Visa Applications

As you all know my journey lead me home to finalize my decision about working in the UK and enjoy the company of my long lost friends and summer in Edmonton. After Danny's stay in Edmonton I whole heartily stand by my conviction that it is time to travel to Europe.

In the following posts are some of my experiences with visa applications that I have faced over the years.

UK TIER 5 WORK MOBILITY VISA: Level of difficulty 4/5
An immense amount of work went into gathering all the information and paper work together to even be qualified to apply. It took me months. Then funds and reading pages upon pages of 'how to/what you should know' off of the UK boarder Agency website.

Requirements: Application, Self Assessment Forms, Biometrics (90CAD), Official Bank Statement, Photos, Fee (190 Pounds = Approx 340 CAD, Maintenance (1600 Pounds= Approx 2550CAD), Passport, Appointment with a Visa application personnel

Now I wait for two weeks.....if approved and granted a working visa for the UK, I would get 24 months working visa but I can only work for 12 months of it. Lucky for me I have some travel plans placed in the middle of the 2 years.

In comparison to all the other visas that I have ever had to apply for this one was the more headache inducing one I have ever come across.

CHINA WORKING VISA: Level of difficulty 2/5
This is different than the usual working visa a normal traveler would apply for since I was going to teach English, I had a sponser. The school sends their sponsorship paper work to you then you take them to the visa office. Since I wasn't located in Edmonton at the time (where you would have to send them or drop off the application in Calgary) I was lucky enough to have been in Vancouver where they have a visa application centre right in the city.

Requirements: Application, Sponsorship papers (Orginials), Passport, Fee (30CAD), Photos

It took 4 working days, you could drop in anytime and pick up but the hours at this particular visa office was a bit unheard of. Something like you could only apply from 9am-noon and pick up is from noon-2pm....and if I recall correctly they are closed one of the working days during Mon-Fri.

CHINA TOURIST VISA: Level of difficulty 1/5
This visa is what I would have assumed the standard for all visa applications should be like so I didn't run into any big surprises.

Reqirements: Application, Passport, Fee (30-120CAD-depending on the duration of your stay) Photos

As for myself doing this in China from HK is really quick about 4 days 220HKD. In Canada it took awhile longer I cannot even remeber the turn around time anymore I believe without the rush fee it would take 7-14 days.

THAILAND TOURIST VISA: Level of difficulty 1/5
First off you don't need to pay if you are from Canada for a visa, if you fly in you automatically get a 29 day visa into Thailand. If coming into the country from land you get 14 days no problem-O.

Requirements: Photos, Passport, Application

When I wanted to get a new visa we traveled through into Laos straight the Thai Consulate(remember kids you have to leave the country to apply for a visa)  from there I photocopied my paper work and my passport. After standing in a line for awhile your application gets checked, filed with a bunch of other applications and you get a tiny little receipt for your next day pick up. The next day you just show up with your ticket and you wait luckly this room had someone of what we woulc call AC.

Done and Done I got a double entry for 3 months at a time = 6 months travel time for free.

LAOS, VIETNAM & CAMBODIA TOURIST VISA: Level of difficulty 1/5
Each visa listed only takes a couple days to get whilst traveling abroad so you can be backpacking/partying while you are waiting for your visa to come back around. Mind you the locations 'visa application centres/travel agencies' in South East Asia are very questionable. Espeically if you are someone who doesn't like handing your passport (your most impoartant documentation while traveling) to someone who runs off one computer and a sign on the wall stating the prices with sufficent but not the best English skills while playing WOW [most likely] with their shandles kicked off.

Requirements: Photos, Passport, Application, Fee (approx 30CAD)

All of them took about 3-4 days each. I do need to mention that for the Cambodia and the Laos visa if I remember correctly you have about 3 month gap to use these visas. For Vietnam on the other hand you only have a month before your visa expires.

If you have any questions, message me.

Walking to Cambodia

So today was a long day, at 7:45am after a terrible breakfast we boarded a long boat. 20 minutes later we arrived at Ban Nakasang (the docking area), saw a lady loading live poultry onto her motorcycle.

I believe we arrived at about 9am we ended up waiting for about an hour before our mini bus came to pick us up to take us to the border crossing.

About 10:30am at Voen Kham we went through departure we got charged $2US to leave Laos.

The best part about this particular part of this was that there was about a 5 minute walk between boarders. So technically we were nowhere, purgatory or in two countries at once. I felt like this would be only place I have been to where I could call myself an outlaw.

