Illegal land occupation

[PattayaOneTeam]

Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh

Part 1

I am not a travel writer, nor do I wish to become one, but I do believe in sharing one’s travel experiences. It’s a great way to save other people time and money should they want to experience the wonderful places this world still has to offer. The Internet is awash with travel sites, tips and blogs from people who have ‘been there done that’, but some are contradictory and others leave you wondering whether the writer has a vested interest in the destination he/she promotes. Sad to say, I have no financial interest in anything, so I’ll recount my latest trip to Vietnam with two friends. Our target was the town of Vinh, about 290 kilometres south of Hanoi and located 20 kilometres from the sea in the narrowest part of Vietnam. The reason was to visit my son who is teaching English at a school there. Now, before you start looking at a map to find Vinh, let me just say that unless you also have someone in that city you specifically want to visit, there is no reason to go there. As one Vietnamese gentleman replied when we told him where we were heading; “Vinh? Why? There is nothing there!” See, I have already saved you money.

The first trick was to obtain the Vietnam visas and, here again, I can save you time and money. Travel agents in Pattaya are charging around 4,000 baht (approx. US$133) for the service. Doing it yourself requires two trips to the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok and US$45 for the single entry 30-day tourist visa. But there is another way. At the website visa-vietnam.org you can apply for a visa pre-approval letter for a cost of US$20. The three of us applied together and the cost came down to US$18 each. A confirmation letter is then sent to your e-mail address with all the details you provided, enabling you to check the information and change anything if needed. Within two working days you will be e-mailed your ‘Pre Approval Letter’ which you print out and take with you. This is only good for arriving in Vietnam by air at Hanoi, Saigon or Da Nang and no such service currently exists for land border crossings. Upon arrival at one of those airports, head to ‘Visa on Arrival’, show the letter, pay a further US$25 and the visa is placed into your passport.

And the system works. We arrived at Hanoi after the 80-minute flight and all went smoothly. Interestingly, the taxi trip from Pattaya to the airport took the same amount of time as the flight. Hanoi airport is 45 minutes’ drive north of the city so the next trick was to get into town. We chose the taxi service which operates a US$15 flat fee for transport into the city and told the driver to take us directly to the train station. Upon arrival, he demanded US$18 which, after some argument, we paid. He kept saying his was a “bigger car”. I mentally abused him for the next two days, until I read an official tourist brochure stating that a four-seater taxi is US$15 but a larger six-seater vehicle (the one we had taken) was, in fact, US$18. Sorry mate.

As you may have guessed, our plan was to take the train to Vinh, a journey taking five and a half hours. I had read up on the Vietnamese rail system and most comments indicated it was efficient, comfortable and cheap. I had even organised our flight to coordinate with the departure of the ‘best’ train to Saigon. The pictures of this train on the Internet were magnificent – shades of the Orient Express, but at a fraction of the cost. The only snag was that we could not pre-book our tickets and the train fills up quickly on the day of departure.

Sure enough, the four-berth cabins I had been hoping for were sold out. Instead we took the soft, reclining seats which would suffice for our relatively short trip. At 142,000 Vietnamese Dong (225 Baht) they weren’t expensive and we purchased three tickets.

“You are kidding me!” That was my statement when I first saw the train on the platform. Those Internet photos must be 20 years old because this vehicle looked more like a cattle train than the Orient Express. But it was too late; we had made our bed and now we had to lie in it. The seats were worn and torn but they did recline, as long as you didn’t mind garrotting the person seated behind you when, fully reclined, the top of your seat plunged into his neck. The train departed right on time and the rocking and rolling along the narrow-gauge line for the next five and a half hours was not that unpleasant.

We arrived at Vinh only five minutes late and caught a metered taxi to a nearby hotel which is one of the best in the city. Our discounted rate (my son had already done the booking and negotiating) of 300,000 dong (470 baht) per night was reasonable. Most hotels in Vietnam include breakfast in their room charge, the quality of which varies greatly. This hotel put on a large Vietnamese buffet and we had no complaints in that department.

Vinh is a big country town and the population rise early. Peak hour is between 6:00am and 7:00am. In the middle of the day the streets are deserted as the country folk avoid the heat. They appear firm believers in the tenet that only “mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”. (Ironically, that phrase comes from a Noel Coward (1899-1973) song entitled “Mad dogs and Englishmen”, supposedly composed while Mr. Coward was driving from Hanoi to Saigon.)

Next issue, I’ll have more observations from Vinh followed by tales of our return to Hanoi and exploits therein, including some do’s and don’ts for the unwary.

… to be continued.

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-- Pattaya One 2010-10-22