Going to Nam

Wow, what a weekend.

I’m in the middle stages of planning everything for my Vietnam trip. I don’t think I’ve blogged about it, but my ex-flatmate and I are on our way (if everything goes according to the complex plan in my head) to go teach English in Vietnam and travel the East a bit. I’ll set up another blog especially dedicated to the mission once I actually arrive in Nam.

Anyways, we went and bought our tickets and sent our visa applications away. It seems the 5th of April is going to be a looong day. We booked our ticket on Kulula from Cape Town to Joburg at 06:30 the morning, where we then get on a flight courtesy of Kenya Airlines at 09:30.

We fly four hours to Nairobi, crossover, and fly another 9 hours to Bangkok, where we’ll arrive the morning of the 6th. We’re going to stay in Thailand for the weekend (South Africans supposedly don’t need Thai visas because they supposedly don’t think we would like to stay in their country forever – sounds nearly as ignorant as the Aussies when they issued visas for half of Africa for the Commonwealth Games).

We finally arrive, courtesy of Thai Air or Lufthansa, in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) on the Sunday. It’s guaranteed to be fun, but it shouldn’t be that scary because, after all, Vietnam won the war. At least it can’t be as scary as the lady we bought our tickets from: She looked like Mimi from the Drew Carey Show’s identical twin, with a smudge more green and blue make-up around the eyes.

This week we’re doing a “Teaching English as a Foreign Language” (TEFL) course after hours here in Cape Town, starting tonight. Then it’s a bit of a waiting game. My kindly father was cool (and brave) enough to buy my ticket whilst I try and sell my car before we leave. So anyone interested in buying a white, 1993 Golf (with a brand new engine and gear box), feel free to make me an offer in the R12 000 category! Now I’m in the stage of what you could call the ulcer forming, stress induced waiting game, with a fair amount of holding thumbs and biting nails for good measure.