Price and onward travel:
The price of the ticket from Hong Kong to Da Nang was pretty much the same as the price from Hong Kong to Ha Noi, but thinking forward to when the time would come to leave the country, Ha Noi has more direct flights to more destinations than that of it's smaller sibling, keeping the price lower on exit than it would be from Da Nang and with more operators offering greater options.
Size of the Airport:
In Hong Kong I had organised for a V.O.A (visa on arrival) for a month to be arranged for when I got to Vietnam. I had used a company only called "vietnamvisapro"to do the checks necessary for me to enter Vietnam, who would then provide me with the paperwork I needed to go to the V.O.A desk at the the Airport in order to be granted access to the country. I had left things a bit late (it's kind of my thing), applying the Friday before Mondays flight out, and despite my reservations about using the dated looking website, all the usual security notifications seemed to be in place and reviews online were positive, so before office opening hours on Friday, I filled in the details, paid my $9(usd) fee and selected the "1 Day" option. I immediately received notification by e-mail that my details had been received, about an hour later I received notification that payment had been taken, and then at 17:48 the paperwork I needed pinged through attached to a final email.
V.O.A as the name suggests still involves getting the actual Visa into the passport at the Airport. When you consider the amount of flights coming into Da Nang compared to the amount of flights coming into Ha Noi and the respective number of people then needing to be processed, the logical choice was to go to the one that would probably take less time and stress to get through. I have no experience of the operation at Ha Noi, but the queue at the V.O.A desk at my arrival in Da Nang was processed quickly and efficiently, meaning that the waiting time overall was no more than about twenty minutes. Just as a note, the cost of the Visa at the airport was $25 (usd) bringing the total cost up to $34 usd total, which is significantly cheaper I'm sure than what I paid at the embassy in Bangkok a couple of years before.
Contacts: I had friends here in Da Nang which would make the transition back into Vietnam a little less hectic than maybe it would be jumping straight into the hustle and bustle of Hanoi. They could help me focus in good places to see, places to visit and maybe give me a better understanding of real life in Vietnam. There is now no rush to get to where I'm going now, with my foot as it is I needed to maybe slow down and rest up a little bit more.
At last of all,
I was bloody knackered and just needed to stop a for a bit, before I involuntarily did so.
Maybe that's easier said than done when there is so much going on around you, especially when you are trying to stick to imposed time and budget constraints
Anybody want to buy a story?
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