south east asia | On My Canvas

Bali Visa on Arrival for Indian Citizens (And Others)

Ubud temple feature image for bali visa for indians

Covid Update July 2022: Indonesia is now open for all travelers. But the official declaration by the Indonesian government for travelers during covid-19 pandemic suggest travelers need certificates of both the vaccine doses. Please visit the link to read all the details carefully.

The beautiful pictures of Bali and other islands of Indonesia that I had seen made Indonesia a must-visit destination in Southeast Asian countries.

But gorgeous azure-green pictures weren’t the only things that had enticed me to fly to Bali. If you are an Indian reader, you would know how much we struggle with visas on our Indian passports. Given my never-ending wanderlust, I am always looking for countries who offer a visa on arrival or a visa-free entry to Indians.

As soon as I read about the hassle-free Bali visa on arrival for Indian citizens (and other almost 170 nationalities), I bought a one-way ticket to Bali.

Update 2022: Malaysia has reopened its international borders from 1 April 2022. Get Malaysian government’s complete rules for travelers planning to visit Malaysia on the official Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tourism website. I’ve also listed down the guidelines and compliances in this article on Kinabatangan River Tour.

When I traveled to Southeast Asia this year, I knew that I would visit Indonesia, but I didn’t know where I would go from there. I zoomed out of the Asia map and turned the globe around to understand which countries were green and gave a visa on arrival or an e-visa.

The closest country to Indonesia was Malaysia, and its green footprint on the map captured my attention. Also, I am always excited to visit the less-popular places, and Malaysia is one of them. If you are planning to visit Malaysia now, you are lucky as you will see it before the country is flooded with tourists. I went to Malaysia in October, and sometimes I was the only one in a room in the entire hotel or the only one camping amongst hundred empty tents.

When I first traveled to Malaysia in 2012 for two days, my friends and I drove in and out of the Malaysia-Singapore border five times due to some immigration problems. Back then I had applied for a Malaysia visa via an agent; in those days I was not so rigid about I-will-plan-all-my-travel-myself.

This year when I googled about Malaysia visa, I found out that Malaysia now gives an eVisa to Indians which is valid for three months, and you can travel within Malaysia for thirty days on that eVisa.

Happy as a girl who had just discovered ice cream, I applied for the eVisa for Malaysia within a few hours. The next day my visa was approved.

I write this piece while sitting on the balcony of a beautiful Balinese home, with a lush green garden, with the blooming frangipani canopying over the sunlit courtyard and its tiny temple, and with towering palm and coconut trees swaying in the distance. And as I listen to the water falling over an artistic fountain while drinking tea, I know that there is nowhere else I would want to be in this moment.

Having been in Bali for ten days, my wanderlust soul and ever-wandering eyes have experienced and seen a lot. (I also have a complete travel guide for Bali and a guide on Bali Visa on Arrival – For Indians and Others.)

Mythology has always fascinated me. As a child, I used to read all the thin and thick Hindu mythological books kept in the rectangular wall-hooked showcase temple in our mandirwala or the temple room. I grilled my mother about Shiva and Lakshmi and Parvati and Vishnu and Hanuman and the snakes and the elephants and the monkeys and the Ramayana. Then I visited college and opted for literature courses and read all the different versions of Mahabharata that I could put my hands on.

So while walking around Angkor Wat or the City of Temples, when I saw that the fellow international travelers were mesmerized by the temple but also confused, I donned my narrator cloak and recited tales of the Hindu mythology and exposed the personal lives of the millions of gods and goddesses that Hinduism has.

One of the stories that I narrated was the famous tale of the churning of the sea or the samudra manthan that has been depicted at the entrance of the temple and has been engraved beautifully on many of its walls and columns.

Now I am not that cruel that I would devoid you off this bewitching story. So here it goes.

As promised in this photo diary of the street life and rich food of Vietnam, I am back with a Vietnam photo album which showcases the country’s painting-like greenery and its rich temples.

Certain days at work, when I sit in a room and work from my desk for hours at a stretch, these photos make me feel that I am out in the green, running with the water stream, or bathing in the sunshine, or singing with the rain, or listening to the tall waterfall falling over the stones, or fine-tuning with the birds that flew above my head under the vast blue sky of those foreign lands.

Do you also long for a place that you visited in the past when you look at your travel photos? Do you still feel connected to that place?

Vietnam was alive.

With blue skies and bustling streets.

With bowls full of colorful noodle soup in which greens and mushrooms dived in.

With ladies serving soup on the street side and road junctions while sitting on the smallest stools you could ever imagine.

With the Bánh Mì sandwiches that erupted into my taste buds and the beautiful blend of the Vietnamese coffee served with condensed milk.

With the death that lingered in the war museums that crushed me to the core and I took days to recover.

With the long-curvy rides in the toiletless buses to reach one city from another.

With the streets crowded with millions of red, blue, green scooters that must have looked like crawling painted ants when seen from the top.

Thailand was my first solo international trip. It was my first window into the world of traveling and backpackers and hostels and not knowing where would I sleep the next day.

Thailand was absolutely gorgeous, marvelously racist at times, and enriching with delicious food.

I met some amazing people, ran away from obnoxious ones, admired some beautiful temples, found precious stones in dazzling night markets, stayed overnight in the gigantic national park of Thailand, played around with elephants (about which a fellow traveler has written about), devoured some juicy seafood, enjoyed the bunk beds of the hostels, walked through the red light areas, got mesmerized by the strength of pole dancers dancing in street-side pubs and bars, drowned with my best friend in a swimming pool and beer, and happily but unknowingly overstayed my visa.