Whoever said ‘All men are created equal’ hasn’t lived in the real world. I am saying this because I have seen it time and time again that there is so such things as – we all are equal and we definitely are not treated equally. If you have different skin colour, you are treated differently, if you have different accent, you are treated differently and definitely you are treated differently if you have different passport colour.
I am planning a holiday with my husband. The problem is he holds a green passport so he is required to apply for visa while I hold a blue passport so I don’t need visa for the places we are going.
It is fair that you can ask someone to apply for visa to travel but the worst part is that they really make it difficult. Me and my husband have the same financial circumstance but while nothing is checked for me, he is required to provide a long list of documents to prove that he is cable of travelling to these countries just because he holds a passport from a country which is considered third world.
The list consists
- Flight ticket
- Property paper or tenancy certificate
- 3 months of you financial statements from your saving account
- Letter form your employer
- Utilities bill
- Pay slips
- Tax return paper
- Proof establishing the purpose of your trip, for example a letter of invitation.
- Copy of marriage certificate if you are married
- Proof of accommodation, i.e. hotel reservation. If you are staying with family or friends you should submit a letter of invitation
And the list keeps on growing. Then you have to fill out a visa form which is so complicated. Seriously, there are some questions there for which I have no idea what they really mean.
I know they want to make sure only genuine people get tourist visas but if anyone gets a few weeks off and decided to go away for a vacation, they can’t as it takes a while for these visas to be processed. In most of the embassies, we need to make appointments months in advance so if you hold a passport that requires a visa, you are forced to plan months in advance just to make sure you get all the paperwork and visas ready before you travel.
In some countries, the information you require to apply for visa is hidden somewhere and you will be frustrated searching for it. Then you call the agents and every person you get on the other side of the phone will give you different ideas on what they think you should do. Seriously, if I don’t have a relative/friend in this country and I still want to visit, there should be an easy solution. I shouldn’t be forced to find people or pay ridicules amount of money to visit the place.
Thankfully all visas for my husband have been sorted out and we are looking forward to our holiday but the period when he applied for visas and the time they took to make decision, I was going through nightmares thinking the worst. Because, you need to show your tickets, accommodations and tours which are non refundable so for any reason if you don’t get a visa, all your dream holiday is gone down the drain along with all the money you spent for the holiday.
I know there are lots of problem in every county including Australia due to illegal immigrants but that is really making it difficult for a genuine traveller to get away and have some relaxing time.
I know my good friend Tash from Life through Kaleidoscope had a prolonged wait for her visa and she was just going for her graduation. Fortunately, everything has been sorted out and she is enjoying a great break in the UK along with her graduation ceremony.
One of my cousin’s parents applied for a tourist visa to come and visit their son here in Australia but it was rejected. They are in their 60’s but the rejection letter claimed that they believed, they won’t return to Nepal so the visa was rejected.
The funny thing is, they are making it so hard for all genuine people to enter the country while there are lots of illegal immigrants enjoying their time freely. I hope there will be a time when one has to just scan the passport and pay for visa fee to enter another country no matter which country’s passport you hold.
nepaliaustralian 