| How it went |
Immigration:
The first building on the left hand side is the Immigration/Custom
office. At the Immigration office go up to the counter and get the entry
form. Fill that out, careful to fill out all the information. They will
ask you for a hotel address with telephone number in India. Make something
up, or have this information handy.
Hand in the entry form and the passport and they will stamp your passport.
Now you can move down to Customs.
Customs:
Bring
a lot of patience. This will take a while! They will want to see your
passport, your vehicle registration paper and your carnet. Also you
have to be able to show them the chassis number and the engine number
on your vehicle since they will check this against the information in
your carnet.
The officers speak very good English, so they will guide you through
the process. Which means I will not go into the details here. Just know
this: it takes a while! Stay friendly and calm and politely answer all
their questions and you will not have any problems.
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Getting visa for India:
We got our visa for India in Islamabad, Pakistan.
The Indian Embassy is in the Diplomatic Compound in Islamabad. This
means that you can't just walk up to it, but you have to get on the
official bus. The bus-stand is down from the compound, across a bridge.
You will not be allowed to take anything into the Diplomatic Compound,
so leave your bags and your mobile at the hotel/campground or check
it in at the security station at the bus stand.
Once you get to the Indian embassy ask one of the guards for the
visa forms. You can then fill these out while you are waiting in line.
You have to fill out two identical forms, so you will need two passport
pictures. Also bring some glue for sticking the pictures onto the form,
otherwise you might run into problems.
You then hand in the forms and your passport and you will be told to
come back in seven days. There is no express service. You will have
to wait seven days.
When picking up the visas check them. We have heard from a lot of travelers
who only got issued 3 months single entry visas even though they had
asked for 6 months multiple entry visa. We did not have this problem.
Should you run into this problem complain and keep insisting until they
change it. That seems to have worked for all the people we spoke to.
Changing money:
Changing money on the Wagah border is not a problem. The officials
on the Pakistani side will pester you about changing money with them.
However there is an official notice posted stating that this is illegal.
On the Indian side there is a bank and a tourist information office.
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