36: My $353 Mistake and the Worst Day in 11 Months

I guess everyone needs to have a travel horror story. It’s something of a traveler’s badge of honor. A situation so frustrating or so annoying or so ridiculous that you want to laugh about it but it’s next to impossible to find the humor in it (maybe one day).

I’ve spent the last 11 months in relative travel ease. Nothing too crazy has happened and sure, my barometer for craziness has drastically changed, but for the vast majority of my travels everything has been extremely mellow. 

If this is the worst thing that happens to me, I’ll take it. All in all, I lost a significant amount of money and a small amount of sleep and while that’s a blow to my wallet, there are no significant long lasting consequences to this travel story.

Like all good stories, in the beginning it started off good. 

The Philippines makes me very happy.

I arrived in the Philippines from Laos feeling pretty over SE Asia. I desperately wanted the Philippines to be fantastic and I can report, it is. I had a ton of hopes and expectations and it met and surpassed all of them. I hadn’t really heard much about the Philippines in terms of what other backpackers thought of it. The small handful of travelers I ran into said positive things but it was a relatively small sample size in comparison to the TV shows, films, travel blogs and conversations I’ve had with people about Vietnam. Everyone raved, RAVED about Vietnam. So while I had hoped the Philippines was going to be amazing, I hands down expected that Vietnam would live up to it’s hype. 

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

I was anxious and sad to leave the Philippines but super excited that I was about to fall in love again, this time with Vietnam. The start of my day from hell began around 7PM when I called a Grab (the Asian equivalent of Uber) to drive me to the Manila airport. I haphazardly typed into the app the destination, “Airport Departure Hall” and figured that it made sense, I didn’t really think much more about it. I figured wrong. I realized that something was going to go wrong when my Grab driver didn’t know where to take me or where the international terminal was. (That should definitely have been a red flag.) He pulled up to the domestic terminal, I asked him repeatedly, “Is this the right place?” He told me multiple times that it was but once I got out of the car and the security guard at the gate confirmed my theory, I was definitely in the wrong terminal. 

This set off a series of very annoying events. The security guard told me that the international terminal was a 2.5 kilometers away. There was no walking to the other gate. He said I had to take a shuttle. This must happen all the time because I literally turned around and the first “taxi shark” tried to lure me into his cab and out of my money. 

As all taxi stands are, they were super aggressive in trying to get me in the cab. I asked the taxi driver how much, he said, 250 pesos (~$5). That’s not crazy expensive but I just paid a Grab driver the exact same amount for a 40 minute drive, this was a few kilometers away, that seemed outrageous. I counter offered at $1 and the driver laughed in my face and drove off. Oh well, his loss. 

As I stood there trying to figure out my game plan an super sweet airline attendant told me that there was a free airport shuttle downstairs. Of course there is! There had to be! I headed downstairs and got on the first bus that told me it was the shuttle. Welcome to scam #2. 

There were about 20 people on this bus and everyone thought they were in the right place. Then the bus driver came around trying to collect 50 pesos ($1). Again, it’s only $1 but by now I’m super frustrated and annoyed AND there is supposed to be a free shuttle so I told them I wasn’t going to pay. They kicked me (and everyone else) off the bus because this scam bus cost money. Ok, fine. Where is the free shuttle? They waved us to some other curb but threatened that we would be waiting for hours, we should stay on this bus to get to the terminal. This was the same tactic that the taxi drivers used too. Lies! It’s all lies. We got off this bus and the free shuttle immediately pulled up.

Sweet relief! Crisis avoided. I happily left for the airport way, way earlier than I normally do to be on the safe side. The airlines sent a mysterious email about arriving at the airport 4 hours early and I thought that was strange but this transportation nightmare wasted an entire hour, so I was grateful I had time to spare. 

Or at least I thought I had plenty of time to spare. 

