{"id":10891,"date":"2016-12-22T13:07:37","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T07:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/blog\/?p=10891"},"modified":"2022-01-14T19:34:18","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T13:49:18","slug":"on-being-married","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/on-being-married\/","title":{"rendered":"On Being “Married”…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have said this before<\/a> and I’ll say it again: Had I a different passport<\/a>, by now, I would have probably traveled to twice as many countries as I already have. The Henley & Partners’ Visa Restrictions Index<\/a> ranks countries from 1 to 104, based on the number of countries their passport allows visa-free travel to. With visa-free travel to only 37 other countries, the Nepali passport ranks 98. Only six other passports are worse!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The restriction is there because Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world and, as such, other countries consider Nepalese a potential illegal immigrant. Of course, there are ample cases of Nepalese — just as many other nationalities from poor countries — finding passage to developed countries through very shady means, and remaining behind as just that: illegal immigrant, or illegal alien, as they are referred to in the United States!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, in the Fall of 1996, a diplomatic mission refused to issue a tourist visa to me on the grounds that I hadn’t spent enough time in the country of residence (Norway<\/a>)! That, even after having spent — by that time — three-and-a-half years in the US, three years in Italy, a year in Hong Kong<\/a>, half a year in the United Kingdom, and having traveled in over a dozen different developed countries!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any guesses about the country that embassy might have belonged to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there was one time when the difficulties with getting passage to a region for tourism had nothing to do with my passport being from Nepal!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summer of 2007 in Kathmandu, my girlfriend and I were making preparations for our travel to Tibet. We had to buy a packaged tour through an officially recognized operator in the city. The tour operator also arranged for the visa we both needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make a long story short…when the Chinese authorities in Kathmandu reviewed my application, they had made an issue over my Tibetan name<\/a>. But, to make sure that they issued the visa, the agent had the brilliant idea of making up the story that my girlfriend and I were actually a couple…a married couple!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All my life I have had difficulties entering other countries<\/a> because I am NOT from that country. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this time, I could have potentially been not allowed passage to Tibet because I might be from there!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am waiting for the day when a diplomatic mission refuses to issue a tourist visa because I have traveled around the world too much and for too long! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally, I did get the visa and we did end up having a great time traveling in Tibet that summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’ll never guess why and when I had to be “married.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"On Being \"Married\"... #Travel #Passport #Tibet #Tibetan #ChineseVisa","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43],"tags":[130,63,422,346,345,220],"class_list":["post-10891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-international-travel","tag-nepalese-passport","tag-passport","tag-tibet","tag-tibetan","tag-travel-visa"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/potala-palace-0449-feat-image.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Jbro-2PF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}