Applying for an Indian Visa

I recently read an article about the elusive Indian visa where the author was providing a shameless plug for a passport service without providing accurate information. It got me thinking about all of the faulty information on the internet due to people trying to make money off of their websites. Well rest assured, if you are reading this, I make absolutely no money on this website. The information you read here is based on my own experiences. Here's my take on applying for a visa to India.

When I first started looking at the visa process in India I was overwhelmed. It was enough to make me not want to go. The process has since changed, outsourced to private companies. A tourist visa on arrival was also added for US citizens (and some other countries too). All you have to do is fill out an online application at least 4 days before your departure date, pay the fee, print the confirmation page, and take it with you on your trip with your passport and any other necessary documentation. All the information you need is on the application page. So easy!

If your travel plans exceed 30 days, you will need to apply through the embassy's company of choice. In the US it is Cox & Kings Global Services. What this means is that this company handles all of the paperwork and provides middle man service to the Indian embassy or consulate. Extra costs are involved, but it allows the whole process to be much more efficient. Their website provides very clear instructions for all of the paperwork involved. Follow that, and you are all set. If you have questions along the way, they are very prompt in responding over email as well.

The tourist visa application asks for basic personal information. You will also need to know your parents birthplace, birthdate, and citizenship. Also note, the application asks for an address and contact in India. It's also best to apply for the minimum amount of time necessary. If you are going on one trip, don't apply for the 10 year multiple entry visa even if there is a chance you will return in the future. Other than that, it's a standard application that can be filled out and paid for online.  Then just print it and the other necessary forms listed on the Cox & Kings website, and you're all set.

If you live close to the nearest global services office, you can personally drop off your application. If you don't, you can pay for door to door courier service.

If you opt for the personal approach, it goes something like this:

1. Make online appointment a couple days prior
2. Find the office (for me it was taking a train trip to New York City)
3. Hand the person at the desk your paperwork (already filled out with your passport)
4. Person takes your paperwork, sifting out the unnecessary pages
5. She enters your information into the system while chatting to other employees.
6. Less than 5 minutes later you are getting an email update and are out of the building wondering what to do with the rest of your day
7. Three days later, visa arrives to your house if you paid for courier service (or you go back and pick it up)

Maybe I showed up on a good day, or maybe it's always like that. Either way, I was in and out in less than 5 minutes. The process couldn't have been easier, and I received email updates at each stage of the process. I caused myself all sorts of stress for no reason. The important thing is to allow yourself plenty of time before you are set to go on your trip, and you'll be fine.

**Disclaimer: I am an American citizen with parents and grandparents who are also American citizens. This made the process easier. If you have parents or grandparents with Pakistani citizenship, the process can be much more difficult. 

Lose the Map

Planning is not my thing, and my capacity for directional intelligence is severely lacking. Yet I still travel. In fact, I think that having those shortcomings has enabled me to be a more in- tune traveler. Not having a plan means that I don't have anywhere to be at any given time, and knowing that I will undoubtedly get lost at some point during a day means that I am free to wander without fear. It takes a lot of pressure off. 

Tossing plans to the wind and deciding not to take a day trip to Vienna, instead I took a train to Znojmo. It is the last stop on the local train line in this area. Instead of the hassle of changing trains and traveling for hours only to get to a city just for the sake of it being Vienna, I opted for a direct route that clickety-clacked through vineyards still bare from the winter. I watched rabbits hop away from the tracks at breakneck speeds. And I watched as the tiny train pulled into one of the most picturesque towns I have ever seen and never heard of. 

Without a map I found my way through the empty streets of the town, past a tiny Easter market in the main square selling flowers. I followed the signs to St. Nicholas Church and a deserted castle. Walking through the castle walls with no one to stop me, I emerged alone to stare at the river and the miniature multi-colored houses dotting the hillside. 

I continued to wander without a map, without a plan. I passed signs, some of which were in English informing me of trails into the forest and to the top of the mountain straight ahead. Again I wandered, guided by myself and the colored boxes painted on the trees leading the way somewhere. The somewhere never mattered much; it was all about the walk itself. The whole day spent in the moment, unsure of what was around each bend in the trail. Even though from far away the destination could be seen very clearly. 

Life is like that. Sometimes we are so focused on the map and the destination that we forget to wander, to explore, to look up. The best moments happen when there is no map, no plan. When we are guided by ourselves, there is no wrong, only different options. 

So lose the map, get lost, and enjoy the walk. 

Choosing a Path

This weekend I found myself in Amsterdam again after being away for over a year and a half. I have been here since Saturday, and I have not done any of the normal tourist route. Instead, I have caught up with friends, shared meals, and felt the love from my international community surrounded by a beautiful city. It also helped that the sun was out.

Some themes emerged over the past couple of days that have resonated with my decisions over the past couple of years and most recently planing my trip to India...


Being honest with myself (even if it's not what I want to hear)

Following the path of my passion (figuring out what that passion is)

Determining what it is that I want most in life (and then finding a way to fulfill it)



And some hard questions...


