One more experience of our members Chaithanya Reddy. Chaithanya came to UHCL in Fall 2005, and he wrote up this humorous, well-worded account of his trip for ISA a few days after he landed.
Thanks, Chaith!

Chaithanya says:

Hey all. The following write-up will illustrate what you can expect to do, procedure wise i.e., from the minute you enter the airport at India till you reach American Soil. This is going to be a slightly detailed account of what I went through when I came here and you can expect the procedures to be almost exactly the same.


My journey details are as follows-

Hyderabad - Mumbai
Mumbai – Paris
Paris – Newark
Newark - Houston

(Small note: Always keep your passport/ air tickets on your person at all times. I would not advise you to keep them in your purses/airbags. Even if you are stranded somewhere without any luggage whatsoever, you'd be well and truly lost if you don't have your passport/i20 and tickets. I chose to keep them in my jeans pocket)

In India

Entering the airport

Get to the airport a good 4 hours prior to departure time. Though this might seem ludicrous, but do it! On most nights there will be a round 2 to 3 flights leaving for the US (A lot of us do come here!) and I can tell you that the airports going to be pretty much jammed to the hilt. I reached the airport exactly 3 hours before departure time and it took me two and a half hours just to check-in. You have to see the lines at the check in counter to believe them. So get to the airport early and save yourself a lot of trouble. As soon as you enter the airport your big luggage will have to go through security. They generally run it through the scanner put a security tag around it and hand it back to you. Place all your luggage on a trolley and go wait in line at your airlines check in counter.

At the check in counter

Check in your luggage at the counter and ask for security tags for all your cabin baggage. Most airlines allow up to two pieces of cabin baggage. It is generally advisable to take one big one and one small one. If you are carrying a laptop, it counts as your second piece of luggage. The most important thing you can do for yourself at the check in counter is to ask for a proper seat. I got a nice tip from a friend of mine who's a pilot. Always ask them to give you a seat by the emergency exits. That way you get a lot more legroom and you don't have to keep looking at the back of someone's head for 20 hours. In my case, I was going to change planes at Mumbai and that flight was going to fly nonstop to Newark. However, you can give the seat preference for your connecting flight too (within India, at least) and you can be assured of an emergency exit seat all the way. If the seat is taken, at the very least you should demand for a seat by the window or the trip can get quite monotonous. Collect your boarding pass here. They will also put your luggage tags in your ticket. These are basically small stickers that correspond to the bigger ones they put on your luggage. These small pieces of paper will be proof that the luggage is indeed yours.

Indian Customs.

After you've checked in you'll go to the Indian customs/emigration (Don't rightly remember what this is called). You'll have one basic form to fill up here with details such as your passport number and you also have to show them your passport/i20/boarding pass. They give you one small token after that. Not quite sure what this is for. I tried asking the guy behind the counter and he said it isn't that important. I specifically asked him if it would be a big deal if we lost the token and he said no. I held on to it though and now its somewhere in the bottom of one of my suitcases, I think. Then you move onto the first non crowded area you'll see, a waiting lounge. You can chill here for a few minutes.

Final Security check.

By now, most of your luggage has been scanned and now its time for you! Proceed to security check (There will be signs all over the place telling you if its time for security or not, but if you're not sure its always ok to ask. I walked up to the security guard and confirmed that the security check was for my flight.) Put your hand luggage in the scanner and walk through the metal detectors. It almost always will go off because of your belt buckle/coins and so on. So don't be alarmed. Just walk through and place all your belongings like your wallet and coins and boarding pass in the small plastic tray on the table by the side. Now a cop comes up and frisks you to make sure your not concealing any weapon. Once that's done your through to board the plane. Wait for a while in the lounge and keep looking at the TV screens for your planes name. The name will come up and it will show agate number. Proceed to the gate. A big crowd should already be heading to this plane. Always ask the people around you if they are on the same flight. You don't want to end up in Czechoslovakia because you were too polite to ask.


Boarding the plane.

