Less Traveled Path

The last time I traveled to Vietnam (about 8 years ago) was with my late father. Although my mother couldn’t join us, she warned us about her experience going through customs in Vietnam a few years earlier and how she was given a hard time because they thought she spoke Vietnamese; the customs officials wanted her to bribe them and pay them off so that they wouldn’t give her a difficult time just because.

My father refused to participate in such corruption and so when we went through customs and the officials started speaking to him in Vietnamese, he pretended not to understand. We were given a slightly difficult time, but passed through without needing to pay them off.

Just recently, I met someone who is also traveling to Vietnam in a less than a month and was told by a travel agent in San Jose, CA that his visa would cost $50 and his friend’s would cost $75. The reason? The guy’s last name could pass for Vietnamese while his friend’s could not.

I went to the Vietnamese Consulate in San Francisco with my mom and for regular visa service, it was $45 (looks like the San Jose travel agent was earning $5). The late president Ho Chi Minh’s photo appeared on the wall behind the service window and we sat in the second waiting area for quite a few minutes while the lady at the window wasn’t really doing anything. The receipt we received was completely in Vietnamese (which I couldn’t read) and we weren’t told when to get our visas until my mom asked the lady in Vietnamese - 10:30am two days later. The wait was quick, however, compared to my uncle to spent 3 hours waiting to submit his application and payment, and another 2 hours to pick up his visa (although the pick up delay might have just been because it wasn’t ready until 10:30am).

I was not surprised about the difference prices for visas given the customs “etiquette” and knowing that there is a lot of price discrimination towards foreigners in Vietnam. Riding a cyclo (bicycle drawn transportation) 8 years ago, we were charged a different price even though my father spoke Vietnamese and bargained it down; the cyclo charge probably fell somewhere between the cost for complete foreigner and local pricing.

The locals can tell that you’re not from around there and to a significant number of them, that means more profit. And for many in developing countries, it just means living.