Visa run to Cambodia. (part 1)

Thanks to Vietnamese government, extending your visa is not as easy as it used to be. When I came here the first time in 2014 you could easily extend your visa where ever you wanted but thanks to the always changing laws and regulations you can now extend your visa only once and presumably only for one month without leaving the country. Having done the one month extension already once it was time for me to do the infamous visa run. There's a couple of ways to do it. Some people choose to fly somewhere, like Bangkok, and enjoy the visa run for couple of days or more. Relax, eat and drink well. Then there's the other way which I was kind of forced to choose since I play every night at the Escape bar and I was not to miss a single night.

On Thursday evening we played the show as usual, well not exactly to be honest. This was the first time ever for me to witness a proposal on stage. There was this Vietnamese couple listening to us and the guy approached us during the break and told that it's his birthday but the major issue was that he was going to propose his girlfriend. Whoaaaah. Of course we were there to help him. First we did the "Happy Birthday"-song, then the Vietnamese dude sang Wonderfull Tonight and then he dropped the big one. You should have seen the girls impression when she heard the proposal. Classic. She said yes btw. I have to admit that it was a truly touching moment.

After the show I took a taxi straight to the bus station to catch my midnight bus to Saigon. All of you who have been here in Vietnam know that the so called "sleeper busses" can be quite horrendous for a person of my size. I bet they're quite ok if you are a 160cm tall or so but for me they're actually insomnia or coffin busses. So it was 6 hours of almost no sleep at all to Saigon. The visa issuing policies ain't the only thing that has changed in Vietnam. Now, because of a new law the busses can't stop at the "city centre"of Saigon anymore so instead of getting dropped right next to the bus station where I was supposed to catch my bus to the Cambodian border, the bus went all the way to this huge bus central way away from the city centre. It took one hour in total including the wait for the shuttle bus to leave to get into the city centre. One hour?!?

Unsurprisingly my retrieval of the visa invitation letter went perfectly since getting it wasn't that easy. Let me explain a bit more of the Vietnamese visas. If you enter the country by a plane you can apply for your visa online and get the so called visa-on-arrival which is easy and simple. I've done it two times now. Works like a charm. In my case I was doing the on land border run and those letters are harder to get. No same kind of online services as with the VOA, at least not to my knowledge at least. Well I managed to get a contact who works for the immigration and for an visa agency. I sent him the pictures of my passport and my visa and he told me that the easiest way for me is to do a border run to Cambodia and that he makes the visa invitation letter for me. Ok, I sent him a reply giving the green light. The first reply to this was "pleas contact us the next Wednesday". I sent my message on Friday forenoon. This was just before the International Labour day so I kind of understood it and hell, I still had enough time to get the letter before I had to leave the county. After the Labour day I sent my message again asking who should we proceed. This time I get an answer telling me to contact my contact number. I'm like what the f***. Now they don't know who originally sent me the first reply or what? So I sent the guy an sms asking for him to tell me how to proceed. No reply. I wait for several days and now my visa expiration date is getting closer really fast. I managed to get another contact from a friend of mine and called her immediately and she promised to do the visa letter for me.

Here's one anecdote about Vietnam and Vietnamese people; So this contact is a long time associate of my friend's and on the phone she told me:" Don't worry about the money, you're Daniella's friend so I trust you. You pay me when you have the time".  This was Sunday afternoon around 5pm. The next morning about 11am I get a message from her asking if I had payed yet.

So I was in Saigon at 7am with my visa letter and ready to board the bus to the Cambodian border...but I shall continue about that in my next post soon, I promise. I even promise to make an exception and actually reveal a bit about my future! Stay tuned.


Teemu

Hugs and kisses or something...