Getting the hang of daily life in Vung Tau… approximately

Today has been very hard work.  I have renewed respect for people who endlessly relocate and start again in different worlds.  It is incredibly difficult navigating daily life when you have no language, no map, clumsy cultural etiquette and no idea how cross a road.   It makes me love Gulliver’s Travels more and more, the world makes no sense at all when you are seeing it all for the first time, I wonder what powerful impressions I’ll get in reverse when the time comes to return home?

So this entry covers some dull practicalities, for those of you who like to know, I consider how to use a post office, how to use a supermarket, access to social media sites (I know, get me), blurring of boundaries, and how generally knackering life is when everything is new.

So, some things I noticed about today:

• The blurring of boundaries between work and life/ students and teachers, night and day.  I had a phone call at about 8.30 asking if I could meet in 10 mins to discuss a lesson plan.  Now strictly speaking I’m not working today, but I was up and ready so that was fine. It was also useful and this other tutor is very much more switched on and has definite ideas about what the lesson should include and how it should be structured.  This is good, but I feel a bit of pressure to prepare a lot and as we are gearing towards an IELTS exam I know nothing about, this requires some Google time. Helpfully, I am also given a plan of work for the term, unhelpfully, it is all in Vietnamese.  Thank goodness I brought my lap top with me.
• I was also asked to hand over my passport.  I need to be registered with the police, that’s fine, and they did all this within about 3 hours, I also had to sign a scary looking contract. However, it now emerges after all the expense and angst of police certificates and health checks and trying to get a business visa, they have decided simply to issue a contract for me 2 months at a time, they can then keep me on a tourist visa as a volunteer, and renew it up to three times. If I then wish to continue working, I would need to leave the country and return (something the current South African volunteers are considering).  Well you live and learn.  I wish they’d told me that before – or maybe it is because there has been a change in visa regulations
• Today, my mission was to post some letters/postcards, and find a post office.  When I asked my host said I could just drop them off in the admin department and they would be sent for me.  Hooray.  Alas, this was not possible, I tried to supply my post to a confused and alarmed looking officer.  She went to get a translator, and it seems that my addresses look somehow implausible, so she wanted me to put my letters in another envelope, with the university address on them, and try again.  The problem is those envelopes don’t seal, and I decided it was too problematic.  Instead I tried to find the post office.  Spectacular FAIL.  I have not been able to get a map of Vung Tau, so rely on people’s directions.  However, it is really hard to follow because all streets look chaotic to me, they all have cafe’s and motorbike service shops and miscellaneous other stuff, I can’t navigate.  I got hopelessly lost, and had to cross 6 lanes of traffic on more than one occasion – mercifully the roads are relatively quiet, even so my strategy is to wait for some local either walking, or on a bike, and to tailgate them over.  It is a strategy, and I’ve not yet been glared at for stalking!  Eventually I spotted a western looking guy, and asked him for help.  I think he was Russian, he had little English (which is fair enough, my Russian is non-existent).  I gestured my letters and he drew me a map to the main post office.  I found it, but was exhausted by the process.  It was an incredibly grand building, I left my bike with a dozing security guard, and went up the imposing steps.  Someone directed me to a counter, where a serious looking worker scrutinised and weighed my mail, added lots of official looking ink stamps and showed me a calculator with the amount on it (120,000 VD) which I handed over.  She handed back my envelopes, which confused me, and a fellow customer pointed to some slots in wooden boxes which were for post. I must seem so stupid, but none of this is obvious until you know!  Also, FYI, whilst I was mid transaction two people pushed between me and the counter to hand things to the cashier or ask questions.  I guess this is the ‘no queuing’ thing in action.  I took a couple of surreptitious photos, so probably I’m now been followed as a suspicious person.  I hope so, it will help me find my way back to campus when lost!

• The Post Office was opposite the co-op supermarket, so I went to investigate, this involves leaving your bike in secure parking, and then when you enter the store you have to leave your bag in a locker.  The store was full of confusing and expensive produce.  I could do with proper food, but the fridge I have in my room stinks so badly, I’ve actually dragged it outside onto the fire escape hoping it might self-clean in the open air.  It looks clean but is pungent.  Anyway, this is a powerful disincentive to actually keeping food in my room.  That, and the ants, which are numerous, oh, and the rats – did I mention there are an enormous number of rats, HUGE ones, active in the alley way, now I don’t think they come up to my floor, but I don’t want to do anything to encourage them.  The supermarket is on three floors, even this is an ordeal, because if you buy anything at any level, you have to recheck it in to your bag in its locker, before you can enter a different level.  It seems a lot of hassle.  In the end I bought some insect spray (yes I feel a traitor, and I’m worried whatever I use will poison me as well as my insect room mates, but I have been bitten quite badly by I know not what, and need to redress the balance of power in the seige that is currently underway!  I also bought some non-specific cleaner, to have another go at the fridge, it can’t stay outside indefinitely!  On leaving the supermarket I got my bike, the guard solemnly checked my ticket and then permitted me to take my bike back – it was 1,000 VD to leave it, which I thought expensive, though in fact it is only 3p so reality check in order.

