I am so back Hive!
After being so dizzy-busy with my different hustles in life, I finally found the break I much needed. As I get my head back into writing stories, this travel blog series would gonna be exciting as I will be sharing our journey and experiences together with my friends 
Pre-travel challenge: Pass the 2023 Philippine Immigration
This would gonna be my 6th, 7th & 8th countries to travel to and Jovy's 3rd, 4th, and 5th however, for Kim and Shiela, this would be their first out of the country.
I felt their excitement as I recalled my first-ever out-the-country travel way back in 2017 in South Korea (hopefully I can have another time to sit down and share with you my SoKor experience).
On the other hand, the worries and hesitations to pass the Philippine immigration was also a thing as recently, our country has been so strict with sending off its people because of rising human trafficking issues. With all the social media posts of tourists being offloaded in immigration, we were uplifting each and everyone’s spirit while getting ourselves ready to answer the possible questions that the immigration officer would be going to ask.
We have found several sample questions being asked by the immigration officer on the internet which has given us ideas, as Filipino travelers are being skeptical about the immigration officers interview questions, these are some that have been asked to us as Freelancers, and locally-employed individuals:
1. Shiela and Jovy: locally-employed individuals
- Sources of Income
- Monthly Salary
- Purpose of Travel
- Who are going with
- Travel Itinerary: What places to visit, days of stay
- Return Ticket - Jovy was asked the date that the return ticket has been booked, this makes sense as some Filipinos who tend to leave the country as a tourist but intend to work in another country will get a return ticket for show-off purposes.
2. Kim,
- Travel Itinerary & Purpose of Travel
- Return Ticket
- Who is with him and how did they meet them (us)
- Sources of Income
- Nature of Work
- He was asked to show his blog site
- He was asked about Hive , IO becomes his follower/reader
- He was asked to show his Binance and Gcash accounts where his income goes in and out
3. Kim, thestrollingmind (me): Freelance, independent contract accountant- foreign client
- Travel Itinerary & Purpose of Travel
- Return Ticket
- Who is with me and how did I meet them (friends)
- Sources of Income and Monthly Salary
- Nature of Work & Position - the IO asked for Certification or proof that I am working with my client/company , I provided a letter I asked from my boss stating my connection with them.
- He asked why I stayed longer in Japan last 2018 when I stayed 89 days (90 days temporary visitor visa allowed) - I explained it was for a temporary work assignment.
Be sure to bring along your old passport-bearing your past travel stamps, this will help the immigration officer assess that you're a frequent traveler, and there's no sense in offloading you or delaying you on your flight ;-)
It was a kind of achievement- we all passed the immigration officer interview! One great tip that we would like to advise for future travelers if you are going outside the country is to be True, Know your Itinerary, and Stay Calm to answer the IO's questions straight to the point, as much as possible, answer each question briefly and concisely.
Before I am going to share our travel experiences and itinerary for this Indochina Tri-Country Travel Challenge, I would like to share some necessary travel essentials that we prepared and utilized that might be very helpful for your future out-of-the-country travel.
Travel Essential: Know where you're heading to
This is a DIY-Indochina Tri-Country Travel that I personally arranged the itinerary, with the collaboration of my friends. We are budgetary travelers so we prefer this way than to have a travel agency arrange our trip, while there is a risk, especially with the transfers, but after reading over the internet that DIY transfers are attainable, I got the guts to go on with the itinerary preparation.
Basically, we are challenging ourselves to cross the borders of Vietnam and Laos, Laos and Thailand, which I will be elaborately sharing in my next blog. I've got Kim, Jovy, and Shiela to decide which destinations we will be going to and which experiences we will be taking part in in each country, and the teamwork went well! Multiple heads are better than one! As I work with the itinerary I am sharing it to them in Google Sheets so they can also show our schedules and itinerary, this is so important when traveling with a group and so helpful too, to be confident in answering the immigration officer's questions.
Travel Essential: Scout for Hotel and Hostels with good location with Free Breakfast
We booked our accommodations for our Indochina trip in Booking.com, I usually use this site in almost all of my travel because of the free cancellation feature of most of the properties listed on the site, and most of the great deal hotels listing also offer “pay at the property “ payment terms which our group prefers considering the probability of being allowed to pass the immigration across all boarders that is in this trip. It is also convenient to message the accommodations for requests and inquiries on their website and even more on their app which you can easily browse for the hotels that you will be staying throughout the trip.
For our stay in Hanoi city, I and my friends have shortlisted our options and decided that we’ll want to stay at the Little Diamond Hotel. Location wise, it is a 5stars, it is located where delicious Pho restaurants and street foods are located. It is 15mins away by foot from the street where the bus drop us off, and roughly 5mins away from the jewelry shop with the best currency exchange rate where we changed our USD to VND. Above all, it has a FREE BUFFET BREAKFAST!
The hotel staff were so accommodating that they let us check in early since the room intended for us was vacant. We booked a 4-pax room that includes a free breakfast, something great for the budgetary travelers for 2 days for $95.68 / 2,335,000 VND / 5,561 Php, in short, we only spent 1,390.25 Php per head for our 2 nights stay on this hotel- with free breakfast, how budget-friendly, right?
As we strolled around the city of Hanoi for 3 days and 2 nights, I saw the hotels that I’d seen in the booking. com site which is equally great in location to the city destinations, such as the hotels below:
Splendid Boutique
Elite Central Hotel Hanoi
Hanoi City Backpackers Hostel
I will be sharing more travel essentials and tips for this trip on my next blog such as where to exchange currency across the three countries, internet and data connectivity, and a lot more, so anyone who will be planning to do their trips in these countries will have some info and tips to stroll around these countries.
Thanks for strolling with me today!
xoxo,
Kim
About the Author
Hi! I am Kim- The Strolling Mind.
I love to travel, I have been traveling in my beautiful country- Philippines, and some Asian countries, as well. My pleasure to share them here in Hive.
I believe that our mind is so powerful that anything we think is anything we can reach and achieve.
It is our mind that'll lead us to where we are heading to, so....