31st January 2023
What better way to end the first month of the year than with a wasted trip to Westwood Cross?
We’ve been looking in to the various options we had available for using our phones while in Vietnam. I’m going to try and keep the boys off their social media. This is because our itinerary is absolutely packed to the brim… if we’re not trekking through a forest or walking through a market, we’re probably in a meeting or travelling to do one of those 3 things. So, they can keep their social media time to the time spent in their hotel rooms!
However, in this day and age mobile phones are so much a part of our daily lives that we do need to try and have some way of staying connected (at least when we’re not in the forest – although who knows what sort of connection we might have in the middle of a national park? We might not be able to check our email using 4G in Canterbury, but I once had full service on top of a glacier miles from civilisation in Iceland). We need to be contactable in case of an emergency. In the likely event that Scott or Luke aren’t paying attention and take a wrong turn or of course to help us navigate around Hanoi, Dong Hoi and Ho Chi Minh City… Paper map? Bah, what’s that?
I’m going to digress a little here about the glacier thing, because Ruth and I are very lucky to have travelled… a lot! It’s the main reason why we didn’t have Ripley until so much later (although saying that he’s only 4 and a half and has already joined us in Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Holland, USA, Russia, Estonia, Denmark, Finland and Sweden but he starts school this year so that will slow down significantly now). It does however mean that I have plenty of little anecdotes I can slip in here and there and why I am a lot more confident with travelling than Luke and Scott might be… it’s also why I went through my photos of Iceland and remembered this beautiful frozen beverage we enjoyed while at the Blue Lagoon volcanic springs.
Simple things and all that… Made me smile again!
By the way if you ever get a chance to go to Iceland it’s a great short trip destination. If you love nature I would recommend it so much! It has nothing to do with this Vietnam trip but I’m not going to share a bunch of photos of us talking about eSims. So, here’s a small gallery of Iceland photos to break up the text!
Funny anecdote about the final Iceland photo of the northern lights… I was camped up on the hill behind the hotel as Ruth was busy watching Robin Hood… the one with Kevin Costner. So I had my camera pointed up at the sky with a long exposure and then panic set in! I noticed that while I was there on a hill in the dark pointing my camera just above the hotel, had I pointed it down I’d have been photographing our hotel room neighbour giving a long exposure too!
Surely he knew there was a footpath behind the hotel! Yet, I can’t even begin to explain how long he was just stood at his patio glass door with nothing on. Whilst I sat embarrassed and awkward on the hillside. I was determined I wasn’t going to let some naked dude stop me getting a series of photos of the northern lights to later turn in to an animated gif, because I knew it would come in handy for some unrelated Vietnam work trip blog post 8 years later.
Imagine if someone had seen me sitting on the hill pointing this camera vaguely towards some random naked man!
Come to think of it, every experience I have had with the Northern lights seems to be tainted with nudity. Our first hotel in Iceland had a wake up call service for the Northern lights as they often appear late. I thought that would be a phone call but then suddenly in the middle of the night there was a banging on our door and shouting in the corridor. The room had blackout blinds so it was pitch black. In a panic (I didn’t know – was the hotel on fire?) and disorientated I made my way to the door and flung it open to have a gentleman look at me and quickly say “the Northern Lights are here”. I panicked more, thanked him awkwardly and slammed the door shut realising that I’d answered the door without first putting any clothes on!
Don’t worry, there aren’t any photos to accompany this particular story.
So, to combat the potential issue of not having phone access (yep, we’re back to planned content about our trip to Vietnam now) we headed over to Westwood Cross to get our phones changed over to taking eSim cards for our service provider. This would allow so for us to then get normal Sim cards for a Vietnamese provider when we’re there. You can easily find Sim card providers at any of the international airports there.
However!
When we got there things got a little less confidence inspiring. With talk of being cut off for 24 hours came around, which of course without warning in the middle of a working day when I’m trying to organise a pygmy marmoset move in a couple of days we weren’t instilled us with confidence… Well, all of us except Scott who was far too polite to say so. Scott got his phone service moved across to an eSim and Luke and I left as we were. However, while this was going on I did some of my own research and found the following.
