Since the beginning, I was avoiding the creation of this post:
Every travel blogger has to make one of these cringeworthy posts at one point; it’s an unwritten law or something. That special law dictates that when you are travelling and stay much longer than the period of a typical family vacation, you are forced to run to the nearest land border and enter another country for all of a few hours or even minutes before returning back to the country that you just came from.
Corporate assigned expats may ridicule this common procedure; I remember one particular dickhead back in China (who in reality, works illegally on a spouse visa) calling it the ‘tramp stamp.’ Many of them who actually come over on business visas are secretly forced to perform the visa run as well. They merely do what I would describe as merely slightly more luxurious, fancier versions of it.
At one stage of my life where I had to do visa runs, most of mine were usually expensive and relatively extravagant due to the minor technicality of North Korea being the only land border nearby. Therefore, every visa run was to involve a flight for me as one does simply catch a train and arrive visa free on arrival in Russia or Mongolia. This gave me the opportunity to visit some great places; the capital city of Việt Nam – Hà Nội being one of the places on that list.
My last visa run in Việt Nam involved a flight to Hong Kong and staying there for a few days. It was a relatively pain free experience, even on a budget HK Express flight; Đà Nẵng International Airport is only about 10-15 minutes away from my house and checking in without cabin baggage meant one could grab breakfast late, arrive at the airport early, fly for 2 hours and still arrive at Hong Kong in time for lunch. I stayed there for a few days, flew back and completed the visa formalities with very little hassle.
Now it was time to do a REAL visa run. For the sake of my future business plans, it is an experience that I need to become familiar with. When I say ‘real,’ I mean the ones that involve a long journey over land, lasting over 12 hours and possibly involve dealing with trickier border officials. Of course, the more adventurous and creative minded will seek to create an extended experience out of their border run by throwing in a brief stay in that nation; something which I usually believe is the correct and proper thing to do.
Yet in Đà Nẵng, there are many companies that specialise in operating visa run services for those do need to travel to the border to renew their visa. They are not travel agents and therefore don’t provide any kind of travel foreign experience, it’s going to be an ‘in and out mission’ where one enters that nearby country only briefly to get that exit stamp, obtain a new visa to replace their expiring one upon re-entry and then return home.
For my visa run, I went with ‘Lynn Visa’ as she had done a great job with arranging my visa on arrival letter previously. Lynn is widely trusted amongst many foreigners living in Đà Nẵng and I’m not the only one that will openly recommend her services. Rather than letting this piece read like an advertisement; I will continue to describe the experience of the visa run itself.
The day starts (far too early for my liking):
Most of the other fellow visa runners for the day were to meet up at a cafe over in the other side of the Đà Nẵng, but Lynn was kind enough to arrange to have me picked up closer to home as it happened to be on the route. Needless to say I arrived quite early at about 6am. There was no opportunity to eat breakfast nor drink coffee as the cafe that I happened to waiting outside was not even open yet; the security guard was still sleeping outside.
Pro tip: Prepare your own breakfast at home, before you set off.
Eventually, the minibus turned up. Being the last to get on, I was afforded that strange privilege of sitting at the front of the bus. As I did not meet the others at the cafe, it could be said that I was slightly deprived of the social experience of the trip, but as I had not had that much sleep the night before that negative quickly became a positive. I was left alone free to doze off at the front, separated from the other passengers.
It was going to be a 5 hour drive, heading out from Đà Nẵng, driving along Nguyễn Tát Thành street in the North of the main urban area; going up to brush past the ancient imperial capital of Huế and onto the outskirts of Đông Hà, the capital of Quàng Trị province before turning West towards Lao Bảo, the that borders the country of Laos, where we would enter before returning back to Đà Nẵng, the way that we came.
The journey would lead us through some long and winding mountainous territory. This was made clear from the start as I recall enjoying the opportunity to see the city from the other side of Đà Nẵng Bay as we departed from it. It is easy to forget how big Đà Nẵng is until you extreme outer points of the city; it covers an impressive amount of land area, something rather surprising when one considers the rather compact nature of the city centre.
That is not to say that we would solely pass through areas of outstanding natural beauty. There were small towns of a more industrial nature dotted along the route, not unlike many that I had passed through before elsewhere.
