Halong Bay, Vietnam
We have our visas for our upcoming trip to Vietnam. We usually plan some aspects of our vacations well ahead of time, while leaving many details to chance. We plan connections, accommodations, research local restaurants, and often purchase ferry or event tickets well ahead. By leaving a number of details to chance, we allow ourselves the opportunity do discover the unexpected. This can be a very good thing or a topic of conversation when we get home.
Our Vietnam trip is different. On a lark we booked this trip through Gate 1 travel, a tour guide company that offers low priced package tours with small groups. We have done no planning for this trip, though we did have to get visas at the Vietnam Consulate in San Francisco. That was surprisingly easy. Our trip takes us to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, Halong Bay, and Hanoi. The U.S. government offered an all expenses trip to Vietnam in the 60’s. I had forgone my college deferment and was 1A when the lottery numbers were drawn. Mine was 148. I didn’t tour Vietnam in the 60’s.
Getting A Vietnam Visa
I considered sending our passports to the consulate via FedX or USPS, but thought better of it. If you visit the Vietnam Consulate website, you’ll find that they want a passport photo that is recent and with ears showing. Both our passport photos are a few years old. Ellen’s has her ears hidden. A web search turned up a few horror stories about visa applications returned because the photo was too old. Then we have the hidden ears issue. We had photos taken this morning at a local USPS store. I drove to San Francisco in the afternoon with the embassy forms, photos, and passports in hand.
The San Francisco consulate is closed between noon and 2:30 pm. Knowing this and planning for traffic off I went. There was no traffic! I arrived at the consulate at 1:50 pm. Parking in SF is brutal. I turned onto California Street to find 1. someone taking the only open parking space on the block and 2. a parking garage right under 1700 Cal. St. Parking cost $3.00 per fifteen minutes. That’s no bargain, but it’s far less expensive than a ticket would be. I parked seven levels down and took the garage elevator to “lobby level”. The consulate is on the 5th floor, serviced with a pair of elevators. #580, was closed as expected but with a fellow, Jerry, sitting on the floor. A line was forming!
It turns out that Jerry worked for a visa and passport convenience company. For a fee, they do the processing and return your completed passport to you. He was there that day to expedite a visa for travel the next day. He mentioned that for $30.00 more, I could have the visa process while I wait, typically in 30 minutes. Great! We had an interesting wide-ranging conversation about travel, high rise construction in San Francisco (a Chinese company is building two 40 story apartment buildings downtown), a politics.
The consulate door was unlocked from the hallway and we filed in. There were maybe six or seven of us. Jerry had his business submitted in about 15 minutes and sat to wait for the passports to be processed. My visa submission took all of 5 minutes and a few hundred dollars charged to a credit card. I took a seat waiting for our passports and practicing Italian phrases on a duolingo app. Less than 15 minutes later I left with visas stamped into our passports. It was effortless. I only wish the drive home in rush hour traffic from San Francisco was as easy.
Getting a visa is the extend of the effort I’ve put into “planning” for our Vietnam Trip. We will have one or two “free” days. On those days I’ll ask a hotel concierge for recommendations.