but until then please forgive the format.)
I'm in China. I took a 40 minute bus ride from Sa Pa to the border
town of Lau Cai, then spent my last dollar's worth of Vietnamese
currency on a delicious bowl of Pho Pork Soup. This was actually the
last of any form of negotiable legal tender I possessed, although I do
still have 50 USD worth of almost useless Nepalese Rupees and 3.50 USD
worth of Cambodian Reil. From there is was either get more VND out of
the ATM machine, for which I would pay a service charge and then
another charge to convert to Chinese currency, or just walk the 3
kilometers to the border. I chose the latter, sweating buckets in
heat and humidity that I had almost forgotten in the mountains of Sa
Pa. I crossed the border without incident and went searching for an
ATM, successfully using my first Mandarin phrase (Where is? Tsi
naaarrr?), and locating a street full of banks. The first machine
didn't work. Neither did the second. The third and fourth made more
noise but were also a bust. I tried the fifth and sixth just because
I couldn't think of anything else to do. Then I tried hopelessly to
use my credit card to withdraw money at a bank. There was really no
chance of that working but my options were running thin. Finally I
succumbed to the heat, the weight of my pack, and the lack of any
readily available Wifi options and checked into a hotel for 9 dollars
per night. The man asked for the money up front, to which I replied,
"I'll get it later..." hoping desperately that I was not lying. He
seemed OK with this.
that was about 30 minutes ago. At the moment I have been unable to
reach the person who can solve my problem in Dubai and I'm feeling a
little strange about being almost completely without resources, going
over the choices that brought me here, saying "Yes, I should have
probably done that a little differently...". My first Couchsurfing
host is expecting me tomorrow morning in Kunming. I really don't want
to cancel that, but as the minutes turn to hours it looks like I will
at least have to tell her there will be some delay.
In the end though, this is a minor hiccup; the natural byproduct of
not carrying all of my cash with me at once. In the future I will try
to carry more US currency, like I did at the start of the trip.
Before today, the cost associated with getting it here made me
hesitate. Now I can see the downside of relying on ATMs and I'm back
to being a believer in carrying a 3 months worth of dollars strapped
to my waste. For now, I'm stuck...waiting on an email that will solve
my problems. I really hope it comes soon...
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