• Really, I’d had enough excitement for one day, but I felt I should go and do something a bit nicer, I found a new coffee bar and had a refreshing avocado drink again.  I liked this cafe a lot, I was the only customer and the woman in attendance seemed pleased to have me and brought endless refills of green tea, two small glasses at first, and as I drained them, a further huge tall glass with lots of ice.  I felt she was looking after me a bit, and that is nice to be honest, because I do feel vulnerable at times, not because of anyone being aggressive, but because of my own stupidity in navigating this new environment.

• So then, to the beach.  Maybe a glimpse of the sea will restore me?  I cycle a different way, down much quieter streets and see a different and more manageable side of Vung Tau.  I notice Matilda’s – which I seem to recall was mentioned to me before but I can’t recall why or in what context – it isn’t in Lonely Planet so I head on to Lucy’s Sports Bar which is and has review as good sea views, non girly, good pub grub.  En route a cyclo driver tries to engage me in conversation – do I know Manchester?  Yesterday an elderly tooth-gapped motorcyclist asked where my husband was, and when I said I didnt have one, he told me he too was single.  Well, there are clearly options!  Lucy’s Sport’s bar does have good views, and obviously a very fine name – but again it is catering for ex-pat oil workers and is really quite ghastly, expensive, lots of fat white men some discussing business, others playing pool, and a couple mismatched with young very attractive Vietnamese women.  There is western style food and an English menu, but it is catering for football/ sport watching drinking carnivores.  I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, only a factual one, the food looks good, but is almost all meat (steak and chips) lots of cold beers,  I can see it would appeal to a certain demographic, just not me.  It is late though and I’m exhausted, I’ve also misjudged it, because places seem to shut in the afternoon so if I want to eat, and I do, then here is about the only option.  I order a Greek salad and vegetarian pizza – the only two vegetarian things on the menu.  They are good, but stingy portion sizes, no complementary green tea and the waitress short changes me.  I think it is an accident, and she corrects it when pointed out, but it doesn’t feel nice at all.  There is a cynicism about the places that serve the expats, and who can blame them.  They are safe and familiar in a working mens’ club sort of way, but it brings home the fact that when people talk about a great life for expats in VT, it is men they are talking about, doing rather stereotypical MCP things, drinking, picking up women half their age, eating steak and chips and watching sport on the telly, and getting away with inappropriate behavoiur at times because they are so comparatively wealthy.  It’s like going back in time.  I feel I’m being a bit unkind, but honestly, that is my impression.  No one is unfriendly, but it is clearly not an environment aimed at the likes of me.  It is a bubble not an integrated way of life.
• I consult my lonely planet.  Near here down some back street is a much recommended World Wide Arms Museum – I take my bike and head down deserted back streets.  I have to push it miles and miles up a dusty hill.  I get amazing views, and see interesting back alleys,  I pass household shrines, some are really elaborate, and I end up in dusty scrub/ woodland.  I get some curious looks, but no hostility that I can detect.  I am lost.  I retrace my steps and attempt another route.  I pass what I would willing swear was a tree laden with cucumber (nationwide April fool special on spaghetti trees somehow now seems all too plausible) I walk higher and higher in the heat, it seems like miles.  I end up at the entrance to some sort of military centre, where I try and get directions from the uniformed guard at the gate.  He gestures to carry on up the hill, but I think he is directing me to the lighthouse – somewhere I do want to visit, but that is far too far to walk (and the hill is too steep to cycle up)  I press on for a bit til I see another coffee shop with an address which makes it clear I’ve gone too far.  I retrace my steps, free wheel down the hill, and spot the very closed looking museum a good mile down – I’d gone right past it.  It has an enormous padlock on the gate, but looks impressive, faded posters of saxon soldiers (if my history is correct) are decaying outside.  Later I check their website – it should be open.  I email as I think it could be worth a visit.  It was good to explore ‘off piste’ very interesting but it is so very hot, and these hills are steep.  I thought as a Sheffield lass I’d have coped better, but I think I can only do steep hills in the cold.

