Vietnam, or bust!

Tourism Trivia

By AV Latinggam

Most of us are very alert when we leave our country for another on a visit or any other reasons. Mostly we ensure that the expiry date on our passport is a few months in the future and that our name and passport numbers concur with our airplane tickets. The other thing is, find out if our host country wants a visa for our stay. If all these are seen to and processed well, travel we go and may the gods of fun and adventure accompany us, that’s what I’d say.

Interestingly this was what happened to HEL on our ‘Vietnam or Bust’ escapade. He had read that visas could be acquired at arrival…in Hanoi Airport that is…but when we tried to check in at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, he was told by Vietnam Airline check in staff, ‘No, nope..na ah! Get a visa from the Vietnam embassy and come back…’

‘Today? If it’s possible…if not, we have the same flight tomorrow…’

HEL on the streets of Hanoi -03-11-2012

Stumped, unhappy and dejected, we turned back to Bangkok, waited in line for a visa, got a photo taken for the visa …nice pic by the way, made HEL look a decade younger…and then paid 2700bhat for the visa and 200bhat for the photo.

Meanwhile, we knew we would never make it to Hanoi that day, November 12…and so HEL had to call the airline to cancel and reschedule. The Result? AUD50 per person penalty.  It seemed that we paid a price for letting up on our attention to details.

The flip side of the coin was of course a day more of walking the streets of Bangkok and admiring the shrines and the stuff for sale along the walkway.

We re-visited the central world and ogled handbags, shoes, dresses and everything else available on the streets. At least for the day.

The next day, lucky 13^th of November, we duly walked into the airport again and without much ado, parted the clouds over Thailand towards Hanoi, Vietnam. Can you say ‘Goooood Moorning Vietnam…’? Oh, by the way, Malaysians don’t need a visa to visit Vietnam.

HEL at Ho Chi Minh mausoleum  14-11-2012