If you have a Google Pixel 6 as I do you can only store a single eSim. So, I would have got my eSim and then would have had to get a proper Sim card in Vietnam. However, you can purchase and download a Vietnamese eSim before you even leave the UK. This is what we are now going to do. Had I got mine ported across I’d have had to join the queue like everyone else at a Sim card shop in Hanoi airport. after having been sweating out on 2 airplanes for 19 hours or so, while our taxi driver waits with the clock running.
Nope, I’m ordering eSims and leaving Scott at the airport. He can wait in his queue for not doing his research properly… The one part of the trip I didn’t organise from the start and I’m glad I re-organised it. We’ll meet Scott back at the hotel.
An adventure trip to Vietnam looks like it’s all fun and games. That’s until you see all of the mundane rubbish that goes on behind the scenes. Was this failed trip to sort out our phones really worth writing about? Probably not! But I had to waste a load of time living it and I did say that I’m taking you along for the ride… boring bits and all!
I even topped up my toiletries bag yesterday with a new pack of plasters (normal and blister) too…
Exciting!
9th February 2023
The saga from the other day surrounding the eSims continues. I ordered those today and they got sent through right away… Who still waits at the airport and wastes valuable trip time sorting out their phone these days? This is MUCH easier!
…He says, until we all land in Vietnam and these things don’t work.
I even relented and got one for Scott… couldn’t just leave him at Hanoi airport. I think he would have been sat at the arrival lounge until we returned a few days later. At which point we fly back out of the airport and head on over to Dong Hoi.
I’ve installed the eSim on my Google Pixel and it was so easy to do… as usual when it came to setting it up on the iPhone which Scott has things have to get a little more difficult (and dare I say slower). I think Luke has an iPhone as well. So, I’ll get his one installed when I get a chance, but actually these things are working pretty well – hopefully they work alright once we’re out there!
I joined Luke, Paul and Blake (I don’t know how and why he’s wearing a hoodie in there by the way) in the Cuban crocodile enclosure today to do some maintenance work like fitting the security shutter for allowing access in the exhibit for cleaning safely and getting some more plants in there. We worked in there for a good chunk of the day with heat and humidity pretty close to what we’ll have in Vietnam actually so that was an eye opener… Or reminder of what’s to come! I’m definitely getting my hair cut soon because my brain was frying under that hat I’m wearing! Scott did pop down for a minute too but just watched through the window.
In the office he constantly complains about being too cold. I’ve never known anyone who needs as much heating directed at them as he does! What’s the betting he complains about it being too hot while we’re out there?
14th February 2023
I didn’t think this would make it into the account but here I am!
Scott got injured yesterday while looking in the hard case for his GoPro. The clip caught his finger and he received what he first described as a gash! It was hurting all night when he went boxing and was still troubling him enough this morning to mention it. I hope there aren’t any thorns in this rainforest!
Imagine if he’s the one unlucky enough to encounter a leech!
He’s also already got a blister from breaking in his walking shoes! Give me strength!
On something that’s actually related to our ability to show you how this trip will go, I’ve had to order a light for my GoPro. They’re really nice cameras but don’t perform super well in low light. Or, at least not when the light is changing from low to bright repeatedly. I started to edit some footage I filmed the other day in way of introducing the project and it was basically unusable. It’s a shame as it had some nice interactions with a Vietnamese pheasant as well as Gok. I don’t think I’ll be able to reproduce those things very well, but we’ll see. No point spending out on good cameras to share this experience with you and then using the worst footage from those cameras.
The next post will likely be sent by myself to Leanne from the hotel after we arrive in Vietnam (I’ll try and update you on how the trip goes that way). Then I’ll probably not write anything online until we get back. It’s going to be pen and paper time while we’re away!
I can’t believe it’s only a week and a half until we go – it’s coming around so quickly. I never get nervous about travelling. I’ve got 32 countries under my belt so I like to think I know what I’m doing. However, this trip is a little different. Whilst I have been to Vietnam before, I’ve never had a proper babysitting job before!
In case you missed it you can find part one of the Vietnam Conservation Trip Diary, here.
