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Whistleblower: The vacation that wasn't

The lack of a visa turned a 10-day vacation to Vietnam into a six-hour stay under guard by security officers.

By JAMES ELI SHIFFER, Star Tribune

Last update: November 8, 2009 - 7:13 PM

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TRAVELING ABROAD? GO PREPARED.

The State Department lists document requirements, embassy and consulate locations, current travel warnings and other cautions. Go to tinyurl.com/4ow7g.

Vaccination information can be found at tinyurl.com/yjoyh6g.

Call U.S.-based foreign embassies or consulates for the most current travel requirements. Libraries can also help you find information.

CIBT, a for-profit travel-document service, can tell you free of charge what documents you'll need and provide embassy numbers. Call 1-800-929-2428.

JANE FRIEDMANN

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On Oct. 10, an exhausted man from St. Paul walked into the terminal at the Ho Chi Minh City Airport in Vietnam. After 23 hours of travel, Duane North was looking forward to a night in a hotel and a guided tour from a Vietnamese-American friend already in the country.

North thought his U.S. passport was enough to get him into Vietnam. It wasn't.

After North said he didn't have a visa, Vietnamese security officers escorted him to a guarded room. By 6 a.m., North was on a flight back to the United States, by way of Japan. His planned 10-day vacation in Vietnam had lasted six hours.

"It's my own fault, I should have checked," North said. But he was perturbed that no one with Sam's Club Travel, where he bought the ticket or Delta/Northwest airlines told him he needed a visa.

In fact, the airline shouldn't have let North board the plane to Vietnam without checking his documents. "This particular situation is an anomaly," said Susan Elliott, a spokeswoman for Delta. "However, we are following up with those employees that handled this particular passenger to make sure they are aware of checking each passenger's documents to Ho Chi Minh."

North, 66 and a retired carpenter, is no stranger to southeast Asia. He traveled to Thailand in 2007 and 2008 and obtained the entry documents he needed upon arrival.

North's strange journey to Vietnam began when he booked his tickets and hotel room over the phone with Sam's Club Travel. North doesn't recall the agent on the phone telling him that he should find out what entry documents he might need.

Always check requirements

Katie Deines of Expedia, the Bellevue, Wash.-based online travel agency employed by Sam's Club Travel, said Expedia agents advise international ticket-buyers to call a toll-free number to check on visa requirements. Deines couldn't confirm that it happened in North's case.

Still, that advice is printed at the top of each itinerary. North had it printed out at a friend's house -- he doesn't have a computer -- and didn't notice it.

Starting at 6:45 a.m. on Oct. 9, North flew from Minneapolis to Las Vegas to Los Angeles to Tokyo. Before getting on the plane to Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon), North had presented his passport. No one asked for anything else.

Only when he set foot in Vietnam, about 11:30 p.m., did North realize something was wrong. A customs officer asked whether anyone in the country could sponsor him. He tried to call his friend but couldn't reach her. Then he was surrounded by uniformed guards. They took him to a room. It had a few beds, a desk, a bathroom with no toilet paper. North lay down and asked whether they could turn off the light over his head. The two guards said no. One of the guards lay down and soon started snoring.

"I couldn't sleep," said North, who was worried about his blood pressure. "I was kind of sick and dizzy."

After three hours, airline employees came to the room and fetched North. They put him on the early flight back to Tokyo.

"Somebody should have told me" about the need for a visa, North said. Not only was his vacation scuttled, he wonders whether he could have ended up in bigger trouble in Vietnam. "I'm more nervous now than I was there," he said.

Elliott, the Delta spokeswoman, said it's the passenger's legal responsibility to take care of any entry documents. Nevertheless, because of North's ordeal, Delta and Expedia have reimbursed him for his $676 tickets. Delta was also issued a nominal fine by the Vietnamese government.

A few weeks after he got back, North paid $120 for a visa from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. He received it in the mail last week -- four days later. But with ticket prices going up, he decided he's not going to use it.

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