Misadventure

Let me take a moment to apologize to the search engines and metacrawlers for my nearly week-long blog absence.  You see I was sent to Macau on a documentation expedition that was meant to last for about 30 hours, but managed to take three days. 

I should really know better than to prepare as if my quarterly Macau adventures will go as scheduled.  The first trip I made was to last five days, but lasted ten.  It seems I will never learn because instead of packing to expect the worst, I packed a shirt.  I left all various electronic device cables beside the bed and flew off into the morning sunrise on Monday. 

Traveling to Macau from HCM may sound like a short, exciting jaunt, but it's anything but.  There are no direct flights.  The schedule is:

• Depart from the house at the usual time.  Even though my flight isn't until 1100, I have to leave the house at 0730 because there's no way to gage how long the taxi ride will take.  Experience tells me that it should take around 30 minutes, but this time it took closer to an hour.  This was despite the fact that Reyna drove me to the office to catch the taxi, which is about half the distance to the airport from our house.  [Time check: 0900]
• Arrive at the airport.  First, I have to get my tripod wrapped up so I can check it.  I never had to check the tripod before in the US (land of paranoid travel security), but I'm not allowed to carry it on here.  This will come back to haunt me.  Though the vast majority of consumables are significantly less expensive here than other more developed countries, the few meters of plastic wrap to secure the mostly unbreakable tripod costs $5.  Then I have to stand in line to check in.  No Internet check-ins for international flights silly!  Plus, strange though it may seem, the Vietnam airport is not littered with kiosks where a swipe of a credit card or entering a confirmation number will generate a boarding pass.  Here you have to actually talk to people. [Time check: 0920]
• Work through security and immigration.  This was actually kind of fun on Monday because I was joined in line by the members of the Malaysia Dragons of the ASEAN basketball league.  I know I said earlier that I'm a reasonable height for a guard in the SE Asian pro league, but that's not the case at all.  For once my vegetable tattoos were not the recipient of the most stares from other people in the queue.  That accolade went to the 6'-9" Brian Willams standing next to me in line.  We even went to the same college.  Nice guy.  [Time check: 0945]
• Pitch a tent at the gate until my flight leaves at 1050.  This time is usually reserved for calling my parents.  You never know what's going to happen when you get on an Asian operated airplane.
• Fly to Hong Kong.  Land at 1350 local time.
• Buy a ticket for the HK-Macau ferry.  This is where things get annoying.  Because I had to check my tripod, I cannot take the 1500 ferry.  I have to give a minimum of two hours for my checked bag to transfer from the luggage belt to the ferry terminal.  This pushes me onto the 1700 ferry instead and leaves me to mill around the no-man's land between the gate and the immigration line to enter HK.  It's like being stranded in the desert.  There's a crappy Chinese place, a coffee place, about a dozen duty free shops and an electronics store.  That's it.  The only place to sit down is in the coffee place, but you have to order to do so.  Generally all I want to do is read my book, but it's nearly impossible to find a place to sit where people aren't loudly conversing in a language I don't understand.  It also doesn't help that my company decided it would be a good idea to brick my cell phone whenever I travel out of the country.  If something were to go wrong at this point in the trip, I'd be totally stranded.
• Board the ferry at 1645.  By this point I'm usually sad.  This trip was no different.  Usually this is the moment I realize that I forgot to pack a pen.  As the ferry bumps through the water, the boat attendants pass around the immigration slips that must be filled out and presented upon arrival in Macau.  Incredibly I remembered to ask the ferry ticket agent if he had an extra pen while I was in the airport.  I was smug sitting with my pen, but then the attendents didn't bring around any forms.
• Arrive at Macu ferry termnal at 1745 (or so).  The entrance to the immigration area had changed, and since I hadn't received an immigration slip, I marched right to the window and presented my passport.  I couldn't believe my luck.  The line is ALWAYS at least 20 people deep (mostly due to the fact that I have to stand in the back and fill out my form while everyone who remembered a pen -or traveled with a woman- rushes to the front of the line).  Of course, the procedure hadn't changed.  I was directed to the back of the room to fill out my form with my newly acquired pen.  By the time I turned back around, the line was 40 people deep.  Somehow everyone else received a form, because they were all clutching them tightly as they stood patiently waiting for their vacations to begin in earnest. [time check 1810]
• Wait for luggage.  One would think that after waiting in the immigration line for 20 minutes, the baggage handlers could move the 30-odd pieces of luggage the 100 yards from the boat to the luggage area.  Nope.  I stood for another 10 minutes waiting on my goddamned $5 plastic-wrapped tripod.  And there is no carousel like at the airport.  When the bags are wheeled out on carts, there is a mad rush as everyone struggles to squeeze their bodies through the throng, and then wheel out a 75lb suitcase.  It's amazing no one loses an appendage in the crush.
• Get a taxi.  As soon as I stepped outside I regretted not bringing a jacket.  I've been to Macau at least a half a dozen times, and the weather has never been anything resembling cool.  I nearly always find myself sweating through my Hanes and daydreaming about removing my socks.  Not this time.  It was about 50 degrees (F) when I got outside with the sun setting beyond the casino high rises.  I shivered in my short sleeved shirt as I waited in the queue for my taxi.  When I fell into the back seat and conveyed my destination to the driver I noticed the window of the car was open.  It blew on my all the way to Grand Lisboa.  [time check 1830]
• Arrive at Macau office [1845]