From here onwards its fairly simple. Just use the boarding pass and get in and take your emergency seat. Kick back and relax cos it's a long journey. For those of you on direct flights you can skip to the end of this article. For those who are flying to a major hub like Mumbai and then catching the direct flight from there – Read on. Once you land in Mumbai (Or Chennai or Delhi) you exit and follow the instructions given by the ground crew. Generally you are supposed to wait in the transit lounge till your connecting flight is scheduled for departure. In most cases you don't have to touch your main luggage till you reach your destination in the States. You'll only be carrying your cabin baggage with you. Always be sure to carry 2 spare sets of clothes, toiletries and some emergency cash in your cabin baggage. (in case your stranded at the airport in between flights, like I was for 8 hours). You can just go and talk to the concerned airlines office again and reconfirm your details, like seating or flight timing. Once the announcement for your new plane comes up again proceed to security check again. Once again this will be a personal screening of you and your cabin baggage. They may ask you to open your bags if they find something odd. Off to the waiting lounge. Wait till your planes departure is announced and board the flight that will take you to the States.


On the Plane.

It is a fairly long, tedious and trying journey. So be prepared. Bring along reading material. And I always find it great to deprive myself of sleep a couple of days before a long journey because that way I sleep through most of it. Stow your baggage and keep your purses/handbags close to you. It is highly advisable to eat vegetarian food because you do not want a stomach upset while your 30,000 feet above an ocean. I overlooked my own golden rule when we'd landed in Paris. I told the hostess I would like some fish. I unwrapped the tin foil and lo and behold. It looked like it come straight out of the water and into my plate! Meat products here are largely undercooked and not to our tastes initially. So if you must eat non veg, do it while the food is still from Indian caterers i.e. before you hit Paris or Frankfurt or London. As for the airhostesses, I think Air India will win the `Most Discourteous Service Award' hands down. They were really indifferent and repeated requests for mundane items like pillows and blankets were met with icy stares. But the food is good (suited to our taste) and you forgive the airhostesses in the end.

Around a half hour before landing the hostess will give you 2 forms to fill. One is the famous I94 and the other is the customs declaration form. The I94 form is relatively easy to fill. It asks for details like where your going to stay and when your visa was issued and so on. All relatively easy. The bottom 1/4th of this form is very very important. It lies below a perforated edge and it asks you for some of the same details above. Fill this out as well. This is the portion that will be given back to you and will remain with you as one of the most important pieces of evidence that you've entered the country legally. (The other being your visa of course). The customs form I will discuss under the customs heading below.


On U.S. Soil!

At long last you've made it! Welcome to the USA. We trust you'll find your stay here pleasant and hope you'll visit again :). Disembark and follow the crowd. They'll be going to the INS counters (Immigration services.). There'll be one officer directing people. Just go up to him and ask him where F1 holders should go. Wait in line and go to a counter when called. Take care to maintain adequate space in the line because you'll find that the people here are very unhurried in lines. Walk up to the cubicle and say hello to the officer. He'll ask you basic questions like which university and where you'll be staying and so on. Very simple. He'll check your passport and visa and stamp your i20 with your entry date. Move on. Ask around and proceed to the baggage claims area. Most places have a trolley system where if you feed 3 $ a machine releases one trolley. Take as many as you need and get your baggage. (There is a porter system also. You'll see a man or a lady who is wearing what looks like an athletic harness of some kind- I think it is a hernia belt. You can ask them for help and they generally help you to load your luggage and push it through till customs and help you out with payphones. They charge 5$ a bag or something like that for the service and can be quite useful if you're traveling alone.) Once you've gotten your baggage you need to proceed to customs.



Customs.

The tricky part. A lot has been said about carrying pickles and spices in plenty of groups on the net. In the customs form you'll see a checklist asking you what you're bringing into the states. The area of controversy would be foodstuff. A lot of us do bring pickles and spices and some of us get away with it and some don't. Now, if you declare that you've got pickles you will tick the foodstuff column. Then you will not go straight through customs but you will go to the Agriculture section where they will confirm that you are not bringing anything that can harm American agriculture/flora. I decided to take the small risk and not declare it.

Now customs is actually not that very strict. In fact I passed by a man who asked me for my customs form. I handed it to him and didn't even break my step. It was only after I kept following the aisle and saw the airport exit that I realized that that was the customs check. But if they do check they'll take your bag and scan it. They generally ask you to open it and they inspect the contents thoroughly. If they find pickle don't tell them its pickle. (for them pickle mean something else) Tell them it's just some `relish' or that its Indian spices for cooking. That should do it.

Egress

Now once your done with customs your free to enter the US of A. If you have a pickup arranged, do call him/her up form a payphone. Try not to step out of the airport till your sure where you want to go and who is going to meet you.

That's about it then. Basic rules are. Try to follow the crowd but at the same time keep asking around to make sure your going with the right crowd. Always keep your passport and i20 handy. You'll be fine and hope to see you here.

Care.
Chaith.