Indian embassy Bangkok

Yesterday I asked Carl if he knew where the Indian embassy was. He found it on my map and told me to take the number 2 bus to Sukomvit, then a motorbike taxi. So this morning I got up bright and early on a hot and smoggy day and caught the number two bus. I carefully followed the bus route on my map and got off at sukomvit and set out in search of sukomvit 22, as instructed. I joined a queue for motorbike taxis but in the end jumped into a regular taxi and said “Indian Embassy”. The taxi took me to Makkasan. I caught the metro back to Sukomvit and started my search again. Eventually I found Sukomvit 22 and started off, on foot this time, looking for the Indian Embassy. After a while I began to ask people and luckily found a woman who not only spoke English, but even knew where the Indian Embassy was. It had moved from the location marked on my map. “Go down here,” she said “turn left and when you get to Nana look out for it on your right. Ask an Indian. There are lots of Indians about.” And so I did.

I don’t know why India has to make it so complicated and difficult to get a visa. Every other country in south east Asia just stamps your passport when you arrive, sometimes asking for money, sometimes not. But not India. To get an Indian visa you must go to the embassy, go through security checks, queue up for a form, fill out the form, stating your name and nationality, your father’s name and nationality, your mother’s name and nationality, provide referees in India and addresses in Thailand, have your photo taken, pay for the form, pay for the photo, queue again, collect your form, photocopies of your passport and your passport, queue again, this time with a number, then hand over form, passport, photocopy of passport and sit down and wait – again. All this in a room with the air conditioning turned up so high that by this time you are shivering and sneezing with cold. Eventually you get to pay 2,230 baht and be told to check a website in a week to see if your passport will be ready to collect.

As I came out of the building the heavens opened and raindrops the size of cups of water started to fall. It was like standing under a waterfall. I took cover. When it stopped I made my way to the bus stop and caught a number 2 bus. The bus conductor decided to have his lunch at this point, not so difficult really because the bus spent such a lot of time stationary in heavy traffic that he managed to get in a few mouthfuls between each bus stop. The torrential rain started again. By the time we reached Kau San Rd the main road was flooded. We stepped off the bus into ankle deep dirty water. The pavements had become lethally slippery, so I was reduced to shuffling along with tiny steps, like an old Thai granny, in order to avoid falling flat on my face.

This took the better part of a day and I arrived back at Apple Guest House exhausted.