Deported

Thailand

Getting a Chinese visa was a difficult task for a Canadian citizen living in the North. The closest office was an eight-hour drive away, requiring four separate trips. Flying was an option, but it involved four different planes unless I wanted to stay in Calgary for twenty days. This was not a viable solution for someone who had waited until the last minute to think about visas. 

The good news was that I had three weeks of travel planned before arriving in China. Three weeks to get a visa, but how? My first stop was Paris. I called the Chinese Visa Center, but they said they couldn't help. I called the center in Lyon, and a couple of agencies in surrounding countries. Rejection after rejection. I felt defeated, having already booked my plane tickets and hotel in China. A visa application requires proof of reservations, and I had everything I needed to apply—except the visa itself. 

Desperate, I called the Chinese Visa Center in Milan. To my surprise, they said they could process my request. I suspect this was thanks to Italy having one of the strongest passports in the world. I immediately booked a flight from Paris to Milan. When I arrived at the Center, they told me to leave my passport with them for four days and then return to pick it up. It was my fifth time in Italy, so I rented a car to explore some of the more remote parts, and even had a friend from the Netherlands fly out to meet me. Four days later, I picked up my passport and, to my surprise, was approved. My dream of visiting the Great Wall of China was back on track. 

From Italy, I flew to Jordan, where I received a walk-in visa upon entry. (For anyone else traveling to Jordan, I highly recommend getting the Jordan Pass and applying for the visa in advance. The pass grants you free access to all the major sites and will save you a lot of money.)

From China, I was flying to Vietnam—my favourite country in the world. Vietnam changed my life. Again, I was planning to get a visa on arrival, which I had done four years prior. I went to the airport in Beijing, got my boarding passes, and had a layover in Shenzhen. Since I flew domestic to international, I had to re-check in. I left, re-entered, and went through security again without a problem. My flight was delayed about an hour, and I had five hours of relaxing in the airport. My flight to Hanoi was painless. When I got off, I went to get my visa. I filled out the paperwork and submitted it. This is when everything went wrong. They asked for my eVisa, which I did not have. Four years ago, I got a walk-in visa, so I was confused. They asked me to sit down and wait. A couple of different people came up to me, asking questions like when my flight was out and why I did not fill out a visa application. I held it together until a representative of the airport came up to me and told me I had to get deported back to China. I was pretty unfazed, as I am used to things going wrong. The only problem was I did not want to go to China. I asked politely if I could go to a closer, surrounding country instead. He made a couple of phone calls, and Malaysia accepted me. I could only take a specific flight, which left the next day.

My representative showed me my room for the night, which was a bed in the international section of the airport. To describe it better, it was a lunchroom with eight different closets. The walls did not go fully up to the ceiling, which meant light from the lunchroom was constantly entering the room. The different officers would take their breaks talking to each other or watching loud videos. The bed was hard, but it was a private room, which was nicer than some of the hostels I have slept at. The nice thing was that I had good Wi-Fi and access to the whole international wing of the airport.

The first thing I did when I was left to roam the airport was buy a beer. It was something I had not had for the last two weeks of my trip. As I drank my beer, I tried to book the flight to Malaysia, but it was fully booked. I was not mad or surprised; I just started to giggle because, of course, it was fully booked. I went back to the lunchroom to wait for further instructions. A different guy who spoke English well came in and told me that I could book one specific flight straight to Chiang Mai in Thailand. I booked it right away and sent him my boarding pass. That was it. I went to get overpriced pho and another beer, followed by another. I was tipsy and called it a night. I only had a laptop, phone, a book, a journal, and some pens, not even a phone charger. I fell asleep in my clothes. My sleep got interrupted every hour because of the shift changes and officers using the room as a lunchroom.

I woke up to an angry call from my mother. It was not a good way to wake up, but I do understand where she was coming from. Shit happens, but everything will work out if you just go with the flow. Anyway, I am writing this in the Hanoi airport. My teeth are gross from not being cleaned, my hair is a mess, and I have been wearing the same clothes for the last 40 hours, asking strangers to let me use their phone chargers. And you want to know what? I cannot stop laughing about the situation. Of course, I am getting deported from my favorite country. My life is a series of good stories to tell my grandkids. It turns out the Chinese visa was the least of my worries.

It was a perfect storm. China should never have let me on the flight to Vietnam, but they did. Four years ago, I should not have been able to get a walk-in visa, but I did. My Google searches were not in-depth enough. The visa officers at the airport did not want to give me an urgent visa or take my case. The visa office is closed Friday through Sunday, and I flew in on a Friday. For some reason, everything aligned for me to enter Vietnam but not stay. Maybe the universe is telling me I am not supposed to be here. The whole reason I came back to Vietnam was to do the Ha Giang Loop, which is four days and four nights on a motorcycle, going through remote villages in the North. It was something I did not have time for the first time I was here. In my mind, something would have happened to me if I had done it on Sunday, like I wanted to. Now I am going to head to Thailand, a place I have been to before. This is where I am supposed to be. The universe is mysterious. I am not stupid. Sure, I made a silly mistake, but I am human. I am here, and I am not going to let this ruin my trip. Amen!

Thailand