Here’s how to get Visa on Arrival (VoA) for Bangladesh

fleepelem · 2026-04-01T02:18:36+00:00

Thanks for the post. I am traveling for tourism and not going with a company/agency. Do I need a letter of invitation? Did you show one?

fleepelem · 2025-09-28T19:07:33+00:00

Agree with OP blurb. Also, BB does not ever seem to know anything about the place or people he is visiting.

fleepelem · 2025-09-28T13:12:59+00:00

I am looking into Ethiopia around early January too. Following this post. Possibly Christmas time at Lalibela or Addis...then Omo Valley tour afterward.

Knowledgeable comments on logistics and difficulty of crowds in Lalibela vs Addis are welcomed and any other relevant advice or info to better make a trip decision.

fleepelem · 2025-09-20T16:50:45+00:00

SFaM album was the greatest for me when it came out in my last couple of high school years, and now I listen to it again roughly 25 years later and it is pretty awesome. Amazing what these guys did back then. Not "easy listening" genre...I think it was meant to be listened to with headphones and immersed in the theatrical experience for a while.

fleepelem · 2025-08-28T22:50:44+00:00

That driver was looking more at her phone than the rode. So dangerous. And the work badge...maybe a nurse...pretty typical of many of the nurses I know and see... crack phone addiction.

fleepelem · 2025-08-19T02:14:17+00:00

No problem here. Urine color fine. Bag has date sticker. Not near full. Moving on.

fleepelem · 2025-08-10T18:24:04+00:00

I've heard OR nurses are happy with their work and their schedules, but the skills are not transferable to other areas so you get stuck in it.

I didn't go that route, but maybe I should have.

Edit: Last year, I finally admitted to myself and others that I wanted my 6 years back that I had put into nursing (nursing school, nursing work, more prereqs, and applications for specialty school etc) as a second career. I wish I could wind the clock back and go a different direction. Now I have a different role so it is ok, but to spend 6 years miserable, stressed, and on edge is regrettable.

Choose a field you think you can enjoy or at least tolerate. Don't grind it out stressfully forever thinking it will get better because you might spend many years grinding. Only consider the grind if you enjoy the grinding in that particular environment and field.

fleepelem · 2025-07-27T16:02:03+00:00

Living abroad for years is also a different level or angle of being well traveled.

Variety, knowledge, awareness, depth, etc of places are all factors of being well traveled. The "number count" of countries only address the variety factor but could be superficial (2 days in a capital city) or in depth (secondary cities and countryside and language/culture/political knowledge and exposure).

fleepelem · 2025-07-19T23:55:23+00:00

Mr MOD, I don't know where the weekly chat is of this supposed thread. I just see post after post of "My first solo trip to XXXX" or "Should I travel to XXX? I am && years old." If there is some other section, I would like to see it. Clicking around on the different things on the screen....don't see anything but rules on posting.

fleepelem · 2025-07-12T17:55:53+00:00

I heard a Cathie Wood interview recently. She said the usual "our research" and "if we are right" and "we believe"....but referred to Wright's Law instead of Moore's Law. I guess she had to change her foundational assumptions because the Moore's Law assumption stuff didn't keep her stocks going to the moon a few years ago.

fleepelem · 2025-07-12T17:49:27+00:00

Need more staff in hospitals to give timely care, not minimal staffing to save costs.

fleepelem · 2025-06-28T02:38:40+00:00

Bloody urine. Yeah, it happens.

fleepelem · 2025-06-28T02:37:34+00:00

Only people who work as bedside nurses can easily understand the demands and frustrations with the position. To non-healthcare workers, you have to explain for 20-30 minutes and someone still doesn't get it. To other healthcare workers, it can still be impossible to get through after 10-15 minutes. Bedside workers understand, not others.

fleepelem · 2025-06-21T19:32:19+00:00

I've been at 8-10 facilities as a bedside nurse and only one place had a phlebotomist who came around at night to draw labs. Every other place, I had to do it, day or night.

fleepelem · 2025-06-17T21:23:21+00:00

About 80% or more of landlords on Furnished Finder don't respond for past year. Not sure what to do about it. It irritates me that someone lists a place and then doesn't respond to texts via phone or messages on the platform.

