We rolled into Luang Prabang airport this evening for our flight onward to Hanoi, Vietnam. Our flight left at 7:15pm and we arrived at 5:00pm, with plenty of time to spare under normal circumstances. That’s an important detail because of what happened next . . .
Approach the Counter or Not?
Our default is to carry our bags onto flights. It enables us to avoid luggage wait times on the other end, and potential lost luggage. We’ve had no choice but to check luggage on a small handful of flights on smaller aircrafts, but otherwise our carry-on rule of thumb has held up.
We were already checked in online when we arrived to Luang Prabang airport, so in theory we could go straight through security and to our gate. But I wasn’t 100% sure what size aircraft our flight was, so I debated whether we should ask a Vietnam Airlines person at the check-in desk. As I was debated out loud, Paige chimed in and insisted we needed to check. Her persistence led us to that airline counter. And thank goodness!!
eVisa Please
I asked the Vietnam Airlines representative if we could carry our bags onto our flight to Hanoi, to which he replied yes. I told him we already had our mobile boarding passes so I thought we’d be on our way. He said he’d print our boarding passes, as it would be easier that way. Well, OK. I handed over our four passports and thought we’d be good to go. But then he asked for our eVisa paperwork. I’m sorry, our what?!?! Turns out we were supposed to have filed for an eVisa in advance of our arrival into Vietnam. Doh!!*
*To answer the obvious question at hand, yes I had done a bunch of visa research in advance regarding which countries required visas and in what form/time frame! I'm super organized, I swear! I frantically checked the Google Docs handy spreadsheet I had created, and sure enough, there it was in plain text under my Vietnam row “eVisa required in advance” and all the details on how to get one. I have NO idea how we lost sight of this through our travels! Too many other travel logistics on our minds at the moment. For some reason we thought we’d breeze through Southeast Asia without any visa needs. Boy were we wrong! :)
Hyper Action Mode
Panic started to set in as we realized the gravity of our mistake. Two hours before our flight and no permission to even physically get on the flight! The worker led us to the Vietnam Airways office where a colleague of his kindly explained that we needed to apply online for an emergency eVisa, with turn-around time of ~15 minutes as opposed to a few days. All for the low, low price of $238 USD per person! Gulp. What’s a family to do?! No choice but to pony up!
After a few failed attempts we successfully accessed the free airport WiFi and got to work. I was command center for filing the online eVisa applications, and Doug was lead on communicating via phone/WhatsApp with the woman at the agency expediting our request. Some tight teamwork happening!!*
*We've resurrected a virtual marble jar a few weeks ago. It's a system we had success with back in NYC, where we're each able to recognize one another for acts of kindness or going above & beyond. When this whole escapade wrapped up, Sadie awarded me & Doug marbles for all our hard work. So sweet and perceptive of her :)
Temporary eVisa In Hand
One hour later we could breath a sigh of relief . . . we had successfully received our temporary eVisa letters for entering Vietnam. This meant we could board the airplane, woo hoo! The temporary visa letter came accompanied with an insanely long list of instructions of what to do next, including this interesting one (direct quote, including use of caps)
“When you are ready at the plane, you must TEAR or THROW AWAY the letter IMMEDIATELY as IT CANNOT BE USED TO GET VISA STAMPED IN VIETNAM, it’s only used to get on board.”
Reading further on we learned that we’d be met in Vietnam by someone wearing a purple shirt and carrying a sign that read “888” (so covert!). That agency representative would then provide us with the official Visa letter, provided we were prepared with the required two passport photos (thank goodness we got a bunch of extras in Thailand last week) and $25 USD/person for entry.
Landed in Hanoi
Our flight to Hanoi was uneventful & surprisingly short. The girls caught up on some airline magazine reading before take-off :)
Once in Hanoi, we exited the plane and eagerly looked for the elusive "person in a purple shirt carrying a 888 sign". No one was to be found. We gave it a few minutes, and just as we were about to place an SOS call to the agency, a man approached us (in a blue plaid shirt, not purple!) with a hand-written sign with our names on it (not 888)! He quickly ushered us over to a high-top table and barked that he needed our passports, passport photos and $100 cash. No niceties; 100% business. He took our stuff over to another area of the Immigration hall and about 20 minutes later we had our official Vietnam visas in our passports!
Lesson Learned
I think it's fair to say we'll neurotically check that we have all the required visas in hand (or calendar reminders to get them) for all the remaining countries we visit! Pretty sure we're already all set, but today is a great reminder that it never hurts to triple check :)
Shout-out to the four of us for staying calm during a fairly intense/questionable hour in our travel logistics journey, and to me & Doug for working well together as a team to push things through quickly! Extra happy to have our feet on the ground in Hanoi, Vietnam tonight :) Phew!
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