Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
nothing. Well, something, but nothing good. It was another email from my friends at the
shipping company. They still weren't able to get the Vietnamese to sign off on releasing
my bike.
I shut down the computer and thought long and hard, and then I opened it back up and
went to Google. I typed in six very important words: US Embassy Ho Chi Minh City.
It was time to bring in the Americans.
Now why not go to your own people, you might ask? First, for logistics—the bike was
a registered American “citizen.” And second, I had a feeling that no one likes getting a call
from the US embassy.
After finagling a place to stay with some friendly backpackers (Canadians, in fact!), I
woke up the next morning and met with a representative at the American embassy. They
looked at my documents, heard my plea (no crying or lying this time), and promised to look
into it.
“I am trying to get on a boat in four days,” I explained.
The American agent was at least more friendly than the border guards, but he was not
much more optimistic. He looked at my documents again as he murmured, “Four days?”
Finally, he looked up. “That might take a miracle, Mr. Logo-the-tis.”
I walked out, stunned. I thought if anyone could help, it would be the US embassy, and
now even they were talking about miracles. I had already been praying for a miracle. What
I needed was some good, old-fashioned diplomatic strong-arming.
I didn't even notice where I was going as I walked down the streets of Ho Chi Minh
City, frustration boiling up inside me—the anger, the pain, the exhaustion of being trapped
in a foreign land, with no clear passage home.
I thought back to when I was riding through Cambodia, believing I was only days away
from boarding the ship that would take me back to my adopted continent, and now it felt
like I would be trapped in Ho Chi Minh City indefinitely. Talk about the walls closing
in. I would like to think that I wasn't talking to myself (I was) when an older man ap-
proached me. He was dressed in a modern suit, and I could tell by the clean haircut and
shined shoes that he was probably someone kind of important. He had stepped out of the
imposing wooden doors of the Ho Chi Min City opera house and walked right up to me. I
feared he was going to tell me to get off the marble steps but instead he asked me with a
deep concern, “You are okay, Mister?”
I was most certainly not okay.
