True Story.

I booked my trip to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Hong Kong full well knowing I only had 2 and 3/4 pages free in my passport. Even though I had that little nagging feeling and a small pit in my stomach over this detail, I figured it would somehow be ok.

Because I was booking this all last minute and did not have time to send in my passport to the Vietnamese Consulate in Washington DC (why is there only one consulate in the entire US???), I had to use the site www.myvietnamvisa.com (yes, I too thought it sounded super shady and was highly skeptical of this working) to get the necessary paperwork for my visa on arrival in Saigon.

At the Saigon airport I wait in a long line, get my visa and quickly look to see how much room it took up in my passport…damn, it took up one entire free page. After clearing customs, I look at my passport again. I see that the idiot immigration officer who stamped my passport for entry into the country, decided to place that stamp on the one blank remaining page I had left. Really dude? You couldn’t have put that stamp somewhere else? Continue reading →

Gondola Ride Through The Jungle

While visiting South Vietnam, one of the awesome day trips I took through Urban Adventures was to the Mekong Delta. It was a two-hour drive outside of Saigon and a fun-filled day of boating on the river, an open-air motor taxi ride through the winding, lush, tropical back roads, eating a freshly prepared, traditional, Vietnamese lunch and seeing how locals in the area use coconuts to produce candy and other food items.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was going on a gondola ride through the maze of waterways in the dense, green jungle. It was so beautiful with such unique vegetation and just a very peaceful, serene experience. It is something I will never forget.

Continue reading →