Not a Fan of the Bangladeshi Visa Office

I had to back track to Manila after Kalibo to pick up my visa for Bangladesh. The plan is to head there after The Philippines to do some volunteering but Satter, the guy that works at the Bangladesh Embassy, seems to want to mess with me.

I dropped my passport and visa application off at the office last week and was told it’d be ready in five to seven days. The plan was to leave it there for three weeks, until the end of my time here, and then pick it up before shipping off to Bangladesh. The problem with that master plan is that I forgot that I needed to extend my Philippines visa and to do that I’d need my passport. The one I’d left at the Bangladesh Embassy.

So I backtracked to Manila, the plan being that I’d pick up my passport, visa in it and then head to an immigration office to extend my Philippines visa. All this, as you can guess, was giving me serious headaches. It’s giving me a headache typing it. I’m sure it’s giving you a headache reading it.

Long story short, little Satter, Bangladesh visa guy, gives me my passport tback without a visa in it and tells me to come back with a hand written letter saying what my intentions are in Bangladesh. He made the claim that he’d told me about that when I came in before which is a complete lie. I don’t have a lot of faith in this guy. Am I supposed to bribe him? I don’t know.

So I’ve got to backtrack to Manila yet again, this time with this lame ass letter in the hopes that they’ll get their act together and not come up with some other excuse this time around. I’m a bit dubious about the whole situation, especially since I’ve already paid for it. He’s assuring me that he can get it done in a day when I head back to the city and if that happens I will be amazed.