Places Indians get Visa-on-Arrival

If you’ve been reading my blog or have read my previous article about the whole debacle in just getting to Lebanon, you’d understand the necessity of this article.

I’ve worked with several British and French nationalities- most of whom get visas on arrivals – so they’ll never understand the actual pain that it can be to apply for a visa and then convince the visa officers of why you want to travel to their country.

In the spirit of that, I thought it will be a good idea to share the countries around the world that Indians don’t need visa for! Below are 23 out of 49 countries that offer visa on arrival or don’t require a visa for Indian citizens

1. Thailand
   The first country I visited where I was given Visa on arrival. I have never been more happy to stand in the smaller queue for SAARC countries and get cleared within 2 minutes with a visa.
2. Maldives
3. Macau
4. Indonesia
5. Jordan (This is pretty recent and wasn’t the case when I went about 8 years ago!)
6. Cambodia
7. Laos
8. Mauritius
9. Seychelles
10. Kenya
11. Tanzania
12. Madagascar
13. Comoros Island
14. Ecuador
15. The British Virgin Islands
16. Haiti
17. Jamaica
18. Fiji
19. El Salvador
20. Georgia
21. Burundi
22. South Korea
23. Bolivia

 

References:
IB Times
Wikipedia

World Heritage Sights: Mtskheta, Jvari Monastery and Mt Mtatsminda Hill, Georgia (Day 3 of 3)

Jumping in the Snow: Gudauri, Georgia (Day 2 of 3)

“Day 2, Post 2.”

In my head, I kinda said that like a narrator reading a play and announces the change in the scene- Act 1, Scene 3. But, maybe that’s just an English major thing.

Anywhoo. Day 2 was something I was very excited about. It was, as  I called it ‘Snow Day’. I didn’t mention it in my previous post, but this one would be incomplete without their introductions, as would have been my trip.

So on day 1, while breakfast, on the table next to me was a very lovely Indian lady, who was wearing this big chuda on her hand. So, I figured she must be North Indian.And I was right. She was also from Delhi- like me and lives in Sharjah. We hit it off straight away. She was with her husband- straight from their marriage. (Note: This was NOT their honeymoon!!) I shared my very anal itinerary with her on the same day and we ran into them at Meydaan. Well, a really long story, short- they ended up joining us to Gudauri.

So next morning- this time I was cautious and decided to carry 2 pairs of extra socks ( I was already wearing two), 2 big jackets, my Fox hat- which is a beloved souvenir from Helsinki and a big smile.

Anyway, we set off on our journey. First stop by the side of the road to have the best view of the Tbilisi sea. Lucky Bhaiya* stopped the car so we could really admire the view and take some pictures and then piled us back in. While heading to Gudauri, we had many stops and many stories from the same.

We stopped by the roadside shops for some Churchkhela, which is a traditional Georgian candy made from fruits and nuts. Really weird looking stuff, but incredibly delicious.

Once we left the city behind, the snowcapped trees began. As we drove by the Aragvi river, the mountains got closer, the view got even more breath-taking than before. It literally looked like we are standing in some kind of a studio and taking pictures – that’s how beautifully unreal and pleasant it was. There was a chill in the weather- but the best kind. Again, we stopped by this little place which will be the background in many pictures to come. I have run out of synonyms for breath-taking, so imagine similar words as description of the view.

We headed to Ananuri after, which is on the way to Gudauri. Ananuri is a fortress which dates back to the 13th century and is by the Aragvi river. When you walk into it first, it looks like a ruined castle- which basically it is. Fun fact- it’s actually on UNESCO tentative list. Within the complex of the Castle, there are two churches- Church of the Virgin and Church of Assumption. They both date back to the 17th century.  With scriptures and carvings on the wall, the Churches are well preserved. We went inside the Church of Assumption, it was beautiful with paintings on the walls.

The Fortress looks over to the Zhvervali reservoir and surrounding mountains is a spectacular sight.

We packed up in the car once more and moved again towards Gudauri.

There was a little patch where we saw a lot of snow by the river, and we stopped again to frollick in the snow. Read: we did absolutely frollick in the snow. Someone might or might not have convinced me that the water is actually hot because there’s sulphur so it would be a brilliant idea to take it out of my gloves and dig in. All I can say is, it was very, very cold. 

No more stops after this and we finally reached Gudauri. In the first glance, it was a white snow blanket.There was snow everywhere! People were skiing, and running around, throwing snow at each other. We went up in the cable car to a higher point and it was fun. We played in the snow- I’ve never played in the snow before. It got too cold for me, so I took a 15 minute refuge in the little coffee shop by the heater.

