A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
I'm ready to leave Saigon! At least, I have completed all the legal requirements as of today, though not without some nervewracking moments.

Last Tuesday I took my passport to Mr. Thuy, our neighborhood entrepreneur and visa guy. My 3-month multiple-entry business visa runs out inconveniently just five days before I leave the country, so I needed to renew. Since Heike and I are coming back into Vietnam to visit Hanoi and Halong Bay in a few weeks, it was just as well, really.

I thought I allowed myself plenty of time to get the visa. In most (civilized/normal/non-communist) countries it takes just a day or two to renew your visa. It's not like I'm in the hinterlands, for crying out loud -- I'm in the largest city in Vietnam. So I expected to get my passport back in a couple of days, at which time I would go get my Cambodian visa, my first stop upon departure from Saigon.

So by Friday I was thinking it could come back anytime. No passport, no visa. Saturday, nothing. Monday, nothing. By this time I had read my guidebook which suggested that it took seven working days to get a Cambodian visa, so I was starting to sweat. Not to mention the fact that I have had rather more than my fair share of run-ins with the law over the course of the last five months, and I know the Ho Chi Minh City police have the address to this website, helpfully handed over to them by The Armwrecker, much to my dismay. By the time I realized, it was a bit impossible to ask the cops to give me the card back. The Vietnamese government is very particular about what is written about them here, and I have a feeling they wouldn't appreciate some of my comments.

So I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday fretting that they were going to kick me out and/or I wouldn't get the passport back in time to meet my Cambodia schedule. My one reassuring thought was that the government here is so bureaucratic and disorganized that it seemed unlikely that they would actually go to the trouble of checking around with local agencies about me. Finally, on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Thuy called and I was able to breathe freely again.

So at 4:50 pm on Wednesday (7 working days before my departure to Phnom Penh) I motorbiked up to the Cambodian consulate. Now, I have been to the US consulate here on several occasions, and it's like an armed bunker. You have to go through a full bag check/xray process not once but twice, and they temporarily confiscate anything you're carrying that looks like it might be dangerous (cameras, for example). Visiting the Cambodian consulate was like more like going to a friend's house. Sure, there was a "guard" outside in an aluminum and plexiglass guard box, but he just waved me into the unlocked courtyard without even asking my name. The place was totally deserted, so I followed the little signs across the patio and the badminton courts, past the fountain and the dry swimming pool, and into an unairconditioned office where four or five people were sitting around chatting.

They were extremely helpful, it took two minutes to fill out the form, and I was able to pick up my passport and new visa today, less than 24 hours after I applied. Though it seems incredible, Vietnam could really take a lesson from Cambodia in efficiency and customer service.

© 2003 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 3:09 AM