Aggravating Lines To Enter Vietnam At Ho Chi Minh City Airport

I’m live-blogging my SAS EuroBonus SkyTeam Milion Mile challenge this week. Click here for background and route information.

Vietnam is a fun country and one I hope to spend a lot more time in on future trips, but I certainly hope I do not spend as much time in the immigration line next time as we did this time…what a mess.

There was no chaos at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN)…queues were orderly and organized, but long and slow-moving lines epitomized inefficiency: a supply/demand imbalance worse than even Jakarta, Indonesia.

We got in line at 4:30 pm…and did not get into our cab to our hotel until 6:20 pm!

No, we did not have to wait in line to buy visas or anything like that…we were just waiting in line to have our passports stamped.

Every counter was open, so it wasn’t poor staffing alone…it was simply far too many people and a process of passport control that took time for every single person.

I understand why he got tired of waiting…

This was not my first visit to Vietnam (third actually) and I did not remember lines like this on previous visits…I’m sure I would have.

Look, every country has a right to secure its borders so it’s not about that. Furthermore, please spare me the comparison about how bad the USA is…yes it is, but this is not about the USA, this is about Vietnam. And because we were traveling on a German passport, a country that very efficiently processes foreign visitors, how about we make that comparison instead?

Of course, we did get through, but instead of arriving at our hotel closer to 5:00 pm, it was 7:00 pm…a shame considering this was our one night to relax on a grueling trip.

I’d love to see Vietnam adopt a more efficient way to process visitors…lines are a sign of inefficiency and cry out for a solution.