Guess I Should Try for One Post in May ...

The saga continues albeit slowly. I managed to learn that the way to see if my laptop will work in Vietnam is to peruse the fine print on the adapter. It appears that Mr. Mac will function just fine over there as long as I procure the adapter kit to make the cord fit into whatever outlet presents itself. I could use the ragtag assortment we have somewhere around here from many years ago when we lived in Europe for a year, but it seems easier just to order the kit designed to go with the Apple adapter Mr. Mac already has. I haven't done that yet, but will next week when I get back from the coming long weekend in New Mexico.

In checking the family passports, I discovered that younger son's will expire in July 2009, less than six months past when we'll be in Vietnam. I'm not sure what they require in terms of passport expiration dates (some countries require passports to be valid for at least six months after the end of your stay), but I think he should get a new one now just to be safe. Of course, since his last one was issued before he turned 16, and he's now 18, he has to do the full application and appear in person to submit it. He can't renew his youth passport for an adult one by mail. More things for the list ... passport photos, hit the passport office at the main post office.

On the weekly Friday night trip to the local Barnes and Noble, I picked up a copy of the book Customs & Etiquette of Vietnam, by Geoffrey Murray. According to the "About the Author" section, he

spent a quarter of a century in the Far East as a business journalist/analyst, including 16 years in Japan, five in Singapore and four in China. He has been decorated by the Australian Government for his work as a war correspondent in Vietnam, and has recently returned there to complete his book. His other publications include Vietnam: Dawn of a New Market (1997) and Singapore: The Global City State (1996).

The editing in the book is less than adequate, with typos on almost every page. Still, I figured it can't hurt to know a bit about how not to be unintentionally offensive.

I also ordered a used copy of an out-of-print book called Sparring with Charlie by Christopher Hunt. It's the story of his motorcycle trip down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. My stepmother's niece recommended it, citing it as one of the reasons she's more than a little jealous of our upcoming month. Never mind that as a journalist in South Africa, she's done her own fair share of international travel and had her own fair share of adventures. I took it as a good sign that Vietnam was on the list of places she'd like to get to.

Other things still on the lists: visit the travel agent for literature on Angkor Wat, get dear husband to try to set up lunch or the equivalent with one of the professors who's done the Hue gig in the past so I don't have to rely on him to relay information or even to think of what questions to ask, and, surprisingly, see if dear husband has the exact dates for this great adventure yet.

Starting Down the Lists

No formal lists on paper yet, but I've started to look into what immunizations we might need for the grand adventure as well as the electrical requirements of my good friend, Mr. Mac, who needs to come along so that I can keep up with my work.

According to the Vietnamese government's tourism website, "no vaccinations are officially required to visit Vietnam, but local medical authorities recommend protection against polio, diphtheria, typhoid, tetanus, hepatitis A and B, and Japanese encephalitis. For travellers spending much time in the countryside, anti-malaria pills are recommended and you should take precautions not to get bitten. Repellents and mosquito nets are necessary." Hmmm. Just how up-to-date are my vaccinations? I do get a flu shot every year, and I had the hepatitis B sequence of shots when I was working at a school in 1996-97, but I can't recall the last time I had a tetanus shot, and I know I've never had hepatitis A or Japanese encephalitis vaccinations.

I had a physical last week and, obviously, had all this on my list of topics to cover with my doc. Her recommendation was to set up appointments for everyone in the family about six months before the trip. We'll check any new recommendations that may have come out in response to emerging outbreaks, and review everyone's immunization records. Hopefully we'll also have an idea by then of how big an issue malaria might be. Note to self: Remind my dear husband to find out just who in his department has taught at Hue before so that we can go out for lunch or have coffee with them.

According to the same website, electric power in Vietnam is 220V, with a frequency of 50 Hz. Since I am not the physicist in the family, I have no real idea what that means beyond that we will need to take adapter plugs and, something I learned only recently, to check to make sure my computer and any appliances we might take along can handle the different voltage. I learned this little fact on a quilting mailing list from a Brit friend who posted that "the husband works for a US owned company and they regularly have visitors who destroy their electrical equipment by running 240 volts through it." Note to self: Find out just what the capabilities and needs of Mr. Mac might be. I should be able to do that online, or by asking an IT-type around here. If all else fails, there's always the Mac store at the Short Pump mall.

