GO BACK TO CAMBODIA!

After a short hiatus, I find myself back in Southeast Asia. One World brought me back to the east, this time to Cambodia, where I spent one week with the summer 2009 young leaders. After co-facilitating the leadership training, seeing some of the tourist sites, and partying with expats and break dancers in Phonm Penh, I decided to make my way to Ho Chi Minh, or Saigon as it’s commonly known. As we neared the Vietnamese border, the assistant bus driver (or the one in charge of the paper work as I would soon find out) started handing out immigration forms and asking for passport. After leafing through my passport several times, he demand to know where was my Vietnamese visa. As I shrugged my shoulders in response, his look grew worried and soon after he tried to kick me off the bus, perhaps concerned about harboring illegal immigrants. Well I stayed on, hoping I could bribe my way into Vietnam. The Cambodian border official refused to give me an exit stamp and after some pestering, allowed me to walk over to the Vietnamese side to state my case. Once in Vietnam, well almost, I spoke to more immigration officials with the help of a Canadian who spoke Vietnamese, about possibly allowing me to pay for my visa on the spot, hint hint. “No Cannot” was the popular response and I walked back to Cambodia in the midday sun, sweating bullets and quite angry with myself. Apparently and unlike most of Southeast Asia, you cannot get a visa on arrival in Vietnam. As I left Vietnam defeated, I was asked for my passport one last time. Rather than explain my embarrassing situation to someone who didn’t speak English, I handed it over and waited patiently for another rejection. Huffing and puffing, the official walked over to another official who after examining my passport, for the umpting time, yelled “NO VISA, GO BACK TO CAMBODIA!” Smiling I responded “I know, I know, I’m going.” As I neared the bus parking lot the smiled faded and my heart began to beat faster, where is the bus I wondered in heated panic. The Cambodian border official will know but as he reprimanded me “I told you go back but you not listen” tears began to weld in my eyes. Suddenly I recognized someone from the bus and ran to them only to have the assistant bus driver arrive in a motor bike with my backpack. Pfffffff, a sigh of relief. However, he had forgotten some stuff I left on my seat and back to the Vietnamese side I went, where the bus was now parked, for my remaining things. And after waiting hours for transport, I was finally squeezed into the back seat of a taxi to Phonm Penh. I told the driver to drop me off at the Vietnamese embassy and after minor paper work; I would be getting the precious visa the next day. The second attempt went much more smoothly but just as time consuming. After hours in line, I was unceremoniously in Vietnam. As I spent my first day in Ho Chi Minh marveling at the development and playing volley with Vietnamese youth at 23/9 park in the rain, I feel hopeful that Vietnam will be more welcoming than previously anticipated.