To get through the Cambodia arrival we had to another $2US. Now we were in Dom Kralor...on this side I needed to exchange my Canadian dollars for American or Cambodian Reil.

When I asked the money exchange guy, he replied with “What is Canadian?” HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW ABOUT CANADA?!

So it was about 11am we waited for about another hour before we boarded our pseudo air conditioned double decker bus.

So as I was passed out, the bus broke down apparently. There was something was leaking out of the back of the bus, everyone got out of the bus and waited for about 35mins. (I slept through the whole thing, I only know that this happened because Karrie told me when I woke up)

We later on pulled over at the side of the road next to some bushes for people to go to the bathroom. I am not use to this method of expelling your insides.

Due to a muck up at the Vang Vieng travel agency our Vietnam visa expires 10 days before we have to leave Cambodia. *tear* so our time in Cambodia has been cut short by 10 days unless we can figure a way to change it.

Leaving Laos

During my stay in Laos (Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang, Dondet and Don Khon)I have been able to open up my perspective of SE Asian culture.

Something about this country that leaves me at awe all the time with landscape, scenery, the people and much more that I cannot find the right words to explain to the full extent of what I am feeling towards Laos.

There is so much more of Laos that I want to see, I am sure I will be back again in the future and cover more ground.

Today I had a wonderfully fresh fruit platter and Lao Pho. It isn’t the same as what I will get in Vietnam but it was darn tasty.

We went back to the RiverGarden to eat our last plate of spring rolls and pizza, this meal has left us full and satisfied everyday that we have been here.

After our meal today we told the lady/cook/waitress that her food was amazing, thanked her and told her that we were leaving tomorrow. She stopped us after we paid for the bill. Karrie thought we were going to get some food to take with us on the road or something along those lines. Instead she comes out with tiny pink strings (bracelets) she told us that they were from a temple and she wished us good luck on our travels. This lady did this in such a way that I felt sentimental for the rest of the evening. I know that every time I look at that bracelet it will remind me of good times, good food and exceptionally hard working families running small restaurant that pizza/salad rolls that were to die for.

“Khawp jai lai lai”

I am sad to leave a place with malevolent sunsets, breath taking backdrop and friendly locals.

Good bye Laos. [I will be back]

Tomorrow we will get on a bus/boat/bus at 8am and be in Ban Lung at 4pm!

Biking around Don Khon

With the lack of internet and buckets I find it easier to get in to gear with working out. Karrie and I set off after breakfast this late morning we were off to see the waterfall on our bikes.

The waterfall was amazingly breath taking I don’t think I have ever seen one like this before. I have seen quite a few waterfalls in my life and this one by far has been the best one I have laid my eyes on.

We saw a sign for a beach so off to the beach! When we arrived on the beach there was only one person reading her book soaking in the sun. I wanted to soak in some rays but with the biking I was ready to overheat at any minute. Plus this beach was the smallest beach I have ever seen.

Next on the list was the dolphins, we has some mis leading information since we believed that we would be able to bike up a harbour or something equivalent to that so we could see some dolphins. Instead after a strenuous ride we made it to another beach much bigger than the last but still small by my books. They wanted to usher us onto a long boat, the price was high by my recent boat experiences, plus we were hungry. So it went something like we get on a long boat for 90,000kips and then the boat you over to the Cambodia border on the other side there you are suppose to see some dolphins. I don’t know how I feel about seeing dolphins in the dirty Mekong River. Are dolphins the same everywhere in the world?

JENNY’S RECOMMENDATION: So back into town,  to the River Garden restaurant , owned by and ran by one awesome Lao lady) that we went to for our thin crust fresh veggie pizza and THE BEST SALAD ROLLS I HAVE EVER TASTED. The reason that it is capitalized is that everyone should go to this quaint and very friendly riverside restaurant even for a second if you are ever on Don Khon! (Location: in front of the ‘Village of Don Khon’ sign)

So after biking for 3 hours, we are ready to relax while we listen to Bob Marley and enjoy the sunset.

Arrival in Don Khon island

So after my bike ride I went to hunt down some cereal and fruit. After strenuous time explaining what soy milk is, 35 minutes later I got my food. For little to no preparation it took a hell of a long time, I don`t know what I am going to do when I get back to Canada and the service is prompted. Tipping really does get you good service. 45 minutes and asking three times I finally got my water; it took another 20 minutes to get the bill.