I’ll take partial responsibility for this next part (but only partial). Because the Philippines was so incredible, I was too busy socializing and hanging out with my new group of besties to apply for my 30-day Vietnam Visa when I had good wifi coverage. I was in a remote town and the wifi was terrible, it was down to the wire and I didn’t want to chance it. I knew that I needed at least 3 days to get approved for the Visa and I wouldn’t have that much time in the next major city I was in. I made an emergency call to my Dad to help apply for my Visa. While he helped save the day by applying, he made one major misstep in the application process, and I was about to find it out. 

Once I finally arrived in the correct terminal I found my airline counter and waited my turn for checkin. They asked for my printed Vietnam visa, I handed it to them. They looked at it, they looked at my passport and then told me, “Your passport number doesn’t match the passport number on your Visa. You can’t board the plane.” 

Um…what?

My loving father (in)conveniently transcribed my passport number incorrectly into the application. I looked at the piece of paper again. I had looked at it 2 days ago when I printed it out and thought something about the number looked weird but honestly, I didn’t process it. And now standing in the airport, 2.5 hours before my flight I was being told that I can’t board the plane to Vietnam made me feel pretty helpless, angry and annoyed. I asked what I was supposed to do, the desk attendant said there was nothing. I asked if there was any exception, like can I pay when I land? She said no. In short, she didn’t help at all. Fan-freaking-tastic. 

Ok, now what? 

I was flying to Vietnam to meet up my new Swedish friend Marre, she was already there. She and I were going to travel around for a few days so I called her and told her what happened. At that time, I was in somewhat good spirits. I mean, this was funny at this point, I could actually laugh about it. I decided that Plan A was going to talk to an airline manager and see if he/she had any other solutions. Plan B was to go back to Manila and reapply for my Visa which took only 2 days to get approved the first time. 

I went back to the gate and found a manager and told him my situation. I couldn’t have met a nicer person to help me. After some back and forth he told me that there was one possible way to get into Vietnam and to keep my flight - I could apply for an emergency Visa but it was expensive. It cost a whopping $238 but they would “guarantee” it in 15 minutes. (Keep in mind, applying online costs only $25.) 

I crunched some numbers on how much it would cost me to go back to the city, stay in Manila for at least 3 more days, buy a new plane ticket and the cost of a new Visa. All of that would have been about the same so I figured it was a wash, why not try to keep my travel plans and make it happen. I had to borrow the airline’s laptop to start the application process. They walked me through what would happen next, it was a rather complicated process. I had to pay and submit my application online then the company would email or call you directly with follow up questions. And that’s exactly what happened. A few short minutes later, they reached out via email and I had to provide more documentation. At this point my flight is now 1.5 hours away, time was not on my side. And then the next headache happened. This company informed me that that because I was supposed to fly in the next few hours I could only get approved for a 15 day Visa and that I’d have to figure out how to extend it once I arrived in Vietnam. 

Once again, fan-freaking-tastic. At this point I was so far down the rabbit hole of getting to Vietnam that night I didn’t really have Plan B in sight, nor was backing out of this an option. Fine I said. What other choice do I have? I can tell you now, I wish I hadn’t done any of this. This was just the start to the shit show that was my getting a Vietnam Visa. 

After the paperwork finally came in I was able to successfully check my bags and head for my flight with maybe 10 minutes to spare. My luxurious 3+ hours of arrival before my flight was a distant memory, I had to run to catch my flight. 

I boarded the plane and then, because nothing about the night was easy, we were delayed on the runway for over an hour. 

Let me also add that by this time I was 2 days into a killer head cold. I’m 2 weeks out of that head cold and still coughing and congested. So once the plane finally took off for the relatively short plane ride, (1 hour and 45 minutes) it was the worst pressure I’ve ever experienced. My head was throbbing on the descent and it lasted what felt like forever. I remember thinking, wow, what next? What else could possibly go wrong?

