Hello Everyone,
A Nightmare With A Problem Vietnam Visa….
The day we left Cambodia, for Hanoi, we got to the airport early and had plenty of time before our flight. However, when we got there we discovered that the airline desk didn’t open until two and a half hours before the flight. So, we had to sit and wait outside the gate area before we could get our boarding pass. Finally the desk opened and we were the second people in line. We handed our passports and Vietnam visas to the clerk to check-in for the flight. Something appeared to be wrong, but we didn’t know what. They were all conferring behind the counter for a bit, made some phone calls and then told us that we could not board the airplane because my visa had an error on it that could not be resolved.
When my visa was created, the “year” for my birthday was entered as 2023, the year we ordered the visa, instead of 1949, the year I was born. So, it did not match my passport and could not be used. [Note to self… always check visas info BEFORE traveling]. They suggested that we go back into town, to the Vietnam embassy and ask for a new visa. They could not let me on the airplane without a proper visa. We kept pleading with them that there must be something we could do, now, to get us on that airplane. One person suggested we try an online “instant” visa service. Carol frantically searched online visa companies and found some “instant visa” services that ranged in price up to $350. But we discovered when getting our original visas that there were a lot of scams offering visas. We didn’t know who to choose. It was now just 2 hours before our flight left.
Carol started a chat dialogue with one of the online visa companies that said they could get me a new visa in time for our flight for $195, and wanted us to send the payment. We were skeptical…. Finally, an older gentleman, from the airline [with a suit on], came over and said he knew a service, that was connected with the embassy. They could get me a document, that would allow him to let me on the airplane, if we were willing to pay their fee. Yes! He took photos of my passport and my erroneous visa and sent them to the service through WhatsApp. Then, through some kind of QR code, he was able to transfer their WhatsApp conversation to Carol’s WhatsApp account, to proceed. This service said they could correct my visa in time to make the flight for a $130 fee. We had no idea if this was a scam or not, but we had no other options. If we didn’t make that flight we would have had to cancel all our plans for Hanoi.
So, the visa service sent us a link to their online payment system and asked us to send them the fee, with a credit card. We went to the payment link and tried to pay the fee with our Citi Costco credit card. It had been working successfully on the trip so far, but, Citi twice failed to text us a verification code and we couldn’t complete the transaction. We were wondering if we had just given that credit card info to a scammer! So, the visa service sent us another payment link and we used our backup credit card, Capital One, to try again. This time the payment code came through and we were able to conclude the transaction. The visa service said to standby a few minutes and they would send us a new document. That few minuted seemed like forever, as we waited. Finally, a corrected visa document was sent to Carol’s WhatsApp and we rushed over to the airline counter and showed it to them. They examined the digital version of it on the iPhone with my passport and then gave us a boarding pass. Fortunately, it was a small airport and there was no line at the security station. We got to the gate just before they started to board the flight.
We flew to Hanoi and as we exited the airplane, there was a man standing there with my name on a sign. I identified myself and he said to follow him to an “private” immigration station where I showed my passport, but not the corrected visa, and they let me through the turnstile. Everyone else on the flight had to go through another crowded station with a long line. I guess that $130 bought us a little personal service as well. When I turned my cell phone on, after we got through the immigration station, I found a computerized voice message on my iPhone saying that they had rejected a suspicious charge and I should call this 800 number before my card would work normally again. I can’t stress enough how important it is to bring backup credit cards with you when you travel internationally. And, yes, check your visas, too!
Halong Bay
The first thing we did here was take an overnight cruise around Halong Bay. It’s a beautiful area in the bay that is full of strange limestone pillar formations. It’s a common thing to take a cruise through this area. Because the drive down to Halong was 3 hours each way, we opted for an overnight cruise on a large “Junk”, to spread out the travel time. The boat had 24 large staterooms, equipped with Queen bed, jacuzzi tub and a large viewing window out to the water. Only half the rooms were occupied, so the trip was not crowded at all.
As you will see if you look at the photos linked at the bottom of this page, the limestone formations were awesome. I took way too many photos of them and Halong Bay. But, I couldn’t help myself. The water was very still, as we cruised around. We stopped to visit an interesting cave and toured a little fishing village that lived on the water there. After our evening meal on the ship, the chef rolled out three beautiful sculptures he had carved using fruits and vegetables. The most beautiful was a dragon made with carrots and cantaloupe. He said it took 10 hours to carve it. After all, the year of the dragon just got started. Check for the photo in the gallery.
On the way back to the city, after the cruise, we stopped at a local village for an “Underwater Puppet Show.” This is a unique art form in this part of the world. These large puppets are manipulated by people behind a curtain with long poles under the water. They jump up out of the water and hop around while they enact a kind of a play about planting rice or some other story. It’s quite interesting if you have never seen it, and it’s hard to imagine how they manipulate the puppets under the water.
Hanoi
For our first day in Hanoi, Carol had reserved a guide from the Hanoi Free Walking Tours organization. Sometimes these are large groups of tourists. But, this particular time, turned out to be a personal tour, with just us. If you like the tour you can give them a nice tip when it’s over. Lyna, a second year university economics student, walked us for several hours around the streets of Hanoi, pointing out interesting things. She said that Hanoi has about 10 million people and 6 to 8 million motorbikes. And, most of those motorbikes are out zipping around the streets ALL THE TIME. It’s amazing to watch them flow through the streets, without traffic control at intersections, swarming around and not touching each other. I believe they are all incredibly skilled motorbike drivers, to be able to survive in these conditions.