So Karrie and I have decided that Dondet is the slowest place on Earth where time really does stand still.
At noon we were on a boat to Don Khon this took about 20 minutes in a long motorized boat, this island is much bigger and has a waterfall that we plan to bike to tomorrow. I believe that the dolphins are on an attached island south west to this particular island.

We have a beautifully clean bungalow in comparison to the one we stayed at on Dondet and it is only 10,000 kips more than the last one.  It is right on the river literally there is water under our bungalows! I wish that we had hammocks here; during our stay here I just have to find a place around the corner to find a good napping hammock to hang out in for one of the afternoons here.

For lunch Karrie had the best thin crust cheese less individual pizza I have ever had, i had the best salad rolls i think I have ever tasted with the best peanut, spicy sweet sauce I have ever dipped anything into. Everything on our food was just so darn fresh. 

With 7 more days in Laos I think this is a good way to end our stay in this country. I am super excited about going to Cambodia! There are some beaches I hope we can make it to there and then up the coast of Vietnam before we make our triumphant return to Thailand.

Biking around Dondet

Today I woke up more motivated to get my bike on than any other day. I grabbed a bike for 10,000kips which is about a dollar something Canadian. Started off heading to the south of the island I was thinking about finding away all the way around. The island was much bigger than expected.

Most the roads here are not cemented so it was like off roading for the most part. I biked and biked saw monkeys, dogs, cats, donkeys, cows, pigs, roosters, chickens, water buffalos along the way.  They were so calm about people being around and they breed so well in what seems like their natural habit.

When I got the Dondet village sign I had two options one was big path and one was the small path. I went down the big path leading me to the rockiest most bumpy bike ride I have ever had. I had to steer around a cow on the road and lost my purse on a huge bump.

Eventually I made it to the bridge that leads to Don Khon which is the island that we are going to today. I was happy to have made it off the bumpy road and figured it was time to take the next path over. It ended up leading me to a dead end and a farm. After turning around it was time to take the smallest path.
Down the smallest path I saw the read Lao people going about their daily lives. Working on their farms, showering outside, not using any electricity to go about their business and I just found that their lives seem so relaxed.

I started to wonder how it would be to be raised and born on an island expanding due to tourism. How it effects daily lives and if that your only source of income becomes supporting the tourists that visit the island. What was this island like before any outsiders knew about it?

I haven’t been this energetic on this trip, we did go biking near the river side in Luang Prabang but it was nothing like this. I will definitely bike more during our travels. It really made me miss my gearless BMX waiting for me at home with a flat tire and probably broken breaks. I know that if I had done today’s bike ride on my BMX I would dying right now from exhaustion.

The silence is bellowing

I feel lost right now, not in space because I know where I am on the map but in time. We have been here for a matter of hours and I feel like we have been here doing nothing forever.  Something here is almost like a stand still driving me to either be lethargic or restless. Or as Karrie says ‘both’, can you be both? All you can hear the birds and wild animals run around, construction with small amounts of chatter around us. Okay, so we said that we wanted something more relaxing to get things done ie. Read a book, make our stop motion animation or even just sit around and talk while we live in a hammock. Now that we have it, I don’t know what to do with myself. Since the power goes out in 5 hours I find myself thinking what the hell a night owl/insomniac is suppose to do.

I can’t say that I don’t miss the tubing, buckets, meeting tons of awesome energetic people and watching the drunken hustle and bustle of Vang Vieng’s party life thriving everyday from our 3rd floor balcony, not entertaining. There isn’t anything like that here...nothing but time to waste.
I have to say that I think we will be making our move to the east islands towards the path that leads to Cambodia sooner than later.

Arrival on Dondet island

After a 15-20min boat ride we arrive at another dock a peaceful developing island called Dondet. Karrie and I have decided that we will make the best of this time and recuperate from the intense tubing/partying we did in Vang Vieng. I can’t believe we totaled 11days there we just couldn’t bring ourselves to leave, so much to do, all the time ,every day. We did meet a lot of people that just got stuck there for months making visa runs and working at the local bars bringing in customers.

The first thing we did was ordered some food before we went hunting for a place to stay for the night, we had read about the power outages on the islands. So soon after we made our order they told us that they can’t make our fruit shakes due to lack of power for the blender.

