Two types of “regular” visas are available for potential tourist travellers to India, being Transit visas and Tourist Visas and both of these are available from the Indian Embassy, in Kathmandu, Nepal.

The main differences between the two visas are as follows-

• Tourist visa is valid for 6 months, Transit visa is valid for 15 days
• Tourist visa cost 3050 Nepalese rupee, Transit visa cost 800 Nepalese rupee
• Tourist visa require security check with Indian embassy in your home country, Transit visa does not
• As a result of above, Tourist visa takes approx 1 week from application to issue, and Transit visa is issued same day
• Tourist visa does not require confirmed departure arrangements from India, Transit Visa does
• Tourist visa is for travelling and sight seeing, transit visa is not (!)

However, we recently took the transit visa option, primarily as it was going to be considerable quicker, and although limited to 15 days, obviously we travelled and did  sight seeing, beaching etc! They did however, require to see a onward flight booking (not that that could not have been changed).