A Nice Cup of Tea

The Motor

Whilst I was away it seems it snowed. A bit. The upshot of which being that my car didn't get run around the block as often as hoped and the battery went very dead indeed. The AA man, trying to jumpstart the car, used the old screwdriver-on-the-accelerator trick on his truck as well as the MegaBoost(tm) "portable" battery charger to kick mine into life. The suggestion was that my battery wasn't well. So it's been not very well but not dead either ever since.

The Pills

Previously, I've gotten my travel jabs and pills from a MASTA branch which has unfortunately shut down. I popped into the Travel Clinic at the docs only to be advised that it was by appointment only (something that perhaps they could have noted on the website?). Whilst (or because) they were faffing about what to do next, the clinic nurse happened past and despite my announcement that I was fully jabbed up and just needed some more Doxycycline (an anti-malarial) decided that she couldn't just either a) see me or b) give me any pills as she didn't know me.

I held back the obvious retort that a ten minute consultation isn't going to lead to any more knowledge about me other than that I've learned the names of several foreign countries and have read the widely consensual information on the web about where is and where is not malarious.

Fortunately she was happy to squeeze me in first thing tomorrow instead of some coughing baby or whatever normally accounts for her day on a Thursday morning. We shall she what she learns of me and whether that will elicit seven weeks of Doxy (most likely in the form of 2x 50 pill tubs). If all goes well I'll also find out what outrageous markup MASTA kept putting on their somewhat easier to get hold of 50 pill tubs (at £30 each).

On the plus side, the NHS won't hand out antibiotics (Doxy) to people who just turn up in reception. On the downside, I'm assuming they will in the end hand out antibiotics to people who just turn up in reception but only after they've wasted an hour or two and caused some inconvenience.

The Plan

I thought that today I would head down to London and start the ball rolling with my Pakistani visa which last time required two visits, a week apart. Yesterday I re-read the instructions which require copies of bank statements which I don't have (thanks to online banking). So, scratch that off the list. I phoned up NatWest who will post some off to me.

I then looked at the China visa process which requires a super special authorization number if you doing super special things like self-driving. Which I am. I haven't heard anything back from New Land Travel so scratch that too.

How about Kyrgyzstan? Well, I'm not due to enter Kyrgyzstan until the 19th July (according to the dates I've sent to New Land Travel) and the Kyrgyz visa is only valid for three months. So, um, scratch that as well. I noted in passing that if you go down to the Kyrgyz consulate and give them a Royal Mail Special Delivery envelope they suggest you'll get your visa back in four working days. If you post the whole shebang off to them they can only suggest 12-14 working days. How odd.

That leaves the Indian visa. I'm in the mood to visit Nepal if I can as well which goes back to this business of negotiating your way around the Indian restriction that you can enter India n times on one visa but only if you leave a gap of two months between leaving and entering again.

I went to the VFS website (India, Russia and the UK, amongst others, no doubt, have all outsourced the front-end handling of visa paperwork to VFS) and encountered their new online form-filling website. Actual writing of words on paper forms is so 2010! Also there's a new photograph restriction in that the two photos required must be 2 inches square. Yes, that familiar format.

I fill in the form the first time (you can see where this is going). I have to select "others" and type in "None" for my religion (it isn't a very long list of supported religions and doesn't include "none") and stumble through the embarrassment of the "Spouse" section which fails to account for everyone except those that are married. Of course, in the latter, several fields are still mandatory so my Spouse "NA" has a nationality of "United Kingdom" [sic]. The nationality (and country of birth) lists looked remarkably similar to the usual web form country lists and have clearly been cut'n'paste.

Never mind, I reach the end and can choose between printing the form (which now has a different number, a "File Number," to the initial "Temporary Document ID" number which I was asked to note at the start) or moving on to making an appointment and paying. I chose to print as I always feel a bit happier having a hard copy of officious documentation and received a nice PDF which I duly printed.

