On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 6:44 PM, Vinayak Hegde <[email protected]> wrote: > I am planning a trip to Turkey in in August so any insight would be > helpful (possibly offlist). > Looking at your experience it seems that applying in advance is better.
There's a bunch of EU / Schengen trade zone nations that don't need a visa - possibly because Turkey views itself as European, or very desperately wants to give off this image. They don't care about quid pro quo nonsense, they just want these rich Europeans to visit Turkey just as if it were a part of Europe. Then there's the non-EU rich countries - USA, South Africa, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore etc. which are allowed entry by paying $20 per head. But they need to stand in a queue to pay this fee, and then enter the queue for immigration. Then there's a shit list of countries that are good enough if they have a US or Schengen visa, but not good enough to stand in the $20 line. Sri Lanka and India are in this list. There will be no prominent instruction or sign whatsoever telling you what to do if you are Indian - so you need to find someone who can guide you to the police check point - where they look over your passport, and depending on their present level of grumpiness will ask you questions about your plans or income or whatever. Then they scribble a note on torn off note paper that permits you to join the $20 line, and pay your $20 like other civilized passport holders and enter the country. It takes about an hour and some patience as you get treated a bit like vermin.