Does postponing the next step in life assist in cementing the decision itself?

Is it better to jump first and ask questions later?

How much of what we choose to do is motivated by fear?

Are we allowing others to make our decisions for us?

                                                                                                   
                                                                               ...questions with no easy answers.



Our choices define who we are. So even if it's the more arduous path, one that is not paved and well lit, I'm going to take it because I would rather fail forward than never move forward at all.

This Blog has an Identity Crisis

It's true! This little blog of mine has been through so many changes since I started writing it about six years ago. It started out as a way to communicate and share my love of travel with my students while I was in Australia. Since then it has morphed into a vessel for story telling, recommendations, life updates, and various other ways to comment on the where and when of my life. One thing has stayed constant, however, and that is travel.

Keeping with that idea and the roller coaster like history of this communication tool, I am changing it again. This time, I will be sharing the ups and downs, ins and outs of my experteer** trip to India.

What's the big change? I'm not sure yet. In the immediate future I'll be sharing my journey to get to India including things like vaccinations, visas, and the project planning process. When I get there I hope to share successes, challenges, and local life. If nothing else, it will be a way to document a process in progress.

And that process begins now... join me!




**Experteer is a word used by Moving Worlds to go beyond volunteering or in many cases voluntourism. Experteer is a combination of expert and volunteer. I will be pairing my knowledge and experience in education as a volunteer. It's so simple, and yet it has the potential to be a very powerful thing. 

Auburn Football From an Outsider

View of the field from my seat.

Now that the college football season is coming to a close with the final championship ahead, I felt it was a good time to share my experience of attending an Auburn University football game. Even if you have no interest in football, you have probably heard of the Auburn tigers, and I was no exception. I, however, am one who has very little interest in football, college or otherwise, but I was interested in experiencing the pomp involved at a school with so much football clout.

A couple friends were in town, so it was the perfect weekend to throw ourselves into the local culture of waking up early after a late return home the previous night, watching people park their cars creatively around town, and even drink an early afternoon margarita while walking downtown. Auburn fans did not disappoint on this weekend despite playing a no name team from a state that I no longer remember. They went all out with their orange and blue adorned vehicles driving circles around the blocks blaring marching band music screaming "WAR EAGLE!" at every turn.

Tailgating is an event at Auburn. It is here where the men dress in navy blue suits and bright orange ties and the women sport elaborate dresses of the same colors one trying to out-do the next. No ladies and gentlemen, this is not just any old sporting event, it is a place to find your mate, and it's serious business. You must have the right outfit, be invited into the right tailgating tents with no less than three large screen televisions and a catered spread that would feed the hungry people of a small nation, and you must live and breathe Auburn football. Anything less is blasphemy, and I was teetering on the edge in my not quite orange striped tank, black jersey skirt, and flip flops wandering around slack-jawed wondering how much money was involved in one brief afternoon.

Taken just after the eagle flew past

The 90,000 seat stadium was a sea of orange and blue, full to the brim on this cloudy day in October. We slowly trudged up the ramp in spirals to get to the top to our seats. Just when I was beginning to think that I would be in heaven before I got to the top, I looked to my left as an enormous eagle (the famous war eagle) was leaping from the concrete edge in front of me. All football aside, it was amazing to see this giant bird fly around, mind focused, despite the deafening cheers of tens of thousands of people as he launched himself toward the rubber prey in the middle of the field.

We squeezed past fans to our small space on a metal bench at one of the highest points in the stadium. As I settled in for a long afternoon of clanking helmets and a whole lot of stop and start that made little sense to me, I was immediately distracted by the fans. These southerners breathed new life into the meaning of fanatic. As I mentioned earlier, this game was an easy win for the tigers, but that didn't stop the fans from treating it like a championship playoff. The other team managed to get a touchdown. I thought, wow, good for them as angry men on all sides clad in tiger stripes spewed expletives as they upbraided the young men on the field who were doing the best they could to run and catch and tackle for our enjoyment.

They are still boys after all.

And just when I thought my new friends and I were having a private conversation on what on earth the Iron Bowl was (just like any of the other bowl games right?), a middle aged lady sitting in front of us turned around and in perfect southern drawl said the following:

Lady: "You do know what the Civil War is right?"

Us: "Umm yes."

Lady: "The Iron Bowl is just like that."

A controversial tradition

And the conversation went on in that fashion comparing the football rivalry with the University of Alabama to an actual war where people died. Respect was lost on my end, and I continued to take in my surroundings as an anthropologist instead of a fan. It was much more interesting that way.

The game was easily won, and the Auburn gods were satisfied. People poured from the stadium to all of the local watering holes and proceeded to toilet paper the trees in front of the university. It's tradition they say, but I could never quite figure out how defacing their own campus and causing a lot of extra work for university staff on Sunday equated to celebration. I guess that's why I'll always be an outsider.

2014- Looking Back to Forge Ahead

Last year around this time I wrote a year in review. I had visited many new places and done a lot of new things, and I had the photos to prove it. This year, this review post is a bit different because I am a bit different. 2014 for me has been a year for learning, about myself, about what I want in my life, and about how the world works. So for those who know me and for those who stumbled upon this blog here's a bit about what happened this year.

