A not so VIP visa on arrival

Well this experienced traveller made an oopsie with my visa for Vietnam. I’d done the right thing and planned the visa a few weeks before travel. Thats said, once it arrived I just saved the pdf for printing closer to travel. I printed it the day before travel which is when I read the details. It was valid for only 3 days, starting the day it was issued, a week and a half ago. It’s now expired.

After some last minute online searching the only way to travel was to get a visa on arrival using an agency. After parting with $325 USD and giving Daisy on WhatsApp all my personal data I was given a couple of invitation letters to allow me to check in. As part of this exorbitant fee was ‘fast track VIP arrival’ when I landed in Vietnam.

I like a VIP service so was looking forward to getting the VIP experience on arrival. Jump forward to landing and there was a guy waiting for me with a sign with my name. Let the VIP experience start 🤩. Alas, that’s also where it ended 😒. I was taken to then visa on arrival waiting area and handed over my passport and boarding pass and signed a few forms. Then was told to take a seat and wait.

There were several companies offering this service, so several different guys had piles of passports they would casually leave on the bench. My passport was in the pile with a Swiss passport (easier to spot as they are bright red). To cut a long story short, it took about 1.5 hours before the passports were even lodged with the visa office. The agent kept collecting more and more passports before he finally lodged them.

I ended up chatting to the Swiss passport holder, William as we were both keeping an eagle on where the agent was going, and leaving our passports. We lost him a few times and considered planting an AirTag on him to know where our passports ended up.

A few other people missed connections, including William who would now be sleeping at the airport till 5am tomorrow. He was off hiking in the mountains near the China border (the Swiss and their mountains). Another lady with a young sleeping child had the same issue as me, while others had minor issues like middle name not being included.

After 2 hours of waiting William and I both got our passports back, and then had to search the baggage claim area for our luggage. Parting ways once out of the terminal, me to my hotel to sleep and him to wait out 5 hours in the terminal, that single use friendship came to an end. The whole ‘gay or European’ vibe was strong with this one, but in the words of a friend, didn’t want to be a me too guy.

Moral to the story - double check your visa when you get it. Oh well, it was an experience that was unexpected and I guess that’s what travel is all about.Leia mais