If you’re anything like me, you think reading boring stuff is boring, and there’s lots of boring stuff to read on the Indian government website where you can apply for a Visa. I’d like to say that it was the fault of that website when I screwed up my Visa before my first visit, but really it was all my doing. I was impatient and trying to save money, so I thought, “I know, I’ll just get the cheap 30-day e-Visa and then straighten things out when I get to India.”
Straighten things out when I get to India. You know, that country that is notorious for its constipated bureaucratic system, terrible prisons, and underpaid government workers working in offices with no air conditioning. (Actually, that sounds a lot like the U.S. except we have a.c.)
I went to the official Indian government Visa site initially, where I saw they offered a 30-day e-Visa for about $40, which was significantly cheaper than securing the document through the highly recommended Cox & Kings Visa service. If you will be in India only a couple of weeks and don’t intend to return, go with the e-Visa offered on the Indian government site, but for anything more complex, use the official 3rd party company Cox & Kings.
C&K will cost you more (I paid somewhere north of $250), but it’s totally worth it. Besides, you can get a 10-year Visa, and that works out to only about $20 per year. Best of all, they will hold your hand through the application process, which would have saved me so much time and grief spent struggling to understand how to fill out the form. C&K has a help line, but you will probably wait at least 10 minutes each time you call before an agent can get to you, so unless you really like listening to the same Kenny G over and over, I suggest you make a list of all your questions before you ring them.
So, what happened last year when I got to India with a Visa that would last me only 30 days when I intended to stay for several months? I had no choice but to fix the issue before I left the country. Indian officials don’t take Visa expiration lightly—it can mean prison time if you are caught with an expired Visa.
I enlisted the help of my new friends in Mumbai, and they recommended I go down to the FRRO (Foreign Regional Registration Offices) to see if I could extend the Visa. No dice. I almost offered a bribe, but then I chickened out. I would get the opportunity to offer baksheesh to a cop later, but that’s another story.
My only option at that point was to exit the country and re-apply for a new 6-month Visa. My friends had heard that Nepal and Sri Lanka were both easy places to get a new Indian Visa fast, so I chose Sri Lanka because the flights were cheaper.
Once you apply at the Visa office in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, you have to wait 5 business days before returning to sign for the Visa, and then you have to go back the next day to pick it up. Gandhi’s birthday came right in the middle of that, so I was stuck there for a couple days more than I wanted, but it worked out.
It’s also important that you pick the correct kind of Visa. If you will be visiting a medical facility or taking courses, you may need a medical or student Visa, but check first with the place you are visiting to see if the business is recognized as an official school or medical office. The best bet is a tourist Visa.
Cox & Kings can also help you navigate through some questions that may be unusual to Westerners, like what religion you are. I think I put Buddhist or something until I read that you are supposed to put the religion of your family, so I finally chose Christian. Don’t frivolously choose a religion as these things are taken pretty seriously in India. If you are a Buddhist, then choose that, but if you’re not, then choose Christian. No one will give that answer a second glance if you are coming from a Western country, and, believe me, when it’s time to go through immigrations at the airport in India, you don’t want any extra scrutiny.
