It seems that the amazing race continues. After we made a sad announcement to our parents that we wouldn't be able to make it to India for Diwali (biggest Hindu festival of the year), we were very sad.
The reason why we weren't going to be able to make it to India was because of our visa situation. In New York in takes only a day to get the Indian visa and with that knowledge in hand, we went to the Sydney Consulate General of India to apply for our visa 2 weeks before leaving Australia. Turns out it takes a minimum of 5 business days and a maximum of 15 business days to process the visa. We also provided our itineraries showing our departure date and flight out of Australia. We were informed that it wouldn't be a problem getting the visa in time. We left our passport with the visa office and continued our travel. The plan was that our new friends in Australia, Tooey & Van, were going to pick up the passports when the visas were ready. The plan was solid, almost fail proof. Unfortunately, we didn't take into consideration on how unreliable any government agency or a consulate is. We were very hopeful to get the visas and stayed optimistic until the end.
Now time was running out. A week before we were going to fly out, I emailed the Indian consulate general inquiring what was the status on our visas and they informed me, "it was still being processed." Two days after that, Gin & I were getting really nervous about not getting any update on visa. Finally, I called the consulate and spoke to some people about how frustrating this entire situation was. They told us that it takes a minimum of 15 business days to process the visas for non-Australian residents. I was outraged that we were totally misinformed. We told them that had we been given that information, we would've never applied for visa in Australia. We would've gotten them in Singapore instead. I told them how important it was for us to get to India for Diwali and that it was my wife's first time visiting my family in India and her first Diwali in India. They made a note to expedite the visas, but told us not to hope for getting the visas anytime soon.
We waited until the day of departure, but we didn't get the visa. Of course, when things go wrong, they go wrong in dozens. We called Tiger Airways to change our departure date to a later date. We were sadly informed that Tiger Airways was no longer flying the route from Darwin to Singapore. To our astonishment, we couldn't believe they wouldn't refund us the money. Our argument was that we don't mind flying with Tiger, but they canceled the route. We felt that we should've been given our money back since they were canceling the route. They told us to fly out of Perth instead. So their idiotic solution was we pay them $100 ticket change fee, plus buy another ticket to Perth just to fly out to Singapore. I was totally outraged with the way Tiger Airways handled the situation and did not refund us anything. Matter of fact, I had to pay an additional $100 to cancel our tickets. The only reason why I did that was because I filed a dispute with my credit card against Tiger Airways and they had told me specifically to cancel the flight and get a confirmation number from them. They were so sketchy about this entire situation that they wouldn't even give me a cancellation number. They told me it would take 3 to 4 weeks for them to email me about the cancellation of the tickets. That was absolutely ridiculous.
When we left Melbourne for Darwin, we forgot our cell phone in our friend's (Ian’s) car. So now we had no means of communication. Luckily, the phone had slipped out of my pocket while we were in the car, so it wasn’t that bad.
We were in Darwin during this entire ordeal. To make matters worse, it was 40 degrees (about 108 degrees Fahrenheit) with high humidity. It was absolutely gross. So we were stuck in Darwin, waiting to hear any news about our visas. Since we were waiting to hear about the visa, we couldn’t even go to Kakadu National Park or any other day trips from Darwin. It wasn’t the most fun time we’ve had in Australia, but we were trying to make the most of it. For the 10 days we were there the daily routine was to wake up and check the status on visa and then come back to the hotel for lunch and then go back to check the status on the visa.
Finally, the visas got done on the 24th of October which made us optimistic about going to India. Unfortunately, there were still quite a few hurdles in our way before that dream would come true. By the time I called Tooey & Van to pick up the visa it was already to late for them to go and pick them up. That was Thursday. So the earliest they would be able to pick up the visa was on Friday. Sadly, we had to pay $300 AUD to get the passports shipped on the same day. The courier service told us they would deliver it in about 8-10 hours on the same day. So now we were waiting in our hotel biting our nails to get our passports delivered. Finally, at 4:30pm I decided to go to the Darwin office to check the status on the package. TNT couriers told me that there was no way we would get the passports on the same day because Darwin is so isolated from the rest of the country and things never arrive on time in Darwin.
It came very close. I was able to get the phone number of the guy who delivered urgent packages 24/7. He informed us that our package would arrive at 10:40pm and it would take him at least 40 minutes to locate the package and deliver it to the airport. Gin & I had checked out of the hotel in the mean time and we were waiting in line without any ticket or without our passports to fly out of Darwin to Singapore. The flight was supposed to leave at 12:50am. Luckily, the courier guy was able to get the package on 11:15pm and I was running around the airport trying to locate the guy. Finally, I was able to locate the guy and we bought our ticket to Singapore all within an hour. We couldn’t believe that we were on our way to India for Diwali. I called my dad to inform him that we were heading that way and good thing I did that because my dad had planned to go to the USA.
After going through a week’s worth of anticipation, Gin & I needed a break from traveling. Fortunately, we were heading to India where I knew would have plenty of time to relax and not worry about anything. But before we get to India, Singapore here we come!
No comments:
Post a Comment