On my stay in Da Lat I understood that not only I was gonna stay the whole 3 months but I will also need to extend it. My friend Eeva made that call for me. Sometimes I have difficulties on deciding what to do and I was weighing my options in Da Lat. Whether to extend my visa or to continue to some other country. Eeva announced that she was gonna fly to Vietnam for two weeks holiday to visit me but the interesting point was that my visa was due to expire during her stay in Vietnam. Ok, one "problem" solved. I now had a pretty good reason to extend my visa. Only problem was that Vietnamese goverment changed the renewal policy in the beginning of this year. Before you could do it anywhere. This year (2015) you have to deliver you passport to HCM or Hanoi. Well Eeva was gonna fly to HCM so it seemed to be perfect for me. The downside was that it takes about 5 days to get the new visa unless you're prepared to pay your ass off for faster delivery. The one frightening thing was also that I had heard different stories about getting the visa extended. A friend of mine even needed to leave the country to get a new visa. Well that would suck big time if I needed to leave the country, not only for me but also for Eeva =) With all the scenarios on my mind I headed to Saigon (HCM) to meet Eeva. One funny detail was that somehow I messed up the date Eeva was coming to Saigon, luckily this time I was a day early which was quite ok in the end compared to the *uck up when I arrived to the airport 24 hours too late. But that is another story and another journey ;)
Anyways, I ended up getting my visa extended for another 3 months. So I guess you now know where my posts are gonna come for some time. The guy running our hotel in Saigon was gonna take care of that.
I have to say that after 9 months of traveling it was really nice to see one of my best friends from Finland. I managed the reunion hardly without shedding any tears.
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| Me, Eeva and Ms Saigon on the background. Eeva is the one wearing the glasses. |
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| A Finnish newspaper in the war museum in Saigon telling about the demonstrations in Finland during the was. |
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| Saigon! |
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| "byhyyy, it's not working and the octopus is evil!!" |
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| The oldest trick in the book and we wen't for it. Doh |
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| "Is there anybody there? I need a lift to China beach" |
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| Did somebody mention beer?!?!? A Saigon beer?? |
I found out that it is possible to extend my visa without leaving the country which was a big relief to me although I always thought that it is doable with money. The next thing that might be a problem was of course the thing that I needed to leave my passport to Saigon whilst we were traveling around the Southern-Vietnam. "Why?" might somebody ask now but here in Vietnam the hotels need to make sure that you have a valid visa for your stay. The officials make sure of that every now and then and raid the accommodation providers to check the papers. Well in Mekong Delta it was still ok just to travel with a A4 paper copy since I still had few days left on my visa. The hotel staff there understood that I'm in the middle of visa extending process.
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| "Hmmmm..There's something fishy going on" One of the best tourist tours ever. 7 hours on Mekong delta and there's no sarcasm |
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| "So that is a bird and there is some grass" |
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| "May I give you this flower for you to cherish it?" |
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| "Hmmmm....No sir, I'm not SURE if I like it!" |
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| "Trallallalalaa. Dumdi dum" |
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| Well that is a proper outhouse! All you need is your Calvin&Hobbes magazine and your good to spend a nice afternoon over there. |
The first drop of sweat rose to my forehead when we headed to an island called Phu Quoc. It is on the west coast and quite close to the Cambodian border. I don't know if that is the reason why there were official checking the passports while boarding the ferry. (flying to Phu Quoc was out of the equation hence they check the passports even on internal flights). The uniformed official took my photocopy passport, looked at me and gave it back. I just told him: "Visa extended in Saigon". *pheeww* So far so good.
I hate booking in advance and.... I guess I don't even have to tell you that once again I...we didn't have anything booked in Phu Quoc. We met a german couple at the Phu Quoc ferry port and said to Eeva: "Let's follow them and see the place where they staying at. If we like it we can also stay there".
There is a some kind of "mafia" going on at the Phu Quoc ferry port because it was impossible to get a taxi with a meter. Only Vietnamese could get a proper taxi and tourists were left to take the unofficial rides. The prices were ridiculous compared to what it would have been with an official taxi with meter. Managed to get 100k VND (4€) out of the original 400k VND price so it wasn't that bad anymore when split in four shares. But still... made me a bit angry.
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| A beach |
Then started the problems. The place where the german couple was staying proved to be good for our purposes and the price was also decent so we decided to stay at the same place and rent a bungalow.
