visa lording, the final chapter

As I've mentioned again and again, my school is shady and unorganized. I had told my VP about my holiday in the beginning of May and sent her the dates mid May, via email. She never got back to me about whether or not she had any problems with them so whatever, I booked my ticket.

Then, the day before I was supposed to leave, she sent me the schedule for the coming week, and I was all over it. I reminded her that I would be gone, and asked her if my school owner wanted me to just go to Hong Kong (to get my visa) from Laos, since they're so close. Otherwise I would be coming back to Changchun just to turn around and fly right back to Hong Kong (he has promised to get my visa by July 10th, right at the end of my holiday). No answer. My plan was to pack up all my stuff and be ready to just go right to Xiamen if he flaked on getting my visa this time.

The first I heard from my school about my holiday, visa or anything was ten minutes before boarding my flight to Siem Reap. My school owner called me and said, "So I hear you're going on holiday..." He asked why he hadn't known, and I reminded him that he had told me to coordinate all holidays through the VP. So he called her and then called me back to say she had no idea that I was going either. Ugh.

Eventually, after much back and forth, I got him to agree to meet me in Hong Kong, so I would go straight from Vientiane, to get my visa.

My delayed flight out of Vientiane really messed up my whole traveling plan there. I was supposed to take a 2pm flight from Vientiane, Laos to Kunming, China and then grab a connection from Kunming to Shenzhen, where I could then just take an hour bus into Hong Kong. Sounds complicated, right?! now add a delay in there...

The delay meant that I missed my connection in Kunming; I arrived there at 3am instead of 5pm and slept in a hotel the airline put me up in for an hour and a half before catching my new flight out that next morning. I finally got into Hong Kong and went straight to the visa office, I arrived around 2pm instead of 10am. I was supposed to fly out of Shenzhen early the next afternoon, but visas take 24 hours to process, so that plan was out the window as well.

I stayed in a hotel in Hong Kong, got my visa the next day, got a bus into Shenzhen and was met by a friend of my school's owner. She was basically my babysitter for the evening in Shenzhen, she took me to dinner and a movie and I stayed in her apartment. She sent me on my way back to Changchun the next morning.

I was really excited to finally be legal until another crappy reality hit me. My contract with my school is over August 4th and I had planned to travel outside of China during the month of August. My new Z visa was valid for a single entry into China, so once I left Hong Kong and came back into China with it, that was it. I was HOPING I would be able to go to the local police station and add entries, but luckily, I have since discovered that another piece of paperwork, my Residence Permit, will allow me back in later. I am so glad that bs is all over, I'm legal, and I never have to go through that big of a hassle for it again!

Pakse/Vientiane (days 13-14)

The next day was a traveling day. I was flying out of Vientiane, Laos the day after, and that was a solid 12ish hours away. We took a three hour bus to Pakse, Laos and hung out there for a about five hours before catching the next bus to Vientiane. Pakse really didn't have a whole lot going for it. We mostly aimlessly wandered with another guy we had seen around Don Det that was also on our bus.

The gold thing on the mountain is a crazy huge Buddha.

Wild boar!

Our bus from Pakse to Vientiane was a sleeper bus with double beds that we rode overnight. Each bed had two "seats", so if you were traveling alone (like our friend), you were going to end up sleeping in the same bed as a stranger. Like all the buses, the roads and drivers were completely nuts and unsafe, so if we hadn't had my sleeping pills it would have been a really long night.

We arrived in Vientiane at 7am and went to our hotel to take a nap before showering and sending me off on my 2pm flight. We got to the airport an hour early and were told my flight was delayed at least six hours, so we had some time to play in Vientiane. We got ridiculously massages, wandered around the riverfront market and had an amazing Italian dinner before I left. All said and done my flight was delayed nine hours, and it made for a great last day.

random pix: 4,000 Islands animals

I kind of fell in love with all of the water buffalo... I'm a dork. We don't have wildlife (or anything alive besides people) in Songyuan, so I'm easily excited!

 

This guy lived up in the roof of our first bungalow. He was really bright green with red spots and like ten inches long. I only saw his out once, but he liked to poke his head out and spy on us.

Something about the cow next to the motorbike = awesome.

4,000 Islands (days 9-12)

The next morning, the remaining three of us hopped on a bus to 4,000 Islands, Laos. 4,000 Islands is right on the border of Cambodia and Laos, on the Mekong River. The bus was something ridiculously long, like 12 hours. It took all day. That was where I learned that somewhere in there, people stopped calling it "Laos" and started calling it "Lao". Not sure where the "s" went...

We got to the mainland area pretty late. We took a small boat over to Don Det, the main island, where we wanted to stay. We checked out a few of the bungalows (this was the first place we weren't able to find anything on Hostelworld.com for ahead of time), checked in to one, grabbed some dinner and then partied a bit in the bar of our bungalow with everyone else that had arrived on our bus.

This was our first bungalow.

This was laying in the hammock of our second bungalow in the same complex.

The next day my friend from the States and I awoke to find a goodbye note on our doorstep from the girl we'd been traveling with that had been teaching in Korea. She was meeting a friend from the States later in the week and had some other places she wanted to check out so she had woken up early and left. And then there were two.