• I am now completely exhausted, hot and sweaty, so back to base to dump my stuff.  I was going to work in my room, but had forgotten about the tannoy of the lecture coming through the walls.  Instead I take my laptop and head to the coffee bar with the mango trees. It is pretty deserted, staff are around, but slumbering in various corners, having a little siesta.  I manage to order and iced coffee by miming shivering and pointing at coffee.  I had wanted it white, but that was too hard.  Everything takes so much effort!   The coffee bar does though have free WiFi (it is ubiquitous here) so I settle to catch up on my blog.  I try to get onto the BBC website, and Facebook, but both seem to be blocked.  It feels relaxed here, but it is misleading, there are barriers to connection and they are real.
• Oh, but I want to show you something ingenius.  Many of the bikes here have a sort of built in bike lock, genius, you leave the key in when you are pedaling about, and when you want to lock it you simply push down a lever so a metal hoop completes a circle locking the wheel, when you want to unlock the bike, insert the key and it retracts, genius.  Don’t know why we don’t have them as standard in the UK.  Also, view of back yard of campus from my window.  Transport systems summarised!

Free Health Check, hurrah for the NHS!

Joy of joys, today I finally got in to see the nurse at my GP surgery for my free NHS health check.  Those of you who have been concentrating will know that this is my tactic for satisfying Vietnam Business Visa requirements on arrival.  They request a ‘medical check’ but don’t specify what that should entail.  My lovely GP has come up with a generic letter saying ‘not currently I under treatment blah de blah’ and the plan is that my recent health check results can be incorporated into this.

The NHS is completely wonderful in my book.  Granted, I had to wait a long while for an appointment, but it is fantastic that I have had a check without any charge.  I am now in possession of information regarding cholesterol, blood pressure, BMI, blood sugar etc and crunched through the NHS IT system I am told that I have a 3.23% chance of a heart attack in the next 10 years.  Hurrah, probability is on my side.

The broadly positive results will be captured in the letter, the only downside for me is that I have to suffer the indignity of being weighed and measured.  It was not entirely an unexpected bolt from the blue to learn that I am ‘in the overweight category’ to use the non-judgmental phraseology intoned by the nurse (who was very nice actually).  On the plus side, astonishingly I am taller than I thought, 5 foot 2 and half inches, a whole inch higher than I knew!  It occurs to me that as an adult you don’t ever really measure your height, so I suppose inaccuracies perpetuate.  Without wishing to be unduly profound, it does make me wonder what other mistaken ‘truths’ and ‘beliefs’ I’ve hung on to without ever bothering to check.  Just goes to show, never assume, always check with primary sources where you can.

If you live in the UK I’d recommend taking up the health check.  It was reassuring, but also probably will motivate me to lose a bit of weight. I’m not obese, I’m borderline ‘OK’ but I know I’d be happier if I lost a bit.  Also, being presented with the graphic that puts you so firmly in the red category does focus the mind.  It also feeds into one of my (I hope ridiculous) anxieties about travelling to Vietnam.  The Vietnamese frame is petite and I am scared I’ll feel an ogre in comparison to my svelte new colleagues and friends.  I think I’m OK considering, I exercise, I’ve always been a bit ‘pleasantly rounded’  I like to tell myself, cuddlesome perhaps?  But, I have to concede, my weight has been creeping ever upwards since I hit 40!   Actually, it was like my body began to disintegrate on hitting forty, hate to say it, but it stops doing what it’s supposed to do, and I’ve found since then it is quite possible to wake up with unexplained pains in the morning that can only be attributable to the the relentless march of time.  I don’t want entirely to decry the aging process, I do think I’m more chilled than I was and you can get away with more as you get older I think, maybe partly because of caring less and seeing diminishing time ahead.  Here’s a good role model for the future:

In any event, I have to acknowledge I’m a terrible comfort eater (though as a vegetarian my diet is healthy, it’s portion control that is my enemy), I’ve been fretting about going away – I want to, but  a jump into the unknown is scary – hence I reach for the bread and humus and so on it goes.  I have been telling myself that I’ll starve in Vietnam initially because I think it may be hard to get vegetarian food until I’ve got my bearings.  Also I really don’t like rice.  On the other hand everyone says the food in Vietnam is awesome, and I don’t generally go hungry.  The only time in my life I didn’t eat for a whole week was when I had a pulmonary embolism.  It was that which made those around me recognise that I was really, really ill!

