World Travel: Next Stop Asia!

WE’RE on the move again. After spending Christmas and the New Year in the UK, it’s time to continue our travels.

Although we came back to Britain to enjoy Christmas with family, to see friends and sort out passports for our kids (Zenchai's needed renewing and Kobra a British), the visit confirmed to us how Britain is too draining on our financial resources (I’m staggered at how easily one can go through £100). So we’re heading where the cost of living is much less.

But that’s not the only reason. When we began our world travel two years ago, Jamie and I each had destinations we wanted to visit. And Asia was high on our lists.

Now we are going to make that dream happen – while we can and our children are young. We leave the UK in a few days for India, where we will stay for around six weeks, and then head to Thailand, where we intend to be based for much longer. We also aim to spend time in Malaysia and visit Cambodia, Myanmar (Burma) and Vietnam.

We know many people who have visited India. We have heard mixed reviews. But there is only one way of knowing if any place suits you or not and that’s to travel there yourself.

We have picked the state of Kerala in the south. It's considered by some to be the most 'socially advanced state' in the country with the highest rate of literacy.

While it's tempting to go all over India, we long ago decided - mainly because we have young children - that the type of travel that suits us best is to be based in one place for a longer period rather than uprooting every few days and moving around.

Although India has a fabulous rail system and its road infrastructure is improving rapidly, we like to follow a less frenetic itinerary and experience countries as though we are living there.

British and American citizens wanting to visit India require a visa. It’s a fairly quick and straightforward process if you have access to a computer. You fill in the form online, print it off, take the required documents to a visa application centre and pay the £42.10 (which includes a fee for processing) per person for the tourist visa (it is slightly more expensive for US passport-holders).

Make sure you get the correct size photos (2”x2” as opposed to what’s needed for British passports) and if travelling with children you will be asked for copies of each parent’s passport and the children’s birth certificates. To save wasting time and money, photocopy only the section of the passport with your document details (ONE FOR EACH CHILD) and a copy of the birth certificates (THE ORIGINALS ARE NOT REQUIRED). This information is not online and I only discovered it after first going to the application centre!

For Thailand the process is much smoother, though costlier. Again you require two 2”X2” photos for each applicant, but the application form, available online, must be printed and filled in by hand. You submit this at a Thai embassy during the specified hours. For a tourist visa there are several options – single or double or triple entry. For each entry a visitor can stay in Thailand 60 days.

Be warned that with a Thai visa you must visit the country within three months of it being issued and the Indian tourist visa, valid for six months, begins from the date of issue.

When applying for the Thai tourist visa, each applicant must indicate which visa he or she is applying for. The fee is dependent on the number of entries - £25 per entry per person.

Processing, as with the Indian visa, usually takes two or three working days.

We’re now all set to leave. We purchased our tickets through Roundtheworldexperts.co.uk. They are professional and their prices competitive. We bought our tickets through them when we travelled to the USA, Trinidad, Argentina and Brazil in 2009/2010. The journey to Asia is much cheaper, though.

Although we survived the English (and Welsh) winter without a problem (more easily than we anticipated after almost two years of sunshine), we are again looking forward to being in warmer climes. I noticed since returning to the UK how, for instance, it has been so much harder to entice Zenchai outdoors whereas in tropical Brazil he needed no encouragement whatsoever.

We are particularly relishing the prospect of Asian food (which we already love), the smells, colour, vibrancy, people, oceans and magnificent scenery, culture and way of life.

And, of course, we shall share our experiences and any knowledge and information we gain that may benefit those who travel along the same path as us.

 

 

 

Comments

[xochitl]

what do you do about vaccines with your babies? we dont vaccinate and have always wondered about travelling

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