The first day on the island, we didn't do too much. We hung out and relaxed in cafes, read our books, etc. We found a game of Jenga in one of them and met a couple (he was Scottish, she was English) to play with. We ended up hanging out with them quite a bit over the next few days.

That night we went out with them and picked up a stray 19 year old American that was traveling alone as well. All over the island, the menus had "happy" food listed (pot food). The American wanted to try a brownie, so my friend and I ordered one to split as well. After almost an hour, we agreed we were all feeling nothing so we parted ways. My friend and I hit up the bar at out bungalow for a nightcap. And then the brownie kicked in; it was a serious brownie, and I only had half. I didn't want to be indoors for like three hours after that.

The next day, we got up and decided to have a walk around the perimeter of the island. We had talked about going kayaking, but it was raining when we got up, so we figured it was going to rain all day. Then it didn't. The walk was beautiful though, and took just about all day.

I never did find out hat the deal was with these.

Having not planned anything for the whole trip, my one requirement was that my friend take me to a beach or water I could swim in. No one seemed to go IN the Mekong, which was really disappointing. Luckily, toward the end of the walk, we found some children in the river, so I got in and played with them.

We ended up doing our kayaking trip the following day. It was amazing. Really made me with I had an Otter Box for my iPhone so I could have gotten some pictures. We hiked and kayaked all day. We saw the largest waterfalls in southeast Asia, we saw freshwater dolphins about 50 feet from our kayak, we swam in the Mekong, we were on both Laotian and Cambodian soil at some point... it was great. When we got back, we got back in the river and floated in tubes and had beers with some Frenchmen we had met.

Even though Don Det was really chill, it was the off season and there weren't a lot of people, there wasn't a whole lot going on, it was really beautiful and relaxing, a nice place to just hang out for a while. We saw a lot of people during the days and most of them seemed to be about our age, but they didn't get super crazy, which was actually kind of nice.

random photos: misc Cambodia

I thought this was the funniest thing ever. A billboard for a brand of condoms called "OK"... first off, "OK"?!?! That's the best you could come up with?! The brand of choice for abortion clinics and date rapists. Secondly, why are there four guys at a ktv with no girls on the billboard?! What is going on here?!

These little shrines were everywhere in Cambodia, every business or home has them.

Even though it rained frequently throughout my time in Cambodia (it WAS rainy season after all), it really wasn't bad. It didn't hamper any plans at all.

This was the most bizarre fruit ever. The second you put it in your mouth, you had the worst case of cottonmouth ever. It instantaneously sucked all the moisture out. It didn't really taste good. It was kind of an all around fail.

A bug bit my foot like the second day there. Then about 4 days later my foot started turning black. It was no bueno. We drew a circle around the black and said if it spread any more we'd go to the hospital (I hate doctors). Luckily, the smiley contained the black and it went away, eventually.

Phnom Pehn (days 6-8)

The next morning we got up early to catch a bus to Phnom Pehn, Cambodia. Our hotel was really sweet and gave us all scarves as a sort of going away present when we left.

When we got to Phnom Pehn, we went for a short walk around our neighborhood and then the girls decided to go out wandering while my friend from the States relaxed at the hostel for a bit.

Why is there a cave in this garage? Who knows...

Us girls ended up at a grocery store and had an absolute blast. I think we scared some people there with how excited we got about some of the things we found. Coming from living in China and South Korea, because Phnom Pehn is a pretty big city, we were able to find things we hadn't seen in months (and naturally there was some new stuff that was fun to look at also).

H-TWO-O? And it's a soda? What?

Um, yes, that IS "Sugar Daddy" brand sugar. And he is a luchadore.

Gross. This is right up there with the corn juice they drink in China.

That night, we had to do it up right, because it was my Songyuan friend's last night with us. Phnom Pehn isn't a big party city, most things close down early, but we somehow managed to stay out until about 4am and cram like four night's worth of activities into one. We started drinking at our hostel and got a pretty good start there. Then we tried to go to the market because my Songyuan friend wanted to eat crickets, but it was already closed so we went out to eat instead.

As soon as we got to dinner, I told my friends I'd be right back and walked off. While they ate, I went in search of crickets. I went down a side street, talked to a hooker who helped me hire a guy on a motorbike to take me around, and after about 45 minutes, stops at at least 12 different barbeque stands and a good tour of the city, I returned to my friends the successful victor and plopped a bag of crickets on the table. They had no idea where I had gone, so they were a little upset, but the crickets were completely worth it. They're mostly just crunch and taste like barbeque.

After that, we went to a reggae hookah bar, then we got fishy pedicures and then we ended the night at a tranny hooker dance club called Heart Of Darkness. Naturally, none of us girls noticed the trannys or the hookers, only my friend from the States.

The next day, my Songyuan friend left and the other three of us were feeling pretty rough, so we just hung around the hostel and went in the pool (yes, the hostel had a pool, it was awesome). We didn't really do anything that night either.

The one thing my States friend had wanted to do was check out the genocide museum and the killing fields, so we did that the following day. That might have been one of the most depressing experiences of my entire life. Afterwards, we got in the tuk tuk and didn't even speak to each other for at least a half hour.

This might be the coolest tree ever. It also happens to be at the killing field.

random pix: Battambang

Many of the strays are super cute but not exactly healthy.

 

This poor little girl's brother chased her around with makeup, lol.