I digress, NHS health checks are being made more widely available, but I think many surgeries are offering the service to cohorts of patients by age, starting with the older groups.  I had no problem at all with requesting one and I’m glad I did.  It’s preventative medicine at its best, focuses the mind on what I need to do, and gives me a base line to refer back to – whether I like it or not.  Plus it did raise my awareness on some pointers that caught me by surprise, my cholesterol is ‘fine’ but creeping up with age apparently, as a vegetarian it never occurred to me that I’d need to be a bit more attentive to diet in relation to this.  Curses.  Out with the cheese, in with the pulses.  I love beans and lentils fortunately!  Even if I don’t lose weight, I remind myself that in the post apocalyptic world, it’s those of us with a bit of fat reserves to fall back on who will hang on in there. Not so much survival of the fittest, more survival of the fattest.  Not that I’d particularly like to survive a nuclear holocaust, but that isn’t the point I’m making right now!

Meantime, to raise morale, here are some lovey cuddly things that just wouldn’t  be the same if they ditched their body fat.  I notice they seem to be aquatic / marine mammals on the whole, I’m Pisces, does that make me predisposed to my silken layer I wonder? Alternatively, maybe I should learn to accept who I am, with all my limitations and imperfections, and as the saying goes ‘If I can’t be a good example, then I’ll just have to be a horrible warning,” (reworked from Catherine Aird)

So back to the pictures, altogether now… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah – enjoy!

 

‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello what have ‘ave we got here then?’ Police Certificate Arrives – I’m all clear!

So it’s been a week for post.  I find the Police Certificate to be quite amusing really. It has a very officious look to it so you sort of feel like you are getting your money’s worth!  It has both a water mark, a deeply unattractive photo of me, a fine looking silver embossed badge at the bottom (like the sort of thing you get on a bank card), and enough personal details for any crook to steal my identity into the bargain.

It arrives through standard first class post – I could have paid extra for recorded express delivery, but I was ground down by constant additional payments so just trusted it to Royal Mail and it came quickly and undamaged.  For the record, once I knew what to ask for, this was actually the speediest part of the whole bureaucratic process to date.  It was a bit creased from it’s final journey through my letter box, but basically ok.  Precautionary paranoia prevents me uploading it in any very accessible form, but you’ll get the general idea – my self-portrait is actually a pretty good likeness!  (You aren’t allowed to smile in passport photos remember…)

So right now I’m just waiting for a letter from my GP regarding a health check, and then hopefully, I’m good to go.  The next mental anguish will be how to keep all of these vital documents safe in transit.  I have scanned them all, and uploaded them to a Google cloud site in a fit of uncharacteristic techno savviness that will leave anyone who actually knows me aghast and demanding to know where the original me has gone and how the forcible abduction and personality transplant has been achieved.  It’s amazing what you can learn how to do out of necessity.  I’m still not supremely confident with Google cloud, but I am persuaded it is a great way to ensure I can access potentially useful resources from overseas, and if I am unlucky enough to lose passports or other documentation, at least i’ll be able to get hold of copies.

Aaaargh, Business Visa Defeat! Activate back-up plan for Vietnam…

Yesterday was my last day at work, so I’ve done the ‘goodbye and thanks for all the fish’ routine.  It was grim, I didn’t leave the office until gone 7.00 p.m. and it was a lonely and rather thankless day.  However, I wanted to leave everything as professionally as possible irrespective of the reality that my carefully labelled files may never again see the light of day. Anyway,  the upshot of this, is that there is no going back, P45 pending, I’m going to have to head off somewhere, hence I could do with a break frankly, so it was a shame that today brought bad news, though also potentially a solution.

First The Bad News:

Today, I got back in the post my documents that I’d sent to be legalised.  I feel thwarted, I’m supposed to be leaving in a couple of weeks and I haven’t made it over the first administrative hurdle!   It seems that I haven’t followed correct procedure.   So you can perhaps succeed where I have failed, the process – as I now understand it – I will give below, but honestly, I’m increasingly thinking applying for a Business Visa in advance is too problematic, don’t even go there, find a work around.  If you have to, then try this:

• Dig out your relevant certificates
• Get these copied, and then the copies certified by a public notary – I have abandoned the pre-departure business visa application route so haven’t done this, looks potentially expensive
• Then they need to be approved again by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – nope, absolutely no idea to which section, how long it takes etc
• Then finally, send the approved documents for legalisation by the Vietnamese Embassy – but this is still unclear, they say they retain them, my contacts in Vietnam want to have them, does not compute
• Presumably, then (if you have letter of invitation, medical certificate, police certificate) you can try again for a business visa, but I wonder if recently appearing guidance means it better left to your business associate to navigate and pay for too!

