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Published: December 22nd 2011
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Hello all,
As some of you may know I am still pottering around the world having abandoned my better half in Vietnam and jetted off to America. This is just a quick post because my slightly garbled explanations and despairing phone calls in the middle of the night probably warrant some form of explanation (incredibly grateful thanks to all who picked up) and I assume that everyone will want a little comedy during the dark winter months. Thus I give you the saga of how I reached Atlanta, Georgia.
Izzie and I parted ways late on the 14
th December because our excellent planning skills dictated that our departure dates, like our arrival dates, didn’t coincide. I was flying out of Hanoi (Vietnam) to Seoul (South Korea) and then on to Atlanta (USA) and throwing myself onto the marvellous hospitality of my friend Anne and her family, who very kindly had offered to have me to stay over Christmas and New Year. However, entry into America is a whole other kettle of fish…
South Korea is shiny. Impossibly, magically reflective and hard on the eyes after staying awake through the night on the
flight from Vietnam. I had made the choice to compulsively view films on the plane so that I could sleep on the second flight to Atlanta and sync my body clock to American time as best as I could, but the time differences and the fact that I technically relived a day twice because of crossing the International Date Line in conjunction with the early morning start (pre 5am…) on the flight from Hue to Hanoi meant I was exhausted fairly swiftly. And drinking far too much coffee.
Seoul airport was not only incredibly bright but also very safety conscious and a fan of full body scans. Apparently I was travelling with a high temperature which flagged up on the warning system so I was quarantined. Yes boys and girls, having travelled to the other side of the world, up and down mountains, across oceans and on other forms of transport to numerous to mention, I was legally being held against my will in South Korea due to threat of Sars. Or some other tropical disease they suspected that I was harbouring inside my body.
In their favour, the South Korean officials were very pleasant, offered me tea and let me sit in a warm and thankfully not so shiny room until a doctor arrived. Fortunately as I was bypassing through the airport and had four hours before my flight to America I was released thirty minutes before my flight and escorted to the gate (in case I made a mad dash for freedom..?) and told that I wasn’t welcome in South Korea until I felt better.
The flight to America was mercifully uneventful but not restful in any way shape or form. By the time I’d landed I had been continuously awake for almost two days, and I wasn’t about to get any sleep soon as local time was about 9am and immigration was rearing its ugly head. The shortened version of a lengthy and teary interrogation involving a full summary of all of my movements for the last six months, my intentions for my trip to America (visiting friends was deemed an unworthy explanation) my education and degree qualification and whether I harboured any Communistic sympathies, was to be officially escorted (yet again) and shut in a dimly lit room because of irregularities with my passport. An hour and twenty minutes later, I was being fed Popeye candy by much nicer officials who actually told me what was going on in a bid to stop me crying – at some point in the last six weeks a sticker had been attached to the back page of my passport on the reverse of the photograph and then removed, taking off some of the paper and making it appear like I had been tampering with my passport.
Atlanta’s airport is not as shiny as Seoul, although I admit the threat of deportation does remove the appeal from any destination. As you may have gathered, I was eventually allowed out of immigration and sternly recommended to replace my passport (duly noted and top of my to do list in January) before being shunted through the echoing expanses of the terminal. Air travel really is the precursor to the seven circles of hell, but the sight of Anne and Siony at the top of the escalators at the arrivals terminal was definitely the most reassuringly glorious vision to behold. After all the problems of the journey from Vietnam, being greeted by friends made it all worthwhile.
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