Once I arrived at the airport you have to go to a special section with other passengers like myself who are doing last minute Visas. I still don’t know how it was actually processed but it was. It took about another hour and another secret $25 to get my 15 day Visa but finally, FINALLY I was approved and had my Vietnam Visa. This brought my costs up to $238 + $25. Now I need to figure out how much another 15 day Visa extension is going to cost. Those details would have to wait for later, for now I needed to get to my hostel and sleep, it was already 2AM and I was exhausted. 

This is what it looks like when your bag is literally the only one left in the entire airport.

The look of frustration and exhaustion. But hey, at least I got a selfie with the sign with my name on it.

In Manila I had met a naive but sweet Polish man who didn’t realize that almost everyone has to have a Visa to enter Vietnam. Vietnam does not have VOA (Visa on Arrival) for Poland so he and I were partners together in navigating this emergency Visa situation. It was sort of nice to have a partner in crime, although I’d have given as much money to have avoided this situation in the first place. 

We decide to share a taxi into Ho Chi Minh but it’s now 2:30AM and he doesn’t have a reservation to sleep anywhere. He decides to follow me and see if this hostel has any availability, once we arrived they turned him down. There were no available beds so he left and didn’t pay me half for the taxi. At this point everything is like whatever, bleed me dry I’ve got nothing left. 

Even if I did have the energy left to fight the good fight the universe wanted to serve one more final, crushing blow. 

The day after this mess, it was time for a beer.

A much needed stress-free dinner out.

It’s Marre! Crazy, Swedish, Cool.

Marre and I found a hostel that looked decent online. I booked a dorm bed there in a 8 bed mixed dorm and emailed them that I would be arriving late in the morning, they said it would be no problem. I arrived after 3AM and the night guard showed me to my room. I was dirty, exhausted, out hundreds of dollars and all I wanted to do was sleep. I put my stuff down, went to the bathroom and upon returning realized my “friendly” dorm mates were having sex. Fan-freaking-tastic. 

I rarely ever book mixed dorm rooms for this exact reason. I prefer female dorms for all the reasons you can think of any of the reasons you can’t think of. And having to listen to disrespectful and rude 20 somethings having sex is absolutely my last, last, last wish on this planet. 

It was 3AM and I very loudly declared, “You better knock that shit out right now. You’re having sex in a dorm room. STOP. STOP RIGHT NOW.” Silence followed. They stopped whatever acts they were doing, but that pause was short lived. They started right back up a few minutes later. Of course this particular ending was what I dealt with on the longest and entirely avoidable day from hell. 

Fast forward to the next day when I had the most professional and custom service oriented conversation with this hostel owner. She was from Canada and was truly shocked this situation happened and had no plans nor any idea on how to reprimand these youths. Which, to be honest, as a hostel owner you kind of need to figure that at some point you have to have rules so other guests feel safe and comfortable. But hey! I’m not a hostel owner, what do I know?! Even though she was very nice and offered a solution of moving rooms, it didn’t matter for me, I needed to get out of there.

We packed up our stuff and moved on because the next adventure was going to also take some time and attention. Both Marre and I needed to figure out how to extend our 15 day Visa into a 30 day Visa. This should be “fun”. 

Of all the hassles of this travel nightmare, this one ended up being the easiest. I found a travel agency that specialized in Visas on Google Maps (thank you Jesus for Google Maps). We showed up and they explained the relatively easy (but expensive) process. It would cost $90 and 3-4 days to get the extension. We had to stay in Ho Chi Minh City during that time because they had to take our passports and obviously we couldn’t travel without them. We narrowly avoided a major disaster because that weekend was a major Vietnamese holiday and government offices would be shut down. Luckily they were able to figure it out, otherwise we would have had to wait 7+ days. 

Exploring Ho Chi Minh City.

$353 later I have a 30 day Visa and high hopes that my time in Vietnam will be better than the tumultuous start I had and also a travel horror story that maybe I’ll laugh about…one day. 

- M