Tag Archives: passport

Asia, Vietnam

We’ve arrived?

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Before we left for Asia, I was nervous traveling to a country where I couldn’t easily ask for directions or piece together some semblance of a sentence. I don’t speak Spanish well, but I knew I could muddle through some basics for when we were in Peru. But, I only know one word of Vietnamese (thank-you), and I most certainly can’t read it. When we’re traveling, I don’t generally mind getting lost, or changing plans, but our first experience at Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi was a little over the top.

We landed after over 28 hours travel time. Having only carry-on, we by-passed baggage claim (FANTASTIC!), and moved on quickly to get our travel Visas at the airport. The girl behind the counter was singing Backstreet Boys and Air Supply songs the whole time she processed our passports.

It was the wee hours of the morning, and the arrivals exit was swarming with taxi drivers. Mobs of shouting taxi drivers make me freak out. It is irrational for the most part, but with no sleep, anxiety kicks in. I prefer to choose my own taxi driver rather than have someone approach me. In the irrationality, it seems safer to me to pick someone rather than be mobbed. Anyway, I couldn’t deal with it, so we sat down for a few minutes, and the lights in the airport went out, and then the exit doors locked. Yep.

Luckily we found a taxi driver that helped us find an unlocked door. We had a pre-printed address card for the hotel, but he took us to a random shop with a similar name, and tried to drop us off…in the dark…in the rain…with our stuff…in the middle of no where. We argued, and he realized we were at the wrong address. So, off we went again. He did find the hotel, and when we arrived there–it was pad locked shut.

I didn’t think it was possible to get weirder, but it did. The taxi driver phoned the hotel for us, and someone got up, from where they were sleeping on a mattress in the lobby, put some clothes on, and opened the door to check us in. Finally.
Peru, South America

Lago Titicaca

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We found that travel in Peru seems to be set up for the ease of tourists. No day was this more apparent than the day we went out on Lake Titicaca. We arrived in Puno from Chivay via the most uncomfortable van ever (aka 4M bus.) At one point another passenger asked if there was the ability to stop for a washroom break, and the navigator said that it wasn’t possible because it wasn’t safe to stop. It was late, dark and we were travelling as a 2 van convoy that couldn’t be separated.

I don’t know if this was some huge exaggeration, or if we were driving in the most sketchy part of Peru. It seemed fine. Our driver arranged for safe taxis and we were literally whisked in one door of the station and told to go with a woman who whisked us through the building to the back door and into a taxi. I honestly couldn’t tell you what the station looked like one bit.

At 7am in the morning we asked at the front desk if there was a possibility to go out onto the Lake. The clerk panicked! She started making phone calls, and said the boat was leaving but would wait for us. A taxi arrived out of nowhere and literally 11 minutes later we were seated on a boat for a full day tour on Lake Titicaca–the world’s highest navigable lake. (FYI: There are lakes at higher altitude, but they are too shallow to be navigated by every type of watercraft.) The lake is huge. I can only compare it to being on the Ocean or being on the Great Lakes. It took us 1 hour to get to the first set of Islands from Puno, and 2.5 more hours from there to get to Taquile.

lake titicaca mapOur tour guide Vladimir was awesome! He spoke English, Spanish, Quechua and Aymara, and knew a ton of stuff about a ton of stuff. He was a fountain of information and not in a boring way. There were people on the boat from Israel, India, USA, Ireland, Columbia, Peru, Australia, Iran, Italy, England, Holland, Germany and Canada. We ended up chatting with Rolf a guy from Australia who had been volunteering with some tribes in Ecuador, and a kid named Bryce from Indiana. Side note: Bryce’s brother was travelling in Peru last year and ended up getting bitten by a monkey. He had to go home for Rabies shots and completely missed Machu Picchu. Boo-urns!

The first site we visited was the Uros Islands. The Uros Islands are man-made floating islands. Each one is home to 2 to 10 families. Pretty much everything is made from the Totora reeds. Walking on the island is like walking on a spongy mattress. I did feel very set up as a tourist (obviously, that’s why we were there!), but it was pretty interesting just to see people living a completely different way than we every could/would here. The Uros people make money by inviting tourists to the islands, showing them how the islands are built, inviting people into their homes, and just being hospitable. The home we were invited into was smaller than the computer room in my house for a family of 5. There was one totora reed double-sized mattress on the floor, and a few hooks in the wall with miscellaneous clothing on them. That’s all.

We visited a second floating Island, which would be the equivalent of main street I suppose. There was a coffee shop, a general store, and a post office where we got our passports stamped. A few random facts for you: Each island has its own president. If a husband and wife separate, they simply cut the island in half; if they reconcile they reattach the island. Gardens with grains and flowers grow on the islands. Bathroom facilities are on smaller islands behind the main living areas. And, the dead aren’t buried on any floating islands, they are buried in special cemeteries on the main land.

Update

Day 0–Take 2 aka Jane Rocks!

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The ticket agent at Air Canada (after the whole passport fiasco) happily charged us $300 to switch our flight to Monday, when we were originally supposed to fly on Saturday. SUCK MUCH?!?!

Anyway, she told us 2 things–the earlist flight we could get was Monday at 10:00am, and with a connecting flight in Montreal, and that there was no such thing as stand-by. She also said that we could come back at 2:30 on Sunday and see if there were any seats for the Sunday flight.

PS: She’s a liar! We flew Stand-by direct from Vancouver to Heathrow on Sunday. Thanks to Cherryl and Jane! Jane rocked! So did Cherryl, Gord and Narinder. They all helped us. Jane was the one to tell me my passport didn’t work, and she remembered us the next day (well how many idiots does she deal with, on such an extreme level?) They ended up getting us the earlier direct flight. Cherryl even phoned to tell me not to worry when she kenw our stand-by seats were finally confirmed. Thank-you for double booking 6 people Air Canada!

AND, Jane was at the boarding gate to see us off. She was so happy when we walked onto the jet way. She was awesome.

 

Europe, Update

Day 0–No touching down in London Town

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We had a couple of options as to when to go to Vancouver to be ready for the airport. I REALLY wanted to leave Friday night for Saturday night’s flight. Jon wanted to leave Saturday with Coquihalla prone to closures, poor conditions and accidents, I thought we could use some buffer time. And I was right–we missed our first flight even though we got to the airport with TONS of time to spare. We were the first people to “check-in” for flight AC854 on Saturday.I passed Jane (you’ll see why I know her name later) my passport–no go. I brought my OLD one that expired in 2006. New one was at home 3 hours away in my dresser.

Needless to say, breaking all land speed records wouldn’t have even helped to get my passport to me in time to check in.

My brother had already left us at the airport. I’m pretty sure you can’t even guess how panic stricken I was. After about 100 phone calls home to my parents and making my brother turn around and come back to the airport–we confirmed that my current passport exists (THANKS MA!) and had my fazh drive to meet us in Chilliwack to do the hand off. (THANKS FAZH!)

Passport crisis over, but day 1 in London gone. Sadder.