The pit stops we were going to make would be at petrol stations in the middle of nowhere. This country is not quite as advanced as far as gas station retail is concerned; the spots seem to only offer a restroom and fuel for the driver’s vehicle, you will not see people picking up magazines, snacks or cigarettes in an attached store.
The further we drifted away from the major cities, the more to see that things would be done very differently from in the major cities. I had enjoyed a lengthy snooze before arriving in the Lao Bao economic zone.
Although this town was according to its Wikipedia page supposed to enjoy higher levels of income compared to the provincial capital Dong Ha, certain areas of it actually seemed far more impoverished than the other places that we had passed by. As cliched as it may sound, people seemed to enjoy a simpler way of life, cows roamed freely by the side of the road and kids were running around; deprived of an education but at least they were having fun and the beef was definitely free-range with cute little bells on the neck.
Leaning into Laos.
For me the border crossing was a rather strange one. We passed the border line in the car. I managed to sneakily get what could be only ever photograph I take showing any of the territory of Laos due to border control areas tending to not take kindly to the presence of cameras. It felt strange that I was about to technically enter the country without presenting my passport to anybody yet.
So, things were to be handled differently compared to when I entered Macao or Hong Kong. There was a window were one would hand over their passport to a Vietnamese official and get their exit stamp. Getting the exit stamp after actually crossing into Laos territory seemed bizarre to me.
Then we were shown to a small office; which happened to be Laos visa office in Dansavan. Possibly the least glamorous visa centre in the world; resembling something like a smoking room at a factory from years gone by, except that the smokers were in accordance with modern day standards, sat on the kerb outside. The leather chairs were worn out, the plastic seats outside were broken, and the plastic picnic chairs placed inside the office had faded in the sunlight that shone through the rather large windows.
To put it bluntly, it was truly third world, but at a small border crossing located in one of the country’s poorest provinces, what could one reasonably expect? Savannakhet province’s HDI score is said to compare with that of Nigeria. One stuck-up British backpacker loudly declared “It smells like human wee in here!” For her sake, I began to hope for her sake that none of the Laotian officials could understand what she had rude enough to loudly state so openly.
It was not the most efficient of processes, but it was handled well. The Laos visa had cost me $45. It seemed quite a shame that the visa office was the furthest that I would get within Laos as trundled back to the car for the 2 minute long trip back to the Vietnamese side. It wasn’t expensive for a 30 day visa, but it was very pricy for what would prove to effectively be little more than a sticker inside a passport. One day I hope to return to travel in the country rather than just do a visa run like this.
Our visa applications for Vietnam were held in slightly swankier surroundings, but we were held up for a long time due to longer queues and an unfortunate American gentleman getting screwed over by his school. I briefly chatted with one or two of the other applications who were excessively honest about entering Vietnam for the purpose of teaching part-time despite the fact that were standing in line to obtain a tourist visa.
After those delays, we headed out of the visa centre back towards our transportation. Poor beggar kids had somehow managed to get past the guards at what is controlled zone to specifically ask me for ‘one dollar.’ Not the nicest of welcomes back to Vietnam I thought, as I was left dreading that one of the little scamps would get his filthy hands on my white polo shirt. You’d expect that they’d at least learn to sell you shitty postcards or something.
Police officers from both countries checked our passports by hand before we got back in the van. We had stayed at the checkpoint for far too long and even had to leave the screwed over English teacher behind; but at least the immigration officials were kind enough to allow him to sleep in the border control zone office overnight…
These beggars were amateurs.
We were then taken to lunch at a place resembling something like a workers’ canteen. Same story, beggars were waiting outside, but the young were also accompanied by the old. I tend to be reluctant to give child beggars money as they are often children that have been abducted by criminal gangs and forced to work for them. Elderly women with massive tumours on their necks, do make for a more believable sob story.
After eating nothing all day, even this kind of food could be enjoyed, but I can’t honestly say the same about those that accompanied me at the dining table. It was all typical newbie stories about tasting dog for the first time; the stupid brainwashed millennials were also declaring China’s social credit system to be a good thing (no, they really said that…) and shit about work that weren’t really supposed to be doing. Such people may seem nice and harmless, but they are representative of the general direction that Western society is headed in. You might not want to kill these people, but you may feel unsure about whether sympathy would be an appropriate response to their bullshit.
