How 76 Kilos, a Broken Visa, and a Wink Got Me to Vietnam (Or: What Happens When You Try to Leave Bullsh*t Behind)

Denpasar Airport. Bali Indonesia

You ever feel like your whole life is one flight away from fully unraveling?

I don’t mean that dramatic-in-a-movie-way. I mean literally:

A single desk agent.

One mismatched date on a visa.

A few too many kilos.

And it all nearly fell apart.

Let me back up.

Bali was supposed to be a clean slate. A warm breeze. A new current.

And for a moment, it was.

But underneath that postcard peace, there were cracks.

People who said the right things and did the opposite.

A few smiles that were just masks stretched tight over insecurity, greed, and control.

Let’s just say I mistook charisma for character, and that one’s on me.

I showed up to create.

To build.

To turn dust into story and pixels into feeling.

But some people don’t value that.

They value what they can own.

Not what they can grow.

They want creativity, until it challenges them.

They want branding, until it outshines them.

They want your ideas, until they realize they didn’t have them first.

Not everything that looks like opportunity is actually growth. Sometimes it’s just a well-lit trap.

It took me a while to see it.

To accept that some people hire creatives like they order fast food: quick, cheap, disposable.

To admit I was giving heart to someone who only wanted a transaction.

Someone who wanted control over collaboration.

Template over transformation.

A hollow leader in a polished suit.

And when I finally saw it?

I did the hardest thing you can do when you’re deep in the weeds of someone else’s illusion:

I walked away when I could have played a card that would have royally f*cked that pers........

Karma.

So there I am. At the airport. Denpasar.

Dragging 76 kilos of gear, gear that holds the real weight of that walk.

I’ve got my visa. I’ve got my flight.

I even paid for priority check-in because, you know, dignity.

The economy line is chaos, people stacked like Tetris blocks in a humid hallway.

But me? I’m chill. Early. Confident.

Bali’s in the rearview. Vietnam is ahead.

I’m not restarting. I’m redirecting.

Check-in opens. I’m first in the priority line.

Passport handed over. Visa handed over.

The agent squints. Frowns. Clicks. Pauses.

“Visa is no good. Expiration date does not match passport. You cannot fly.”

Excuse me?

“You must fix it. Then come back.”

Right. I’ll just fix a visa that took five days to get… in the next two hours. No problem. Let me just call the immigration hotline that doesn’t answer and refresh the website that keeps crashing. Super chill.

So I drag my 70+ kilos off to a corner of the check-in area, somewhere between desperation and denial. And I start googling like my life depends on it, because it kind of does. I try every Vietnamese immigration phone number I can find. None work. Websites are slow. Online forms crash. It’s like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube while on fire.

Meanwhile, the terminal is filling up. Fast. Lines turning to mobs. Economy passengers oozing into every direction like spilled syrup on a hot sidewalk. The priority line? Vanished. Everything is everywhere. It’s now a human stew with no sense of order. I’ve got sweat dripping down my back, time slipping away, and no plan. and I start doing the digital equivalent of CPR on my trip.

Clock is ticking.

2 hours until departure.

Websites spinning.

Time is slipping through my hands like sand.

When someone says “this isn’t personal, it’s just business,” it’s always personal. They just don’t want to feel bad about screwing you.

Then, an idea.

Those emergency visa services.

They’re expensive. Dubious. A last resort.

I ask ChatGPT who’s legit—it says: Vietnam-Immi.org.

I trust it. I click. I type. I sweat.

Card declined.

My United States Visa card doesn’t like Vietnam Immigration Visa. Fraud alert triggered. The universe is now just punking me.

Tick-tock.

So now I’m fighting with my bank via app while getting WhatsApp messages from Vietnam-Immi asking me to confirm every detail short of my blood type. Finally, after about 87 panicked taps on my phone and screaming “YES IT’S ME” into the fraud bot like I’m trying to re-enter the Matrix.

Eventually, blessedly, payment goes through.

$350 USD.

One last shot.

One Hail Mary visa.

They say: “You’ll have it in 30 minutes.”

Wha tha phö?

Worth every damn dong.

Um..that’s what the Vietnamese dollar is called.

I take a breath. Blood pressure drops. Re-enter the terminal’s warzone.

By now, the terminal is a scene from the apocalypse. Wall-to-wall people. Angry faces. Baggage everywhere. It’s like a crowd leaving a football match after their team got trounced, no order, no mercy. But no one is moving.

I elbow my way back to the “priority” line, which no longer exists, and find an Indian man and his family trying to maintain something resembling a queue at priority. We team up. Fend off line cutters like a makeshift militia. People are pushing. Shoving. The guy behind me is breathing directly on my neck, and a Euro looking couple are trying to sneak in like it’s a Parisian ski lift in Val d’Isère. (Don’t even get me started.)

There’s a special kind of betrayal that only happens when someone pretends to believe in you.

The airport just feels like a metaphor at this point.

Then, my angel appears.

The same check-in agent from earlier.

She sees me. Smiles. Points.

“Mr. Veal, come please.”

Cue celestial music.

I push my cart forward, stepping over wayward toddlers and stray carry-ons. She asks for my new visa. I show her the email, the PDF, the WhatsApp messages. She examines every pixel of that thing like she works for Interpol. Wants to be sure I didn’t Photoshop it. (Honestly? I considered it.)

Finally… she nods.

“Okay. Put bag here.”

First bag: 29.5 kg.

Second: 31 kg.

Third: 15.5 kg.

The limit is 70 kg, I'm at 76 kg.

I know I’m over.

She knows I’m over.

But she just keeps tagging.

We are, at this point, trauma bonded.

“Flight is boarding. Go.”

I thank her like she just pulled me from a burning building.

Drop my bags at the oversize luggage counter. Another agent gives me a wink. I don’t know what I did to deserve that, but I take it.

Oversize baggage.

Immigration.

Security.

I make it to the gate. Board the plane.

And guess what?

There’s barely anyone onboard.

The flight’s delayed.

Everyone else? Still stuck somewhere in the hellpit of check-in purgatory.

But me?

I’m on the plane.

Breathing.

Flying. Well someday.

Finally.

Postscript:

This story isn’t about luggage or airlines.

It’s about what it takes to walk away when you’re undervalued, unseen, and surrounded by people who say “we’re a team” right up until it’s time to actually act like one.

It’s about creativity in a world that keeps trying to monetize, minimize, and sterilize it.

It’s about finding the courage to say, “No more templates. No more transactions. No more pretending.”

It’s about defusing emotional bombs with one hand while dragging your life with the other.

And sometimes, just sometimes, after all that?

The universe throws you a wink.

And you make it through.

-B

PS: Eternal Thanks to Vietnam-Immi.org

The real MVPs of this whole wild ride.

They got me a 90-day, multiple-entry visa into Vietnam in under 30 minutes.

While I was unraveling in an airport corner, they were calm, clear, and fast.

And yes, $350 felt steep. But what they saved was worth so much more:

My trip.

My sanity.

My whole damn pivot.

I’ll use them forever.

I’ll recommend them to anyone.

They didn’t just save my ass, they saved my altitude.