Amy & Wim

With visions of curries dancing through our heads, we jumped on a bus from Balikesir to Istanbul to get an Indian visa. In Balikesir we had carefully arranged with many grunts and pencil sketchings to leave our precious bikes stuffed in a closet at a hotel.

We had also looked up information about all documents needed to collect before applying for this most elusive visa. Documents from three different embassies were nessicary. Yes, it looked like an impossible task. We braced ourselves as we traveled by tram around Istanbul searching for the Belgian and American embassy. Any moment we expected the dreaded,"I´m sorry sir, we only issue this document on the third Thursday of the second month of the lunar calendar from 2pm until 2:05pm" or some other typical embassy scheduling. However, by noon of our first day, after five hours of inter-city travel, we had managed to get the two letters from our home governments inviting the honourable Indian embassy to give us a visa. We went out for lunch to celebrate this near impossible achievement. One embassy to go and we were set!

Soon we arrived at a crappy little apartment labeled "Indian embassy" with an obnoxious little man standing outside the door telling us that the office was only open for visas in another five days. After a lot of discussion, we were allowed to go upstairs, only to learn from an important looking man that the Indian embassy probably wouldn't accept the paperwork form the american embassy. One of the sentences was incorrect and it would be impossible to let Amy into their country. After lookıng at the paperwork we realized that the American embassy had written in nice diplomatic language, "Dear Indian embassy, you requested a stupid paper, screw you". We discussed and discussed and the man thought and thought and squished up his face a lot and then thought some more, disappearing every once in a while to talk with some other important guy. Soon the answer came back. They just could not accept the incorrect american paper, and the american embassy won't provide the correct one.

At this Wim began to dramatically exclaim that India was CLOOOOOOSED. Each time that he proclaimed this, along with exagerrated gestures, the important guy´s face contorted in greater and greater agony and we really thought that we were getting somewhere. But in the end India was indeed closed for Amy (the photo above shows all countries that are not possible for Americans to travel in without visa problems). The best advice from the Indian embassy was that we fly to Saudi Arabia and try again there. But since we are not filthy rich and famous, we just made other (and perhaps more exciting!) travel plans.