  Other health precautions include putting together a travel emergency kit including key medications and first aid supplies.  Talk to your doctor.

An essential aspect of protection from insects is to use Permethrin treated clothing.  There are a few products that are sold that come pre-treated and lucky for me I was able to get a good deal on a few shirts at the Columbia Sportswear outlet in San Marcos.  But mostly we self treat our travel clothes with Permethrin sprays or dips, which requires (a) that you have all your travel clothing picked out and (b) that you allow time to treat and dry your clothes.  We travel very light on these trips - rather than carrying enough clothing for the whole trip, we plan on doing laundry.  Having lightweight, durable, easy drying clothing is key, and can get pricey.  Let's just say that REI and Columbia Sportswear did well from us.  Thankfully they both had good sales on for the Memorial Day weekend, but our wallets are still a lot lighter!

Apart from clothing, and medicines, outfitting also includes making sure we have appropriate gear with us - enough stuff to make our lives easier, not so much stuff that we overload ourselves.  I am planning on getting pre-paid Indian SIM cards for two of our phones, hopefully with data access, so this requires getting our phones unlocked by our mobile provider such that they can accept other SIM cards.  Failing to do so would make the cost of using the phone prohibitive, especially with data access.  I've heard horror stories of people who didn't know about the extreme costs ($15/MB or more) and came home with $1,000 plus mobile phone bills.  We have to be able to charge our phones and any other personal electronics we bring, so an India power adapter is essential.  One good tip for charging multiple devices is to take a single India power adapter along with a power strip from your country. This means you can use all your regular chargers and just need to have one power adapter.  You can even get compact travel outlets with built in USB ports, meaning that you just need to bring the appropriate cables and you can charge a couple of phones with one small device and still be able to plug in other things.   I bought one of these from Amazon and am looking forward to using it this year: http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Outlets-300-Laptops-USB/dp/B003TXRTNG

Some other areas of research include watching videos and films.  PBS had run Michael Wood's BBC series called "The Story of India" which we found available on Netflix.  At times it was a little dry, but the 6 hour long episodes gave a very good overview to the complex history of this country.  We also plan on watching "Ghandi" and a few other movies.  Kelly and I want to see the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel before we go, which I understand was shot in Jaipur, a location we plan on visiting.

Some time ago I bought the Great Courses lecture series on the world's great religions, which includes a 12 hour course on Hinduism that I was able to re-listen to in my car.  Having to drive to and from Dallas last week gave me the opportunity to finish most of the course in one day.  This was an excellent course and I know it will enhance my understanding of many aspects of Indian society that we experience, but perhaps the single biggest learning from the course is that if you think you understand India, the teacher has been things seem much simpler than they really are.

So, lots of preparation.  Looking forward to seeing useful any of it turns out to be!

Benjamin Finkel, Esq.

We now have another university graduate in the family.  Benjamin graduated yesterday from the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and a certificate in Asian Language studies (Chinese) and high honors.

The graduation was held at UT's Erwin center which is where they play basketball games as well as stage large concerts and other events.   This is actually the same location that the Austin Independent School district uses for its area High School graduations, so there was a bit of deja vu about the affair since both Ben and Aaron had their high school graduations here also.

The Dean of the College of Natural Sciences was the MC for the event and did his best to share a few humorous anecdotes and pieces of parting advice for the students.  With Biology Sciences being the most popular major in the College of Natural Sciences, they have all the non Biology students (inc. Ben) graduate in the 8am session, while all the Biology Science students come to the same place at noon for their ceremony.

You can spot Ben in the upper right center of the image looking out among the sea of students.  I particularly liked how some of the students had decorated their mortar boards.  Some of them (not pictured) were quite elaborate, and I suspect those were the graduates of the Fashion and Textiles program.

Of course Ben's name would be called just as my camera battery ran low and I was in the midst of changing it.  At least I got one image of him crossing the stage, although it looks like he is about to give the Dean a chest bump!

The stadium may not look full, but there were several hundred grads there and it took a few hours to call them all up.

Afterwards we were able to meet up by the flagpoles and get a few pictures with mom,

brother, and

girlfriend Sarah (who graduated at noon).

Thanks to Sarah for getting a nice picture of the four of us.  The sun went behind a cloud for about 15 seconds allowing us to get a nice image.

This is what it looks like when several hundred graduates try to meet their family and friends while avoiding the several hundred other students who are on their way into the same arena to get ready for their graduation ceremony.

This morning we had a few friends over for a graduation brunch.  Kelly cooked for hours yesterday and made some lovely food that we'll probably be enjoying for most of the week.

Congratulations to Ben (and all the other graduates of 2012 and their families).