Flight Check

Dear A,

We did get our entry visas approved. Yay!  For most people visiting Vietnam, that part is non-threatening: you apply, pay money, get visa.  For us, we've heard SO many stories of people who thought they were going to be part of the life of a country for years to come, then one day the government decided to deny a re-entry, and everything unravels.  So it's with some bated breaths that we apply each time for our visas.  This time: Success!   

And today the news is that we've just bought the final leg of one-way tickets, from Redmond RDM, at 7:00am on the 18th.  If you were still living here I might be asking for an early morning ride to the airport (lucky you!).  

~Tim

PS. This coming week begins my birthday camping trip at McKay Crossing.  Everybody is invited!  We'll be camping there until Sept. 10.

PPS. We'll do some going-away-party events the weekend of Sept 6-7.

 

Vietnam e-Visa

Dear A,

You can be excited for us … we've just applied for our Vietnam entry visas!

And we've begun asking friends in Vietnam (foreigners and Viet people) if we can do them any favors.  Some of my former students are teachers now, and we hope to add value to their classrooms by sometimes visiting and presenting an English lesson.  Similar value-add for our friends who are employed at the foreigner-friendly resorts, etc.

My birthday camping is next month at McKay Crossing.  Wish you could join us--we still have extra campsites on the river.

I think that's about it for now.  The rest of this email is boring stuff, e-visa details written to other friends who may be coming over to visit--wish you could join us there, too!!

~Tim

Things you need to know when you’re applying for a visa to enter Vietnam:

1) There are heaps of scam websites

The only real website to use is https://evisa.gov.vn and all the others are rubbish.  It’s easy to be taken in ... the real website isn’t always among the top hits in an online search.

2) Tourist Visas

As tourists we can enter the country for 3 months on a single $25 visa, or if we’re going to want to leave and come back in during that time we pay $50 for the same 3 month multi-entry visa.

We’re planning to enter in September and then have to leave the country in early December on a “visa run” and come back, and then we’ll go out again in early February for our second visa run. Probably we’ll try to get a China visa as part of the December visa run, and use it to visit friends in China in the February run. Where to go in December, though? —that’s a question we don’t yet know the answer to.

3) You’ll need to have a rectangular headshot (4x6) and a photo of your passport

Passport pics are usually 2” square, headshots on a flat white background. But now Vietnam is (and also China, incidentally) requesting 4x6 rectangles that show your neck and the top of your shoulders, too. And no smiling—flat expressions, please. (I’ve chosen not to attach the resulting headshots into this blogpost, because they’re really unflattering. Not quite mugshots, but definitely not the cheerful friends we want to be perceived as…)

4) You’ll need to indicate a specific address of where you’ll be staying

I don’t understand why they even ask this, since it’s not going to be accurate for any tourist traveling to more than one city in Vietnam, and it freaked me out the first time I was confronted with the question. I’m terribly sincere, and I don’t want to specify—on an official form—the name of a hotel I know I’m just going to start at but not remain at … but that’s what you do.  So the address I use for our visas is the Thi Tai Hotel at 16 Nguyễn Cao Luyện, An Hải Bắc, Sơn Trà, Đà Nẵng.  It's super cute and they provide breakfast--we hope to stay there several days while securing our 7-month lodgings this September.

Family Photo

Dear A,

I think you'll recognize most of these people, but there are newbies among us.

My youngest son is Daniel (far left).  He's 21 and about to finish up a business degree at George Fox University.  He's SO athletic, and he has already acquired many of the home repairs skills that I'm able to teach.  He works hard at generating genuine friendships with his peers, both in Bend and away at college.

My daughter and her husband are next.  Anna and David co-operate a theater company that is producing The Lightning Thief as a musical this summer.  Anna (and David, in increasing capacity) is deeply involved with founding/forging a new Anglican church here in Bend, and David is starting to take the wheel for our home repairs business (exciting!).

Michael and his sweetheart, Rowan, are in the middle.  These two are going to be graduating from George Fox this year as well, and are fashioning their life trajectory together.  Michael leads the university Fencing/Swords Club and is likely to continue swordplay as his career in mechanical engineering gets going after graduation.

Janet is taking a school year of leave from High Desert ESD so we can move to Vietnam. We're at the beginning of her summer break, so she's just now unpacking from a busy end-of-year push as speech therapist, and we're looking forward to what the summer holds as we prep for the move.

And I'm on the far right (not so much politically, any more...).  As of the Identity True You Intensive two weeks ago, I'm identifying myself as a "Gentle Barleyloaf" and "Guiding Shepherd."  Guiding Shepherd makes sense without too much explanation, but the Barleyloaf thing we'd have to sit and talk over coffee or a campfire to unpack that one.  Or a zoom call.  Want to?

Affection,

Tim