It is at this point that I was due to start work, but as I sauntered into the office, I was greeted by the three remaining people with a surprised, "what are you doing here?"  Despite the orders for my trip coming from the highest possible source, no one had been informed of my imminent arrival.  No arrangements had been arranged with the site I was to photograph (had you guessed yet?) and no security clearances secured.  Begin domino effect:

Did you see how long it took to get to Macau?  It's the same on the way back.  Because I couldn't shoot on Monday night, I couldn't leave on time Tuesday morning.  Even though my flight was booked for 1520 Tuesday afternoon, I have to leave Macau at 0930 to jump through the endless ferry hoops to get to the airport.  So I missed my Tuesday flight.  There was no guarantee that I would get a seat on the Wednesday flight either.  I spent the next hour frantically trying to Skype back to the Vietnam office so I could tell them I wouldn't be in the office on Wednesday and possibly even Thursday.

One of my Macanese colleagues offered to give me a ride to my hotel.  I guess he noticed me shivering on the way to the car because he dug around in his trunk and produced a purple puffy jacket for me to wear during my stay.  The jacket made me look like a cross between the Michelin Man and a spokesperson for Fruit of the Loom, but I can say that it's been a long time since I've been so grateful to look so ridiculous.

Cut me some slack, I'd been wearing those clothes for three days.  Note the empty luggage rack.  That doesn't really excuse the state of my hair.  Mental note: get hair cut this weekend.

I checked into my hotel as usual and the lady at the desk seemed slightly put out when I told her I didn't have any luggage.  I left my camera case and my still-hermetically-sealed-in-plastic tripod in the office.  Upon arrival in my room, I realized that I didn't have any internet access.  Normally on these trips I bring my laptop and plug it into the broadband, but since this trip was supposed to be quick, I'd left all that stuff at home.  I watched ping pong on ESPN and went to bed.

Tuesday morning was cold and foggy just like Monday.  I put on the same clothes I'd worn the day before, put on my Bubblicious jacket and mosied back to the office.

I managed to gain access to the site on Tuesday morning and get my photos finished in a few hours.  Then I sat and waited until Wendesday morning to turn around make the trip back.  I left the office at 0930 Wednesday morning to catch the ferry back to HK.  My flight wasn't until 1535, but for whatever reason, the ferry people require you to arrive at the airport 3 hours before your scheduled departure.  Unfortunately the 1230 ferry (which would be ideal) doesn't arrive in HK until 1315, which is twenty minutes past the three hour cut off.  You cannot even buy a ticket for the ferry without the three hour window.  Therefore, I am forced to take the 1030 ferry and sit in the airport for hours waiting for my flight.  Luckily, this leg of the trip includes a bar.  I wasn't able to enjoy the one place in my section of Asia that serves Murphy's on draught because I was absolutely freezing.  I spent most of my time in the airport wandering around trying to find a long sleeved shirt. HKIA sports a gigantic shopping mall replete with Burberry, Coach, Ferragamo, Chanel, Emporio Armani, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Zara, Louis Vuitton, Bally, Ferrari, Hermes, Prada, Lamborghini, Valentino, Versace and Hugo Boss.  You can get a custom tailored suit and a $6,000 bottle of booze, but you can't buy a nature scened or hunting dogged $15 sweatshirt for a freezing Tatveg.  I'd already spent two full days looking ridiculous.  I would have happily worn a Taz shirt or even an Affliction hoodie I found in the garbage if it meant a respite from the chill.  Sadly there was nothing.  At least nothing I was prepared to lay down $400 to keep warm for three hours in.  So I suffered through.  I walked into our house, beaten but not broken, at 1830 Wednesday night.

This morning I awoke with a sore throat.