Frankly, I could scream, this has already been a time consuming, opaque and expensive process.  I am grateful that my certificates and copies were returned together with a cash refund (minus postage) of my postal order, but even so, I am quite taken aback at how problematic the process of trying to get a business visa has been.  Not for the faint-hearted, but possibly not even appropriate to try.  I think increasingly because my hosts haven’t had anyone from the UK before they aren’t able to appreciate how off-putting and whole visa malarkey can be.  Worsened because throughout all of this I can’t get anyone to talk to me at all, or respond to email enquiries that ask for specific clarification.

A possible solution:

So, on a brighter note, I finally got a helpful email today from the intermediary who originally passed on my application to the Vietnamese University.  It was a relief to finally get a clear steer.  Essentially, the recommendation is ‘From what I understand from the website of Embassy of Vietnam in UK, they stopped processing business visa due to some legal changes.  Applying for such visa should be cumbersome. Therefore I advise you to apply for tourist visa and carry relevant documents with you. As soon as you arrive in Vietnam, we will support your business visa application‘.  So this is what I’m going to do, next challenge is getting a tourist visa, as once again there is contradictory information on the embassy website.

Bring on The Tourist Visa Challenge:

Check the relevant website – no costs are given you have to email for that.  There is an online form, but I couldn’t get it to work, though that was a relief quite honestly, as the pdf is much more straightforward to make sense of.  For example, The online form requires a passport photo that is 4 cm by 6 cm, the downloadable pdf asks for a more UK standard size photo to be attached.

There are no costs given on the website, and the email I received in connection with my request for clarification about this only gives costs for a 30 day visa.  I’m worried this wont be long enough as I plan to arrive just at the start of Tet, a massive Vietnamese holiday for the lunar new year.  I’ve seen this described as a mix of millennium new year celebrations, Christmas, New Year, Birthdays, the whole kit bang and caboodle rolled into one.  I don’t think they’ll be much visa application processing going on then!  I do want to do this, but the bureaucracy is a real deterrent.

I try to remember that possibly I’m a pathfinder here.  Once I’ve worked it out it will be easy to advise someone coming after me, I suppose you have to do the equivalent of ‘kissing a lot of frogs’ before you meet you handsome partner, just watch out you don’t pick a poisonous one en route, it can ruin your day.  In relation to a successful visa application then maybe I have had to reach the end of all these many and manifest administrative cul de sacs in order that I ruled them out and finally made it to the finish.  I still feel like I’m living through my own bespoke episode of the krypton factor, and it’s not looking good.  On the other hand, even if there is a reluctance to issue business visas, surely they will want to welcome tourists?  Watch this space.

To keep you both entertained and informed, here is the sort of frog you should not kiss. It is a poison dart frog from central/south America apparently, and is rather fine I thought, Enjoy!

A universal problem-solving formula:

In the meantime, if you are wrestling with any problems, however complex, I came across this formula which I consider to be genius – I hope it works for you!

Visa Changes for Vietnam January 2015

Finally, the penny drops – just seen this on the Vietnamese Embassy website:

BUSINESS VISA

Starting from 1st Jan 2015, the Embassy of Viet Nam temporarily stop processing Business visa application due to the introduction of new Immigration Regulation. If you travel to Viet Nam for business purpose, your host organizations/partners/invitees in Vietnam will need to arrange your visa approval letter directly with the immigration office. The Embassy will issue business visa when the approval letter is submitted along with the application form and passport.

The Embassy may consider specific requests for business visa. Please contact us at consular@vietnamembassy.org.uk

Maybe the timing of all my requests coinciding with a change in visa regulations is contributing to the confusion about what exactly it is I’m supposed to do in respect of making an application for a Business Visa.  I’m still very unsure about how to proceed.  Will it be sufficient for me to supply a copy of the ‘Letter of Invitation?’  Will my host need to have direct communication with the immigration office, and what’s meant by that anyway?  Is that in Vietnam, or in the UK?

I feel I can’t do much more immediately.  I’m waiting for my legalised documents to be returned, I still have to get my police certificate returned to me, and I can’t speed up the medical health check as it has to be at my own GP and the earliest appointment I’ve been able to secure is a fortnight away.  It’s agonising….  I think this visa malarkey is going to take some time to fathom, my date of departure is moving further and further out of reach.