We found a bungalow with two hammocks and are now ready to relax. (The bungalow cost us a little less than $4CAD/night and that is split two ways, it has two single beds and mosquito nets hanging from the ceiling. At least we have our own bathroom with a cold shower instead of a shared one) I don’t think it is going to be nearly as chilly out at night as it was in the north of Laos.

We are ready for the power curfew with our hand pumping flashlights, but are left wondering what we are going to do after 10pm, we did hear that the sunsets are stunning here. I hope to get some good photos of some sunsets or some sunrises during our stay. We have 9 more days before we make our move into Cambodia.

There also doesn’t seem to be any places here that provide wifi, so there are only internet cafes around the riverside. It is a lot more expensive I guess there is also very little competition, in the capital it was about 10,000kips/hr ($1.29CAD) in Vang Vieng it is about 6,000kips/hr(78¢) here it is 300kips/min($2.33CAD/hr)!! Okay when I work it out mathematically it doesn’t seem like much remember for that one hour on the internet I can stay in a room all night or eat a meal.  Maybe I will cave and go to the internet joint....or you will read all the following posts all in one go.

Pit stop in Pakse

From Vientiane we went back to the bus stop (travel agency) to get on the bus for 7:30pm. After watching a weird Asian game show with a spiderman contortionist and a team of shadow puppeteers, we found out that we board the bus at 8:30pm, I wish they would tell us these things sooner. So after the distribution of new bus tickets we get on a tuk-tuk packed to the tits full of people. Off to the bus station when we arrive it is a sleeper bus, Karrie and I had sleeper 14 and 13 D.  Little did we know that we would be bunking together, we slept on the top bunk together. It was like a huge slumber party on the bus, I kind of feel bad for the people traveling alone and have to sleep next to a stranger.

After departing at 8:45pm we finally make our arrival at 6:45am in Pakse. We had just enough time to grab a coffee and a baguette with jam and off we go again...I dislike switching buses. So we had to unload all of our things from the sleeper bus to a normal regular AC bus. The bus made one last stop at an ATM for everyone to withdrawal money since there are no ATMs on any of the 4000 islands. 7:30am we finally departed for our last stop to Ban Nakasang at about 11am where we get off the bus (btw: the AC died along the way, which has been two buses that have done that to us now.)

Shuffled through a nice area of construction and finally made it to the dock. From the dock they put about 12-14 people in a long boat steered by a very questionable Lao driver with our entire stacks of luggage at the front of the boat.

Pit stop in Vientiane

The bus was late but we got into the city at 6pm after a long 4 hour bus ride, we stopped for a burger and fries something quick, good and fast!

We tried to find our friend Adam, but no luck! (Adam if you are reading this there is a note at the front desk of your hostel) Funnily enough we saw our friend Mark, I yelled but he didn't see me due to to many tuk-tuks.

Now we are off to our next bus ride 16 hours later I'll update again!

Leaving Vang Vieng II

Yesterday was our 3rd day of tubing, seriously I think that is more than enough times for us. Vang Vieng I find is a place that a lot of people just get stuck in, so much fun, sun, great scenery free drinks and good people!

Later on that evening I joined a pool tournament and got 7th place out of 20 (side note: I was the only girl that was competing) 1st won a case of beer Lao, 2nd won a bottle of vodka and 3rd won a bottle of whiskey. To be honest I didn't want any of it. So the game goes you have 3 life lines and every time you miss or have a foul you lose a life line and you have to take a shot of Lao Lao. After several shots of Lao Lao I wasn't feeling well at all.

Again it is time to say good bye to another city we have come to love and enjoy during our travels. When the time comes I will write a review of what places I would recommend to others that travel through South East Asia.

Our Visas are all ready to go! So tomorrow we hop on a bus at 1:30pm to Vientiane 5:30-7:30pm will be dinner/bus switching time. Onto a big sleeper bus at 7:30pm for 16 hours...and we will head on south towards the 4000 islands to enjoy great sunsets and  hammocks. Give our body some time to recuperate and lay off the drinking.

For dinner today I tried Laap (spicy minced meat/tofu with sticky rice) I thought it was quite good I figured I should try more local food while I am in Laos.
We are sad to leave but it is time to move on and continue our wonderful life changing journey.

Last of Vang Vieng

I don't know if it is the tubing or the people but we have kind of gotten a bit stuck. We have met so many wonderful people during our stay here.