I'm a bad blogger. I realized this fact this year. This year has marked a lot of changes both personally and geographically, and while I have had tons to write about, I just haven't . It's not because I haven't wanted to, but because I realized that it wasn't something I wanted to make a life out of. Some people do, and they are good at it. They write all the time, publishing ebooks and going on press trips. It's just not me, and I'm ok with it.

I spent the beginning of 2014 carving out a career in travel writing. I wrote for some excellent websites and a couple questionable ones. I reached a point where I was blogging twice a week, and travel writing was becoming something that I could have made a living doing. People even started finding me and asking me to write for their sites. And they paid me! But every time I sat down to write an article, a little voice in the back of my head was telling me that this wasn't what I was supposed to be doing. I ignored it for a while because I was living the dream- working in my PJ's and able to pick up and go whenever and wherever I wanted.

I lived in Washington state, Auburn, Alabama, and I visited family and friends all over the country including Hawaii. I went to Thailand for the first time, and I wrote about some of it. I even went back to the novel I started the previous November. But I soon realized that all of that wasn't enough. While I enjoy travel and writing about my experiences, and I love the freedom to be able to work on a novel for an entire day if I want, it wasn't enough. It wasn't making me jump out of bed in the morning; it wasn't my passion.

When I got to Alabama, I was itching to do something. I didn't know what it was though. And I don't even remember what prompted me to jump head first into this next step, but I did. I decided to apply to grad. school, to go back and get my PhD in education. It was that little voice again telling me that I had to get back in. While it causes me stress, it is that stress that allows me to make a difference. In order for that to happen, I knew a couple things: I needed to get a full ride, and I wanted an excellent program. I set my sights on schools that may be a bit out of reach, but "faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase." I went for it.

So that's where I am as I kiss another year goodbye and usher in a new one, waiting to hear my fate and putting the finishing touches on my novel before I send it out to publishers. I'm not a travel writer, but I will continue to write. I will always continue to write, but it will be on my terms. Whatever may happen in the coming months, I'm ready for it, and that in and of itself is a grand accomplishment.

A giant thank you to all of the people who follow this blog and who have been so supportive in my journey to follow the road less traveled. It's been a rough ride and a great adventure, and I'm looking forward to what lies ahead. I enjoy writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it. All the best for a happy, healthy 2015. Cheers!

International Housing in Auburn Alabama

I am not an international student, nor do I attend Auburn University, and yet I'm living in an apartment where they send their international students who are looking for a cheap place to lay their head while having the time of their life in the middle of nowhere. Tim is considered an international student here because his university is in Wales. No one here seems to care that he holds an American passport. So here we live in the only diversity that I can find in this town, and I'm grateful for it.

I've tried to stay objective and approach my new environment the way that I would any new place in which I find myself. So far, here is what I have learned.

Auburn is a football town. Auburn is a church town. And there you have every Saturday and Sunday respectively. So if you aren't into either or both of those activities, then you are up a creek with nothing to do. It's all about the tigers and the war eagle (I'll be posting more specifically about that soon).  The students here are quite different than what I have experienced elsewhere. There is a uniform that the majority adheres to. On weekdays, girls are seen in oversized t-shirts and either running shorts or leggings. The boys wear collared shirts and tailored shorts tucked and belted. On the weekends, the girls get dolled up for the games as do the boys: orange and blue. They are looking for a mate. It is also common to find moms hanging out with their children doing all sorts of things for them and their children not minding at all. In fact, they encourage it. They even dress alike when they come to visit. I find this a smidge disturbing. But I'm just the observer here.

If you have spent five minutes with me ever, or even if you have read even one of my blog posts, you will know that this is not my typical environment.  What's a girl to do?

I have managed to find a couple places where I feel at home. I've been spending my time in the university library and a place called the Coffee Cat sipping sludgy coffee and pumpkin lattes studying for the GRE and writing travel articles. I take walks, lots of walks. I have to because I don't have a car. I pass people working in their yards when I wander through the nearby neighborhoods, "hi y'all," they say, and they're talking to me.  But that's as far as the conversation goes. People are nice, but not too nice.  The grocery store is a sweaty mile and a half away, and the farm stand that I have grown to love is two miles. Luckily they deliver local produce in a basket every Thursday. The lemonade at Toomer's Corner is not all it's cracked up to be. Much too sweet for my taste.

 International housing is quiet with the most active place being the dumpster. Some walk to the dumpster to throw away a scrap of paper just to get out of their one room box. People are bored here. It's not what they expected being in America. There are no bright lights or big cities. It's a small town in the south. The only way out without a car is a shuttle, but it'll cost ya. There is no major city nearby, and the airport is a good hour and a half away. We're trapped, but it's only temporary.

I'm learning so much about a brand new culture, one that seems very far from the ones in countries like Thailand and Tanzania where I felt so comfortable.