Bangkok Stop on Way to Hanoi

[Thurs. March 5, 2009, 12:50 pm Thai time] OK, for those of you who are thinking of us out here with green tinged thoughts, let me say that not everything is perfect and especially planning travel adds bits of tension that I could certainly do without. I know this will get no sympathy, but I just want you to know that we have to work for some of this. Another volunteer called yesterday to ask what I thought about her visa options. Thailand lets Americans in without a visa for 30 days. Then you have to leave and return. You could get a visa for 60 days before you come, but we didn't. Last year we could take a bus to the Burmese border, cross the border, then return for another 30 days. But those days ended last December or so. You only get 15 days on those trips, and you are limited to two such trips. She'd been planning to go back on a Burma border run when she found that out. So she was headed to Cambodia. And that's why we took our trip to Kuala Lumpur last month. If you fly back, you still get 30 days.

So this time we planned ahead and got a visa for Vietnam and booked our tickets with a night at a friend's house in Bangkok on he way. But then he called and said he had to go to Kathmandu on business could we stop over on the way back from Vietnam.

Well, I do need to work and J is teaching Swe, but we do have long stopover in Bangkok Monday, so we can meet a while. But then we thought, we should just go to Vietnam a day early. I changed the ticket and now we'd be arriving March 5. But our visa was valid beginning March 6. But surely we can wait in the airport until midnight (we were scheduled to arrive at 8:30pm). Then I found out that no one would be at work on Tuesday when we were going to be back. More demonstrations in Bangkok.

And so I was able to change the ticket to return on Tuesday, not Monday for not too much extra. But it said pending. At the Chiang Mai airport it still said pending and he said check in Bangkok. We had all day in Bangkok, because we thought we were going to be visiting Jim and his wife. Jim was in my Peace Corps group stationed in Maesod, nearby where I was. He lives in Bangkok.

So we got to the Air Asia counter in Bangkok and he fixed the return ticket. Mind you, on Air Asia you can't book from Chiang Mai to Hanoi. You have to book Chiang Mai Bangkok roundtrip. Then Bangkok-Hanoi roundtrip. And if your Air Asia flight is late and you miss the connection, you need to get a new ticket. So we left time for delays. But the price is relatively low. But rising with the changes. So, after he changed the ticket, I asked, unofficialy, about our visa situation. He said it wouldn't work. Air Asia wouldn't let us fly. We couldn't wait at the airport in Hanoi like we thought.. He checked with his supervisor. NO WAY. He gave me a phone number of the Vietnamese Embassy. While I was calling, Rachel, another AJWS volunteer in Chiang Mai, showed up to change her ticket. If we had planned to meet here it wouldn't have been so easy.

After trying the embassy several times, I looked for wifi to see if there was another number. No free wifi. The information desk gave me another number. The line was busy, but my phone kept autoredialing and finally connected. The man said if we got our visa from Bangkok he could change it, but we couldn't fly today if we didn't change it. Well, the travel agent sent it to Bangkok. So Rachel was meeting her friend out front to get a taxi to someone's house. We all got in the cab and we got dropped off at the Embassy and they went on. But it was 11:35am and the sign said closed from 11:30-1:30.

But someone came out, so we took advantage of the open door and went in. To the window. I explained and he said I'd talked to him. It turned out that our visa was done in Khon Kaen, not Bangkok. If in Bangkok we could have done it free. But he said he could do a new visa for 1400 Baht each (about $45) each. Did we have pictures? Luckily we did. Come back at 3:30pm.

Our plane leaves at 6:30pm. We should be able to make it back to the airport in time. I was thinking that since we were in town, I could go out to Government House where the farmers are demonstrating, but there isn't going to be enough time now.

So we got lunch at a street noodle shop and now we're in the lobby of the Meridian hotel where I can do the work I had planned to do while waiting at the airport. I have a manuscript to review for a journal.

So, there is a lot of little stuff that has to get done when traveling like this. And even though I know that everything will turn out all right, there are still the adrenalin moments as you wonder how you're going to make it all happen. And I haven't even talked about booking a hotel in Vietnam. I think we did ok. A new place in Hanoi called the Hanoi Boutique Hotel in the Old Quarter. It just opened in January so they've got low prices. We'll see if that works out well.

I have a bunch of other little posts to catch up on, but I really need to read this manuscript. It's the second time round - I was a reviewer on the first round so I need to do it.

Meanwhile we're just down the street from the embassy and J will check earlier to see if the visas are ready.