Viz-a-Visa
One of my responsibilities now that we are in the New Year is to get all our ducks in a row for our trip to Southeast Asia that we are taking next month. To be honest, most of the legwork in terms of the bookings and arrangements have already been done with great diligence by Mike. Mike also paved the path on the entry visas for all six countries we will be visiting (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, VIetnam and Cambodia). But paving the path still left it for me to get Kim and my visas where needed. I suppose it is one of the things that helps justify the high mark-up by the tour companies (that plus providing expediters at the airports to make you feel like someone is personalizing your transition in and out of the countries). Truth be told, it is nice to have someone waiting for you in any foreign and exotic airport with your name on a placard, but it really is a luxury that isn’t necessary when it comes right down to it. In fact, three of the six countries (Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand) don’t even require visas for Americans to enter. Those three are the more advanced of the six, but even the other three that do require visas are pretty easy to navigate. They, like most modern countries, now offer an online e-Visa program that allows you to do this all online with minimal effort.
I already had pictures of Kim’s and my passport pages. What I did need to do was to take current photos of each of us with a white background. It was an impromptu photo session and neither of us was looking our best, but I don’t think I care too much what the bureaucrats in the visa departments of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia think about my looks, so off we went. I downloaded for each of us on each of the three national e-Visa sites our photos and passport pages where indicated. That was easy and by good chance, the file sizes were right for all three sites and no adjustments were needed. mike had warned me that he had to manipulate his photos to fit the standards, but that seems to have been a laptop versus iPad issue and may be the single instance i have ever encountered where my iPad had an advantage over a laptop. Two of the sites used the passport photo to autofill a bunch of the required application form fields and while the Cambodian one did not do that from my passport photos (even though it indicated that it would), it was of little consequence and I just filled in the information by hand with not problem.
All three countries had a small visa fee that ranged from $35 to $65. I suppose that as less developed countries they prize every dollar of foreign currency income they can get, so I did not begrudge them their small entry fees. Only one of them (Cambodia) wanted to know how much we planned to spend during out visit and whether it would be with cash or charge card. I would like to think that was an effort to curtail money laundering, but the truth is probably much more about rubbing their hands together hoping for a tourism windfall and wondering whether they would get dead presidents or have to pay a 3% charge card fee. They may be less developed countries, but they are no dopes and have certainly figured out the ways and means of modern micro-finance. I will note that two of the three countries (Vietnam and Cambodia) are sophisticated enough as to not accept American Express with their extra 1% fee and required me to use Visa or Mastercard. I couldn’t help myself, so I used Visa for my e-Visas.
Mike spent hours over the past three months telling me about his issues working through the visa process for him a self and Melisa as well as for Faraj and Yasuko. Since I completed the process is under an hour, I have to assume that I had the benefit of his groundbreaking (he did send me an email with the links to the visa sites and I took him at his word that they are not needed in the other three countries), my iPad and its picture translation capabilities, and a bit to my advance preparation in terms of already having all th passport info and pictures in hand for the exercise. All-in-all it was a fairly simple procedure and what promised to be a rigorous exercise was very easy. Since all three of the countries indicated that it would take three days for them to get me my e-Visas, I still have to wait to see that everything is in order and that they have actually issued me the visas I have requested, but I am expecting smooth sailing.
Our plan is to fly into Singapore from Los Angeles, transiting through Tokyo. We are on the same flight as Faraj and , where Mike and Melisa have a later flight out of San Diego. We will Uber our way to LAX with Faraj and Yasuko and let Mike and Melisa figure out their own transport. We arrive early in the morning after a full day of travel. While it is all Business Class and should be comfortable enough, knowing my inability to sleep on planes these days, I have booked us an extra night’s room at our arrival hotel in Singapore. I expect we will host Faraj and Yasuko to use our room to freshen up. After refreshing ourselves, we four will spend the day getting a jump on the sights of Singapore and await Mike and Melisa’s arrival later in the day. I have been to Singapore many times for work, but it has been a very long time since then, so it will all be like new to me.
Our itinerary will involve a chauffeured van from Singapore, through the Malaysian jungle to Kuala Lumpur, where we will tour the sights there for a day before flying into Bangkok. I have also been in Bangkok at one time or another for business and recall only a very busy city with terribly crowded traffic and taking forever to get from here to there. We will take some day trips around Bangkok and the surrounding area and are making a point of going to an elephant sanctuary for Kim and to the bridge over the River Kwai for me. Just like I related Jordan and Wadi Rum to Lawrence of Arabia, I want to connect Thailand to The Bridge Over the River Kwai.
After Bangkok we fly into the hinterlands of Laos to Luang Prebang, which I am told by friends who recently visited there is quite special. Luang Prebang is on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, so that should be an interesting place to knock around for a few days. From there we fly to Hanoi, the place which my youthful existence considered the earthly incarnation of Hell (other than when Jane Fonda went there). I am betting that we will see the Hanoi Hilton where John McCain lodged for a few years and I am told that we will see how nicely he and other American POWs were treated. We will do a day trip to Ha Long Bay with its picturesque sugarloaf islands. Then it will be a flight to Siem Reap where we will finally tour Angkor Wat and round out our wonders of the ancient world visitations. We then finish the trip with a flight to Bangkok, from where we will depart back to the good old USA. Hopefully, all of our visas will be in good order and China will restrain itself for a while and decide to disrupt life in the South China Sea and on Taiwan until a later date.