Plane tix are in, visa is in the works, hopefully, the comedy continues into its next act

Hi Friends! Ok, so when I last left you it was in a state of disappointment. Now I feel like that passenger in a car right before the vehicle just barely hits the car in front, you know, where you are mashing your foot to the floor wishing you had your own brake pedal? Yeah I'm that guy.

I got my itinerary in, so plane tickets are a definite reality. Here's the rough and dirty schedule. I leave Jacksonville airport at 7:30am on Friday June 20th. I travel to Chicago, then from Chicago to Hong Kong, and from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City, arriving at 10:10pm local time. The total travel duration is something like 27 hours, yummy. I then must find my way from the far south end of Vietnam to the middle of Vietnam, not knowing the first word of Vietnamese. So it should well and truly be an adventure. I've put the map back up so you can see this for yourself. Here's where the comedy of this leg of the trip really comes into play.

May I introduce to you Bob Parker? Bob, is a teacher at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, and is also going to Vietnam, he's a Leo and enjoys long walks on the beach... :-) Just kidding about the last part, I have no idea if he likes beaches.

Anyway, he's going to be in charge of academics, I pity him, that doesn't sound fun at all. He's a really cool guy so far. We've talked on the phone a couple times trying to compare notes and come up with a more complete picture, since we each seem to have different pieces of the puzzle. So Bob also leaves for Vietnam on the 20th, he also leaves from Jacksonville airport. His flight is also approximately the same duration. This folks is where the similarity ends. Bob leaves Jax at 9am, an hour and a half after me, he then flies to Atlanta, from Atlanta to South Korea, and from South Korea to Hanoi, the far north end of Vietnam. I think he arrives like 11:30pm or something. He then has to make his way from the north end of the country to the middle of the country. Now, why they didn't put us on the same flight is totally incomprehensible to me. We're leaving the exact same day! Its like some sort of reality TV show, where they deliberately introduce adversity just to see how the players deal with it. I told him we should race to Hue, see who gets to the school first.

So that's the latest on that front. My visa paperwork was sent off yesterday, all told that will cost me about $300. Expensive, considering I was initially looking at like $25. I'm now having an agency handle it for me as this is the faster way to do it, since its so very last minute. Its costing me an extra $80 but they'll hand deliver the paperwork to the embassy and pick it up as well, dropping it into next day mail for me. I was told that trusting it to the embassy alone can be risky, I believe it since I couldn't get them to answer the phone for a week. So if the Visa miraculously comes through in time, I'm definitely going on this trip.

I found some enrichment for you folks. This first video is called the sights and sounds of Vietnam. Its beautiful. None of it is shot in the city. Both of these were produced by the same guy. For the non-technical in the crowd, the big play button on the bottom left of the video screen, if you click it, the movie should start playing. Send me an email if you have trouble.


Vietnam Sights & Sounds from v!Nc3sl4s on Vimeo.

This next video gives you an idea of traffic in the cities of Vietnam, this one is Hanoi, where our new friend Bob will be arriving. The city I'm landing in is supposed to be the worst. Here's a quote from the blog I pulled this vid from:

"That video was shot late at night when the traffic is light... In HCMC for example about 12K people die each year from motorbike accidents. The moto rental people don't rent to foreigners because they figure its a given they will wreck the bike. It's really hairy driving or even walking in either city... When I come back home to Thailand it's like driving in a ghost town by comparison. Of course it isn't. Vietnam and parts of India are the worst I have ever tried to navigate."

So I'm going to be teaching blind people to travel in this. I will really have to spend some time studying the traffic there before I risk a student in it. A friend of mine mentioned this morning, If I can teach there, I can teach anywhere. Please notice the total absence of any sort of traffic control device. It absolutely amazes me that there aren't any accidents happening in this video. When a light goes out here on a simple four way, people start freaking out. Truly amazing.


Hanoi crazy night traffic from v!Nc3sl4s on Vimeo.

I'll update as more comes available. I'm not sure who all is reading this, I'd love to get comments, they're at the bottom, or even emails. Sorry if its wordy, but I want you to truly share this adventure with me. I can't believe how crazy it is so far, and I've not even left the US yet. Don't forget to subscribe in the box on the right so you can get the updates as I write them. Love you all.

~Mickey