Too Much Red Tape

As some of you might have heard Sara and I have been forced to change our travel plans here in India.  The Indian Government recently changed its laws surrounding Visa regulations for US and UK citizens.  You used to have to leave India every 180 days in order to stay for an extended period of time.  It used to not be a problem as you could leave and come back in the same day if you wanted to.  Sara and I had plans that we would just go to Nepal for a short stay sometime in February or March to satisfy this requirement.  Now the law has been changed so that anyone holding a tourist visa needs to leave the country for a period of two months before being allowed to return.  We’ve been following these changes in the law for a few weeks now and several travelers have had problems because they were not aware of the changes in the laws and have ended up getting stuck in Nepal or Thailand because they weren’t allowed to re-enter India until their two months was up.  The papers say that this law was changed because David Headley, an American-Pakistani  terrorist who helped plan the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, was able to stay in India for an extended period of time by following the old regulations and they want to make it harder for tourists to be able to stay in the country for a long time.  Other sources say that the Indian Government has been meaning to change these regulations for some time now and it has nothing to do with David Headley.

That being said, the rules have changed and so have our plans.  We switched our return tickets so that we’re leaving to go home the 12th of March, two days before our 180 days is up.  Gulf Air thankfully only charges $30 per ticket to switch, we were worried it would be a lot more expensive.  We are only going to be able to work on the farm up north near the Himalayas and are most likely not going to be able to work down south near Bangalore as we had hoped.  Six months is still a long time to spend traveling anywhere and we are glad we have at least that much time.  One added bonus, we might even be able to see some snow this year upon our return.