Bureaucracy

I spent the day (yes, the whole day) in the Kathmandu Driving License offices. There were four of us (all British) trying to get our UK licenses transferred to a Nepali license. This was actually my 4th attempt.

Unfortunately, one by one, our group was getting rejected for one reason or another. First, one guy was only on a tourist visa at the moment, so no matter that he intends to be here for a number of years when he eventually gets a full visa, he was rejected. The second guy was rejected because his UK license runs out at the end of September. Then very nearly a third went when the main guy we were dealing with didn't believe that the paper counterpart was a legal part of the driving license in the UK and showed the relevant bike part. I finally convinced him when I showed that the driver number on both the paper and plastic parts matched. Mine was the only one that had no problem (once they had figured out how to read the Nepali visa correctly!).

Sadly, by the time we'd got through the various stages (5 hours in) we were told the cash counter was closed so we need to come back tomorrow. Grrr.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to leave there with a full license for car and bike finally though! I've only been trying for 3 years...