Krong Bavet Once More

As published at SubStack, 10/7/22:

[Vung Tau, 10/6/22]

 

Four years ago, I had a regrettable lunch in Krong Bavet, the memory of which is like a sour regurgitation of embarrassment plus resentment. Still, I wanted to return for a closer look, and much better meals. Most unexpectedly, I’ll get a chance tomorrow, if all goes well.

You see, as a Vietnamese-American with a five-year visa exemption, I could only stay inside Vietnam for six months at a time. Three months ago, however, I was reassured by an acquaintance I could get a three month extension for $285, through someone she knew, of course. Fair enough.

In Vietnam, informal channels have always been how you could get something done, or wiggle around rules. Twenty years ago, I got a business visa with multiple entries, though I wouldn’t know how to sell a steak to a starving man, or an undressed and willing virgin to an incel.

Just two days ago, I found out my three-month extension was a no go. Dismaying many people, Vietnam has tightened its residency rules. Since I was about to overstay my six month allowance, I was in a bind. I had to get out, but where to?

During this Covid era, options are limited, especially if you’re unjabbed. I can’t fly to Manila or Jakarta, for example. I have never experienced those cities. Bangkok and Penang are open, however, and so is, God forbid, Krong Bavet!

Just over the border, it has casinos to fleece Vietnamese fools. Since no other foreigners go there, apparently, only one of its hotels is listed on Agoda or Booking, etc. Preposterously, Shanghai Resort charges $72 per night, and no, it doesn’t come with a bedmate of your choice.

A glance at Google Maps shows plenty of sleeping options, however, with names like Malay Inn, Nary Sweet, Red House and Nobel, etc. A photo for TTP Two Hotel shows two thatch huts and three whitewashed cement buildings, with one still under construction. There’s also Thanata, but since I’m not quite ready to meet Thanatos, I’ll give it a pass.

After clearing customs, I’ll just walk down National Route One and hope for the best. Though exhausted, sweating and disoriented, I’ll have to fend off a bunch of aggressive touts, I imagine.

I won’t even get there if I don’t get my e visa for Cambodia. Since it only took two hours for approval four years ago, I’m expecting good news any moment. Soon as it arrives, I’ll go pay my overstay fine, which should be $84, or $42 a day. I’m sitting in a cafe near the immigration office. It took me 45 minutes on the bus to get here this morning.

The logistics of travel are not often discussed. Though Gerald Haxton circled the globe with Somerset Maugham for three decades, he’s never mentioned in the famed author’s travel writing. Haxton didn’t just share Maugham’s bed but took care of the daily nitty-gritty of their wandering.

Still, travel in the 20th century was sheer luxury, compared to all other eras, including ours. Brace yourself for a turbulent, dizzying descent back to an unwelcoming, new normal earth. Bloodied if lucky, we crawl from the wreckage. Sidestepping smoking corpses, we search for home.

How ignorant we are of the very recent past even. Willing herself through Korea in 1897, Isabella Bird endured:

A day's ride through monotonous country brought us to Pong-san, where we halted in the dirtiest hole I had till then been in. As soon as my den was comfortably warm, myriads of house flies, blackening the rafters, renewed a semi-torpid existence, dying in heaps in the soup and curry, filling the well of the candlestick with their singed bodies, and crawling in hundreds over my face. Next came the cockroaches in legions, large and small, torpid and active, followed by a great army of fleas and bugs, making life insupportable. To judge from the significant sounds from the public room, no one slept all night, and when I asked Mr. Yi after his welfare the next morning, he uttered the one word “miserable.” Discomforts of this nature, less or more, are inseparable from the Korean inn.

Her other rooms were only slightly better, and this was a rich, society lady traveling.

Though keeping my room in Vung Tau, I’ll have to pack everything into a suitcase. If I can’t return, I’ll have a friend come by to collect nearly all my earthly belongings. In Krong Bavet, I’ll have my Sony A6000, Canon 80D, two ThinkPads, three shirts, three denim shorts and five pairs of underwear. The two most comfortable, I bought in Tirana, Albania more than a year ago. So threadbare, they should have been tossed long ago.

Checking the status of my e visa just now, I learnt, “The application is being reviewed by our specialist and in the queue for being processed. If we need any additional information from you, we will get in touch.”

Plan B is to fly to Bangkok. Though a temping destination, I don’t miss Thai food that much.

I have my heart set on dismal Krong Bavet. Tomorrow night, my white-haired head shall rest on the lumpy pillow of Hotel Thanatos. Though the water pressure is that of a baby pissing, and the fan rotates most reluctantly, I’ll be grateful and happy.

Sometimes, to not be chased from a rented room, doorway or parking space is all a man needs.

[Akreiy Ksatr, Cambodia on 2/23/18]

[extremely poor Vietnamese kids in Akreiy Ksatr, Cambodia on 2/23/18]

A quick update: After several hours with no e visa approval, I went to immigration anyway to pay my overstay fine for two days, thinking I'll get the visa for Cambodia tomorrow. At the gate, the guards wouldn't let me in, however, because I wasn't wearing long pants! Great, I thought, a day wasted.

After flagging down a motorbike taxi to get back home, I grumbled to the driver about my no pants misfortune, so he said he could lend me his. Brilliant! On a sidewalk, he took off his pants for me to wear over my demin shorts, then we went back to immigration.

There, I was told that my overstaying for two or three days was no big deal, so I could pay my fine at the border.

When the motorbike driver dropped me off, I tipped him well, so everyone was happy. Bavet, here I come tomorrow, or the day after at the latest.