3. Office services
Vietnam enjoys the unique heritage of a most dubious procedural blend, namely Chinese mandarin, colonial French and Soviet-style communist bureaucracies.
DO keep calm: be assertive but polite and keep smiling. Things take time, offices close early and often and you will only be told something if you ask the right question, so ask lots of them until you know clearly.
DO photocopy every official paper that comes into your possession and carry them all times along with plenty of passport photos.
Most offices open at 08:00 in the morning and close officially or unofficially from 12:00 (sometimes 11:30) to 13:00 and stay open until 17:00. Countryside hours tend to be shorter. It’s advisable to do serious bureaucratic work in the morning.