Magical Expeditions

It is falling into place. We just wired money to Eric, who is the proprietor of Backpacker Concierge. His company is arranging for our 2 day 1 night trip to the Bahariya Oasis in the White desert and the 3 day felucca cruise on the Nile. I found his company by chance while trawling Thorntree for travel information and cheap cruises on the Nile.

Any trip to Egypt is incomplete without sailing down the Nile over 2 to 3 days. There were two options in front of me when deciding on the Nile Cruise -the 5 Start luxury cruise or the more authentic but less luxurious felucca cruise. The cheapest 5 Start luxury cruise was turning out to be 500$ and considering that one of the primary concerns of a backpacking trip is money, I definitely veered towards the felucca ride.

However the one big stumbling block towards a felucca ride was that almost all entries on thorntree advised that you should be careful while choosing your felucca. You should talk to the felucca captain, find out about who are the other passengers on the felucca and check out the felucca before booking it. The point is to ascertain how hygienic the environment is and to ensure that you do not get conned. You book your felucca trip once you reach Aswan in Egypt. All this made me a little apprehensive about the entire felucca experience, when I stumbled across Backpacker.

This concierge service is said to be the beginning of honest tourism in Egypt aimed at a shoestring budget. They arrange felucca trips down the Nile and other excursions. I quickly posted on Thorntree inquiring about them and in 2 days time got first hand glowing reviews of the company.

Getting in touch with them was easy and Eric has been quick to reply to my queries and things have been going smoothly. Final review on Backpacker of course after my trip!

If you are planning on going to Egypt and have a little more money to spare, then you can look at the Sun Boat IV 5 Start luxury cruise. It has good recommendations from both Lonely Planet and National Geographic.

I am hoping to finish this trip in 50,000 rupees inclusive of everything. Let’s see how successful I am.

Note to self: Watch Lawrence of Arabia.

Taking 11 days off from work turned out to be not as easy as I had imagined. But as they say where there is a will, there is a way and buddy there is a lot of will here. Hence, the last couple of days have been quite hectic at work. I want to ensure that I meet all my deadlines before I leave for Egypt for a hassle free vacation. As the days go by in a haze of work and travel preparation I find myself thrilling at every little detail that I have to plan. There is a spiffy little travel agent in me who loves all the little details of a vacation… who just goofed up!

So I was booking flight tickets from Bangalore to Mumbai and back, and I mis-spelt Arjun’s name. It reads “Arjum Manjunath” instead of “Arjun Manjunath” . A typo! No big deal I thought. I can easily get the spelling of the name corrected. Hah, I was in for a surprise! I have called MakeMyTrip and I have called Inidgo and there only solution is to cancel the ticket, rebook it and of course pay cancellation fees! How much of a difference does a mistyped alphabet make? In India, customer service is just lip service. Not once did the lady at Indigo mention that a typo is ignored at the time of check-in. Her aim was not to help me but to fleece me.

Travel agents do typos all the time! I have traveled abroad on a ticket where my surname and first names were swapped. My friends have similar stories to tell. But still when you call customer service all you get to hear is “Sorry ma’m, we can’t help you!”. Frustrating to say the least.

This post was supposed to be about my travel itinerary in Egypt instead it turned into a minor rant about airlines. Next post on places I am going to see in Egypt and how I decided on them!

Update:

1. Air Deccan was quite helpful. They told me that they can’t change the name but will put a comment next to our PNR number ensuring that we don’t have any problems while boarding our flight from Mumbai back to Bangalore.
2. Using Air Deccan’s good service example, I called up Indigo again and this time got the number to Indigo check-in counter at the Bangalore airport. The lady at the check-in counter told me that she will make a comment about it on our tickets which will lead to hassle free boarding. Phew!

As mentioned in my earlier post, the entire visa process is painful. However, you can make it hassle free quite easily. The major hurdles towards this are the following 3 questions:

1. Does the country that I am traveling to require a personal interview for processing a visa application or can I get my visa done through a travel agent?
2. Why does the consulate require confirmed flight tickets? Is it worthwhile to shell out all that money even before I get a visa?
3. How do I get confirmed hotel booking? How do I find good and cheap hotels in a city in a foreign country?

