Step 2 - Travel Visas

...step one being booking the trip, and step three being going on it. We are now the proud owners of two visas to India, and half a visa each for Vietnam (the passports are at the embassy at the moment, being processed). I've always applied for visas through the post or through visa companies before, so it was quite an experience heading to the embassies myself. The Indian embassy is on Aldwych in central London and is a big, busy building which, despite being just off the Strand, has a distinctly Indian flavour as soon as you step in the door... A fantastically complicated system which is not clearly explained anywhere, involving three separate queuing systems. Only one thing for it - bring a book and enjoy the opportunity to lose yourself in it for a couple of hours while you wait. If you find yourself without reading material, then people watching there is also fascinating. From the Indian people going back for a visit, men dressed smartly and the women wearing wonderfully colourful saris (western women should adopt the sari as a fab way to look beautiful and colourful, whilst covering all unsightly bulges). There were also the obligatory crusties, being forced to interact with the capitalist visa system so they can go and lose themselves (or are they finding themselves?) in the East. The final "queue" where passports could be collected was a rugby scrum free-for-all which provided a useful way to practice sharpening those elbows ready for the actual Indian way of doing things. For those about to go away who were complaining loudly and bitterly about the lack of organistion, I merely say "if you think this is bad, perhaps you ought to shelve the Indian travel plans and head for a week in Marbella"...