Beyond that, I haven't done much other than print various info from the tourism website and purchase the April issue of National Geographic Adventure. Besides the photo of Harrison Ford on the cover, it had an article on "Traveler, Heal Thyself" that contained a list of supplies for a "portable ER." Since the advice I've read is that the safe plan is to take along any medical supplies we might need, I figured this article couldn't hurt. Since we won't exactly be in the backcountry, I doubt we'll need the multitool that's on the list, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to make sure we have the Ace bandage that's also there. More than anything, it gives me a good starting point from which to work.

Remaining to be thought about are visas, travel arrangements, and where we will live over there, items that I hope the university will be helping with. The awesome younger son also needs to decide if he wants to take spring semester off from school and come for the whole month or just make a short visit on his spring break. Since he started college as a third-year student, taking a semester off wouldn't really slow him down, though there would likely be some finagling to do in terms of his dorm room and the like. Stay tuned for details.

Why a New Blog? Hue!

Two weeks ago, I drove to North Carolina to meet with some colleagues regarding a book project. Right before I left, my dear husband phoned to ask what I would think about a month in Vietnam. This is the same husband who earlier this year dangled in front of me that he might teach in the Semester at Sea program next spring, meaning that I could accompany him on a four-month voyage around the world. Needless to say, I got to liking the idea and had many a fantasy of the places I'd go, the things I'd see, and the relative isolation being aboard a ship might provide that would be conducive to some serious writing. After all, he'd be teaching; I'd just be along for the ride. As it happened, he dashed my hopes upon a rocky shore when one of his nuclear physics experiments was scheduled for beam time at an accelerator during the time we would be away. This is a big no-no in the research and funding worlds, meaning the trip was off before it really started anywhere but in my imagination. As a result, when asked about spending a month in Vietnam I said something like, "Sure, whatever, sounds great to me" and hit the road south.

By the time I had arrived in Chapel Hill and checked into my hotel, my dear husband had consulted with his department chairman, checked with his funding agency and a lab or two, and submitted a request to the dean to add teaching a month-long course at the University of Hue to the sabbatical he had already had approved for spring 2009. There was no reason to think the dean wouldn't approve the switch, dear husband said, so I should start planning. Well, I said, if the book project did end up a go, I would have to have Internet access, not wanting to think about communicating with my co-authors and a publisher using Internet cafes to which I would carry my thumb drive. Dear husband assured me that would not be a problem.

Fast forward two weeks, and the dean has given her blessing. It appears that we will be spending a month, probably mid-February to mid-March, next year at the University of Hue, in central Vietnam. Next year will evidently be the third year that someone from the University of Virginia has gone to Hue to teach a one-semester course over the space of one month, similar to the way courses are compressed here during summer school. It's part of a program that a UVa physics faculty member who is Vietnamese started with some colleagues in Hue. I don't know the other faculty members who have taught in earlier years, but I do plan to ask dear husband if we can get together with them. It would be nice to hear firsthand just what sort of adventure we will be taking.

I thought that a new blog might be a good way for me to keep track of the various preparations that will have to take place (I have multiple mental lists that should at some moment be committed to a more stable medium than my mind) as well as to chronicle the adventure as it unfolds next year. For now the only plan we have is that our elder son will accompany us for the whole month given that he has finished his master's degree by then. Our younger son's spring break falls during the month we will be there, so he could come over for a week. We did purchase two guidebooks and a map so that we can start to get oriented. The Vietnamese physicist who helped start the program told my dear husband two things to plan on: drinking bottled water while there and taking several bottles of Pepto-Bismol with us. I've already added those to one of the mental lists.

Besides the aforementioned guidebooks, I've started looking at various travel websites for background. I printed off visa applications only to have dear husband offer that he thought the folks at the university there would be assisting with those. I'm having a physical in two weeks and have needed shots on the list of items to discuss with my family doc. I need to ask someone about a power converter for the laptop. Lots to do, but by starting now, about a year before we would be getting back, I hope to get it all done without too much scurrying to and fro randomly panicking. Yeah, I know, the best-laid plans...