OMFG

Lou & I are intelligent people. We are seasoned travelers. We are fairly well versed in using the Internet & can operate most websites. But this afternoon we met our match!

Our mission was to fill out our applications for an Indian visa for our upcoming trip. It has taken weeks of research to figure out what we needed & how to go about obtaining it. But that was child's play compared to actually applying for the damn thing on their website - which appears to be the only way to do it other than paying an independent visa company at least double the cost - & you still have to fill out all the forms correctly.

Apparently the Indian Consulate has contracted with one visa service, CKGS, that does ALL of the Indian visas. Our state department, their state department & my guess is, any other visa service, must go through CKGS to obtain a visa to visit India. There is a simpler e-visa BUT it is only good for two entries into India. Our cruise stops at three ports & following the cruise we are flying to Delhi for two nights. We needed a regular visa - which according to all accounts is much more involved. OMFG, were they ever right!

We went to the CKGS website to apply. The process involves filling out initial information on their site before being redirected to the Consulate General of India website to fill out their form & print it. You are then sent back to CKGS to answer more questions, print that page & finally book an appointment in San Francisco to deliver all of your forms, passport, ID, payment & a photo that has a ton of rules & regulations - totally white background, no glasses, no hair covering your face, straight on, no tilted head, etc, etc. You can mail all of the forms in but we elected to actually have someone check it in person.

All of that may have been do-able IF the website had even sort of worked correctly. Lou was at his computer & I was at mine trying to figure out each step as we progressed. Our goal was to get to the book appointment part at the same time & schedule our appointments next to each other. You will not believe how many times one or the other of us had to start over when a webpage froze up. Or how many times one of us had to stop & help the other. Or how many times I said "Fuck" - well, if you know me, you probably do believe that!

You are given a temporary number in case you have to log back in to your application. But the numbers never worked to get back into the site! We had three different confirmation or application numbers but couldn't get any of them work. A phone call only produced a recording referring us to the website. At one point Lou called the CKGS line after we had hit yet another roadblock. All of the numbers were alpha numeric with several letters. The recording told him to enter his application number. How do you enter a 12 digit number with letters & numbers on a phone keypad??? He tried speaking the number but that didn't work either. Talk about sheer frustration.

Both of us felt like we had been dragged through the wringer when finally, almost 4 hours later (literally), Lou clicked the button & the "Order Receipt" appeared on his screen. I yelled, "Hallelujah!" & we high-fived like we scored the winning touchdown!

All of our paperwork is filled out & printed but that is just the start. We must sign in three boxes & if our signature goes out of the box at all, it will be rejected. Next up is to take the photos which will also be rejected if they don't meet the exact criteria. I'm a little freaked out about our February 12th appointments at 11:12 AM & 11:23 AM to make sure our forms have all the "i's" dotted & "t's" crossed. Shit, I just want to visit the damn country, not buy it!

As I was starting over from scratch with my India Consulate application that somehow disappeared, Lou started looking at some of the website reviews while he waited for me to catch up. Here are just a few that made me feel a lot better knowing we weren't alone!

"I'm beyond frustrated at this point. I have never encountered a more dysfunctional application system."

"I had heard from many others that applying for a VISA through CKGS was going to be a hellish experience.  They were right."

"Website is a piece of crap! Pathetic, nothing on their system works."

The Better Business Bureau reports that CKGS has a customer approval rating of 1.2 out of a possible 5. I have decided that CKGS does indeed translate into OMFG! I have a bad feeling that this saga is far from over. I hope to hell I'm wrong but I'll keep you posted on the outcome. I've pretty much decided that India doesn't want tourists. Making it this hard to get a frickin' visa is not the way to encourage visitors to your country!