Vietnam (2nd attempt)This time with a visa

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So this time armed with a VOA ( Visa on arrival ) I landed in HCM (Ho chi minh ) or Saigon.

I tried to go to Vietnam the year before and part 1 of my travels. Whilst in Borneo I decided to go to HMC via KL ( Kuala Lumper) with AA (Air Aisa) .Now booking a Hotel , no problem , booking the flight , no problem but.. it always pays to read them annoying little pop up windows that show them selves when you book with AA , I have always just closed them without reading but in fact it was rather important telling me to arrange a visa for Vietnam before check-in otherwise boarding wil be refused , So there I was in KL , all happy.. flights to and from HCM booked Hotel booked ,money changed ready to rock and roll .. untill the little Malaysian check in guy asked my for my visa ! " it´s ok" I said " I´ll just fill one out on the plane or do it when we land " but oh no not with Vietnam! Most places in SE Asia yes but not Vietnam .. any way I was refused boarding and back out came my suitcase ! I had about 2 hours to arrange a visa , impossible since the Vietnamese embassy was a 30 min drive away in downtown KL . But I did try , and I did cry ( to the AA help desk ) but to no avail. Anyway it was dark now I had no hotel , pissing with rain , nothing like a tropical rainstorm to lift the spirts ! And I was very tired and unhappy ! I got a bus to the airport hotel " Tune" who always but always have rooms available , but did they on this night ?? No of course not !

Anyway luckily I was in KL a few weeks before and still had the e mail address from my hotel downtown, I e mailed them and they promply replied with a reservation , thank god ! . Now my only problem was I was booked to stay in HCM for a week then fly direct to Phuket. So I had a week to kill and a new flight to book , the other flights to and from Vietnam obvioulsy got lost without refund ( Who pays that extra 5 $ cancellation insurance anyway ??) Luckily the hotel in HCM were good and refunded the whole week.ANd it was to this same hotel I was going to now after a few months delay of course !

So what I did , was I decided to stay a couple of days in KL , anymore then a couple of days is unbearable and fly early to Phuket , so as I was going through immigration I was asked for my entry visa to Malaysia. This unfortunalty was in my suitcase which was now on the aeroplane ! So they asked me when I enterd Malaysia , hmm .. simple enough question buit I really did not know since I got confused about Borneo belonging to Malaysia , so at first I said 5 days then 10 days then 7 days or sometihing .. well this never impressed immigration , so off I was whisked for interregation! Happy days ! , good job one has the good old British stiff uper lip ! And they finally belived me when I told them I am plain stupid and not a smuggler or spy or whatever.

Anyway that was all history , so here I am now with all my visas , immirgation sorted and off I go to Vietnam.

On arrival you go to immigration and show your application for VOA with 3 photos of a peculiar size 30x30 I think but it´s what they wanted . All very serious looking communist type immigration officer without a smile is very unnerving but after 45 mins I had my visa in my passport and was free to go and explore this delightful land of cheerful happy people

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