Follow: My Indian experience on this link.

It has been a while since my last post.  Frustrations of finalising the PhD, buying a motor-home, a bit of local travel and of course, teaching and marking assignments.  Today I’m off to India via Dubai to present a paper on a part of my research at the International Oral History Association (IOHA) conference in Bangalore, India.  Getting a conference Visa for India has been an experience.  Three letters of approval, my own university plus an abstract of my paper to start with.  Naturally these things were not coordinated and there were last-minute delays.  The online Visa experience is challenging and the applications form is also a bit of a nightmare.  Then $180 poorer (well $360) as I got double billed the Visa arrived.

Now let’s not get confused over the Visa Card, which is a must for travelling.  On Friday my Visa Card was swallowed by an ATM.  No chance of recovery.  I didn’t realist how much the card was used for regular payment of bills.  NAB could not have been more helpful and arranged a Travel Card for me post-haste.  Then Visa Global has been exceptional.  It has arranged a temporary card for the duration of my travelling and a new card will be sent to my home.  However, the temporary card cannot reach me today, before I fly out tonight.  Not only will the temporary card be delivered to me at my hotel in Dubai, but they have specified the time so that I can sign for it.  Now that is customer service.  Kudos to NAB and Visa.

Oh and my flight was changed, but after all the other challenges, this was just the icing on the cake.  Next stop the Adelaide airport.