Category: Vietnam

With news coming in just now [ rough translation ] that schools in my Khanh Hoa province will be closed until further notice, that sinking feeling is probably my job going under.

On March 12, Mr. Nguyen Tan Tuan, Chairman of Khanh Hoa Provincial People’s Committee, agreed to allow students at all levels in Khanh Hoa province to leave school from March 13 until a new notice is given. Previously, high school students in the province were sent back to school on March 2. Meanwhile, students from preschool to junior high school are suspended from school until the end of March 15.

The school return date was originally Feb 2. Then Feb 16. Then March 3 … and so it goes on. Having gambled money on a Visa ( and lost ), I’ll be doing some hard thinking in the coming day or so on the ‘sunk cost fallacy’. AKA ‘pouring good money after bad’.

I’m missing NZ, and would love to be back for a while before winter really bites, and I’m ready for a new adventure.

IF I can get the timing right , the school here in Nha Trang may offer me a new contract, but that seems unlikely.

Also, the longer I stay here without a solid income stream ( online teaching aside ) , the greater risk that I get stranded either because of finances or ( more likely ) travel bans for passengers from, say, Vietnam!

No promises, mind, but watch this space.

Sitting on one’s chuff is sometimes necessary, but never desirable for long stretches, for fear of growing carbuncles on the underside.

With that in mind, after a morning’s slog over a hot microphone, I took myself off for a jaunt to the south, following the beach along the coastline. Below is roughly the route.

And even further below is what I found. As you see, Nha Trang is achingly beautiful. The beaches are clean, the air is fresh, and even the over-zealous and under-worked security guards didn’t upset my buoyant mood.

This morning, after expensive and mysterious wranglings, I took delivery of my passport, with renewed visa.

That says that this reprobate is allowed to stay here in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam until June 1 this year.

Visa renewal is achieved here in one of three ways;

• Pay somebody who knows somebody a wad of cash to get the job done. Expensive, and a little risky, since it means sending your passport via the mail. But hassle-free, and it works. USD $225 for three months in my case. Score one for corruption.
• Do the time-honoured ‘Visa run’, which involves leaving the target country, and returning forthwith. Slightly cheaper, but a tonne of hassle. Borders, hotels, passports, papers, planes, buses, trucks, taxis.Not for me.
• Going to the local Immigration Office and wading through enough bureaucracy to make a half-grown man cry. You should go armed with a tame Vietnamese who can translate for you, and a tonne of patience, and time. Cheap, but probably the path to madness.

So the choice is a lighter wallet, or a helluva headache. I chose the former.

Which gives me some wriggle room to finesse the cheapest flight(s) home anytime from now until then. That’s my likely reaction should my Y8 ( 8th Grade ) and Y9 students be ordered to remain home on or before our March 16 school return date.

Today I finally put on my tourist boots, and visited the landmark Po Nagar tower / temple, a Nha Trang landmark.

It has taken me a mere 10 days or so after a lecture from the tedious ex-neighbour in which he regaled me with bombast and random facts my caffeinated brain would never remember.

I was there for a relaxing coffee, dammit, not to sit in class.

Today I was there to drink in the temple, more than 1300 years old.

More later. For now, just pictures.