I avoided dodgy visa scams, but a mistake still cost me $500

Vietnam unease

After reading about people who had to buy emergency visas at $500 a pop after succumbing to dodgy online providers, I was determined that those evil, dastardly scammers wouldn’t get us. After finding the authentic Vietnamese government visa website, our details were meticulously entered along with a $25 fee paid. We read that our visas would arrive in a week or so by email. Great. Heaps of time before the trip. They arrived by email. But at the airport we were told the visas were invalid. Whoever had processed my visa had changed my name from “Johnston” to “Johnstonton.”

We still had time to nick over to Flight Centre at the airport and to take $500 to pay for it. We were not her first casualty that day. I had a fellow traveller seated next to me at Flight Centre whose middle name had been omitted from her visa and she hadn’t noticed. She was now $500 poorer too. Moral of the story? Don’t just glance at your visa and throw it in with your passport. Go over it carefully. You may be up-to-date with scams, but don’t think you are so clever that something else won’t trip you up.
Lynne Johnston, Geelong West, Vic

EDITOR’S NOTE Traveller has received many letters regarding Vietnam visa scams, with our federal government’s smartraveller.gov.au website confirming that Australian travellers have been victim to private online visa services and travel agents. It recommends you only apply for your visa through the official Vietnamese government website at viavietnamembassy.org.au, but even in this case we’ve had several reports of visas coming back with the wrong details as per our reader above’s experience. Michael Gebicki wrote about the issue last year. Check carefully the visa carefully when you receive it.

Letter of the week: Georgia on my mind

It was almost with a sense of deja vu that I read Anabel Dean’s cover story “Steppe parent” (Traveller, October 25) on travelling with her son, Hamish, in the Caucasus Mountains. Having recently returned from a tour in the Caucasus visiting Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia – with most of our journey spent in Georgia – I completely concur with Anabel’s observations. Along with the stunning beauty, it was a privilege to learn about these proud and resilient people, the food, friendship and what they have endured for centuries. While in Tbilisi, I was able to observe the nightly peaceful protests of Georgians, both young and old, resisting the results of the contested election last year of the pro-Russian government. I am sure Anabel and Hamish will join myself and fellow tour travellers in wishing this brave and proud nation a future as a peaceful and democratic country.
Carol Ladd, Millers Point, NSW

Netflix flicked

I just returned from an amazing five-week holiday in Greece. While I was there, a friend suggested that I get a Netflix account so I could watch English-language shows. Many hotels have smart TVs, so it seemed like a good idea. I logged in to my laptop and set the VPN to an Australian location. I created an Australian Netflix account and paid for the first month’s subscription. Netflix promised that I could view shows on multiple devices anywhere in the world. However, the first time I logged in to Netflix on a hotel TV, it displayed a message that my plan was not available in that region. So I cancelled the account. Now that I am back home in Australia I have four days remaining of my month’s subscription to find out what I might have enjoyed if the promised worldwide viewing had worked.
Ian Gabriel, Glen Iris, Vic

Most illuminating

After reading a Traveller article by Justine Costigan on Ferrara, Italy, earlier this year my partner and I went there in September for nine days. We had the most enjoyable time. The Estense Castle was a 10-minute walk from our accommodation with the illuminated books in the cathedral museum exquisite and people-friendly. We’d go back there to visit the regulars in our favourite bar. And incidentally, while there we chatted to another Australian couple one evening in a restaurant. Like us, they were also visiting because they’d read that article in Traveller (the power of the press and all that).
Christopher Pearce, Hobart, Tas

Warsaw points

We travelled for a month in Poland (Traveller, October 19) and what a wonderful experience it was. Poland and its people were not unknown to me because my school had many Poles who came to Australia after the horrors their country suffered in World War II. After the efforts of Solidarity, what a magnificent modern country it is today with wonderfully exciting things to see. With the transport being great, we travelled by train to Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan, Wroclaw and Gdansk with good food, stunning museums, and abundant history everywhere. In fact, I would rate my month in Poland as one of the top highlights of my varied travels over the last 50-plus years.
Tricia O’Kearney, Wurtulla, Qld

Pause and reflect

Sue Williams in her Poland article (Traveller, October 19) suggested a tour from Krakow, Poland, combining Auschwitz Birkenau and the Wieliczka Salt Mine. However, the concentration camp tour takes several hours, is very moving and will affect anyone’s mood. It deserves contemplation and reflection during, and afterwards. With the tours being very popular, they should ideally be booked a week ahead. As for the Salt Mine, I thought it would be “kitsch” but I was surprised at the amazing scale of the operation, the dramatic size of rooms, plus the amount of timber used in supporting the tunnels. Both these sights near Krakow are highly memorable, but please, experience them on separate days.
Richard Slater, Altona Meadows, Vic

