Oh, COVID travel. When will you become a thing of the past?
Travelling in a mask is OK. It’s doable. As is travelling with a toddler. You get through it. The combination of both? Not recommended. On my recent trip from London to Mumbai, via Australia (for convoluted visa reasons), I surprised myself with the number of occasions I tried in vain to use my own mouth as a disposal unit for some rogue food item sliding its way down Jasper’s face or arm…or my own leg. Not only is it inconvenient and a little uncomfortable, travelling in a mask with a toddler requires a heightened awareness of bin locations and far quicker reactions than maskless travel, it turns out.
To reach the life I’m currently attempting to set up in Mumbai, it has taken three long-haul efforts; Myanmar to Ireland (as a back door to the UK), UK to Australia, Australia to India. Needless to say, we have some carbon offsetting to do as a family. The first trip was with a 9 month old baby, and I can tell you, having to wear a low quality, hazmat knock-off while breastfeeding brings no joy. The second and third trips were with a 16 month-old escape artist; fearless and curious in equal measure, and with no respect for the personal space of other passengers. Had we not been at the front of the plane, I suspect we might have been tossed out somewhere over the Northern Territory. Of course, travelling business class is a luxury not available to everyone, but if you are feeling flush, do it (while the little monster is under 2 and therefore free). You are never going to look back and regret that you didn’t spend 14 hours apologising to a neighbour for your toddler stealing their phone or unplugging their headset 7000 times.
We left Myanmar in something of a panic, 6 months into the 2021 military coup, with our 9 month old baby and, at the time of scrambling to book onto the once-a-month outgoing relief flight, had no idea where we were headed. About a week before we departed Yangon, my husband Dylan accepted a role in Mumbai, and the regret at having sold all our furniture came flooding in. That, and relief at having a plan! What we didn’t anticipate was the complexities of Indian immigration…although in hindsight, having been here long enough to spend 15 days trying to get a package of my own belongings released from customs, and to have stopped counting the wasted hours we are clocking up at payment counters while 3 sales staff perform their complicated paperwork rituals, we now see that immigration is merely a warm welcome to a country that has never let a form go unfilled.
Before our Indian experience, I have never really understood when someone has said “it took us months to get a visa”. Our overall immigration experience in Myanmar by comparison, was such a luxury; we had full year, multi-entry visas granted and renewed in-country, with the support of large, local employers. Entry to India is only for the accomplished hoop-jumper (side bar: actual circus performers are genuinely offered special visa concessions according to government rules), and there is no fudging allowed. Our visa journey took us 4.5 months, and a trip from the UK to Australia. 4 months of googling, preparing documents, flying to the other side of the world, and finally, 2.5 weeks for someone to stick a piece of paper in our passports. And then there’s the cost of expensive consultants paid (not by us, luckily), essentially, to check my homework.
My advice here? Do the googling. All the information is publicly available on various Indian government websites, and what it says goes. The only thing that’s apparently a secret is that while an applicant for an Employment visa must apply from their home country, it is possible for a different country’s passport holder to apply together in the Employee’s home country to enter as a dependent. In our case, British wife and son were able to apply in Australia having travelled there purely as tourists.
Over the past year, we have actually almost abandoned our expat dreams many times. The cons seemed to outweigh the pros. We even had a flow chart that quite clearly led us to a more grounded and stable lifestyle in a ‘home country’ given the global paralysis of leisure travel (expat living’s main attraction), and companies and countries turning away from hiring foreigners. But I am glad we stayed the course (not that we really had a Plan B, to be honest). It took 6 months of separation with Dylan alone in Mumbai while Jasper and I braved a UK winter, a missed first birthday, one solitary bout of COVID and a lot of flying, but we made it to India and are now 3 weeks into our new family life here.
On first impressions, we are going to very much enjoy it here. But more on that in my next post!
Comentários