The Dark Moment of Travelling

Honestly I think I've had my share of adventurous and bizarre travel situations, so it comes as quite a surprise to look at my current situation.

Here is the scoop. As Q mentioned in the last blog posting, we are taking a trip in China to visit relatives. Well, the trip came to a complete halt when my purse was stolen while dining with Q and family in Shanghai a couple days ago. Thankfully nobody was harmed or anything. Besides money and a few other gadgets, the most important travelling item was also gone missing - my passport. The damage control and police report aside, none of us could have imagined the trouble involved ahead to get me out of China. After tearing up Shanghai for the past two days, it finally dawned on me what it is:

- First, I need to get my courier package containing Canadian-government issued IDs required for my passport application. It's supposed to arrive in Shanghai tomorrow, but last time we checked it was still sitting in Hongkong for some odd reason.
- The Canadian consulate informed me that it takes THREE working days to get a temporary passport. (FIFTEEN for a regular one, which I will also apply at the same time and request to send to Abu Dhabi for pickup.)
- After getting the new passport, I would need to get a so-called "pink slip" for accommodation registration at local police station. Apparently all foreigners are supposed to do it, but nobody does. Well, not this time, because I was told that I'd need it for the next step.
- The Chinese government requires me to get a new visa in order to let me out. According to official and unofficial websites, this steps takes FIVE working days.

All this development has blown every bits of my travel plan out of water. It's not just bad. It's almost disastrous. As you can imagine, I do feel like quite trapped at the moment as I cannot travel anywhere in China without passport. At the moment, I am not even hoping for miracles, I am just hoping that I will be out of the woods soon. Never thought Abu Dhabi could look so attractive right now. On the positive side - there is always a positive side - it is China and I am staying with relatives (Thanks so much, K-Pam!), so we are trying to make the best out of this situation by doing loads shopping - who knew spending money after losing money was such a great therapy! :)

I remember reading a list of emergency services provided by Canadian government and mentally patting myself on the shoulder for not calling from a jail for legal service. Truth to be told, it could be worse.

My Indian Visa Drama

My flight to Mumbai leaves in 12 hours. At this moment, I am sitting here with no passport, no visa, but only my plane tickets. Getting a visa for India has proven to be very difficult in my case. I can only share my stories below and hope others (i.e. you) would have better luck.

1^st trip to Indian embassy. About two weeks ago. That was my first attempt to get a visa for India. We were told the visa service has been outsourced recently (is there anything that can't be outsourced?!) and is at another location, but of course the information was not updated on their website. Oh well ran out of time so had to do it another day. Damnit.

1^st trip to Indian visa office. 10 days ago. A smiling head-bobbing staff explained to me that my Canadian passport only had one blank page and it was not sufficient for visa processing. I needed two blank pages, i.e. a new passport!

1^st trip to Canadian embassy after reaching out to the emergency service immediately. Filled out application form for a temporary passport in addition to a regular passport as a regular would take twenty work days to process, whereas a temp can be printed in Abu Dhabi and ready in five. The staff casually mentioned at the end of the conversation that she was the only one that can print the temp passports, and she would be away on personal holiday for five days, but “don’t worry, we’ll figure something out.” Uhmm, right.

2^nd trip to Canadian embassy. 4 days ago. Picked up 8-page temporary passport. Noticed that it was only valid for six months exact. Thinking to self if that it might be a problem to enter India because there’s a requirement of 6 months validity upon arrival. But no time to waste. Need to hand in visa application form FAST.

2^nd trip to Indian visa office. 4 days ago. Filled out visa application form. Was told “no problem, madam. Visa will be ready in one day. Two days maximum.”

3^rd trip to Indian visa office. 2 days ago. Just when I thought everything was going to be sorted after all. I received a phone call Friday (weekend) night from the visa office, telling me that my application is not complete. I had to go in and fill out an additional form because, take this, I was born in China! “Additional five work days will be required.” So India and China don't get along, eh? Who knew!

3^rd trip to Canadian embassy. After Q’s nudging I decided to follow up on the six month passport validity situation. Canadian embassy staff agreed to give me a copy of my new passport (which arrived yesterday), and a letter explaining my situation. You see, I can’t get the new passport yet because I can't carry around two valid passports at any given time, and my visa would be on the temp. Get it?

--- Insert dozens phone calls to Canadian and Indian embassies between trips. ---

Latest update: Just called my friend Sashi at Indian embassy, yes, we are friends now since he's on my speed dial. I was informed that my security form was just faxed to New Delhi, and now I must wait for security clearance. You gotta love the protocol though: if they doesn’t hear back from New Delhi after five working days, they can assume everything is okay and proceed to issue me a visa, but not before. The staffs can't afford risking their jobs over failing to folllow procedure and that is it.

I’ve done the upset-and-bitching part, so what now. "All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope.” I think I will do just that. Actually, add "blogging" to that list.

New latest update: Still no visa after another day of waiting. I was told that Indian embassy will be closed tomorrow due to Indian public holiday, so there is no chance for me to get a visa and get myself to India before my course starts. This is it. My India trip is off.