Vietnam visa: Key tips to get one from Cambodia

After a nice and relaxing week in Siem Reap, we decided to move further.

We usually do not plan that far (1 month), but this time we had to.

We already knew that our next country to visit would be Vietnam, and to enter Vietnam you need a visa. If you fly, you can apply for an e-Visa (check if this is applicable to your nationality). If you enter by land, except in rare locations, you need the physical visa on your passport.

Our plan was to travel from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh by bus, so we needed the physical visa on our passport before entering the country.

There are 2 Vietnam consulates/Visa sections in Cambodia: one in Battambang, and one in Phnom Penh.

Being Battambang on our way to the South, we decided to do the visa procedure there. We tried to contact the consulate in every way and several times. None of our emails and phone calls were answered. Result: we had no information or instructions about how to get Vietnam Visa in Cambodia…

Both types of visa allow you to a single entry, 30-days tourist visa.

 

E-Visa

You can apply for the e-Visa online. There are several companies doing it, but no one can advise the best one or the “official” one. In order to obtain an e-Visa you need to:

• apply and pay the fee online
• wait 3-5 business days and afterwards, you will get the visa authorization letter from the Vietnam Government by email, saying that you are allowed to enter the country
• print out the authorization and bring it always with you
• at the airport, you have to show the authorization letter together with your passport, passport size photo to the immigration officer

We understood that you can request the visa authorization letter also in several tour agencies in Siem Reap (and probably also in other cities). Instead of doing the procedure online, you walk in and do everything with the employee there. I am not sure about the costs, in this specific case.

 

Physical Visa (in Battambang)

I will explain how to get the visa in Battambang, telling you our little story 🙂

Once arrived in Battambang, with our backpacks still on, we walked to the consulate. Of course, it was closed for lunch and the guard told us that it will open again at 2 pm. Ok, then we had lunch, too.

At 2 pm we went back to the consulate and finally, we could “speak” with the only employee there, a funny man with quite poor English. The good news was that we could get the visa there, the bad news was that it takes 3 working days for that but, as it was Friday afternoon, he could not apply for it until Monday. The result: we have to stay almost 1 week in Battambang.

The communication is quite complicated, few words and many signs, but the procedure itself is actually very simple:

• you fill in the visa form (provided by the consulate) with all the information needed: personal data, and date of entry, border of entry, where you will stay, for how long, etc. Keep 2-3 days visa overlapping (with the Cambodian one) so, if something goes wrong, you are sure that you have enough time to exit one country and enter the new one.
• you leave your original passport and a passport-size photo at the consulate for 3 working days. If you don’t have a picture with you, the employee will take one with his phone for free
• pay the visa fee, in our case 40 $. Make sure to have the correct amount of dollars
• the employee will give you an appointment for the pickup. Just go there in time, check if all the information are correct, and start preparing your trip to Vietnam!

Once at the border, you will simply show your printed visa to the immigration officer, he will stamp it, and it’s done, you are in!

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