The last stretch to Kolkata takes us through a decent highway. Yet it’s already dark when we arrive in the busy city. The search for a hotel is even more difficult this time. The few hotels we do find are either fully booked or are star-hotels. After hours of searching, we are so tired that we almost decide to sleep in a star-hotel. But suddenly we seem to be where all the hotels are and almost every building in the street is a hotel! At one o'clock in the morning we are finally in bed…and we are being welcomed by a family of mice. The next morning we go to the Consulate of Myanmar, where we are told that we can’t apply for an overland visa and that we would get a stamp on our visa “only by air ". There is nothing left to do but go to the embassy in New Delhi. Through a travel agency we book two tickets for the night train to Delhi, which means about a 16 hours ride. In the evening we accompany the hotel manager and his friend at a street fire and we are offered a glass of rum and we have a nice chat. The next day, we leave for the train station where we arrive too early, after which we decide to buy some cookies for the many street kids who hang out around the station.

The Street Children around the Train Station

Ready For Departure

The Meal on the Train wasn't that Bad

The train ride itself is a nice experience... just a pity that the train was delayed for 6 hours due to fog. This means we arrive too late to get to the embassy the same day. We decide to give it a try though, but then it seems that the visa application is located in another building, something we didn’t see on the site. It’s Friday so this means we have to wait the whole weekend to apply on Monday. On the site they write that the visa can be paid for in Dollars or in Rupees but when we arrive at the embassy, we see we can’t pay cash and that we can only pay with a bank check. Someone explains us where and how to get it and we start our race against the clock as the embassy is only open for one more hour... Back just in time, we are again told that no visas are given without a flight ticket. We ask the woman at the desk to accept our application anyway.

The Embassy of Myanmar

She doubts it will make a difference, but she does accept our application. We have to come back in three days and we will immediately file our application for our Thai Visa. For this we also need to book a hotel (with the possibility of annulment), because it’s a requirement for the Thai Visa application.
We go to pick up our visa and although the office is only opened for half an hour, this doesn’t stop the lady at the counter to arrive 40 minutes late! Anyway, we get our visa and that’s the only thing that matters now. The next day we go to the Thai embassy and after three working days, it was ready for pick-up.
Delhi itself is not exactly our thing, a big city with too many people.

Even in the Supermarket, they gave Candy as Change

But we do eat some delicious and cheap food here. Except for one restaurant, where we find a maggot on our plate. When we mention this to the staff, they all look up, claiming the maggot fell from the ceiling. For the rest we fill our days walking around, watch TV and run back and forth to the embassies.
With the visas for Myanmar and Thailand in our pockets, we take the train back to Kolkata with only two hour delay this time. Not bad but it makes you wonder if the train is actually ever on time.

New Delhi

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