I arrived today at 8:30AM at the customs office in Noibai to clear the shipment. The amount of required paperwork was incredible. I had more than 100 pages of documents/invoices/receipts/insurances forms only for the temporary import of my personal motorbike. The level of incompetence and ignorance of the officers appeared to be at par with the number of stars and decorations on their uniforms. Half of them were playing solitaire, few more were checking facebook. The two guys who were actually working were reading my documents as if this was the first time ever in their lives seeing such papers. They began calling various supervisors, requesting clearances, checking regulations, manuals, books etc. At 11:30 everyone stopped working for 2 hrs for lunch break. After lunch, by 4PM I managed (with the aid of a Vietnamese translator) to advance through 3 different clerks. Business hours were until 5:30 but at 5:10 they gave the documents back asking to come back the following morning, as it was already too late.

Some people should not exist.