Returning to our vehicle, the beggars lined up. They asked for 1 dollar, the only foreign currency in my wallet was a 10 RMB note from China. I handed that over to one of the older ladies, and the other two seemed pissed off at me for not getting one too. The kids were swarming for my ankles while the grannies focused on me closer to head height.
The beggar gauntlet would not even cease when I entered the vehicle. One made a gesture stating that she needed food. I reached for a small packet of cookies on the dashboard and handed them over through the window. How naive was I to believe food would hold more value than money for them! She repeated demands for cash with the same gesture, ignoring the fact that she had actually just received food.
So… These beggars lacked a good sales pitch or sob story, weren’t able to sell me useless shit at an inflated price or anything. That makes them much worse than both smackheads and begpackers who actually attempt to market themselves.
What I have just described were my feelings towards the beggars when in a rather restless, irritable and moody state rather than on an ordinary day. My feelings towards beggars can change according to my mood, but at least in Đà Nẵng, they usually try to sell you scratchcards or wet wipes.
That might be proof that capitalism offers a cure for the entitlement mentality, because we’ve got a city full of elderly entrepreneurs, working so damn hard that we occasionally buy those products when we never even needed them.
Leaving Hoằng Hoá
So, we were leaving the Lao Bảo economic zone and the Hoằng Hoá district. From here on, there were to be little more than beautiful mountain scenery until we turned to head back down South again. Well, that’s what I thought.
The second major delay will also not be accompanied by photos not due to potential legal issues but the fact that it would be morally wrong to even attempt to take any. We hit a tailback and were told that we would be left waiting for at least two hours. Most of the passengers seized the opportunity to step outside and smoke a cigarette. News had reached us that a truck had overturned and that we needed to wait for the recovery truck to arrive.
Being a non-smoker, I found another opportunity to catch upon sleep in the minibus instead. Then all of sudden, my nap was disturbed by the sounds of everyone running back to the bus and whinging that they didn’t get to finish their cigarette. We were on the move again. I continued with my nap.
5 minutes later, I was to be disturbed again. I overheard other passengers talking about gore and the fact that the poor bastard had been hurt so bad that he was probably killed twice in that road accident. I had missed the sight of the bloodied corpse, but did witness a crowd of people consoling each other and kids bawling their eyes out.
Although, I was lucky enough to evade the sight of the worst of it all; it did not make me feel comfortable. In fact, for the rest of the journey, I started to think that people here drive rather dangerously. Maybe those whingers on Facebook are right after all.
The final legs of the journey:
Unfortunately, the delays meant that we were about to hit rush hour and get stuck in traffic. The next pit stop was going to be very brief indeed. Every one who likes to contact me after work in this part of the world were soon firing their messages at me while I was still stuck in the minibus. I longed to return to my bed, but there was no use in feeling any sense of anger about the situation for it could not be helped.
Heading back downhill towards Da Nang, I began to feel that the roadsigns were beginning to tease me as we edged closer. The passing of every remaining kilometre felt like a whole hour. Eventually, I returned home, shattered but with my visa sorted out.
Was it a bad experience then?
Not at all. This visa run was totally worth doing, even if only the once. It is admittedly nowhere near as fun as the China to Hong Kong visa runs where one will most likely take the opportunity to enjoy what that neighbouring territory has to offer. Yet it offers a trip through rural parts of central Vietnam that one could not simply walk through.
Lynn handled all of the problems faced very well and with the exception of one particular special case, we all got our visas without facing any real problems. I must confess, I may have found the process confusing as a first time visitor, so she saved me a lot of trouble.
However, I think that long trip could be very stressful for elderly retirees as it is not the most comfortable of experiences. Even in the fairly spacious vans provided; you’ll still be spending a minimum of 10 hours on the road. If you have a bit more cash to spare; I’d even suggest that you just book a budget flight somewhere and get your next visa on arrival at the airport. As I mentioned before, Lynn can also help you with that too.
Despite this particular visa run adventure maybe not being that high up on my list of such trips, I may be making another land crossing next time round, albeit to Cambodia. Regardless, I would kind of like to make sure that I actually visit Laos properly next time.
Đà Nẵng Diaries 