the moral of the story is...well, sometimes you just can't be prepared enough

Let me start by stating that all is well, and I'm currently resting my feet on the window ledge, listening to motor-scooters whizzing by, dogs barking, and viewing the misty skyline of Hanoi from the 5th floor of the De Syloia hotel.

However, this is not the view I thought I'd have at midnight last night/Friday morning. (But, who can tell what time it is, after crossing the International Date Line, scooping down over Japan, stopping briefly for an Oolong tea in Taiwan, and then landing at Noi Ba International.)

You see, just as my title insists: sometimes you can't be prepared enough, and you just have to pray that things will shake out.

Arriving at LAX, we quickly realized that the "minimal" amount of prep we'd done (as encouraged by our trusty travel guide books) was simply not enough to board the plane that was to leave in, uhhh, less than 2 hours. We rapidly freaked out (me more than her) grabbed a reclining chair at Tom Bradley international, and quickly used the 45 mins. of free wifi we had to figure out how we could get the sponsoring document for our visas that we did not have. I admit, we should have been more prepared. But, I will attest that the information we'd been given was anything but helpful, for obtaining entry into a country that – at the end of the day – is not that difficult to enter. If you're planning on coming to Vietnam, I suggest paying for, and getting the "confirmation" letter of entry more than say, uhh, 2 hours before you're supposed to board a plane to Taiwan, to make your connection.

Needless to say, Rebecca came through when I didn't. She was able to get someone on the phone of one a "vietnam visa made easy" sites. We registered. we paid. she pleaded our case. And, then we rushed back to the China Airlines (not Air China), where with 35 minutes til boarding time, we were issued without our boarding passes to Hanoi, paperwork we had to sign stating that we'd have to forgo the second half of our trip (and be stranded in Taiwan) if the visas didn't show up by the time we got there.

So we ran through security faster than I was able in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA a week and a half ago, rushed to the gate, and clenched our bags as we soon boarded into row 71 of the 777 that would take us to Taipei. Anxiety ran strong for those 12 hours and 29 minutes we flew up and over Anchorage, scaling Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, battling turbulence over Tokyo and Hiroshima, before decending over the East China Sea, and landing in Taipei. (Which, by the way, looked a lot like being anywhere in the Midwest, outside of the funky smelling corridors (like musty hotel halls), and Taiwanese warning signs to NOT do things on the escalators that simply didn't look possible, anyway.

Landing we discovered the mysterious lady on the other end of the phone came through. I want to thank the glorious China Airlines (not Air China, mind you) stewardess who printed our visa confirmation and immigration forms on strangely-dimensioned copy paper. We'd made it, we told ourselves.

Following the Oolong iced-tea that I keep mentioning, we boarded, and flew out of Taiwan toward Vietnam. Little did I know, even as we passed through with our letter, receiving the stamp and seal of visa, that just as I was about to take a step onto the escalator, and uttering "we made it," did the immigration officer call me back, taking my passport back, before handing it to another concerned looking officer, who then disappeared into the crowd with it for 20 minutes.

What could it be? I worried to myself, and probably evident to everyone, including the joyful-exuding, yet bemused group from Nepal, as they swiftly passed me, on their way to their ground transport servers.

"It's about the date of your passport..." a man said to me as he passed, too on his way to freedom (as I thought of it, at this point, with knots in my stomach). "Something is wrong with when it expires," he said.

"Sir," the officer motioned me toward him, and back to the visa stamping and processing counter.

There I stood, alone it felt like for days, as one-by-one the officers looked at my passport, before looking up to me with what I interpreted as concerned countenances. Meanwhile, Rebecca stood on the "free" side, awaiting, but probably much more hopeful than I was at this point.

Finally, one young Vietnamese customs officer motioned for me, before telling me that there was concern about when my passport when expire (30 July 2017). It would be less than a year, though I'd paid for the "U.S. required" 1 year mandatory, multi-entry visa. It didn't add up, he told me with his eyes.

"I'm going to change it for you...to July 30."

"So, I can enter," I shaking-ly asked, to no reply.

It appeared though, and ended up that I was able to enter along with another American that was either as nit-whitted as I was, or simply thought it best to travel on a passport that was to expire in less than a year, just for fun. Who knew?

By now, our ride had long since left, but I phoned the hotel and quickly our driver, holding a 8x10" sign that read "Mr. Nathan Sheets", met us, directed us outside (where the first waft of wet-fresh-air hit us).

Driving hurriedly from the airport, through the city-outskirts, before crossing the Red River, and meeting wall after wall of motor-bike traffic, our driver finally delivered us to De Syloia Hotel in the Old Quarter, where I now sit in my underwear, thankful, and looking forward to the first bowl of "real" pho.