Medicines and customs on arrival in Vietnam (Hanoi)
 

Hi all! I'll be arriving by air into HAN this Sunday, and will have some prescription medicine in my hand luggage. If customs asks questions, I will have copies of my prescriptions with me, but they are partly in Finnish. My questions are: do customs care much about prescription medicine? Will I have a problem if my prescriptions are not 100% in English?

Thanks for your expert advice!

Customs were not that interested in my luggage in my two visits.

Same experience here.

I've entered the country about 15 times without concern, as the others mentioned above. Without trying to make this an OMNI thread, I would say customs does a fair bit of profiling here, mostly with the diaspora community as target. I think you will be ok.

Customs in VN is there as a revenue generating activity. Everything went through an x-ray machine as you exited baggage claim. If you were carrying a lot of new electronics or other high value goods, they would sometimes stop you and collect a "fee." Now though they have a green channel with no x-ray machine so you're unlikely to be stopped for any reason.

Just walk through "Nothing to Declare" - they're usually too busy slurping noodles!

Dont worry, Customs ofent dont care about your luggage so much, but if you have medicine, and asked by them, just give them prescription medicine at any language you have. They must have read it by anyway. If they cant read, it their problems, not you.

Makes one wonder... how many people around could translate Finnish to Vietnamese.....

(I recall a comment by an author I like about how the EU spends incredible amounts of money on translation - as all member states languages are deemed equal... he pointed out that - even in a polyglot environment like Europe it is not that easy to find people who can competently translate - say - Greek to Norwegian.... A factor that had never occurred to me!!)