We were on the edge of our month long allotted stay in Vietnam so we needed to go to the Immigration Office to get a Visa extension. We were told to go to the airport, and they would be able to stamp our passports, easy. We fought traffic and one way streets and eventually made it to the office only to find the immigration officer with his bare feet up on the desk, smoking. He told us he could not help us here, that we needed to visit the headquarters. So we headed back to the motorbike parking and scanned the hundreds of bikes until we found ours.
From there we managed our way to the immigration office (we found out it was right nest to our hotel)and was closed for lunch. We had worked up quite an appetite ourselves so we found a nice small restaurant right around the corner that served our favorite dish "Bun Thit Nuong." After our stomachs were satisfied we braved the traffic once more but realized that we were completely turned around. The street numbers went in one direction to the left and the same direction to the right. What was the logic? With Alex's keen sense of direction, we found the office about an hour later.
We waited, and waited, there was no apparent line, people pushed and shoved to get to the front. Alex was at least a head taller than everyone so he managed his way up to the front.
Eventually they called our names. We went into a small office where the officer said that it would take 8 days to complete the paperwork. We had air tickets out in 5 days. We would have to risk not getting the visa extension. We found a nice place to get a coke above a major intersection where we laughed at the organized chaos below us.
1 comment:
Holy CRAP!! Are there no street signs or lights?!?! -SANNA
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