Acquiring an Indian Visa

Getting an Indian visa was a little more than sketchy. Because I couldn’t find any other blog posts about it, I thought I would post my own story:

 

I should state that I’m living in Australia right now and had to go through the Indian Embassy in Australia. With that said, here was my experience:

 

•  go to http://www.vfs-in-au.net/. Click on the “apply for visa” link.
• Clicking through the options it’ll eventually lead you to THIS SITE. (which Chrome says is insecure).

It took me over a month to get over my fear of “omg. they want me to put my personal information AND PASSPORT NUMBER on an insecure website?!??”

Commenced research. Couldn’t find a single person who wrote about this. No one saying “yea it’s sketchy… but don’t worry, it’s cool”… The worst case scenario is that my identity gets stolen and I get kidnapped/raped/killed in India. Always wanting to live adventurously, I hit send and hoped for the best.

Some hilarious things about the application process: It asks for your religion (jewish isn’t an option, btw), your marital status (not relationship status) and any markings you have on your face. (moles, etc… but “2 different colored eyes” wasn’t recognized). You also have to be sponsored by someone in the country (I hear you need this in China and Russia, too).

• Send your passport* to the embassy.
• Get a text and email both stating the exact same thing: “your application is up for review with the High Ambassador of India”. (fancy!)
• Get a text and email both stating the exact same thing: “Your application has been dispatched by post/courier to your provided address. Thank you”
• Get your passport in the mail.
• Breathe a sigh of relief that it’s back in your possession… With a fancy new page in it!

 

*note: If you aren’t at home to sign for the parcel when they ship it back, you need your passport to get your parcel…. this makes things interesting. Luckily my flatmate was home.

 

 

So that was my experience. Who knows if my identity was stolen… I guess that’s the worst-case scenario, right? Either which way, I’m going to India!