Last night we finally made it in time for one of the earlier free buckets (9:30-10pm and another bar at 10-10:30pm) meeting tons of people and getting our dance on. For the most part the day was really quiet since we went tubing the day before.
Side note: Karrie and I got accused of working for a rival bar as we were leaving to get our dance on somewhere else. Apparently a Lao person had mentioned this to some guy that I believe was staff/bouncer. He was grilling us we were heading out and even asked if we were lying. He seemed pretty irate about it.

There has been talk that we will go down Nom Song River for another tubing adventure for the third time. 

Today we headed off to the Blue Lagoon it is about 30mins from the center if Vang Vieng. The scenery was breathe taking or as I would say 'fake' because it looks so surreal like it was a back drop for a movie.

1. Cambodia visa - Check
2. Vietnam visa - We pick it up tomorrow.

Then we are off to the 4000 islands for the last of our stay in Laos. Hammocks, sunsets and inspirational scenery here we come.

Round 2 of tubing in Vang Vieng

This afternoon we headed out for another go at tubing, this time we brought a lot less stuff with us and went with a guy from Manchester that we met on the bus coming back to Vang Vieng from Luang Prabang.

I don't know how we did it (making it to the finish line I mean) but we came back at 5:40pm with 20mins to spare. Not only that, we returned back hammered. I think this has been the drunkest I have been on this whole trip!I wasn't walking in a straight line for about 2 hours after wards.

Ate some Indian food at this place called Nazims, it was so yummy but I am still drunk.

Over and out.

I am the one on the left.

I forgot to post the fire limbo picture....

Halloween in Vang Vieng

Last night Karrie and I got dressed up as 'fairy and mischief' it was a lot of fun. There were a lot more people dressed up than I thought there was going to be. :) I ran around tagged things and people all night. Met some great people from England and Ireland and drank/partied with them until 4:30am. I was really happy about drawing a cock and balls on the drunkest guy last night when he passed out.

Off to get our Cambodia visa today I believe, I still can't believe how much money we spent Luang Prabang it was the most expensive place yet.

Leaving Luang Prabang

The posse.

I believe it will have been four nights here and we are ready to leave this relaxing resort type town. We ate some delicious food and the scenery is amazing but it felt like I didn’t even leave Canada since I was surrounded by so much western food and upscale resort type guest houses. 

Today was an eventful day since the past couple days we have been laying low due to Karrie’s short term illness.  Don’t worry she is fine and healthy and we are heading out back to Vang Vieng for a round two because our visas to Cambodia and Vietnam, since it is much cheaper there and we are not making another pit stop in Vientiane on our way down south to the islands. 

In the morning we grabbed breakfast and then off to rent bikes. Okay so to rent a bike it costs about 2 dollars Canadian. Instead of leaving our passports as collateral we decided to leave some Canadian dollars behind. I find it strange that the more East we travel the more they want American dollars. (ex. on receipts here they print off the total in Kips, US, Baht and I can’t remember what the last one is.) 

The bike story, Karrie’s breaks didn’t work so well, my front breaks sounded like dying piggy’s when I used them and one of my bike petals was going to fall off all day but didn’t.  Our attempts to fix it were futile.  

Whatever we already rented them for the day, off to go biking with the camera. Down the river side we saw a million palm trees, upscale guest houses and a ton of river side restaurants. Today was surprisingly windy.  We made a pit stop for some yummy mango sticky rice and veggie spring rolls and off to find our bus tickets for tomorrow. As we park our bikes and lock them up to hit up some travel agencies the lock broke and when I say broke I mean the bikes are locked together and the part where the key goes in had come right out springs and all. WTF? Off to find the guy he uses a screw driver and we are free once again.

In the evening we meet up with our posse (all 7 of us) for one last dinner and some drinks at a place called Utopia. We do have to say we loved this part of our journey with them; they were fantastic travel buddies that weren’t over bearing and tons of fun to hang out with. I even got a free book, I love books! A nice dinner and beers at a river side restaurant and bar then off to another place for some more drinks, ended up drinking wine outside on the main street to say our last good-byes. Somewhere in the city there were people setting off mini hot air balloons I never found out why I wonder if it is the same as when they do it in China. (I drank my apple juice it was so darn yummy) 

One of the biggest tress I have ever seen.

Karrie was sad to say good-bye to the people we have grown to love over the past few days, I know that I have just kind of gotten use to saying them so often in the past two years I don’t think about it much. She is sensitive for the both of us in this particular matter. The walk home was cold...it think it was about 18C we were wearing sweaters and scarves, talk about getting climatize quickly.