Every Western visitor to Vietnam needs to have a visa.
Visa for Vietnam are not as easily available as for instance visa
for Thailand.
It is in general only possible to procure the visa by yourself,
when you are travelling on business matters or on an official
mission. In both cases you need an invitation letter, either
from your Vietnamese business partner (at best a government organization)
or from the Vietnamese government office which you will deal with
on an official mission.
The Vietnamese business partner or government agency should send
the invitation directly to the embassy where the foreigner
intends to apply for his visa. When the foreigner appears at the
embassy, he or she will have to refer to that invitation letter.
Apart from that, in order to give some weight to the individual
visa application, it is recommended to bring along all correspondence
ever exchanged with the Vietnamese business partner or government
agency.
Tourist visa for Vietnam are easily obtained, if you book
a package arrangement with a travel agent. In general,
the Vietnamese government is not particularly interested in visitors,
travelling on their own.
Bangkok is considered the place where one has the best chance
to get a tourist visa for Vietnam without being booked on a package
tour. But even in Bangkok, individual travellers cannot just enter
the embassy and apply for a visa by themselves. Even those, who
have not booked an arrangement with a travel agent, will have
to turn to a travel office to have a Vietnam visa issued.
Travel offices in Bangkok taking care of Vietnam visas for individual
travellers usually charge comparatively high fees of about US
$ 70.
There are no problems in obtaining a visa for those, who
book a Vietnam arrangement with a travel agent. To provide a Vietnam
visa usually is part of the services of the travel agent handling
an arranged tour.
Visa formalities are not limited to the issuing of a visa for
the period of the journey.
Vietnam is one of the most bureaucratic countries of Southeast
Asia. For a journey to Vietnam it is not sufficient to just be
in possession of a visa for the duration of the stay. The visa
must also detail the place of entry to and exit from the
country, as well as the mode of transport one uses.
One of the first international travel agents to make possible
tourist travel to Vietnam was Diethelm Travel
in Bangkok. Diethelm Travel now runs
an independent branch office in Vietnam. The address: Diethelm
Travel (Vietnam) Ltd., International Business Center,
1A Me Linh Square, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Tel (84-8) 29-4932,
Fax (84-8) 29-4747.
Diethelm Travel in Bangkok takes care of visa matters
for Vietnam journeys booked with Diethelm Travel. The application
for a Vietnam visa should be submitted to Diethelm Travel
in Bangkok at least two weeks before the start of the journey.
It should include the following necessary information:
1. Name of the applicant according to the passport.
2. Number and expire date of the passport.
3. Date and place of birth.
4. Nationality and profession.
To stamp the visa, the Vietnamese embassy usually requires the
applicant's passport for two working days.
No vaccination certifications are needed for Vietnam visas.
The tourist visa allows a stay of up to one month. Extensions
in Vietnam are possible (and a lot easier than for instance in
Laos). The best thing to do is to have a local travel agent in
Vietnam, for instance Diethelm Travel (Vietnam),
take care of the visa extension in connection with further travel
arrangements.
A tourist visa can initially be extended in Vietnam for two more
weeks. Two more extensions of two weeks each are possible.
Diethelm Travel offers Vietnam arrangements of 3 to 10
days duration.