Walking around Hanoi is nearly impossible! Some streets have sidewalks, but they mostly serve as motorbike parking. So, people have to walk in the streets with the vehicles. It’s initially very scary walking among the swarming motorbikes, but eventually you get use to it. Because the walking was so difficult and dangerous, we were only able to log about 65 miles walking on this entire 17 day trip. We can normally walk much more than this when the walking is safer and easier.
From what I could see, SE Asia is making a strong effort to eliminate disposable plastic bottles and utensils. The last time we were here the plastic was discarded and piling up all over the place. Now, most of the hotels and restaurants use reusable glass water bottles that are refilled from special “filtered” water machines. The boat that we cruised on in Halong Bay refused to allow disposable plastic water bottles onboard. Straws are all either paper or reusable metal. My favorite is the reusable bamboo straw. It works well, doesn’t soften or collapse like paper, and there is plenty of renewable bamboo available. Breakfast in our hotel offered individual yogurt servings in small reusable glass containers, covered with paper and a string. It appeared to me that they are taking the trashing of the earth a bit more seriously than we are as a society here.
Our favorite new drink here is Egg coffee. Haven’t seen it anywhere else, darn. It’s like a shot of strong espresso topped with a foamed Crème Brûlée. Yummmm! It came about in the 1940s when milk was scarce. Someone came up with a new idea to put sweetened egg yolk on top of the coffee and a new drink was born. We tried to have at least one every day. The shakes are really good here, too. And, as hot as it is, I have to drink a lot of them. 😉
On weekends, Hanoi closes several of its main streets, to vehicles, surrounding the historical district, and our hotel was within one of these walking districts. This presented a problem one day when it was raining and we wanted to get a “Grab” car [their version of Uber] to drive us out of the city to a farm tour. The cars and motorbikes are not supposed to drive into the closed areas, but they sometimes do anyway. Because the street in front of our hotel has this restriction, the Grab car wasn’t allowed to book a ride from our location. So, the hotel bellman said “no problem” let me book it for you. He took my phone and booked the ride “from” a fake spot outside the restricted area [not sure how it did that, though]. Then, through the Grab app phone service, he called the driver and told him to come to the hotel to pick us up instead. I guess they have their way of dealing with these things.
Speaking of a “Farm Tour”, Carol had made us a reservation for one through EatWith.com, a service we have used successfully many times. It was about 12 miles out from the city center. When we arrived it was raining lightly and our host, Mandy, our 38 year old wife, mother of 3 and “extended family” farmer, brought some of those authentic cone shaped Vietnamese hats for us to wear. They work really well to keep the light rain off of your head. The farm tour was really interesting. In years past here, people were granted a small amount of land at birth, to farm, and they could hand this land down to their successors. Now, all the land has been given out and they have to get by with what they have. This farm area was divided into small rectangular plots that were planted by different families. It was a very diverse crop of vegetables and fruits. Veggies are a more lucrative crop here because they can grow 3 cycles every year in this climate. The rice farmers can only grow two crops each year, so they use less fertile land farther away from the city.
They put plastic bags over the fruit on the trees to prevent insect and farm chemical damage. Among many other plants, they grow a lot of pumpkins here, but only for the leaves which they use a lot in their cooking. They prune off much of the pumpkin fruit when the vines are young and only harvest the leaves. Out in the farm area there is a wholesale market that starts at 1 a.m. to sell farm goods in bulk, to be sent into the city markets. After that they sell what is left to individuals. Most things eaten here are made fresh daily. They slaughter the animals daily and pick crops daily to bring to the market. Things are planted staggered in time so that they have something to harvest most of the year in this climate.
After the farm tour, we walked to Mandy’s house, where she taught us how to cook a Vietnamese lunch. I have some photos of the cooking class in the photo gallery if you are interested. She has a nice 4 story house [with a roof deck] in the farm village that she and her husband built with land handed down from his parents, when they got married. In Vietnam, the land is handed down to the sons. If there are two sons then the land is split in two and each gets half the land. After a few generations the lots get so small that they can only build them higher to to have a sizable house on a small piece of land. Most of the floors are two or three small rooms, but these buildings can go straight up as high as 10 or 12 floors, where whole extended families can live.
Carol has released a blog recently, about the Farm tour/Cooking class we attended in Hanoi. You can find it at this link if you would like to read it.
http://carolapucci-tips.blogspot.com/2024/02/cooking-with-mandy-visit-to-urban.html
You can also find all of Carol’s blogs, sequentially, in reverse order, at this link any time:
http://carolapucci-tips.blogspot.com
Though it may sound this way sometimes, because we write and photograph food when we travel, we are NOT “Foodies” as such. But we do like to eat and the food is an easy way to connect with a culture. It’s the local culture that we most like to explore when we travel. We always try to interact with the real people that live in a place, not just tourism staff at the popular sights. We hope you enjoyed following us around a bit in SE Asia.
Later………. Your favorite travelers, Tom and Carol
Hanoi Photos
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Halong Bay Photos
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