For a long, long time, I knew I wanted to go to India as my graduation trip. My dream destination had been Egypt, but after it blew up in 2011, I knew that it'd have to wait. Around that same time though, India began to fascinate me more and more. I think it was because I really enjoyed the movie Slumdog Millionaire and the show Outsourced (which, unfortunately, was discontinued), adored Indian food, and was enchanted by their culture in general.
Then in the beginning of 2012, when I had just begun the process of becoming an exchange student, I spent a weekend at an orientation camp with other future exchange students, as well as current ones from around the world. One part of that weekend was a country fair, where kids from around the world set up tables presenting their respective countries, with books, items, and sometimes even food, all used to encourage the future exchange students to pick their country to go to on exchange.
The one representative from India was a boy named Shashank. Long story short, he was a lot of fun to be around and sold his country really, really well. We became good friends during his exchange year. I knew from then on that I would really have to go to India one day, and make more Indian friends so I'd have a real reason to go other than me being enamored by it.
Make more Indian friends I did. During my exchange year in France, my best exchange student friend from my inbound district was an Indian girl named Aarohi, and I was fortunate enough to have met many more during my time abroad, all of whom have become great friends of mine. I told Aarohi about wanting to go to India and asked if she could possibly host me summer of 2014, so it could be my graduation trip. She was enthusiastic about the idea, and although we were sad to say good-bye to each other on May 2013, we knew we would meet again soon enough.
Through the hell of senior year and the college application process, the thought of going to India and seeing her again was what kept me persevering. My mom told me that I could go as long as I earned the tickets on my own, so once the initial steps of applying to college had been accomplished, I began looking for a job. It was a futile search. I was getting quite desperate. I was willing to do any job at all just so I could earn tickets from Manila to Mumbai (as I was to spend the majority of my summer in the Philippines), as I relentlessly searched on.
Planning a date for the trip was complicated, as I wasn't going to know my college plans until April and thus wouldn't know when I would have to report to school. That meant we didn't know how long I could stay abroad before needing to come back to start school.
Thus I waited in agony, for the college results and for the fate of my long-anticipated India trip.
Getting into Harvard was a game changer. My grandma was so pleased I finally officially got into the school she assumed I was going to go to since before I knew what it was, she told me that she would pay for my tickets as my graduation present. (It was a huge deal. Read about it here.)
I remember the moment my mother handed me the e-tickets, all printed out, the full itinerary. June 23-30. All that wishing and waiting, and I finally had proof of the trip.
Aarohi and I got really excited. I sent her my itinerary and told her what I wanted to do, and she planned things out for the two of us. We had the entire week for the two of us, in India's largest and most populated city. It was going to be beyond amazing.
I arrived in the Philippines late at night on June 19th, intending to rest before jetting off again to a new, unknown place. And on June 23, after not sleeping enough thanks to all the excitement building up inside me, we left for Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
(Just as a side note, this airport consistently gets ranked as the world's worst airport, and I believe it.)
I said bye to my grandma and went inside the airport. I found the check-in counters for Malaysia Airlines and lined up. I rehearsed my next steps in my head - get to the counter, hand my passport and ticket, get my boarding pass, then go to my gate. Simple.
The lady looked over my credentials and then asked me the most horrid question I have ever been asked in my life.
"Where's your visa?"
I froze.
I didn't have a visa.
At the worst possible moment, right before I would have gotten my boarding passes, I learned that when traveling with a US passport to India, you need to have applied for a visa.
No, you couldn't get it upon arrival.
No, you couldn't pay them the money for the visa upon arrival.
YES, you could get it upon arrival when traveling with a Philippine passport.
Holding on to that hope but expecting the worst, I broke down sobbing in the middle of the world's worst airport and exited, after having called my grandma asking her to bring my Philippine passport.
I don't think I've ever felt so much despair in my life. I suppose there's a first time for everything.
I'll never forget standing outside the airport in the scorching heat and humidity as tears continued to stream down my face, as I called my parents in the USA, explaining what had happened, as I ignored the crowd of people standing around me that generated additional heat. I'll never forget looking out beyond the row of Philippine flags waving in the breeze at the skyline of Manila in the distance. I'll never forget the arrival of my grandma as she handed me my Philippine passport, a passport that had expired over a year ago.
Nothing else could be done. I wasn't to go to India on the day it had been planned. I couldn't stop crying. All that planning, all that anticipation, all for naught.
I already knew it was the world's worst airport for its crowdedness and disorganization (among other qualities needing improvement), but to me, Ninoy Aquino International Airport is also the world's worst airport for the fact that this terrible memory took place there and will forever be embedded in my mind.
Part of the reason I'm writing this so dramatically is that one day when I write a travel memoir/autobiography I can just copy and paste this into the manuscript. Furthermore, when my life gets turned into a movie, there is a detailed account of this horrific incident that'll serve as a guideline to the screenplay writer.
I'm thinking of another plausible scenario that would've been way more interesting and fun to write about. I should have just gotten to go to India anyway and dealt with my lack of a visa over there. I would have been detained in a foreign land and finally crossed off "international criminal" on things of my "fabulous things I need to be in my life" list. What a way to start the India adventures. (Disclaimer: The list doesn't actually exist...yet.)
But oh well. For now, we're working on getting me a visa and getting my tickets changed. So all is not lost.
