Job Discussion Forums

[refugee]

To cut a long story short, my tourist visa ran out on Sunday, I'm in Hanoi but my passport is in Hong Kong. I'm kinda stuck until I can sort out this mess.

I need to travel to HCM next week to attend a training course and a job interview. I will be there for about 5 weeks.

I'll have to travel overland since I can't fly without a passport. What are my chances of finding a hotel/guesthouse which will let me check-in without a passport? I've not ventured out of Hanoi yet and the places I've stayed here all demanded they retained my passport until I checked out. I've yet to ascertain why.

Any ideas?

[Jbhughes]

[shanewarne]

Highly unlikely any hotel/guesthouse/hellhole will let you stay without showing your passport. Although they may accept a photocopy or a scanned copy as a temporary solution. I once did that in Mui ne and had no problems. Failing that, you may have to crash out at a friends house. An extreme measure would be to claim asylum due to political reasons in my home country. Good luck!!!

[baygioimdi]

I had a similar problem a few years ago. The US consulate in HCMC issued me a document stating that I was waiting for my new passport from the USA.
With this document I had no problem travelling by air and staying in hotels. I also had my expired passport but a photocopy was ok. I also know other nationalities that have had similar problems and they also got a doc from their consulate.

You should contact your embassy in Hanoi and seek help, I suspect your embassy sent your passport to HK for whatever reason?

best of luck

[LettersAthruZ]

WHAT THE HECK is your passport doing in Hong Kong? You obviously made it INTO Viet Nam...did you mail it there or something?

Anyways, Jbhughes is 100% correct....PRIMARILY, it's to make sure you pay! SECONDLY, for the "red book"/registration lists of the Guesthouse/hotel (said red book is given nightly to local law enforcement along with a nice little "gift").

Since it's PRIMARILY for making sure that you don't skip out on the check, you could (AND I'M NOT CONDONING THIS) just say that your passport just got nicked and that you can leave a "secondary form" of I.D. (e.g. - Provincial/State/National driver's license) and 500,000VND payment UP FRONT for, say, a 400,000VND room (in case ya raid anything from the fridge like bia or water)!

I'VE HEARD this done a few times successfully.....hotel/Guesthouse owner just really happy to protect themselves from you taking off without paying!

Obviously, never had to try it myself.........


.....can't you explain the situation to them and ask them to put off this training course/job interview?

[toiyeuthitmeo]

I've taken many coach journeys and have never had to show my passport for ticketing or at any point. I also found the same on the train. Note my trips have been 5-6 hours trips, not Hanoi to HCMC...but... you'd probably be ok.

As mentioned, hotels are quite unmoving on the issue, and they want to keep the passport. However there are ways around this--I may be able to help find you a guest house or hotel that will waive the passport requirement or at the least be happy with a scanned copy. PM me if interested.

In addition, you're taking a 5 week course. My guess is that if it is a CELTA or TEFL course, at some point the training centre is going to want to see your passport, or at the very least, will be unhappy to discover you're without a Visa or passport. Might be a good idea to check with them, or, not even mention it to them

Yikes, in VN with no passport and no visa...

[bobpen]

You are not required to release your passport overnight with any guesthouse. While in the city (hcmc) I've always kept it with me in my room.

If you're only going to be in the HCMC area then the more touristy areas should be a bit more relaxed on rules.

There was one time I checked into a place in Dalat and they wanted to keep overnight both my passport as well as some other extra unrelated paperwork that was inside it. When they saw I took the extra papers out while passing it to them, they demanded I keep it all inside. As we disagreed, I kindly walked out and found another place about 8 minutes down the road not only cheaper, but a bit more accomodating.

[refugee]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

My wife is working here. I am not (yet). Her employer tried to get me a business visa but immi said there wasn't enough space in my passport (don't know how many black pages they want...) so I had to send it off to Hong Kong to get renewed which takes 1 month.

The British Embassy are an extortion racket.
New passport: $250
courier fee: $50
telephone help: $1.30 per minute

They offered me a temporary 1-month passport ($160) and a letter saying my passport was being renewed ($75) but I've yet to accept their kind offer of assistance.

I'm wishing I flew back to the UK to stay with family while I get it renewed. Would have been quicker and almost as cheap.

I was thinking about taking a train to HCMC from Hanoi but it looks like it'll take 3 days and I probably can't overnight in any places without a passport.

Maybe I'll have to wait it out in Hanoi until the HK Embassy pulls out their finger.

Yes, I have to take the CELTA in HCMC because my MA TESOL and 6 years experience won't get me an interview anywhere decent in Vietnam. I could do with a refresher course anyway.

[Jbhughes]

[refugee]

My wife insists her employer will handle all the immi BS once my passport finally arrives. Her employer is tied to another embassy and they've already made some glaring admin blunders so I'm kinda worried.

I'm feel trapped in Hanoi as I can't travel far outside the city without a passport. Even Sapa & Halong Bay want 'original passports' to do things officially and I don't fancy sneaking around at the moment.

I've traveled in 25-30 countries and never had so much visa BS before - and I've only been here a little over a month.

You'd think Vietnamese disliked foreigners wouldn't you?

[snollygoster]

You'd think Vietnamese disliked foreigners wouldn't you?
They do- but they LOVE your money.

[I'm With Stupid]

[snollygoster]

3% return rate- Compare that to Thailand- 28% return rate.
Vietnam is only beaten by Afganistan, Iraq in the tourism return rates.
Beautiful country, but no incentives to attract tourists to return. Rip offs, rude taxi drivers, and a rapacious government that only wants the MONEY-not the bother of having to cater to tourists, nor to educate service (?) people how to make the tourist happy enough to want to come back and spend more money in the future.
Short sighted policy.

Grab their money and get rid of them- plenty more where that one came from.

[I'm With Stupid]

I don't even think it's that. I went to Cambodia recently, and there's the same sort of short-term "let's rip off the tourists" mentality there (as there is everywhere to some extent), but Siem Reap is just a much better organised tourist destination than anything I've seen in Vietnam. But having said that, there was one "floating market" scam that was far worse than anything I've heard of in Vietnam.

The Economist put Vietnam's return rate at 5% compared to 50% for Thailand, btw.

[LettersAthruZ]