Screw you Vietnam!

...yeah, I said it.

In a week that has been a daily dose of disappointment, I am further saddened to report what I have unofficially called "The last thing that could go wrong".

Amidst the work and personal stress, the one thing that had been the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel' was my four-day trip to Hanoi with Bobbi.

On Friday, I took our passports and Visa application to the Embassy of Vietnam to get our visas. The trip to get there was exhausting and tiring and I was still smarting from the aforementioned events of the past few days.

I was thankful that there was only one other couple in front of me when I arrived so I patiently waited my turn. I got to the counter and passed along our passports, visa application, and monies. She looked at me, looked back at the visas, looked at me, and looked back. Then, with a slightly malicious smile in her eyes, she told me that I, personally, would need special permission from the Foreign Ministry of Vietnam allowing me to enter the country before they could process my visa application.

Blink. Blink.

I don't think the couple next to me (who had just gotten their visas processed) could have done a double-glance faster than the one they did. They met my eyes in this sort of mutual embarrassment and confusion.

I took a few deep breaths and began to relay my lack of understanding regarding this *special* requirement as it was not listed anywhere on the website that Bobbi and I perused over to ensure that nothing was missing from our application. Nevertheless, the vicious lady was insistent that this was required for all tourists to Vietnam (the couple next to me is begin to give looks of outrage at this point in time).

After the week of hell that I had already suffered through, I lacked the energy or desire to argue with the lady in that storefront of an embassy. I collected my things and left. It took me over an hour to get back to the school due to all the traffic and upon getting there I discovered, as I already knew, from other teachers who had been to Vietnam that the letter of permission was one hundred percent bullshit. I had a mini-breakdown of sorts in the English office soon thereafter.

That was Friday. Today (Monday) would have been the last possible day for Bobbi and I to make another attempt at our visas. Upon discussing it, we both essentially agreed that we didn't think it was worth the money we would have to put in for the visas (as well as the ridiculous sum to get our passports expedited in order to have them back to us tomorrow in time for our trip). Furthermore, so many of our friends had been taken for a ride so many times at that embassy (such as one person having to pay a substantial amount more for a visa than her fellow traveler). As such, we made the painful decision that we would rather our already-paid-for plane tickets go to waste than to sink any more money into a trip that would have left us bitter and disgusted.

This has been my most disappointing period of time in Bangkok. I am now left with 3 wonderful weeks of from school which will be spent, almost certainly, doing absolutely nothing.