Then cam the time to present the passports, oh the passports. The funny thing was that we both had problems this time. They didn't understand why Eeva didn't have visa at all. All she had was a stamp form the airport that she was allowed to stay in Vietnam for two weeks. They didn't know that Finn's and some other nationalities don't need a visa if you only stay less than 15 days in Vietnam which was the case with Eeva. So there I'm explaining this to the staff and then I'm trying to explain why I only have a A4 copy of my passport with an expired visa.
"It is being extended in Saigon, that is why I don't have my visa", I tried to explain
"You have no visa. If police we problem. You can not stay."
"But it is okay, it is getting extended."
"You no visa. No passport. Police, we have problem."
I even tried to use the receipt I got from the guy who was taking care of my visa extension.
"I do nothing with this paper. This no visa. Only paper. No visa number."
Holy shit. Well I was kind of expecting this but still...
"Please call this hotel which is taking care of the visa. He will explain."
So they call the number in the business card I got from the hotel just for this kind of situation. The guy there promised to help me if this kind of situation happens. The problem was that some how the number went to a private guy and not to the hotel. They called at least twice with the same result. Shiiiit.
"Let me send some email to the the guy who is taking care of the extending, he can then call you."
This was gonna be a bit tricky one but at least they now believed that Eeva didn't need a visa so at least she could stay. I was already going trough other options like sleeping on the beach or just try as long as so place accepts me to stay.
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| Sunset in Phu Quoc |
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| Another sunset |
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| A bulb |
I asked for the wifi password and tried to send an email to the hotel in Saigon. I got a perfectly good connection but somehow my email app refused to send or receive any email. "This can't be true. WTF is wrong." I even tried to call the number by myself but it was quite clear that it wasn't the hotel answering.
Now I was really starting to sweat for the first time and not because of the heat. Eeva borrowed me her cellular and with that I managed to log in to my gmail account and sent an email. After a couple of minutes the phone rang and the staff member had a conversation which clearly involved my passports. I was keeping my fingers crossed when the they gave the phone to me.
"This is Chanh. I tried to explain them that it is the same visa number since your's is being extended and hence you're not getting a new number but they still won't let you stay. Maybe you just should find another place. Maybe they're afraid that you're not gonna pay your bill or they're just afraid of the officials."
Holy shit. I decided to give it my last try because the same problem could happen in the next place.
So I explained them as clearly and with as simple English as I could that the visa number was still gonna be the same than in my A4 photocopy. "No new visa. Same visa number."
I don't know what made them change them their minds in the end but the staff had a pow wow and finally told me that it's okay for us to stay. Maybe it was the fact that I promised to pay in front if that was the case. I think it took at least one hour in total to get them convinced. *pheeeew* We decided to stay all our nights in Phu Quoc in that place just that we don't have to go through the same again.
Had maybe the best seafood ever in Phu Quoc. We were happy. Quiet beaches, good food, good weather and cheap Vietnamese rum. Ended up spending the evenings on our terrace with the german couple. Lot's of rum and beer. Sweet.
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| Finally I'm there, where the pepper grows. Black pepper plants in Phu Quoc. |
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| A tree |
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| The east coast of Phu Quoc had an adventurous "road" |
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| "Dare I do it?!" |
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| " I guess I shouldn't. The road is in bad shape. Really bad shape" |
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| Luckily there was some bamboo bridges |
Thank you Eeva for amazing two weeks! (really enjoyed the first ever pedicure ;)
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| "Born To Be Wild" |
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| Yep, It's me getting a pedicure for the first time ever. Damn I like my toenails now ;) And yes, I'm manly enough to try that, thanks to Eeva though =) |
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| My bar!!!!!11!!!! |
Epilogue to this entry:
My dear readers. I'm not sure if you can even imagine but I'm finally almost in the present day with my blog. Eeva left Vietnam less than week ago. I have already had an interesting adventure in Southern-Vietnam but that shall be another entry. I guess it's now time for me to get my bike from Da Lat. Oh yes, I promised to tell you why I left my bike in Da Lat. Well the reason is just practicality. It would have been a bit hard to travel with Eeva for two weeks. Me with the bike and she with the busses. No go. I told Kha that if I don't return he can have my bike but if I return then it shall be mine again.
Yours, Teemu
We had so much fun. Fell in love with Vietnam. Love you too :)
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