It was a long walk to my gate and I had chosen a lounge nearby the gate. The food served was simple Thai style green curry and I had taken a small nap. I was exhausted but yet was still worried about my trip. The next challenge waiting for me was the visa on arrival. It could take up a few hours for the application. As my team mate was Taiwanese the process could be longer as they might need to get a special documentation to verified their ‘unrecognized’ passport; that was what happened in Sri Lanka.
I left the lounge early and did a small tour around the shops. There were many shops in the airport but yet most of them sold similar products. I bought some biscuit for the team and headed toward the gate.
The boarding was smooth and I had met a lady from mainland on the flight. We had a great chat exchanging view about religious and condition in Bangladesh.
On arrival at the Dhaka airport, she had led me to the visa counter and I had gotten my visa in less than 30mins.
Those information I gathered regarding visa on arrival were outdated….In the past the payment should be done after the counter accepted the papers but yet the latest procedure was pay first. I was brought to the counter and paid up the fee. With the receipt, I was redirected to the application counter and got my visa with no hazard.
However my team mates were not that lucky. MAS had arrived slight later than the Thai airway and I saw them getting down the stair entering the hall while I was 2 persons away from my visa.
I directed them to the payment counter but the queue was long then. After I got my visa, I had assisted the rest of the mates filling up their visa application form; the form that they had prefilled was outdated and not usable. When they approached the counter they were however later redirected to another police counter where they were given a verification letter for their passport. The total process had eaten up almost 3 hours for everyone to get their visa on arrival.
I had taken my time changing my USD to TAKA and gotten myself a new sim card as the sim card I pre-purchased prior the journey was non-assessable. Everything was settled after 3.5hrs of struggling in the entry area. I considered it was a smooth process. My team mate apart from the three medical staffs, were all fresh travelers with no experience.
The local missioner was waiting at the arrival hall when we exit the airport.
A small bus was chartered and we headed to the local pier for a boat ride to our destination....
