I am travelling to Hoi An and in HCMC with a Vietnamese girl who happens to be my girlfriend. What are the restrictions?
I am about to take a trip to Vietnam to spend time with my Vietnamese girlfriend. We plan on traveling form HCMC to Hoi An for a few days. I have heard that the country has a policy of not letting Vietnamese citizens stay with foreigners. Is this strictly enforced? Should I just go ahead and book 2 rooms? Or can I probably get away with one? Thanks.
Reply to this Hello John Paul 😊
When I was in Thailand I saw that a number of guesthouses had signs up saying that Thai people are not allowed to be in the bedrooms and/or not allowed to stay at the guesthouse. I also saw a sign at one saying that only those with foreign passports are allowed to go to the rooms. I asked the staff at one guesthouse what that is about. They said it is OK if the Thai person is staying all night. I think it is a way to prevent prostitutes using the guesthouse facilities. Maybe that is also the situation in Vietnam.
Mel
Reply to this Well, when I was in Vietnam the police would come into my hotel room around 2 a.m. to check for hookers! Since your passport is turned over to the desk clerk when you check in the police can confiscate that passport until you pay a huge bribe! The inspection was thorough, they (police) looked under beds, in closets, behind doors, in bathtubs, etc. They seem disappointed when they leave and find no VN citizens!
If you stay in a higher priced hotel often the hotel pays off the local police ahead of time. You do pay more for this in your final bill. Vietnam is a Communist state and corrupt as well!
Take your VN lady to a "more expensive" hotel and you will probably be around the same price as paying for 2 separate hotel rooms.
Have a good day.
Reply to this Hi, there,
A few hotels got raided by police very often, like almost everynight or every week, at least. It depends when there's an operation to clean up sex trade, normally it happened a few times a year. Most people went to these hotels with a hooker for 1/2 or 1 hour, some stayed overnight simply because they didn't know or because of lightly lower price. And these "love" hotels are outside of the tourist area, packbacker's area, or downtown core. So, no worries!
To avoid trouble, let your girl friend register and talk to hotel staff and you both could tell them that you were living together if they question. I really cann't see any problem, but if there will be you just walk to the hotel a few steps away.
Mel was right, it only applys to local girls.
About 1 out of 6 tourists got involved with Thai sex industry, at least once. It's just not legal in writting. VN is a little stricter. Most hotels will let you bring a VN citizen in, but they won't do it during the operation. A few would take a chance to sell you one more room, maybe they are greedy or maybe they just follow the rule.
Halberd made some vague comment on the second paragraph. People in VN do business like other people in any capitalist countries do.
"love hotel" do pay off the local police, but not a reputable one , the same for any other kind of business in VN. " You do pay more for this in your final bill" I really don't understand why pay more and for what. I recognize that in the West certain big business owners like to get known by and hang around with local authorities. It's actually good for the business in some way, tho they have their own lawyers. I guess they knew what they were doing for their own advantage. In VN most people don't have a lawyer, so befriend to the authorities was the way to go.
I think hotel in VN offers very reasonable low price, you could splurge yourselves in a $50 room.
Have a nice trip!
Paul
Reply to this Higher priced hotels do pay off the police and this is figured into your hotel bill! It doesn't matter if you have someone with you or not, everyone pays a little towards the bribes! What you are paying for is to NOT be awakened in the middle of the night to have the police check for any "extra" guests! I find that the cheaper hotels have the TOURISTS pay the bribes directly to the police and not the hotel necessarily. This is not a "vague" statement - VN police are corrupt!
It's not only the tourists that get hit up for bribes the local Vietnamese are also outraged at the corruption!
Worldandnation/75_year_old_scourge
Reply to this I moved this to the travel news and discussion forum.
