Kafka over the Red Sea

I arrived in Delhi this morning on a plane full of drunken Chinese businessmen on the way to Beijing. Their antics included that old chestnut, 'No! I won't wear my seatbelt, miss' and a whole series of steal-the-wine-from-the-trolley hi-jinks. It was all so exciting, I was just clean unable to sleep.

This aside, arriving in India was no problem at all. I'd filled in all the visa forms in Addis and had my passport stamped for a six month stay. 'No, you don't need an onward ticket,' said the lady at the embassy. 'You just need to show you have the means to leave the country. A credit card will do.' It has been my experience that the onward ticket requirement to enter many countries is treated with some flexibility. So I arrived at Bole Airport in Addis all set to check in and sort through shawls and faux-Lalibella crosses at the airport.

All of a sudden, bureaucratic insanity descended upon me, retribution for all of my oversights, inconsistencies and misrepresentations on forms. It transpired that whilst the Indian Embassy (conveniently closed at the late-night conflict hour) was happy for me to enter India without an onwards ticket, Ethiopian Airlines wasn't. No ticket, no fly, that was that. Indian immigration is tough and they would suffer as much as I did if I was refused entry. Business is business. A ticket operator had to be summonsed in order to sell me a ticket out of India. I was far from thrilled with this development and indeed gave a pretty good performance of over-tired, slightly hysterical, demanding and selfish foreigner. I placed my problem right at the centre of everyone's concerns, hands on hips, and stamped my feet so that everybody knew how unhappy I was to be about to fork out US$800 for a ticket out of India. I'm sorry to say a small number of tears, a bit of shouting, and a lot of flouncing were concerned.

When the travel agent man finally showed up, it took a while before we understood each other. The lack of English language speaking staff wasn't making anything any easier. All of a sudden, he gave me a ticket from Delhi to Bangkok and refused all payment. I was confused. 'It's not a real ticket,' he said. 'I know you don't want to buy a ticket and this reservation will be enough for them. Just show it to immigration and the forget about it.' It is a Pyrrhic victory, using meaningless bits of paper to satisfy projections of non-existent bureaucratic strictures.

And of course, when I arrived in Delhi, no one even so much as asked for a glimpse at my onward ticket.

The raise in blood pressure this little episode produced might also have had something to do with my sleepless journey. So now, a wee bit delirious, I'm waiting for the arrival of the troops from the airport and hoping very much that I can find an opportunity to eat another bowlful of the tomato and coriander soup I had for lunch. Indian food. Indian food! For weeks and weeks!