March 2, 2010 – Day 432 – Vientiane, Laos

With some early morning negotiation powers we arranged a visa pick up, a stop at the concrete monster called Victory Gate, and then back to where we started for 30,000 Kip/pp. Of course we had to insist that we would only take 5 minutes at the embassy and 10 minutes at Victory Gate, which we did at both places. We scurried up the 7 stories of Victory Gate and back down in record time, much to our tuk tuk driver’s pleasure. Easy money for him, power sightseeing for us.

Victory gate

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February 25-28, 2010 – Day 427-430 – Vientiane, Laos

Very little to tell of these last several days. Funny, this whole traveling around the world thing requires lots of moving around. We took another awful all day bus from Luang Prabang to Vientiane and spent the next couple of days hanging out, walking around the city, and just generally waiting on our Vietnamese visa coming in another couple days.

Warning!

Travel Tip: – Vietnamese Visa in Vientiane, Laos

In case you are heading Vietnam from Laos, you can easily apply for your visa at the Vietnam Embassy, nearby Victory Gate. The application process took maybe 10 minutes to fill out the paper, turn it in, and leave again. From the riverside we caught a tuk tuk to the embassy for 10,000 Kip/pp. The visa (for Americans) cost $45 or 405,000 Kip (about $46-47 depending on the current exchange rate).

January 17, 2010 – Day 388 – Koh Samui, Thailand

At the ripe hour of 7AM we descended upon the city of Ranong intent upon finding the immigration office. We need that exit stamp from Thailand so we can officially leave and come back with a fresh 15 day visa. Gives us plenty of uninterrupted time to “explore” the beaches of southern Thailand. Of course, that mainly hinges on the idea that “explore” means drink beer, go diving and snorkeling, and maybe—if duty calls—some lying on the beach, just to make sure it’s safe for future travellers, of course.

Boats at the Thai side of the border

September 16, 2009 – Day 265 – Kathmandu, Nepal

A wasted day in the Indian embassy waiting to pay for a single sheet of paper that may or may not result in an actual Indian visa. For a more exciting evening, we reached back to our Tibetan roots (ok, well, not technically) and visited the Baudha Stupa.

Taxi to the Stupa

July 17, 2009 – Day 204 – Hong Kong

Still intensely jet-lagged. Can’t seem to get to bed til 3am and can’t seem to wake up til noon or 1pm. But, the good news: we got our Chinese visas today! It was incredibly easy, much to our relief, but cost a little bit extra.

The view down our block

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July 16, 2009 – Day 203 – Hong Kong

Somehow we got up before noon today and dropped off our visa applications at the visa agency. They seem to know what they are doing so hopefully everything will go smoothly and we can pick them up tomorrow.

A Junk (seriously that's what it's called) in the harbor

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July 15, 2009 – Day 202 – Hong Kong

After a confusing morning of more attempts to find the Mirador Mansion with both a faulty map and utterly incorrect directions (written by the hostel!), we finally had success thanks to Saben’s mad navigational skills that are borderline freakish. We spent our day wandering around the city, exploring the endless shopping malls, seeking a cheap barber for Saben’s chia-beard, and finally, phase one of chopstick mastery. There was no fork option and we were eating noodles in soup though they were nice enough to provide everyone with a ladel.

Complicated with chopsticks

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June 10, 2009 – Day 167 – Damascus, Syria

“What do you mean you won’t take us to Syria?” We were both flabbergasted at the idea of not being able to get a bus to Damascus. We had tried nearly 10 bus companies and none would take us even just to the Syrian border because we are Americans. Lucky for us, we found one company who didn’t speak enough English for us to explain that it would take a long time so they took us to the border, but when they were told by border officials just how long it would take for us to get visas we were promptly kicked off.

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June 7, 2009 – Day 164 – Amman, Jordan

Wasted another day at another embassy. Tried to apply for Chinese visa but were informed that all travel and accommodation must be booked in advance and submitted with application. So there you have, no Chinese visa for us. At least not here. Instead we’ve decided to fly to Hong Kong when we get ready to go to China and apply there. As you might guess, the rest of the afternoon was spent working out flights and costs to do that…We promise to leave the hostel tomorrow!

Day 88: Corumba, Brazil –> Bolivia (sorta)

Another boring day for posting. We  got our stamps and papers in order for the border crossing into Bolivia. Doing a lot of post writing today at a gas station/convenience store/church/internet cafe (no joke, all lumped into one enterprise!).  Ran into one of the guys from the Blue Cave tour we did a couple days ago in Bonito while we were doing some website work. This afternoon we left Brazil but we arrived at the border during the 2 hour lunch break. With no other real option but to stay there, we decided to head across the border anyway (it`s not like anyone was going to stop us–they were at lunch!) and buy our train tickets in case the border visa took a while.

Thinking the train station couldn`t be too far, we starting walking through the mud, rain, and growing water puddles until we finally found out that the station was 15 minutes away by car. When we arrived by taxi, we discovered that they too were taking a 2 hour lunch. Now we were really stuck and had to wait and hour and a half for the train ticket office to open back up. Finally taking care of that mess, we taxi`d back to the border where we began filling our form after form for the visa (US citizens need visa for Bolivia–reciprocal behavior between these 2 countries). After filling out forms in tripilcate and answering some questions, we were informed we had to pay the $135 fee only in US dollars. What?! Ok, so we had to find an ATM but it wasn`t working and we were directed by the security guard to the other ATM in town a few blocks away. It wasn`t working either. We had no choice but to head back to the border to pay in Bolivanos. Luckily, on the way, we ran into one of the many guys who change money (just some guy in a lawn chair by the road–there`s a long line of them yelling “Cambio“ as you walk through the border) who ended up giving us a better rate than our bank! Whew, now we could pay our fee and hopefully be on our way. When we got into the border office, who did we see but that German guy from the cave tour and the internet cafe from yesterday! Turns out we were all taking the “death train“ to Santa Cruz but were seated in different train cars. FYI, the “death train“ isn`t named so because it`s dangerous. Instead it was used to carry Yellow Fever victims out of town into a quaratine area. It`s a really slow, rocky ride where the train sways so hard from side to side on the tracks, you will swear time after time that it`s surely going to tip over. Very, very slow overnight train with lame Chinese movies and an overdubbed American movie without English subtitles.

No pictures because there is nothing to see…just mud, lots and lots of mud.