Thus concludes the latest report from my dysfunctional life. A life in which fortune cookies and BuzzFeed quizzes serve as premonitions of things to come, in which the usually well-organized and put-together US justice system screws up and detains me for no reason, in which I just have to be a little more patient before I finally see India. Because by the time I do, after all this waiting and trouble, it'll be even more magnificent.
Then in the beginning of 2012, when I had just begun the process of becoming an exchange student, I spent a weekend at an orientation camp with other future exchange students, as well as current ones from around the world. One part of that weekend was a country fair, where kids from around the world set up tables presenting their respective countries, with books, items, and sometimes even food, all used to encourage the future exchange students to pick their country to go to on exchange.
The one representative from India was a boy named Shashank. Long story short, he was a lot of fun to be around and sold his country really, really well. We became good friends during his exchange year. I knew from then on that I would really have to go to India one day, and make more Indian friends so I'd have a real reason to go other than me being enamored by it.
Make more Indian friends I did. During my exchange year in France, my best exchange student friend from my inbound district was an Indian girl named Aarohi, and I was fortunate enough to have met many more during my time abroad, all of whom have become great friends of mine. I told Aarohi about wanting to go to India and asked if she could possibly host me summer of 2014, so it could be my graduation trip. She was enthusiastic about the idea, and although we were sad to say good-bye to each other on May 2013, we knew we would meet again soon enough.
Through the hell of senior year and the college application process, the thought of going to India and seeing her again was what kept me persevering. My mom told me that I could go as long as I earned the tickets on my own, so once the initial steps of applying to college had been accomplished, I began looking for a job. It was a futile search. I was getting quite desperate. I was willing to do any job at all just so I could earn tickets from Manila to Mumbai (as I was to spend the majority of my summer in the Philippines), as I relentlessly searched on.
Planning a date for the trip was complicated, as I wasn't going to know my college plans until April and thus wouldn't know when I would have to report to school. That meant we didn't know how long I could stay abroad before needing to come back to start school.
Thus I waited in agony, for the college results and for the fate of my long-anticipated India trip.
Getting into Harvard was a game changer. My grandma was so pleased I finally officially got into the school she assumed I was going to go to since before I knew what it was, she told me that she would pay for my tickets as my graduation present. (It was a huge deal. Read about it here.)
I remember the moment my mother handed me the e-tickets, all printed out, the full itinerary. June 23-30. All that wishing and waiting, and I finally had proof of the trip.
Aarohi and I got really excited. I sent her my itinerary and told her what I wanted to do, and she planned things out for the two of us. We had the entire week for the two of us, in India's largest and most populated city. It was going to be beyond amazing.
I arrived in the Philippines late at night on June 19th, intending to rest before jetting off again to a new, unknown place. And on June 23, after not sleeping enough thanks to all the excitement building up inside me, we left for Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
(Just as a side note, this airport consistently gets ranked as the world's worst airport, and I believe it.)
I said bye to my grandma and went inside the airport. I found the check-in counters for Malaysia Airlines and lined up. I rehearsed my next steps in my head - get to the counter, hand my passport and ticket, get my boarding pass, then go to my gate. Simple.
The lady looked over my credentials and then asked me the most horrid question I have ever been asked in my life.
"Where's your visa?"
I froze.
I didn't have a visa.
At the worst possible moment, right before I would have gotten my boarding passes, I learned that when traveling with a US passport to India, you need to have applied for a visa.
No, you couldn't get it upon arrival.
No, you couldn't pay them the money for the visa upon arrival.
YES, you could get it upon arrival when traveling with a Philippine passport.
Holding on to that hope but expecting the worst, I broke down sobbing in the middle of the world's worst airport and exited, after having called my grandma asking her to bring my Philippine passport.
I don't think I've ever felt so much despair in my life. I suppose there's a first time for everything.
I'll never forget standing outside the airport in the scorching heat and humidity as tears continued to stream down my face, as I called my parents in the USA, explaining what had happened, as I ignored the crowd of people standing around me that generated additional heat. I'll never forget looking out beyond the row of Philippine flags waving in the breeze at the skyline of Manila in the distance. I'll never forget the arrival of my grandma as she handed me my Philippine passport, a passport that had expired over a year ago.
Nothing else could be done. I wasn't to go to India on the day it had been planned. I couldn't stop crying. All that planning, all that anticipation, all for naught.
I already knew it was the world's worst airport for its crowdedness and disorganization (among other qualities needing improvement), but to me, Ninoy Aquino International Airport is also the world's worst airport for the fact that this terrible memory took place there and will forever be embedded in my mind.
Part of the reason I'm writing this so dramatically is that one day when I write a travel memoir/autobiography I can just copy and paste this into the manuscript. Furthermore, when my life gets turned into a movie, there is a detailed account of this horrific incident that'll serve as a guideline to the screenplay writer.
I'm thinking of another plausible scenario that would've been way more interesting and fun to write about. I should have just gotten to go to India anyway and dealt with my lack of a visa over there. I would have been detained in a foreign land and finally crossed off "international criminal" on things of my "fabulous things I need to be in my life" list. What a way to start the India adventures. (Disclaimer: The list doesn't actually exist...yet.)
But oh well. For now, we're working on getting me a visa and getting my tickets changed. So all is not lost.
Thus concludes the latest report from my dysfunctional life. A life in which fortune cookies and BuzzFeed quizzes serve as premonitions of things to come, in which the usually well-organized and put-together US justice system screws up and detains me for no reason, in which I just have to be a little more patient before I finally see India. Because by the time I do, after all this waiting and trouble, it'll be even more magnificent.
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