We planned a 10-day tour from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, departing early February. We flew out of Perth, Western Australia, on a direct flight and headed for Ho Chi Minh City as planned. Just the day before we didn’t realise we needed a visa to enter Vietnam. Our visa applications didn’t go through because it was the Chinese New Year public holiday.
With no immediate way to stay in the country, we had to change plans quickly and transit through Ho Chi Minh City. Because Thailand doesn’t require a visa for Australian travellers entering for a short time, we booked a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok and headed to the nearest beachside Jomtien Beach, Pattaya, for a short stay.
From there, we worked with the tour operator to sort things out. The visa application payment hadn’t been processed, but our tour had already begun in Hanoi. Eventually, we secured expedited Vietnamese visas through a contact within the tour company and processed in just four hours, though it came at an additional cost of around AUD $800.
Once cleared, we flew from Bangkok to Hanoi and were finally able to rejoin the tour group as they continued through northern and central Vietnam. Highlights included the stunning Ha Long Bay and a few memorable days in Hoi An before flying south again to Ho Chi Minh City, this time with the right paperwork.
Coincidentally, I was reading The Women by Kristin Hannah during the trip—a historical fiction novel centred on a nurse’s experience in Vietnam during the 1960s. Visiting regions like the Mekong Delta and seeing places described in the book added a powerful dimension to the journey.
Despite the unexpected detour, we completed the trip and experienced Vietnam’s beauty, history, and complexity, with a few extra stamps in our passports along the way.
