Do you ever have problems, as I do, in bringing your travel plans to life? Every trip to Vietnam it’s always the visa problem, scoring plane tickets at a reasonable price and a good, inexpensive place to stay in Saigon. Then there are my helpers, everyone wants to help at once but things don’t seem to get done. Though, due to these helpers, I’v always ended up with a visa and a place to stay in Saigon that’s more or less what I wanted. So some might say part of the problem, especially with regard to helpers, is not them but probably with me.
On this up coming trip I’m out ahead of where I'm usually at, because as of today I’ve successfully booked my plane tickets, at what I think was a reasonable price, seat is further back than I would like but still on the aisle and I have a couple months till take off.
The visa thing in the past few years has been taken care of by a friend in Saigon, who would obtain a visa approval letter there and I would just pick up the visa in San Francisco at the Vietnamese consulate. Vietnam is trying to restrict visas to 3 months or less for non business types and I wanted a 6 month one like I’v had in the past. So I’m going to try giving it a shot from here on my own. Visa’s are normally issued as one or three month tourist visa or a 6 month (what they call) a business visa. Now they are trying to make the 6 month a true business visa and so require you to document your business contact, think I figured how to do this without a business, we will see.
Now the room thing, I need some divine intervention with that one. The past couple years I’ve been renting a room just off of Le Thi Rieng St. with great Pho just around the corner and several other good eating spots close in. Room was newer, had a balcony, hot water bathroom with shower stall, daily cleaning most of the time, great job with laundry, dsl and cable TV, all for $350.00 a month. The only real downside was, as in all rented rooms in Vietnam, lack of privacy,along with having to buzz for entrance at night and having a friend sleep over was a very serious issue.
I’ll try to be patient with these issues and will get through this as I have done with my other visits over the past 8 years. I'll keep you posted -
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