The Indian visa, end of the story

Celebrations!

The envelope was waiting, patiently, in the mailbox, right next to the door. The priority mail could mean just one thing. The Indian visa!

So my passport came back, with the Indian visa in it, in the imparted time. Only problem : it will have cost me twice the price and two trips to Ottawa instead of one. Other problem, since I now have a journalist visa in my passport, I won't be able to stay vague about my job when I'll cross borders everywhere else. Lesson learned.

Other lesson : double check every information before sending the visa request.

Buying the flight

Before I change my mind, I bought the flight that will have me landing in New Delhi on January 5th.

For that, I noticed the price of the flight was 400 $ higher in just one month. 100 $ more than the week before. And that is for the cheapest one. Not necessarily the one I wanted.

I searched on flights comparators I didn't know about, like momondo.com and google.com/flights (no, I hadn't realized  Google had started comparing flights). I also tried on the usual websites like Expedia.ca or priceline.com.

Results were not convincing for the length of the flights, the number of stops or the arrival time. I was about to give up when I took a last chance. I've already written it, flight comparators are not all comparing the price for the same companies. That is when I found a flight on Emirates, a company well known for the quality of service. A company I didn't get the chance to fly on yet.

Before booking, I checked on Emirates website itself... where the same flight was cheaper. Economies : 120 $.

Other than the website problems which delayed my booking for 24 hours, I was done with the problems. At least I hope so. Direction India as soon as the new year starts : visa and flight in hand.

My ears!

One of the worst things happening while traveling is health problems.

If we usually bring a lot of medicine to prevent upset stomaches, headaches and other infections, we rarely think of our ears.

But it seems you only need to feel ear pain once in a plane to have that problem often afterwards. And the pain is really bad, believe me.

I'll leave the scientific explanations to others, but the pressure on the eardrums brings intense pain. Pain that is hard to relieve. It usually comes while landing. When you have a stopover, pain is even greater.

It is even possible to lose the capacity to hear well for hours after landing because of that pressure.

I'm not taking chances. I started investigating and bought pressure-reducing earplugs. I'll try them in a couple of days and will be able the say if they are efficient.

While searching, I found the N300 website. It is supposed to be miraculous.