Vietnam Visa for Independent Traveler
 

How does an independent traveler get a visa for Vietnam when one doesn't have a host or tour operator and will be arriving from China? So far I have only been referred to travel agents or a website of visa processors. I do not want to surrender my passport (with its China visa in it) to a third-party company. I will be in DC next week so plan to visit the embassy in person, but I need to have the sponsor and any tips about coming from China before then, as I'm leaving for China on July 2.
Thanks~!

do a search on here for visa and vietnam stay. They are a travel operator in Vietnam that arranges for visa on arrival. You do not need to surrender your passport at all, just fill in a form and fax it back before arriving. I have used their service, as have many others on here, with no complaints.

Why you do need a sponsor for Vietnam? I just dropped my documents off at their consulate and picked them up a day or two later. You could do that in DC.

Unless the regulations have changed, it's equally easy to acquire a Vietnam visa in Beijing, come to that. No sponsor required: just cash, a photo or two (I don't remember which) and fill out a form. Submit form in mornings, pick-up in afternoon. I don't remember how many working days were required.

The telephone number is easily found on-line, so you could try calling. One site give it as:

Embassy of Vietnam in Beijing, China
No 32 Guanghua Road
Jiangou menwai
Beijing
100600
China
Phone:
+86-10-6532 1155
+86-10-6532 1125

Peter N-H

You can also ask the VN embassy or consulate in your own country to issue you a "loose leaf" visa. You mail in a copy of the relevant pages of your passport plus the application, your photos and money and they will return a visa issued on a stick-on page.

Another option is to go with a pre-arranged visa through vietnamstay or another agency. You can only utilize this if youa re fling into VN, not if you are going in overland. And if you do this, know you must have the print-out of your email confirmation in order to board your plane to VN.

And, of course, Peter's suggestion of geting the visa in China is a possibiltiy, though it can be time-consuming.

When I got my Vietnamese visa in Beijing in 2004 it was 400 yuan for four day turnround, not sure if you could get it quicker for more money. The forms were in Vietnamese and English. Make sure you know your dates if you do this, I hadn't taken my itinerary with me and had to guess. Back then there were guards on the streets around the embassies, and you needed to have ID, but it was shortly after a group of North Koreans had scaled the walls of the Canadian embassy.

It's been a long time since you needed a sponsor to get a VN visa. Just send or drop off your forms, passport and photos at the embassy. You usually pay more for same-day service.

Check the embassy web site to see if they have the form downloadable. They do in Bangkok.

Thank you to Peter, Kathy, ekschrunchy (whose trip report was wonderful reading, but did you ever do the Vietnam part?), cruisinred and thursdy~ I followed a combination of your suggestions, as the directions on the website, in the personal e-mail response, and the person I spoke to on the phone were all different~!

I applied by mail by sending a copy of my passport rather than the passport itself, left the sponsor box blank and picked up the "loose leaf" visa in person when I was in DC for business the following week.

Now the fun part-- planning the itinerary~!