Musings of a barefoot traveller

...life throws another curve ball at you, and then sticks a rusty knife in your ribs while you lie winded on the ground. I love being Malaysian and all, but this passport and visa business is making me sooooooo.....frustrated. Some might remember the big hoo-ha last year, and the hoops I had to jump through to get a visa to enter Panama to take the Smithsonian sponge course. Next year, I vowed to myself then, next year would be different. Fast forward to this year, with me feeling pretty confident, having submitted my visa application in February, giving the consulate 3 months to approve my visa this time. Was overjoyed to see my return envelope sitting in my mailbox yesterday, and gleefully ripped it open, extracted my passport and flipped to the visa page. Was thoroughly deflated to find that my approval dates run from April 9th to July 9th! WTF! It's already April 18th, and besides the point, my fieldtrip is in August. To add insult to injury, my gender is listed as 'M'...

Sitting at the Tocumen airport in Panama waiting for my flight to take off. Woke up at 5am this morning, bleary-eyed, with a slight sangria headache, probably because I forgot to buy water (or local beer as a souvenir, damn!) to drink last night, meaning, earlier this morning. Uff...after the lazy sun dappled last few days at Bocas, Panama City in one night was a frenzied affair involving angry taxi drivers swerving crazily through the streets, and a whirlwind tour of the old city, Casco Viejo. The buildings were muy nice, but the sun had set more than an hour ago and my teeny flash wasn't going to cut it. So we just walked and talked, and looked out for muggers hiding in the small dark alleys. Since I was in Latin America, really wanted to check out the local nightlife. After all, have been listening to lots of salsa, bachata, etc over the radio, in taxicabs, spilling out of cafes...how hard could it be to find a place with live salsa band and great dancing to watch huh? As it tu...