by hermespan » Thu Dec 10, 2015 4:06 pm
The Immigration office (now at 196 Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, phường 6, Quận 3, Hồ Chí Minh) a 15 minute sweltering brisk walk N and E of the old office on Nguyen Du *looks* straightforward and welcoming. Get N14/M form ar kiosk on next floor up from basement, take a number (press screen), wait, stumble along in street Vietnamese or be shifted to fluent officer.
Short answer: You can't cut out the middle man as a tourist.
Bureaucracy w/ no practical purpose as far as I can tell. Tourist visa can be extended only via sponsor (i.e. travel agency). No explanation why. What purpose served? Actual gov't fee only $10 for 1 mnth sgl, $40 1-3 mnth multi. So agencies are making lion's share. Is it gov't corruption? Is it Soviet-style bureaucracy? Does the VN gov't need the hard currency? How does making one go thru an agency prevent criminals from staying in country? Why does Vietnam discourage tourism (compared to Thailand and especially Malaysia)?
Vietnam has the same problem of all nation-states if various forms of state socialism - it's not up to the marketpkace ot community, it's up to officers of the Federal level.
Who can fathom their reasons?
Visa policy in Vietnam is up, down and sideways (gets easier, gets tougher, confusion reigns at some land borders).
A journalist in my libertarian and libertine adventurer newsletter on travelling SE Asia in the 1990s put it well when he wrote "Vietnamese government would prefer if we just sent our money and stayed home."
The Immigration office (now at 196 Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, phường 6, Quận 3, Hồ Chí Minh) a 15 minute sweltering brisk walk N and E of the old office on Nguyen Du *looks* straightforward and welcoming. Get N14/M form ar kiosk on next floor up from basement, take a number (press screen), wait, stumble along in street Vietnamese or be shifted to fluent officer.
Short answer: You can't cut out the middle man as a tourist.
Bureaucracy w/ no practical purpose as far as I can tell. Tourist visa can be extended only via sponsor (i.e. travel agency). No explanation why. What purpose served? Actual gov't fee only $10 for 1 mnth sgl, $40 1-3 mnth multi. So agencies are making lion's share. Is it gov't corruption? Is it Soviet-style bureaucracy? Does the VN gov't need the hard currency? How does making one go thru an agency prevent criminals from staying in country? Why does Vietnam discourage tourism (compared to Thailand and especially Malaysia)?
Vietnam has the same problem of all nation-states if various forms of state socialism - it's not up to the marketpkace ot community, it's up to officers of the Federal level.
Who can fathom their reasons?
Visa policy in Vietnam is up, down and sideways (gets easier, gets tougher, confusion reigns at some land borders).
A journalist in my libertarian and libertine adventurer newsletter on travelling SE Asia in the 1990s put it well when he wrote "Vietnamese government would prefer if we just sent our money and stayed home."