A brief country-side visit

In unrelated news ... we applied for Bao's tourist visa to come to Australia with me back at the beginning of July. A word to the wise if any gentle reader ever plans to do a similar thing. The information given to you in downloadable forms from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship is just the beginning of it all. I got hold of them several months ago, then thought to visit the Australian Embassy website for Vietnam. Lucky I did because I discovered a checklist of items and additional forms specific to Vietnamese visitors to Australia, and even then discovered that there is yet another form not listed with the checklist (only found that one by accident). Once we got them all filled in and documents translated + all copies and translations certified we went to the International Migration Office in HCMC which handles the Australian and Canadian Visa Application Offices, only to be told that in fact we were submitting the bare minimum of supporting letters and documents!

So it was a slightly anxious 4-week wait before the SMS came requesting Bao to return to the office and collect his passport. No hint as to the outcome, and the staff don't open the sealed envelopes returned to the office from the Consulate. Fortuitously the message came when I had already planned to take a weekend off classes and go up to HCMC. The outcome was a happy one ... and we'll be arriving in Sydney on 10 October!

Which brings me to ... A brief country-side visit :)

Friday afternoon and Saturday were pretty much a round of coffee shops and catching up with some of Bao's friends. However, on Sunday we made a trip down Highway 1 to Long An province and the familial home of Bao's sister-in-law. Remarkably this has been almost my first opportunity in 2 years to go into the country-side and get up close and personal with rice fields.

When we arrived in mid-morning there was a big party going on because one of the other relatives had just bought some land in the area. Many male acquaintances of the family gathered to eat and drink. This was effectively breakfast for us - drinking bia 333 is not the type of breakfast I really envisaged, and Bao and I eventually took the opportunity to walk around a little and indulge my love of ducks. I can't explain this ... they are dirty animals, but I just like seeing them swim and waddle around, or even experience the ignominy of being tied by the dozen to bicycles and motor bikes for transportation to market and back.

We also still had the trip back to Vung Tau to make, so noticing that the clouds looked threatening we made our thanks and excuses and left a little after midday. Unfortunately we didn't get very far down the road before the heavens opened and we experienced a drenching return all the way back to HCMC, a trip of approximately 50km.