The Visa

After months of planning, reading and many emails back and forth to our travel agent FINALLY....we were on our way to Myanmar! Our trip to the airport went smoothly and we were feeling pretty good because the Vietnam Airline agent accepted the cryptic scanned papers written in Burmese that we think said that we had our paperwork in order for entry into Myanmar. So after much looking and passing this document from one person to another, the airline agent issued us boarding passes and we were on our way. Hooray.....but as we later discovered, that big hooray was a bit premature.

Flying over Laos, the flight attendant handed us arrival forms to complete before we reached Yangon, Myanmar. We were each busy filling ours out when Gail suddenly emitted an unmentionable word.....and then asked to look at Phil's passport. Another @#$% came from her and she passed her passport to Phil. Below is the photo of the "bad news" page.



We both had applied and paid for multiple entry visas, which meant that we could come and go from Vietnam multiple times between Sept 1 and Dec 1. But while filling out the departure document.....she noticed a big USED stamp on her Vietnam visa. Huh....what the heck? Well, suddenly we realized that she had been issued a SINGLE entry visa. It was now stamped used and the bad news was that she had no visa for returning to Hanoi. And to make matters worse, getting back into the country was only part of the problem. Without a valid visa, the Vietnam Airlines wouldn't allow her to get on the plane to return to Vietnam. So suddenly we were faced with a HUGE problem.

Gail was in a panic, and upset with herself because she did not carefully check the visa when it was issued.

After landing in Myanmar, we were met by our travel agent and Gail immediately explained her problem. And this is where suddenly we realized the value of paying a bit more for GREAT SERVICE by an excellent travel agent. He told her that he would do some research on the internet and see what might be done. By the next morning he had figured out how to apply for a return visa and said he would begin the process. We had done several things that helped him. First, we originally paid to have his agency obtain our Myanmar Visas for us. We picked these up when we landed. But it also meant that he had a scanned copy of Gail's passport. Because he had this image, he was able to fill out the paperwork ahead of time and get the new visa application filed.

So he told us to enjoy our time in Myanmar and reassured that for another $55 for a visa plus a small service charge to his agency, we would be able to get the visa from the Vietnamese consulate on the day we were scheduled to return to Hanoi.

Things turned out to be a little more complicated than that. Our last day in Myanmar was also the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, which is celebrated nationally. The Vietnamese consulate staff were on holiday that day, but the agent arranged for one of their people to come in at some point to help approve the visa. After two trips to the consulate and much help from friends at Hanoi National University of Education as well as the travel agent, Gail had her visa and we both were able to fly "home" to Hanoi. Phil was greatly relieved to have a companion for the trip!

So the moral of this story is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS check your paperwork very carefully!
— Gail and Phil