Hanoi

Visa run to Laos

My visa run to Laos all went well.
It started at the bus station (Nuoc Ngam) where a man came up to me and was extremely friendly. I’ve travelled enough to know that usually means a scammer, so I asked if I could take his pic. He said sure, so I did and sent it to my agency, and they said that’s the bus driver/ticket agent man. We had a wonderful conversation, and I helped him a bit with English. During the time that he drove, he rarely honked the horn, so I could sleep, but when they switched drivers at 1:50am, the next driver was honking about every 15 seconds, and sleep escaped me.

Sleeper bus to Lao Bao/Densavan Laos border towns

The bus didn’t have any seats (!) It was all capsule/coffin style, where a 5’7″ (168cm) guy could stretch completely out horizontally and still have about 3 inches left over. If you lie diagonally, even a 6ft (180) person should be able to flatten out. There was a non-functioning monitor/TV in it, but I did see one other person was playing a game on theirs somehow. There were curtains, a USB plugin to charge your phone, and a slide down blind on the window side to shut out most of the light. It was kind of funny seeing other buses go past you and seeing some people sleeping.

There was one huge church all lit up I could see, which was quite amazing.

Early in the morning near the border the rain let up and the most beautiful rainbow appeared. I thanked God again and again for this beautiful sign of his protection and love.

After a 13 hour ride we got to the border, and the only other foreigner, an Indian man and I went across. I asked him point blank if he had considered the claims of Jesus Christ. He said “Don’t give me that”, and that was about the end of the discussion between this follower of Jesus and that follower of some Yoga guru. So sad. But the bus driver seemed happy earlier when I said Jesus watched over us.

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Visa run to Laos border – Densavan/Lao BaoRead More »

Well, I said sayonara to Japan (literally) on July 28, 2025. And English student met me at a train station and stayed with me to the airport, and even treated me to a great lunch in a very crowded food court. The VietJet plane was a bit late getting off, but arrived a few minutes early. I was surprised to hear the CA say that a bottle of water was 5usd, and even more surprised to see that at the scanning tables you had to throw all your water bottles, but could buy later inside and take on the planes. Not a very smart system.

So after 5 hours of waterlessness, I touched down at a tiny airport which serves 9 million people. It reminded me a bit of the Nashville, TN airport of 45 years ago, but not so swanky. I had to fill out a long form, and could finally do it after waiting over 5 minutes for someone to appear at the counter. Then I had to pay 2usd to get my pic taken. My pickup team from the school had a problem, so after telling around 6 or 7 scammers trying to get me to use their Grab (like Uber) service, I decided to buy a little sandwich and a drink – nice, but not cheap.

In Hanoi!

Then my pickup team – yay! It was cool riding in their true Grab ride, and seeing the garish skyscrapers coming into Hanoi at night – like a disco. They dropped me off at the school, and my roommate and one teacher accompanied me to the apt which is on the 18th floor of a building around a 90-second walk away. Large apt. with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths. Bunk beds reminded me of when I was a kid! 3 air conditioners! Loud noise from the nearby Thang Long road which is probably the biggest in Hanoi!!! Then the new roommate went somewhere, and I was left to figure out that I had no drinking water and no toilet paper. Ummmmm, OK.
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Life in HanoiRead More »