Good Morning (from) Vietnam!

Morning all, I'm writing this update from the desk of our downtown Saigon hotel on John's new laptop. No more weird keyboards/gaming centres/Commadore 64 lookalikes for us, thanks to free wireless access being available nearly everywhere in Vietnam we are now well connected. Even managed to upload some photos of the trip so far, take a look in the Photo Albums section of this site.

We've been pretty busy since i last wrote, having visited Disneyland, travelled to Macau, gambled our lifesavings in the Venetian hotel and flew onwards to Vietnam.

So let's head to Disneyland first. Being 100% honest it was a bit crap, its a smaller version of the Paris park and is missing a lot of the good rides. The one proper rollercoaster which we rode 6 times in the absence of any other thrillseekers rides. The only other ride in the park that is supposedly "thrilling" is Autopia, that ride was closed when I visited EuroDisney 8 years ago. So we thought we would give it ago even though neither of us really knew what it was about. 45 minutes of queueing later, we found out and it isnt an understatement to say that the queueing was probably the most exhilirating part of those 45 mintues. Basically it is a go kart track where you "drive" a car along a set path controlling really only the acceleration. Could be fun I hear you cry, well alas not so when the car in front of you is been driven by a 3 year old girl who understandly isnt exactly familiar with the mechanics of a car. 20 minutes later we finally limp baack to the starting grid.

Of course aside from the rides the park still had the Disney Magic and the parade was a great opportunity for some photos. It definitely passed the day nicely and for $25 you can't really complain but you certainly wouldn't be rushing back in a hurry.

The next morning we were up bright and early to catch the hour long ferry to Macau. We didn't have time for breakfast and by the time we made it to the Venetian that afternoon, neither of us were feeling well from a combination of hunger, the ferry crossing and the hot weather. Luckily for us the Venetian was just the place to spend a lazy afternoon. Its an all-suite hotel and the really do mean suite. Our room was 750sqft, the size of your average 2-bed apartment in Dublin, even with our two double beds you couldnt begin to fill up the room. We weren't exactly the highest rollers that ever rolled into town. I had about 120 euro left in $HK and John was pretty much spent out from his recent laptop purchase. We headed down to the casino anyway to see if we could win our fortune. Unfortunately we hadn't banked on the minimum Baccarat bet being 20 euro. My back up plan from Vegas also didn't work as they didnt have any electronic blackjack machines which are usually pretty cheap and have some element of skill involved. We messed about on the ol' one arm bandits for a while but once i had used up the smaller notes we figured there wasn't much point in wasting 100 euros on the slots which you are never going to win on.

Our time in Macau was short lived anyway as the next morning we were to head to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam using Viva Macau airways. Vietnam doesn't do Visas on Arrival and most people would go to the embassy in their home country to get the visa sorted before travelling. Given the Russian Visa debacle we just didnt have time to do this before we left but conveniently we heard on the internet that you could get a "Pre-Arranged" visa done. This basically means you send a company the details of your trip over the internet, they contact the Vietnam immigration office and when you arrive at the airport in Ho Chi Minh your name should be on a list and Hey Presto! $25 later you have a Vietnamese visa in your passport and you can enter the country. To be honest it always sounded like the dodgiest part of our trip so we were a little more apprehensive than usual when we went to check in for our flight. Turns our we were right to be worried, none of the Viva Macau groundstaff seemed to be aware of this form of visa and they are under instruction not to let anyone board the plane without the proper documentation. We spent 25 agonising minutes standing at the check in desk as the agent seemed to consult with every other employee in the airport before finally relenting and letting us board the plane after we signed an indemnity form absolving them of all responsibility. This didn't exactly fill us with confidence for the reception we would receive once we landed in Vietnam. Two hours later having landed in Ho Chi Minh we were about to find out.

The passport control area was huge with about 30 different lanes. We scanned the signs of each looking for anything that resembled "Pre-arranged Visas - Come on Over Here, Everything is Grand". Unfortunatlely we found none. We settled for "All Passports" instead.

There was only a couple of people in front of us so our wait wasn't that long but during those few minutes every permutation of possible events seemed to through my head. From the two of us being escorted by some burly security officials to a holding cell and deported back to Ireland, to some immigration interrogation asking what we thought we were doing attempting to enter the country without a visa. I realised then I was now one of those people I complain about as im stuck waiting for them to finish their sob story to the immigartion officials in Dublin when im trying to get home after a long week at work.

Moment of Truth. John steps forward with our ever more unofficial visa letter to the booth. The official looks quizzically at the letter, then at John, then at John's passport, then back to John. I'm pretty much having palpatations at this stage. But then, he smiles and points over to the corner where there is a little hut with people gathered out front and a sign I can just make out in the distance saying "Landing Visa". I'm not sure I have ever been as relieved in my life.

From there its a piece of cake and soon we are out of the airport being harassed by propesctive Taxi drivers. One guy is more persistent than the others so we end up getting into his Austin Metro cab. Turns out he's a cabbie by day but and English student by night, and my god does he want to practice his english with us. He had a pretty good vocabulary, god knows its better than my Vietnamese but pronounciation wasn't really his forte.

This morning we did a little shopping, picked up some good value DVD boxsets like every episode ever made of the Simpsons, Sopranos, The Wire, My Name is Earl etc. On our way back to the hotel in torrential rain I noticed two familiar faces coming towards it was the guys from Leixlip who had been in the compartment beside us on the train from Mongolia to Beijing. Now we may not have done the ride in Disneyland but i think we proved It's A Small World Afterall.

Anyhoo the first premier league game of the season is about to start so I better go. Talk to you all soon.

Cheers,

Jules