Yesterday Elena and I secured our Nepal visas, and today we got our India transit visas. So we’re happy to be rejoining our teams at some point in the next two days.
I’d like to take a minute to pause and thank those that helped to make this slight diversion possible.
- First, to the Delhi Airport who, after I paid over $120 dollars to get my India visa in Stockholm, invalidated my visa almost instantaneously upon my arrival, despite the fact that I was transiting between two international flights and explicitly said so.
- Second, to the Nepal Immigration Office at Sunauli who exited me without realizing that there was a chance I might not make it to India and would have to come back to Nepal.
- Third, to our friends at the India Immigration Office at Sunauli who punched me in the back of the head (ok, I deserved it).
- Fourth, to the Nepal Immigration Office in Kathmandu who made us wait a whole day to get our visas fixed.
- Fifth, to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu who refused to hear our story.
- Sixth, to the India Visa Office in Kathmandu who charged me double what everyone pays for a visa because I’m American.
- Seventh, to the arm and a leg I’m paying to get back to India by plane.
- Eighth, to the stomach virus that gave me a high fever and required me to run to the bathroom once every hour for the last three days straight.
Without all of you, none of this would have been possible.
But seriously, today was a fantastic day. The cab driver Kumar and his friend Ram who helped us to bribe the door officials at the India visa office, then took us all around Kathmandu and acted as our personal tour guides.
They took us to the spiritual temple Pashupatinath where we watched as people burned the bodies of their recently-deceased loved ones. Ram talked us through the history of the temples and about the Hindu gods to whom they prayed. Among the temples was a home for the elderly without families which was absolutely heart-breaking as we watched as they lived out their last days in complete solitude. Elena (a professional photographer) and I captured some extremely moving images (not graphic, don’t worry) which I will attempt to upload to Flickr, although that has proven far more difficult than expected.
Ram and Kumar were incredibly kind-hearted young men who struggle to feed their families everyday, yet the smiles on their faces would have suggested otherwise. For those of you who have read Shantaram, they were our “Prabaker”.
The adventure for the Visa Rejects isn’t over. We still have to meet up with our teams which is like trying to hit an unpredictable moving target (moving at an epic 30-40 KPH). Elena will fly to Delhi then eventually to Agra where she will meet her team. I will be headed to Mumbai, then probably hopping a plane to Indore where I will try to meet up with Tuk Tuk Goose.
Thanks for all the great comments and support. I look forward to reporting from the road again in India! Namaste!
