Previous Entry | Next Entry

2003-05-15 - Recong Peo (Day 30)

The sun came peeking in between the cracks in the curtains quite early and I figured I had the choice of rolling over and ignoring it putting the mountain of covers between me and the curtains or getting up and seeing what the sunrise looked like over Kinner Kalish. I went out with the camera to find that I wasn't the only one enjoying the sunrise and a lovely conversation with a 70 year old Indian woman about travel, and the world and a little picking into Americans and President Bush due to the war in Iraq which wasn't so lovely, was the start of my morning.

Peter showed up around 9am for breakfast and we enjoyed the simple of pleasure of breakfast outside in front of mountains like these. However, the day soon began what was to be a day dominated by "travel bureaucracy" which eats away at time no matter where one travels. The start was that the hotel was over booked - they'd been saying that since I came - and I was told I'd have to shift to another hotel. I wanted to reconfirm and doing so brought a question on if I really needed to go. It took the manager and hour to reconfirm with the central booking office in Shimla that the reservation had been canceled, but by that time I'd packed up everything which was wasted effort as I'll have to unpack when I get back.

Peter and I head down to Recong Peo to start with our list of travelers-chores. We were going to get me an inter-line permit, upload the web site and see about changing money as we both were going to run out or rupees. The inter-line permit set the tone for the day. Try as I might, I couldn't see the logic of a special permit which is required for foreign tourists to enter a quarter of a state which is heavily dependant on tourism. The permit is required from Jangi to Kaza which is about 225km by the main road. The area is sacred to Buddhists and Hindus and pilgrimages to the monasteries is a common thing. However, foreigners need to apply for a special permit to go through the area.

The "inter-line permit" is filled with wonderful instruction such as - "During the period of transit through the restricted area the permit holder shall not be allowed to leave the National Highway and shall not be allowed any night halt in the restricted area. While in transit through the restricted area he/she shall not resort to photography. He/she shall not carry any maps / immagineries / connected material / satellite communication equipment other then route charts approved by the ministry of defense" which is all lovely but is just plain irrelevant. The process of obtaining this permit turns out to be just as irrelevant.

Peter and I get in the office at 11am and the clerk tells us that I can still get the application in today. We go through the process of filing out the application with all the typical traveler's information, go get the three photos and the photo copies of the passport and visa in the shops across the road and go back to the office. The forms have to be signed by the "district section chief" Mr. Anupam Kashyap who is in a meeting and they tell me to wait, he'll be down in 10 minutes. Two and a half hours later I'm still sitting in front of his door along with 5 other people not to mention the 6 foreigners who have been waiting in the clerk's office. I've asked two times, but I'm told just keep waiting, "only 10 minutes..." Yeah, right.

As I sit there one of the clerks points to a short fat guy who is walking out of the building and says, "that's the section chief" - and he's leaving the building, what the hell! I take a sprint after him (well, best as I can with my leg) and catch him in his jeep as he and his driver are pulling away. I block the jeeps passage and force them to stop, then explaining that I've already been waiting for 2.5 hours and all I need is his signature on this - well, obviously irrelevant - piece of paper, would he mind signing now so I can go. I get an indignant reply - "We have processes around here, procedure, you can wait another 5-10 minutes until I return." The attitude and tone of this 2nd rank petty bureaucrat is simply insulting.

Well the 5-10 minutes turns into a half an hour when the fat Mr. Kashyap comes waddling back in obviously content with his lunch and slams the door of his office with me still on the lawn chair outside. Another 10 minutes goes by before the door opens, I'm ushered into the man's presence and he spends 20 seconds looking at the application, and signs it. Oh, that was worth my waiting. As I'm standing there a thought crosses my mind that this is almost the perfect definition of my view of hell - being a petty second tier bureaucrat in a backwater of a poor country who's main job is to enforce a completely irrelevant law. What is amazing is this guy is actually cocky about it.

After I get the signature, I'm led back to the first room where the clerks like scribes in the middle ages start making copies by hand of all the relevant information in great tomes. These tomes one assumes get piled onto the other great tomes which litter the office in random piles and are stuck in the cracks between filing cabinets and obviously have not been opened in years. It takes another 20 minutes to copy the information from the application by hand and hand me back my permit warning me about carrying non-defense department approved maps.

Peter and I then look for the Internet cafe which turns out to be a flop as they have gone out of business. Next on the list is some food, which also is a failure with us ordering 4 dishes, 3 of them proving inedible and leaving them untouched. The last stop is I walk over to an ice cream vendor who Peter says is good and ask for a cone. I wait 5 minutes for the machine to get going and when it does the runny mess that comes out is just revolting, I take one small bite just to see if the taste is equal to its looks and the cone goes into the waste basket two steps away on the way out to the amusement of two other customers in the shop who laugh at the crazy American who buys an ice-cream and takes only one bite..

Well, traveling just has days like this....

(Foot note - I find out the next day from Renee that this petty bureaucrat also gave her the run around telling her to come in tomorrow for her permit - of course leaving out the fact that the next day was a public holiday and the offices would be closed. When she found out about that an hour later, the official had gone home. Being a strong willed girl, she forced the clerks to call him at home where apparently he was furious at being called back even when confronted with the fact that the offices would be closed and the permit wouldn't be obtainable, thus the travel arrangements she had told the clerks about couldn't be completed. I understand she was referred to as a "troublemaker" from this point...)

Previous Entry | Next Entry