Tourist Visa: Visa run?

edwardseco

Alas, we so rarely find out..

edwardseco

One night stands..

claurianta

You could try Cairo... I got a tourist visa there once... it's a 72 hour turn around as they need to contact the Indian embassy in your home country first.

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zoltan

Good idea about the run to KL for the visa.

And agreed Ed - many people ask questions & then never give feedback - so no one is any the wiser.

Cheers
Zoltan

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colin c

a slightly different spin on this , if a uk citizen is in america can he apply for a long visitors visa ,
it might be that i have to go to the usa soon so i was thinking if i could get my visa there , well any thoughts

Will Marks

The Malaysia theory gets more enticing...

I did some more research and it looks like you can now (as of Aug 07) also get a visa in Malaysia from Johor Bahru - which is a $1 bus ride over the bridge from Singapore. Or from Penang near the south Thai beaches.

I got time to find the FAQs page... but the official websites are seemingly condratictory... Details posted here...

India Visa from Malaysia?

cdmbrennan - you can still come through and confirm ;-)

edwardseco

I know an American can do this abroad..

cdmbrennan

Sorry for the late response- I've arrived in India and got sacked with traveler sickness for a week. Pretty nasty-- thought I'd developed a tolerance to street food!

Impossible to get a tourist visa in Singapore unless you are a foreign resident of Singapore. Straight from the Embassy's mouth (well, via telephone). Embassy in Malaysia was able to confirm that they would be able to issue a visa in JB, but to leave approximately 2 weeks for processing (ouch!).

I ended up flying to Bangkok, which was extremely straight forward (see prior posts). Arrived at the Glas haus building (note: rickshaw/taxi drivers are NOT familiar with the name "Glashaus building"- better to say Sukhumvit 25 (I believe the Peruvian embassy is in the same building) or take the skytrain to Asoke stop. I arrived at the processing office at 1130, was out by noon (2,680 ThB lighter--you do get shuffled from one counter to the next for payment, then back to the first counter for additional payment, but it all adds up correctly in the end). Instructed to come back on Friday 0800-1000. Came back, dropped off my passport and out in 15 minutes. Instructed to come back at 1500-1700.

Arrived back at 1500, waiting room was filled with people and my ticket number was 76 and they were on 44. Surprisingly, all six counters were working and had my passport with visa about ten minutes after arriving. All in all, extremely streamlined and professional.

I did ask: "If I dropped off the application form on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning would I have received the visa by Friday?" and got the reply that no, most likely it would take 'til Monday to get the visa. So keep that in mind if you're on a somewhat limited time frame...

Hope that helps. Palolem is beautiful, fairly desolute-- season's nearly over and only a handful of beach accomodation and restaurants open, but truly a nice time to visit (sans the sickness...)

jcbrum

Hi, what length visa did they give you.As a few people have said they only were issued 3 month ones.

John

cdmbrennan

6 month visa. I used a US passport (dual UK/US) so do not what length visa Britons would be issued.

dzibead

I don't know what you mean by "a long visitors visa". If you're referring to a ten-year tourist visa, you won't be able to get one because they are available only to U.S. citizens. You, as a UK citizen, can't get one just because you're making your application through a consulate located in the U.S. You can only get whatever type of visa would be available to you as a UK citizen if you were applying in your home country. It's the country of citizenship that determines your visa eligibility, not where you are when you apply for it. And there's no point in getting the visa in the U.S. unless you'll be going to India directly from there, because the time on your visa will start to run as soon as it's issued - it could be largely used up before you get to India if you get it too soon.