4. Communications (telephone and post)
The landline telephone system is remarkably efficient: direct dialing, domestic and international, a same-day free repair service, card-operated pay phones in most towns. The catch is that it is not cheap: long distance calls within Vietnam are relatively expensive and rates for international calls are extremely high.
Mobile phones are cheap and plentiful with two local systems providing good coverage. If you decide to buy one, DON’T leave it lying around: the market in stolen mobile is thriving.
The postal system is also good in Vietnam. Here. Links with outside world are heavily taxed, making international postage charges disproportionately high. Within Vietnam, however, the post is not only fairly swift and reliable bit also wonderfully cheap.
DON’T seal a parcel before you take it to a post office. You will be required to show its contents before you can have it weighed and priced. You must also open any parcel you receive from abroad.
DO tell people sending you stuff to Vietnam that they needn’t be too exact for the box marked “declared value” when they fill out that little green customs sticker. Better still, they should add one or more of the following: no commercial value, for personal use, used items …This should save you some money to start with, but DON’T just pay up the fee seems unfair. If the contents of your package are unlikely to be of interest to the post office workers, you can always threaten to leave it there…
DON’T post a letter or parcel with real postage stamps on it until you’ve had them cancelled again, your post will not get very far.
DON’T send big parcels abroad if you can avoid it. If you travel to Thailand or a nearby country and can carry the contents that far, it will be cheaper to send it from there.