Tourist Visa to China

Few times have I felt more inept than trying to attain a tourist visa for our planned trip to China - we leave April 6 (maybe). It is almost like there is a book with rules and instructions that are being followed, but there isn't a copy of it for the public. Or, more likely, I'm just looking in the wrong place for the instructions!... Monday: Had the wrong hours for the visa office - only open 8:30 - 11:00 Mon.-Fri. Tuesday: sent away - the photos were wrong. Took new photos and... Wed: 1st question - is this your family? Where are they? They seemed to be willing to let that one go 2nd question: You need to go make copies of all of these documents (copy shop only two blocks away - so far so good) 3rd: your husbands passport is out of blank visa pages - you need to go to the US embassy to get new blank pages. Okay. No one knows where the US embassy is - they think it is near the Sofitel Hotel. Call Hal - who is in a meeting, and tell him to meet me there. Lucky for me the taxi knows where the embassy is. Get to the embassy and find I cannot wait outside - I have to go across the street. It isn't safe to wait on the sidewalk directly in front of the embassy. I move but don't ask why because I'm here for 6 more weeks (5 in country if we manage to get the tourist visas), feeling pretty safe, and don't actually want to know. Hal makes it to the Sofitel and calls to ask me where the embassy is. I didn't find the Sofitel so I don't have an answer - he has to ask someone at the Sofitel. Turns out it is a block down so it is nearby! We make it into the embassy and after a short wait Hal gets his new passport pages. Phew. We're going to Hue this weekend and need our passports to fly so we can't return to the consulate tomorrow - the plan is for all of us to show up Tuesday morning and expedite using express service. Having only spent every morning of the week there, I can't wait to go back next week! I know, I know I can feel the love - you are all thinking "oh, poor Sharon, what a hassle" LOL.

You want velvet?

So Silas and I went downtown the other day to pick up the Cambodian stringed instrument, the trol, that was broken in transit back from Siem Reap. After retrieving it we went up the street to the Ben Thanh Market, a sprawling but roofed warren of stalls where anything and everything are for sale, pending negotiations. You haggle for most everything here. It’s an art, and you realize that any sale must satisfy both parties. As a buyer, you do it because you need to feel good about your purchase, that you’re not being taken — even if the difference between being taken and not is a buck or two. I don’t enjoy it but I don’t dislike it either. It’s a challenge, and it’s a good skill for the kids to see and learn. We bought some sun glasses, looked for a belt, then moved on to a sandal search. What we would call a sandal or flip-flop the Vietnamese call a slipper. They are everywhere on sale. If you look long and hard enough, they have a sameness of style. You’re better off just seeing a pair and buying it and not searching and searching for some pair that seems unique. Those are hard to find. In any case, I was buying Silas a pair and haggling with the old woman in the tall. I had her on the run — down to the 150,000 dong they were were, having started at nearly double that. Then Silas interjects, “Dad, just give her 180,000.” I looked at him, then looked at her and said, “Is he with you?” She laughed and we paid 180,000. Then I bought a pair for myself down the lane and he did it again — interceded on the seller’s behalf! I told him later, in no uncertain terms, that the humor had passed. No more of that. When you’re buying, you can pay what you want, I told him. I forgot to mention that when we picked up the trol, the folks in the music shop admired it. Silas bought that on his on. Started at US$25 but eventually got it down to $18. They seemed to think we got a deal.

Boys Weekend

We can’t blame Silas for coming away from this Boys Weekend a bit disappointed. It was floated as a motorbike ride up Highway 1 between Nha Trang, the old French seaside playground, and finishing at the Life Resort Quy Nhon, a MM client I had never seen. We planned to break the trip in half by staying one night at L’Isle de Baleine, a sorta primitive but drop-dead gorgeous and totally remote island esort lying less than a mile from one of the longest strips of natural dunesland I’ve ever seen outside Ireland. In any case, the motorbikes were a no-go — several Russians turned a bus over on this same road last week, and no foreigners are allowed to drive themselves on anything for the foreseeable future, not even mopeds. Then we tried to SCUBA on Whale Island and they balked at Silas’ mildly asthmatic history, insisting on a doctor’s wavier we couldn’t possibly obtain in the time we had there. Then we got to Quy Nhon with every intention of renting mopeds in Quy Nhon City for a run-about — but all they had were four-gear motorbikes, not the one-speed, automatic mopeds we’d been expecting and Silas had ridden before. A letdown, but we did sample some incredible scenery up the coast, swim in South China Sea at three stunning locales, hike, play pool, gorge ourselves and basically hang out with our often genial travel compatriots, Scott and Jim. We got home Monday and Silas needs a hair cut. I think we’ll find some mopeds and drive to the street barber together.