The Visa Dance

As we begin our frantic scramble to prepare for our trip that is beginning a mere 6 weeks away, we find we have to all participate in this (semi) coordinated dance: The Visa Bharata Natyam (a a travelers variation of the tradition Indian dance). Between the four of us we attempt to find flights and hotels, locate our passports, photocopy things, get correctly sized pictures and dig into our short pockets for visa fees!

Thanks to Abe we now have a flight, leaving Boston on December 1 and flying to Delhi, and returning from Bombay on December 23. It only took us a week!

So we now move into the second movement of the dance....to be traditionally led by the women (that is me!)...the graceful search for a safe, clean, yet reasonably priced hotel in Delhi. We finally decided that of all places, Delhi was the one where we should drop the most money. It has a reputation for being dirty, crowded, noisy and all around insane! And OH the horror stories that we have all heard...bugs, smells, noises all night, rooms where you can touch all for walls from your bed! So chose wisely my sons....

We have in narrowed down to 6 or 7 choices, in the seedy yet backpacker alluring district of Pahargani, or the more expensive and slightly more central area of Connaught Place. See my map to give you a better idea of the choices and locations :)


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Soon we will finish this movement and move on to collecting up all the parts of the application and sending them. This part of the dance becomes a lot more energetic and frantic as all the previous movements start to come together in one large crescendo!