Visas and SIM Cards

Way back at the start of these adventures I said I’d write a post on the Visa steps for each country. It didn’t happen before or during the trip. Making up for lost time now.

Nepal

Nepal is straightforward. You can either courier to the embassy in Ottawa in advance, or purchase at arrival. I was able to skip a rather lengthy queue by doing the advance option. Visa comes in 15, 30, 90 day increments, renewable while there (apparently easily, I didn’t try). Bring passport photos for the Visa.

I went with NCELL. For 250NPR plus 1000 NPR credit I had a small amount of voice, SMS, and 1GB of data. I was told I overpaid at these rates. (note, this is all of $12.50 Canadian for 1GB of data for a month, way better than our $30/month!)

Turkey

Visa is even more straightforward. Pay on arrival or head to evisa, fill the details in online, pay, and print it out. (~$60 for Canadians, much cheaper for Americans or possibly EU passports). If you have dual citizenship, may save some money by opting for a non-Canadian passport.

Turkish SIM cards are more complicated.  With high duties on electronics, a registration system has been set up to block importation of phones without paying duty. All phones in the country need their IMEI number to be registered with the government. Apparently this is done at purchase of SIM card and there may or may not be a fee. Since I only needed 5 days, I instead slipped under the 2 week window allowed for registration, and didn’t bother registering. My phone is probably blacklisted in Turkey now, but oh well. By the time I return to Turkey I will almost certainly have a new phone.

For Turkish providers there is TurkCell, X and Avea. I ended up with Avea mainly because I found them first at the airport. Getting the SIM Card is pricey (~55 TL, or $25), but after that data was cheap (10TL or $5 / 1GB). Avea is the newest provider, and has poorer coverage but may have cheaper rates. Apparently poor English service if you need assistance, but I was able to avoid that. I only lost coverage at Topkapi palace. I did have trouble getting the phone to recognize the towers initially, but a hard restart of the phone (hold power and home buttons for 5 s on the iphone) resolved this.

India

The Indian visa applicatuion is painful. First point: processing is contracted out to a private company - the consulate and embassy aren’t typically involved (the consulate does grant approval, but all communication is through the contractor).

http://www.blsindia-canada.com/touristvisa.php

To apply, fill in the form on the website. Fill something in every field, including the identifying feature one (I heard of rejections for leaving this blank). Choose a feature: scar, mole, etc. Just put something. Be ready to provide an address in India, as well as employment information and a reference in Canada (mine wasn’t contacted to my knowledge).

Done? Double / triple check everything. The Indian visa application is involved and expensive.

Submission: you can either go in person for drop off or pick up, or courier it. I initially tried the in person option, but the offices are small, limited, and super busy. It looked like it would be an all afternoon wait, so I opted for couriering it. Paid the extra, and magically had a passport with visa back in 1 week.

Which visa? You’re only allowed one visa for a 180 day period, so just apply for a tourist multiple entry one - single entry are no cheaper and could potentially cause problems.

SIM: I didn’t find a SIM card in India: rather I borrowed a phone with a Tata SIM card. Worked well for calls.