This is kind of confused entry, but bear with me because there is somewhat of a point. So I rented a place in Goa India for three months, got my visa and everything was going great. About a month before I had to leave I booked a bungalow in Thailand and noticed that I had to be out of India earlier than I planned because three months is not the same as ninety days. July 6 to October 6 is something like 94 days, so thankful that I caught my mistake went about booking the new place and flights from October third to November third.
On October 3 as I was doing my final preparations for leaving I decided to look through my passport…I still don’t know why I did it, but I looked at the visa and noticed that it expired three months from the time that I initially got it, which was July 24. Oh Crap! The remainder of the day I went over in my mind all the possible outcomes from overstaying my visa. Would it be minor and would they let me leave anyway? Would I get in trouble and be blacklisted from ever returning to India? I didn’t have a clue of the possible ramifications that I would have to deal with and according to the internet, I should expect to be treated like a criminal and be prepared for the worst possible outcome.
Knowing that there would be problems I went to the airport anyway and try my luck. Now if you know me you know that I’m kind of adverse to confrontation and this made it difficult to come to grips with what I had to do. When I arrived at the airport I immediately went to passport control to talk to someone about my expired visa. I was the only one there and in a matter of a minute (maybe two) I had about 6 passport officials surrounding me telling me what I did was wrong. One official told me that if I had tried to go through he would have thrown me in jail; pointing to some where in the distance, another told me that it would be easy to fix. Funnier than anything else, most of the officials were questioning how I had made it to passport control at all. (They seemed somewhat satisfied when I told them that I just followed the signs and nobody stopped me.) During one of my conversations with a passport official they told me to go to Panjim to get an extension to my visa and I’d be able to leave tomorrow. No big deal, only a hiccup. So I grabbed a taxi to Panjim at about 9pm with the naïve belief that everything would be okay. All I needed to do was rent a room, go to the police station in the morning and I could put this whole mess behind me. The taxi driver promised that he could find a hotel for me…”No problem.”
So we take off for Panjim, India and just by coincidence there is a national holiday going on and we couldn’t find any hotels that had a room. We drove around for about thirty minutes and finally I decided to call the landlord of the place I was staying at in Colva Beach to ask if I could come back and finish my time there. They agreed and the taxi driver and myself headed back to my apartment in Colva Beach.
The next day I headed to Panjim to fix my visa. Turns out that the office was closed but there was some people working so I got a chance to talk to the head of the office there. I explained my situation and she was very kind and told me what the procedure was. She also explained that since it was a holiday the office wouldn’t be open until Tuesday, about four days away. So much for a quick fix.
My landlord in Colva Beach let me stay the extra time that it would take, but she openly spoke of the problem that I put her in. She said that the police would question her and according to her, make her life miserable. I felt so guilty that not only did I screw things up for me, but now she would suffer from my mistake.
The next few days I kind of hid in the apartment. I’m not really sure why, but I didn’t go anywhere or do anything… almost like I didn’t belong and everyone knew.
Tuesday comes and I head out to Panjim with all the paperwork that I was told to bring. At this point I should mention that each trip to Panjim cost a lot, about $20 and I had to make about four or five trips. I get to the office and wait to be seen, finally after about an hour I get to talk to someone. From that point on things seemed to go pretty smoothly. All the paperwork was done and except for a report from the police station in Colva Beach everything was taken care of. Because the police report was needed I had to return five days later to get my extension.
Five days later I show up and in about 30 minutes I was good to go.
At the Airport:
So on the 15th I head to the airport to finally get out of India. I show up at the airport and first have to wait for about an hour before checking in. I finally go to check in and they tell me that I have a 20 kilo limit for baggage. What? I had a 32 kilo limit coming to Goa. My baggage weight was 33, so the fee was $195. I was pissed but they wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t see any solution except to lighten my load. I found a garbage can and started throwing things away. I tossed everything that I thought I could do without. The whole time I was tossing things in the garbage I felt like I had been played, 32 coming and 20 going… I threw away shoes, shorts, a kettle, jeans, shirts, and lots of other things. When I went back I was still 5K over but paid the fee then.
This was my last experience in India… not quite accurate but it gives me the opportunity to mention my feelings about Indian culture in a micro view. It’s all about control and being in control. If something is a rule, it is followed and no questions are asked. If you are told to stand there and wait, you better stand there and wait. If you question a rule you are at best ignored, but at times may be told politely, to shut up.
