10th - A very early 4:00am call for a car to take us to the Changi Airport for our 7:10 flight to Hi Chi Minh City Vietnam. No business class this time. Just as well as the flight was all economy. 2.5 hours later we were landing just as Roberta struck up a conversation with the passenger on her right who was a native born Vietnamese who spends half his time in Western Australia and the other half in Vietnam. He gave us a good run down on things and what to do and see. Nice guy.

On landing the fun began. The Vietnamese immigration system is interesting and confusing. We applied for a visa in July and read the visa would be issued on arrival. At the immigration point we were asked for the approval letter – Approval Letter??. Yep you need an approval letter, “which would have been sent to you” – before they can issue a visa. At one point we were faced with a flight back to Singapore, whose immigration people should not have allowed us to board the plane without the letter. All we had was copies of the application which included passport type photos. After much time, changing officials to the next highest rank we were offered the opportunity for an Emergency Visa. This would cost US$160 per person – “Is that OK?”. Alternative – go back. So we said OK. We were then introduced to a guy whose “company” would develop and submit the emergency visa application – this would take around another hour. We were no in our 3^rd hour in immigration. At the end of the hour, during we witnessed quite a number of “company” guys working with other passengers from a number of flights, we were called. Everything at Immigration was quoted in US$ and paid in cash! I told our guy I did not have cash. No worries I could get it from the ATM, OUTSIDE THE TERMINAL!. I was escorted part of the way by an official and proceeded outside the terminal to get the VD8,000,000 for the charge. No issues getting outside to get to the ATM. All officials along the way, 300m or so, just smiled and pointed. Walked back in and up to immigration paid our guy the VD8,000,000 who promptly gave us our passports and visas and said have a good day. We went through the official check point and then proceeded to collected our bags which were sitting all by themselves out in the open baggage area. Sidebar – while I was waiting next to our bags Roberta a distraught woman, all tears etc was near me, looking around in a daze. I asked if everything was OK. She was from NZ and had not completed the immigration process properly and was now being issued an Emergency Visa and was being charged US$200 to complete. She was looking for the ATM. I said it was outside – she was horrified! “How do I get out there” I said just walk through, she had 2 carry-on cases. I pointed to the ATM which we could see and she proceeded in that direction. The official on the scanned stopped her, nodded and pointed to the ATM. He had seen this all before. So she walked outside with her bags without being scanned. Interesting.

We paid in advance for a taxi and headed to our hotel. This was just the start of an amazing day.