Applying for visas in Delhi
After Varanasi I decided to head directly to Delhi to apply for visas for my return trip - I would need visas to Pakistan and Iran in order to cross over to Turkey and Europe. I ended up taking a bus to Delhi via Aligarh, wich isn’t exactly on the main road. After an exhausting ride on a night bus I finally got to Delhi. In Delhi I a few of the morning hours looking for a guesthouse and after finally finding an acceptaple place in the ‘tourist ghetto’ of Paharganj and checking in, I fell asleep and slept for most of the day.
The next day I went to the consulate of Finland, as I knew I’d need a recommendation letter from there for the visa application for Pakistan. At first everything seemed to go OK, the lady working at the consulate brought me the paper - but had a mistake on the date of the recommendation. She went back to her office to correct it - and while doing so she also contacted the authorities in Finland to check up on me! A while later she returned, telling me she won’t give me the recommendation because I’ve got “unfinished business” in Finland - meaning the finnish authorities had told her not to let me go anywhere!
After this I decided to make one more try at the Pakistani consulate, thinking I might get the visa even without the recommendation letter. After another couple of hours of looking for the right gate, desk, forms etc. I found out I won’t be getting the visa without the letter no matter how I try. Oh well, maybe it just wasn’t the Lord’s plan for me to be returning through Pakistan right now.
As I returned to my hotel I was pondering, on what to do next. I could book a flight to Turkey, but landing in Turkey and heading north towards Finland in the middle of the winter doesn’t sound too good for me - a big part of what little funds I have left would be spent on the air ticket and in Europe everything is much more expensive - and on top of that it would be raining and as I got closer to Finland snowing also, and having been in tropical countries for the past 8 months I don’t have any clothing suitable for that kind of climate.
I decided to stay in India for time being and figure out my way back a bit later - I might end up visiting Sri Lanka or Nepal again to make yet another visa to India, and while I’m doing that I’d get another shot at the Pakistani visa, too.
In the evening another guest of the hotel told me the Diwali festival is about to start. Diwali is the festival of light and one of the biggest religious festivals in India. I’ll write more about Diwali later.