Mel
Reply to this i'm Vietnamese :D I think you just go ahead and book 1 room for both of you... I never heard police arrest foreiger if they stay with vietnamese girl.. Even there's a rule like that, i don't think you should worry about it... Rules, laws are not really strict about that matter in Vietnam. Just be sure that you don't do anything illegally like: take illegally drugs... sth like that, you should worry... but others, i think its no big deal
Reply to this Yeah, I went, it wasn't... as long as you are a paying customer and keep to yourself... the hotels and the police don't care.
Reply to this Technically its illegal for foriegner to have vietnamese gf spend the night in the room. However I've always done it at many different hotels. Sai gon, Vung tau, BMT, Long Xuyen, Vinh Long. Over the last 5 yrs. Some of the hotels won't permit you. Its not a matter of paying off the cong an. Avoid the hell- hole pham ngu lao etc. It doesn't matter the price of the hotel, even the expensive ones can deny you. (like the continental)
It matters more on geography. Most hotels I stayed in are in Q3 or uptown Q1, sometimes Q10. Never any issues, never any police. Usually prices about $20 - $35. Even in 2008.
I know a lot of people in vn also several hotel staff. Never heard of anyone being arrested for having a girlfriend or "girlfriend" in a hotel room. Bottom line - stay away from tourist area and
"hotel-make-love" hotels.
Very easy to do.
Reply to this That is ridiculous. Such an eskewed misunderstanding. No polices could do you nothing if you and your girl friend had prove your identities. Tell your little girl friend to bring her ' Chung minh thu nhan dan' or her 'Ho Chieu' traveling. Good luck dude!
Reply to this Ask your girlfriend to bring her Identification. There's no reason to affair of the police if you guys are couple.
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Restriction of bringing your girlfriend on holiday with you?
Not being able to shag the local girls, for a start???!!!! Or am I missing an important point here? :p
Reply to this Or am I missing an important point here?
Yeah, you are not taking into account how corrupt the police can be. Any excuse to extract a bribe.
Reply to this Or am I missing an important point here?
Yeah, you are not taking into account how corrupt the police can be. Any excuse to extract a bribe....
Reply to this Thought I would share my experience of going to Ho Chi Minh and Can Tho with my Vietnamese girlfriend this year.
Having seen somewhere about the possible problem in hotels of staying with a Vietnamese girl I did a bit of digging on the internet. I think I found this article so I wrote to the hotel in HCMC where we were due to go. They confirmed that we could not stay together unless married. After a couple of emails they said I could book another room for her but it was too expensive for me to do this at that particular hotel. I then wrote to another hotel who quickly suggested that I take one basic single room and another better room.
When we arrived we were given the nice double room and although I was charged for both rooms we were not even given the key for the basic room. From this point on we adopted a different approach and I got my girlfriend to phone up and make the bookings, explaining that she had an English boyfriend. This worked very well. When we arrived in Can Tho she was asked to sign a form stating that I was her fiance and we were given one room with no problem. When we moved to another, cheaper, hotel in Can Tho not even the form was required.
We returned to the same hotel in HCMC and again my girlfriend made the booking. This time I did not need to book a second room.
Having read that people may not think too well of her for travelling with a westerner, I made a point of checking with her whenever it seemed that someone in the street had spoken to her. She may have hidden it from me but to my knowledge no bad comments were directed at her. Certainly in Can Tho I was a bit of a novelty and people seemed to want to ask her where I was from and maybe how she had managed to land such a handsome foreigner - ha ha.
I am sure that there could have been some hotels that would not have let us stay together but if you find yourself in the same situation I would recommend doing the same as we did.
Reply to this I've travelled from Buon ma thuot all over to vinh long, can tho, long xuyen neverr had to book two rooms with VN girlfriend. however I avoid the top end touristy hotels, usually just pick an average one with wifi, etc about 250.000 - 400.000 vnd. Never had any issues except at the continental in sai gon.
Almost all hotels pay the police and the police leave them alone. Probably the high profile hotels and thelow end whore hotels come under more scrutiny
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