Poles apart

It’s a pity Wroclaw’s fabulous Raclawice Panorama – a cyclorama-style painting in a purpose-built gallery showing scenes from the 1794 Kosciuszko Uprising – wasn’t mentioned in your story on Poland. It’s better than the one in Moscow of Napoleon’s 1815 defeat.
Alan Rainer, Carlton North, Vic

True Brit

Sue Williams’ underwhelming experience flying British Airways (Traveller, October 28) is all too familiar to me. Despite attempting to avoid flying BA during more than 40 years of flying internationally, sometimes I’ve unfortunately had no other choice. The service and how it is delivered has been consistently poor to bad on every international route I’ve flown. I’m convinced the airline and its employees adhere to a secret customer code – “we’re not happy until you’re unhappy”.
Wayne Burns, Newtown, NSW

Empty feeling

In relation to Lee Tulloch’s column about paying for neighbour-free seating (Traveller, October 20) I recently decided to do this on a Kenya Airways flight as I was flying through the night and wanted some sleep before arriving in Zanzibar, Tanzania. I was notified that I had been unsuccessful. However, after boarding, I noticed that almost everyone had an empty seat next to them. It’s difficult to believe an airline wouldn’t just take the money anyway.
Kellie Whittam, New Gisborne, Vic

Trust your instincts

Lee Tulloch’s column on risky travel (Traveller, October 14), was essential reading as it illustrates some travel risks that we usually don’t consider. It can be difficult to be considered a spoilsport by saying “no” to a group activity that just does not feel right to you. The dilemma also is that if the group moves off, are you safe being left alone? Travelling with a companion whose mindset is similar to yours is a good back-up with the best tip being to research your trip and trust your instincts.
Marjie Williamson, Blaxland, NSW

Waiting game

Decades of air travel have clearly shown that if airlines would like to reduce the amount of luggage their customers want to take on board, there’s a simple solution. Have customers’ checked baggage waiting for them when they arrive at the carousel. Oh, and don’t lose it.
David Francis, Ivanhoe East, Vic

Reader tip of the week: Yule be glad

For those heading to Europe for the Christmas season, by all means explore the fascinating Christmas markets in the Alsace, Prague or even the Baltic. However, be prepared for the masses that descend. Consider, too, exploring lesser-known but equally festive spots. For example, a short train ride from Paris is the extraordinary Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte – the inspiration for Versailles – which has a special Christmas program. Every major room, including even the kitchens, is magnificently decorated with ornate trees, lighting and magical festive scenes. Visitors are given velvet capes and masks and encouraged to wander the gardens, which are also specially decorated. They can roast marshmallows over a fire-pit and at sunset, a musical son et lumiere is held with the chateau as a backdrop.
Mark Latchford, Seaforth, NSW

Scales of injustice

We’ve all been there, Ben Groundwater (Traveller, October 15). Our carry-on luggage when we travel might weigh a bit more than it should, but we’re willing to risk it. Who checks, after all? Well, believe it or not, I did have my carry-on luggage weighed at Adelaide Airport once when I was returning to Sydney. Airline staff came through the departure lounge with their scale, weighing everyone’s luggage and, if it was over seven kilograms, they had the option of paying extra or ditching what they could. I was a poor student at the time, so I returned home minus several toiletry items and my precious knitting.
Kerrie Wehbe, Blacktown, NSW

Crowd control

The US without tourists? We went for two months in a camping car across the country and back, hugging the Mexican border on the way from San Diego to Florida, and back further north through Georgia, Arkansas and, in Texas, Palo Duro, the States’ second-largest canyon, where an American couple invited us to stay with them in Santa Fe, New Mexico as it was snowing. Our friends suggested Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument where we walked alone through narrow slots between hoodoos and climbed one for a unique view.
Ainslie Morris and Mike Reynolds, South Durras, NSW

Euro hunters

The writer of your “Tip of the Week” letter (Traveller Letters, October 25) did not tell the full story of the Brothers in Arms Memorial, found on the edge of Polygon Wood in Belgium. All down the Western Front there are individuals and communities seeking to promote their area and to cash in on the tourist euro. You have to carefully examine whether a project is a genuine remembrance of the fallen or a local tourist promotion. The Brothers in Arms Memorial is not endorsed by the Australian Department of Veterans Affairs, the Australian War Memorial nor the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Polygon Wood has two genuine memorials to the fallen, namely the Australian Fifth Division Memorial and the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing. And not too far away, in Zillbeke, is the Australian Tunnellers Memorial.
Ron Inglis, Strathfield, NSW

The Letter of the Week writer wins three Hardie Grant travel books. See hardiegrant.com

The Tip of the Week writer wins a set of three Lonely Planet travel books. See shop.lonelyplanet.com