For now, let us assume that you are going to a country which does not require a personal interview. You can find this out by googling for the consulate’s number. Give the consulate a call and someone will be more than happy to tell you whether your presence is required or not at the time of granting a visa. As far as I know, only the US and the EU countries require a personal interview.

1. The first step would be to find a good travel agent in your city. If you are in Bangalore, I would recommend Mr. George at Orion Travels. The travel agency will be responsible for taking your passport along with all supporting documents, to the consulate and submitting it there. It will also be responsible for couriering back your passport to you, once your visa has been granted. Hence the emphasis on a good travel agent.
2. Booking confirmed flight tickets – Ask your travel agent to block your tickets instead of buying them. Once you get your visa, you can either buy these blocked tickets or go online and buy tickets from there. For our Egypt trip we bought out flight tickets from MakeMyTrip . Your flight tickets will constitute 60% of your trip cost so do a lot of research before you buy these.
3. Finally and by far the easiest step is to get confirmed hotel reservations. I discovered HostelWorld two years ago and since then I have been an absolute fan. A lot of the hostels mentioned here are safe, clean and fun. You pay 10% of the amount at the time of booking a hostel and the rest when you finish your stay with them.

With the above 3 things taken care of you can apply for your visa and in all probabilities it will be granted to you. Once you get your visa, you can re-plan your whole trip or not plan it at all depending on your whim! However, the one thing that you must absolutely have are return tickets from your country of travel. I also recommend a 2 day hotel booking in your city of arrival if you don’t know what your itinerary will be once you enter the country – makes life easier at the immigration.

Next post on, what if I want to go to the US or Europe for travel? How do I get my visa then?

Wohoo! We got an Egyptian Visa. Last time a colleague had applied for an Egyptian tourist visa, his application was summarily rejected. Hence we were a little apprehensive.

If you have done any bit of traveling outside of India you will realize how difficult is it for an Indian to get visa for another country in comparison to other nationals. If you are an American or a European, you either do not require a tourist visa or you will get a tourist visa on arrival. On the other hand, if you are an Indian you will be required to get a tourist visa in India before you hop on a plane. You will always find India in the exception list of countries whose nationals DO require a visa, clubbed alongside with Pakistan and Nigeria.

Of the countries that I have visited there are only two where I got visa on arrival. They being Cambodia and Thailand.

The process of getting a visa pretty much puts a damper on “let’s go to a country and explore it impromptu”. You need to submit an itinerary, confirmed hotel bookings and confirmed flight tickets to and from the country along with a visa application form. Travel agents through whom you would normally get your visa processed( until and unless you want to go to Europe or the USA. These countries require a personal interview even for a tourist visa) will insist on your submitting a bank account with a hefty balance or proof of foreign currency bought. This is not mandatory. But a bank statement definitely helps.

Let me put down a list of documents that I have submitted every time I applied for a visa.

1. Country specific visa application form
2. Passport and a copy of the front and back page of your passport
3. Photograph as per the requirements of the country
4. Letter from your organization stating that you are going on vacation and you will be back in your office after your vacation. This definitely helps as a lot of countries are skeptic about the return of the tourist.
5. Confirmed airline tickets.
6. Hotel bookings for the first couple of days
7. Cover letter
8. Salary slip for the last 3 months and
9. Last year filed IT return.

Next post on how to plan a trip yourself with loads of flexibility despite of all the rigidity required in order to get a visa and on how are we planning our Egypt trip!

It has been two years since I backpacked last. It is time to travel again. To a place which is alien so that I can savour the thrill of discovery. To a place which is ancient so that I will be humbled by its timelessness. Old places call out to me. I like them so much more than the modern architectural wonders of man.

Egypt.

The grandeur of the pyramids, the unrelenting desert, the Nile, Queen Nefertiti, Tutankhamen, the souks. There is definitely something hugely romantic about Egypt. I quickly ask around to see if there are other people interested in going to this country (I have traveled alone before, but it doesn’t feel as if Egypt is ready for a lone girl-traveler). I find a couple of eager beavers like me and decide, then and there that in April of 2008, I will go to Egypt.