After leaving my friends on the train as they headed to Colombo to fly out, I spent a couple of nights in Kandy trying to sort out a transit visa for India. Looking at flights from Sri Lanka to South Africa months before, the options were bleak. Multiple stopovers, through Jeddah (aka the worst airport in the world), overnight in other parts of the middle east, these were all not appealing options. From Mumbai, however, there was a really good flight leaving in the morning, with a 1.5 stopover in Ethiopia, then straight to Johannesburg. After finding out another friend was coming to meet me in Cape Town, I booked a hotel for one night in Joburg next to the airport, and a morning flight to Cape Town the next day. 

The only problem was I forgot you needed a visa for India, even for 12 hours, and that visas are expensive, at least the regular tourist visas. Like $150+. However, there are transit visas you can get for about $30 Canadian, which was my plan. Unfortunately, you can’t get these online. I arrived at the visa centre shortly after opening, only to be told I was missing paperwork and information. An hour later at a shop specializing in visas and charging (very little) for it, I was told to come pick up my visa on August 4th at 4:00pm, the day before my flight out. Perfect.

I then headed up to Trincomalee, northeast Sri Lanka, another area I had not been on my original trip due to the season. Trinco is a beautiful area with different beaches along the coast, with flat water perfect for swimming. It’s definitely an up and coming area, but very low key right now. I booked 5 nights at a great guesthouse, and spent most of the time diving. I realized I hadn’t been diving for 2.5 years after not diving in Mexico on my last trip, so it was great to get back in the water.

After 5 days of diving, eating, reading and resting, I took a 5 hour bus back to Kandy, and waited for the visa centre to open at 4pm so I could pick up my visa, and head a bit closer to the airport for my last night. Except the visa centre did not open. It was Sunday. Why would it open? I checked my receipt again and saw August 4th underlined. Great.

I booked a guesthouse for the night and got up at 7:30 to make sure I was at the visa centre right when it opened at 8:30am. I handed them my receipt and they told me to come back at 4pm, to which I replied, “my flight is at 5pm”. They examined my receipt, saw August 4th underlined, exchanged glances with co-workers, and told me to wait. An hour later they said “ok, go to the Indian embassy and they will give you a visa”. I hopped in a tuk tuk and headed to the embassy. An hour or so later, I had the visa in hand, about 6 hours before my flight. It was a 3.5 drive to the airport, so my original plan of taking the bus was out of the question, so I flagged down another tuk tuk who I was able to bargain down to about $30 for the trip, literally using every last rupee I had. So much for my cheap visa.

Other than the driver dropping his phone out of the vehicle moving very quickly and shattering the screen, I arrived at the airport in perfect time, checked in, and headed to the lounge for a glass of wine.