Sadly, going "back" had the browser trying to resend the web form's fields again which resulted in disaster -- the first form filling page was presented. However there was an option to enter your temporary document ID to retrieve your saved state. Except it wouldn't accept either of the two numbers I had been given.

Ho hum. I started all over again (religion and spouse features included) and this time I was sharp as a button and popped up the "print" document in a separate window. Ha, no flies on me. Printing done I closed that window and clicked the "appointment and payment" button which threw up a window back at the start of the form filling exercise. What?

In the meanwhile an email had arrived relating to the second form filling attempt. Good, I've been recognised. So I tried entering appropriate numbers into the "temporary document ID" box to no avail whatsoever. What a useless bunch of {punctuation characters}.

Rather narked, I shut down the window in disgust at the idiocy only to find the window underneath, the original one where I'd clicked "appointment and payment" had changed to the appointments page. Just how does this sort of nonsense pass any kind of acceptance testing whatsoever? Maybe the acceptance people were just pleased that it worked at all?

Bah. That left me to write up a little note, like the hand written one(s) from last time explaining that I was traveling overland across to Nepal through these borders and on these dates.

All looking good. We can now get on with today!

The Motor

An early start, 7am out into the chill to find a mostly dead car battery. Bugger. Unfortunately, repeated attempts to turn the engine over completely flattened the battery. Grrr. So I phoned the AA and plugged in my battery charger on the off chance.

The AA man didn't take too long and as it so happens the charger had done just enough to let the car burst into life. Hurray! However, the AA man did a test and (to no-one's great surprise) declared the battery v. bad. What he did say, however, was that now he'd declared the battery very poorly I would be unlikely to get the AA's "no charge" call-out again if it was battery related and I hadn't done something about it. He suggested that I go straight to Halfords and get a new one. Unfortunately, Halfords wouldn't open for another 80 minutes and I was meant to be in London at 10am. So, take a punt that the 45 minute run down to where I pick up the London-bound coach would leave enough oomph in the battery to at least start when I got back.

Saw a Fat Bloke

Staring idly out of the coach window I saw a fat bloke rocking (perhaps "rolling" might better describe the larger gentleman's gait) into 22 Baker Street and mused on the fact that he looked familiar. Just visible inside the door was a big Fujitsu logo. Well, would you believe it? He did seem a little greyer than last time I caught a fleeting glimpse. But aren't we all?

I'm sure he's down there a lot but I'm guessing it might be related to today's announcement in which Bloke is quoted as claiming the possibility of 5 million rural customers connected with FTTH in (tops) five years. Bold.

VFS

The man on the door at VFS declared my standard passport photos no good but that the photo booth upstairs would see me right. Sigh. Four pounds for two 2 inch square photos. Just what is the point?

What didn't see me right was my letter explaining my travel plans to include re-entry from Nepal. It seems things have all changed even in this relatively obscure case. Not only that, the system would be unable to cope with my application form printed double-sided. I'd need a photocopy of page 2. (At least on this count, some previous poor schmuck who'd been given the same runaround had run out of small change and left credit on the photocopier -- thank you friend!).

I was sent to the triage teller who explained the nonsense I was being fed about getting a travel agent involved -- why do I need a travel agent? I'm traveling independently. The key phrase here is that going to the travel agent over the road and getting a "provisional itinerary" demonstrates showing willing rather than just making up any old plan on the spot. But but but...I've just made up the provisional travel itinerary on the spot with the travel agent! I guess the fact that the travel agent wants £10 for his troubles demonstrates willingness on my part to commit to my travel plan. The fact that his travel plan involved me flying to and from Kathmandu is neither here nor there, it's all about the demonstration that you're leaving India and returning again a few days later.

Bah, nonsense, all of it.

One thing I've realised as I type this, however, is that the bundle of papers included in my application still has within it the original letter saying I was traveling overland as well as the provisional itinerary from the travel agent. Oops. Let's hope the visa issuing authorities are in a good mood and recognise the scam for what it is (a nonsense) and pony up the visa.

Visa Charges