I begin my adventure in Vietnam with the end. I couldn’t return from my vacation without any mishaps…
After two weeks of traveling through Vietnam and tasting – literally and figuratively – almost everything it has to offer, I arrived at the airport in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).
For me, the palpitations usually start here, because of the suitcases that always exceed the allowed weight or generated by the fear of not having packed well the souvenirs bought for the entire Romania.
CHECK-IN
I wrap both my suitcases for a fee and then I go at check-in point. Everything is fine and dandy, especially since I was allowed to have over 1 kg more than I should have in my luggage.
The suitcases leave on the lane and I also leave for passport control, sitting in the well-organized queue between the ropes.
When… what do I see?!?
My name on a big screen!!!
Until I realize what goes on, the writing flows from right to left, so I only catch part of the first name. But it’s clear, it can’t be anyone else, it’s about me!
I’m stuck in the middle of the queue and I’m waiting to see how my name flows again. And I see it. Yes, it’s me, with all my names in the passport.
But what am I doing there?! Maybe they know me from the TV and announce to the world that today I am honoring the airport with my presence :). Okay, now I’m making fun of the situation, but at that moment I was totally confused! What should I do? I don’t understand!
Finally, I see a small text at the bottom of the monitor, which tells me to go to the counter where I had just checked in. And there I was, taking all the way back, against the tide, because people were sitting in line. I jump over some ropes, pass under others, I open some and them put them back again. You can realize how the people coming towards me were looking at me…
Once I arrived at check-in, I was sent probably to the torture room next door, after I was told briefly: “you have something forbidden in your suitcase”!
Shit! It’s the drink with snake, I tell myself! Because well, I took, among other souvenirs, one that seemed unique to me:
Snake drink – a bottle with some sort of brandy inside (I was told, I haven’t tested it…), in which there is a small snake. And I, who care about Vietnam’s economy, took more than one, naturally.
I’m sure they called me for them. I took too many and they are afraid that I will poison someone in Romania with so many snakes…
In the room in question, a very serious lady, in a customs uniform, scans the luggage, one by one.
After identifying me, she brings me my big suitcase. Well… so the snake bottle theory fails, because I had put the bottles in both suitcases. And she only brought one to be opened.
The customs lady hands me a small cutter about the size of my small toe nail and… this is it. I deduce that I have to cut the foil that I just paid for. She will not do that, it seems.
I cut the wrapping with great regret, as if I were cutting 100 Euro bills. Despite the fact that I see her sober, morgue-like face, I dare to ask her, in a simplified English: “problems inside my suitcase?”
And what do you think is wrong?…………..
Two bullet-keychains, bought from a souvenir shop where the guerrilla troops dug some trenches in the war (Cu Chi).
There was a boutique with all kinds of cars, miniature weapons, toy grenades, tanks made of bullets, chains with bullet pendants or bullet pens and of course I found something to buy. Not a magnet, not some stuffed soldier, but two bullets as keychains.
I show the woman at customs that they are key chains, that they have a label on them, I tell her that I also have their receipt, but she gives me a sharp reply: “bullets, no!”
And she shows me a box where I must throw them away.
After a vacation in Vietnam during which I negotiated permanently, after being advised that this has to be done, being part of the culture of this people, here is the first place where there is no room for negotiation.
I take a bad picture of the two keychains on the run, just like that, as a memory. I’m afraid the woman might catch me, so I don’t look when I press the button.
Then I throw them in the box with forbidden things. (I keep wondering what a tampon is doing there…)
I go and wrap the suitcase again. I pay again, of course, because those people couldn’t care less about my story. Then I put the “clean” suitcase in the torture room, I get my boarding pass, a sign that I’m ok now, and I quickly run, because maybe they smell the pickled snake and they’ll start searching again.
