Indian visa and electronics shopping in Bangkok

That evening we gave the buckets a miss because we had to get to the Indian Embassy next day, so we decided to have an early night and then the family waking us early would be no problem. We hadn't counted on the band playing heavy metal covers until nearly 2am. The next morning we were woken as usual, and were becoming seriously sleep deprived. We headed out to where the guesthouse had told us we could catch a number two bus to the Embassy, glad to find some strong Thai iced coffee on the way, served in true Thai style, in a bag. The buses didn't stop where we expected, so after the second passed us, we followed it along the route and eventually found a bus stop. The bus only cost 7 Baht and it was quick, which was just as well after all the messing around we had done trying to find the bus stop. We made it to the Embassy in enough time to get brunch at another one of these outdoor cafeteria places. As always it was really nice and cheap: only 30 Baht for a plate of rice with two “toppings” of your choice e.g. Curry and Krapow. The Indian visa takes five working days if you are not resident in Thailand, so we started making plans to avoid having to hang around Bangkok for all that time. We had agreed to pay the extra to have our passports delivered by courier to Phuket, where we planned to go soon to meet Joanne's friend James, but the helpful woman behind the desk suggested that, if we were returning to Bangkok, we could keep our passports for now and then drop them off one morning when we return, picking them up in the afternoon. Perfect. Apart from the 7 day delay in getting the visa they seemed very well organised. I noticed on the price-list on the wall that it is possible to get a five-year tourist visa to India for only a bit more than double the cost of our six-month visa.

Bored with embassies and shopping

The Indian Embassy is in a part of town with lots of shopping centres and, as my mum had kindly suggested buying us each a new camera as a wedding present to replace Joanne's lost one and my sticky one, we decided to have a look at what was available. I got a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5, which Fabrice had recommended. It seemed to fit the bill, although the price was not a good as I was expecting. I haggled hard to get it down from 12200 to 11000 Baht for the camera and a 16GB memory card, but I suspect it might have been possible to get it for less in Britain, whereas I'd been expecting low prices like I believe Singapore has. It was cheaper than rerouting our trip via Singapore and buying it there, anywhere. We couldn't draw anymore cash that day, so Joanne's camera had to wait. In fact we barely had enough money for dinner after the bus crawled back through the rush hour traffic. That night the same band were on again, and we wondered if we'd just missed them the first two nights because we were out. We needed to move because we were both exhausted, and we still had things to do in Bangkok.

New purchase!

written by

The Happy Couple on April 21, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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