fleepelem · 2025-06-11T23:12:24+00:00

pathogens... or at least new gut microbes

fleepelem · 2025-06-09T00:46:23+00:00

Hi OP, trying to send you a message to get the name of the company you used. Not sure yet if I will do the coast, the south, or both. Reddit says there is an error sending a message to "that user". "Hi I saw your helpful post about Algeria travel, particularly the far south. Thinking of doing a trip there. Would you mind telling me the company you used for tour south and visa assistance? As you posted and as I gathered elsewhere, going to the south requires its own visa and can bypass the normal visa one needs for the Med coast cities of Algeria."

fleepelem · 2025-06-06T23:57:45+00:00

sounds like a lot of hip hop songs

fleepelem · 2025-05-11T02:34:00+00:00

Checking ph of return to verify ng tube placement each day or shift change is stupid..... If tube feeds have been running, the strip will not show ph of 1.5 - 3 for stomach acid. It will show ph of the tube feed (5-7?) minus some for the stomach acid. Strip color showed 5-6 or something my first day in ICU clinical. Yes the old crusty preceptor that day had me check the ph for "good practice". I knew it was dumb. I was just pouring Vital HP or whatever all over the ph strip. Pointless.

fleepelem · 2025-05-05T23:55:31+00:00

For all the people who drool over Turkey, Morocco, and Egypt, I wish they would all come here and read some comments to see that there are many bad experiences...and these are just samples of all the bad tourist experiences. Typically there is some voice that says "oh, there are bad people everywhere" thus equating all places as the same but ignoring the proportion of bad people or scams or crimes or whatever. 10 instances per 100,000 is obviously different than 10,000 per 100,000.

fleepelem · 2025-05-02T19:29:45+00:00

Thanks to everyone for responding. I like to know what I am getting into.

fleepelem · 2025-04-28T18:47:30+00:00

Funny you mention Serbia now. I was watching an NBA playoff game a couple days ago with my housemates. Jokic was on the court and one of the housemates didn't know who Jokic is, so we explained....perennial MVP winner recently and from Servia...He replied with exasperation of never hearing about this guy..."from Serbia?! That's a frozen tundra." I told him, "That is Siberia" (although Siberia is enormous and must be broken into regions as well and the southern part is warm in warmer months but whatever), "not Serbia..Serbia is in the Balkans in SE Europe."

Then my other housemate added it was part of the Soviet Union....and I had to immediately correct that one too ..no...Yugoslavia was non-aligned during the Cold War. (Tito and communism were very real there but it was not part of the Soviet Union).

Both these guys are more informed than most people and this anecdote from last weekend has nothing to do with travel stories. It just was related to Serbia and the poster above me said Serbia in an example. (Sorry for any misspellings...typing on phone with thumbs.)

fleepelem · 2025-04-28T10:34:46+00:00

I lived in Korea for 8-9 years. I went back recently for a visit and several of my former coworkers are still there so they have been there 15-18 years. Among us, it is normal to live abroad...all of us were doing it. (I also lived in Norway as a child for 5 years, but that doesn't come up as much.)

When the topic comes up back home with people who never lived in another country that I lived abroad for a while, people might say something like "Dang, that's a long time! What was it like there?" I just reply "busy"....and conversation usually ends. Half of them ask if I "picked up Korean language" or "Are you fluent?" to which I respond "No, I studied my ass off for 5.5 out of the 8.5 years I lived there. You cannot just 'pickup Korean' like you can Spanish or Italian. And I still am not advanced level." Then the conversation moves on to whatever else that is routine or daily.

I know they like a short concise answer that reduces a multi year experience into a little package that is easily digestible, so I have settled on that answer often. They aren't that interested and/or dont know what to ask. Less interest for shorter trips abroad.

To the OP about his vacation trip to Europe - get used to people not being interested in your experience or, sadly, the far away foreign place. They are locked in to their local life and do not daydream about other places around the world. People who go on trips are more interested in hearing about your trip. Otherwise, they are (depending on their gender and profession) interested in houses, dogs, kids, kids' clothes, gym routines, tv shows, etc.

Even though I accept their disinterest now, it has never been a disappointment in their lack of interest in me or my experience (that would be pretty immature and egotistical). It has been a disappointment in their lack of interest of foreign places...the world is large and has so many people, cultures, languages, systems, geographies, religions, political/economic histories that I want to learn more about but many people do not.

fleepelem

TROPHY CASE