We had plans to go paragliding, but because the snow had just fallen the day before, platforms weren’t ready. Maybe, next time.

We headed back to Tbilisi at 5 pm before the roads got too dark… Back in Tbilisi, we had a quick dinner and went back to the hotel..

Some pictures from the fun day before:

Walking back in History: Tbilisi, Georgia (Day 1 of 3)

December has been a busy month with lots of long weekends and packed suitcases for me. The second weekend in December, I flew to Georgia- Tbilisi with my friends for a little ‘girl’s trip’.

Only 3 something hours away, it’s the perfect getaway from Dubai and a fab change of scenery. While, I did check it would be cold- about -3 degrees of it, I didn’t expect it to be freezing my mind off cold.

We landed at 2am, and had booked a driver, Lucky Bhaiya (Bhaiya is hindi for older brother) through somebody. I will tell you more about the amazing Lucky Bhaiya in the later posts.

We were staying at the Iveria Inn.. The lovely little hotel was 12 minutes away from the old town by car ( we didn’t get a chance to take the local metro! 😦 ) Since we had only booked Lucky Bhaiya from the second day, the first day he just dropped us off at the Rustaveli Square in Tbilisi.

Here begins the crazy adventure.

1. It was FREEZING COLD. I’m not exaggerating- it was so cold that our iPhones kept shutting down. Literally, shutting down because it was too cold.
2. I didn’t have enough layers on. I was wearing three layers (one big jacket included) and I was still cold. I was wearing really thin socks. So once I bought and wore two pairs of socks (one really long and one really wooly), I felt slightly better.
3. WIND. It wasn’t just windy. It was super and blow-you-away-from-the-way windy. I was finding it difficult to stand still.

While I had this insanely planned itinerary, which would probably make me sound extremely anal and controlling, the wind and cold changed my plan. So, our savior- the red Hop-on, hop-off bus- came when we needed it the most- our phones were dead and our faces were frozen. On 50 lari per person, it seemed like the ideal choice.

We took the bus and kept getting off everywhere- around lunch we got off at Marjanishvili square, where wandered around for two hours and had lunch at this Indian Restaurant called, ‘Sanjha Chulha’. The food was good, the place was warm. The road was full of little stores, old theaters and very lovely people from Tbilisi.

A quick two hours later, back in the bus, we took a city tour. It was really windy- so windy that they stopped the cable cars- bummer. Our plan was to walk up the Narikala Fortress and come down in the cable car! We got off at their last stop Meydan square and started our climb to the fortress. It was around 4pm. There wasn’t exactly a sun- but it was so so windy. We took refuge in a little cafe – which was more like somebody’s living room. It was adorable and silly- the hot chocolate had little too much sugar, but the chocolate fondant cake made up for it.

We continued our hike after, reached the top of the fortress- the sight was beautiful and yes- breath-taking. Mother Georgia also made a pretty good sight. We trekked back down, stopping by, in lots of souvenir shops. We sat in the bus again around 5 something and found ourselves back on the Rustaveli Sq. Determined to finally explore the area- in spite of the wind.

We saw the Paliashvili Opera House, Freedom Monument, Art Gallery and more. St. Nicholas Church was by far, my favourite. There was an old man selling candles outside, and the inside was just beautiful. Full of people praying, lighting candles, just sitting on benches in solace and peace. It felt pea

There was an old man selling candles outside, and the inside was just beautiful. Full of people praying, lighting candles, just sitting on benches in solace and peace. It felt peaceful. I’d recently been full of conflicting emotions and thoughts, but in those 15 minutes or longer we were there, everything was calm.

Once outside, we took a cab to Peace Bridge (5 Lari). The Peace Bridge stands out in Tbilisi. Where everything in the city is a part of their history or has an essence of the history, this bridge stands like out with its modern design. It was already dark, so the bridge was lit up in pink and colours.

We walked back to the Meydan square where we bought some more souvenirs and ate at this little Georgian restaurant that had two live singers with a ukelele. More laughter ensued at dinner as we clearly didn’t understand our own order. See, I’m vegetarian and somewhat of a picky eater (I said somewhat!). So we ordered Khachapuri, something with Chicken for the other two, and a margarita pizza to be on the safe side. So, when khachapuri arrived, we assumed it’s their way of doing pizza. Yep. So, I called the nice server and asked him to cancel our khachapuri because the portions were really big. He looked startled and told us he can’t and ran into the kitchen. We were confused (see, I forget to say that the food was taking its sweet time in coming out!). He came out with this giant margarita pizza. We all felt extremely stupid, quietly ate as much as we could and wrapped up the rest.

We got to the hotel- silly and sound. Day 1 was an adventure. Some pictures below!