Days 14 & 15, 28 - 29 September – Vietnam arrival
We slept well last night and woke up at 5:15 am just before our alarm. We did the final tidy up of the apartment as we want to leave it looking Schmick for Danni and Brad, when they return tomorrow π.
I had ordered an uber last night to come at 6:30am today and could see the request was there but by 6:20am there was still no driver accepting the ride so we decided we needed to cancel it, despite the $25 cancellation fee – which I will deal with later (Wrote to them and they refunded it straight away), and I ordered another uber which arrived within 4mins. Graeme was stressing a bit but I was confident as I’ve used them a lot and despite it being rush-hour, the plus is it’s now school holidays, as of yesterday.
The uber took us about 40mins so not too bad– we even just beat the Vietnam airlines check-in opening! So we were first in line.
Got through no problems at all with immigration and security – we are flying on our Australian passports as- of course, our New Zealand ones would’ve had 5months remaining, once we got home not the six months you need– so we decided we might as well utilise our Australian ones while we could, as they have plenty of years left on them.
Went to the skyteam lounge, it was fine and quite quiet compared to Singapore’s lounge, but quite a few chairs that wouldn’t recline etc. Although I would say they had proper reclining shorter lazy-boy’s with an ottoman, which was nice so no complaints at all.
We went down to gate 31 at 9:25am, but the ground crew were all very stressed and intense and with each other, trying to fix some problem! Waited till about 9:45am but then onboarded no problems ✈️ .
Actually impressed with the seating – even though Singapore airlines we have travelled with a number of times, have very wide seats, these have a much better angle, so spent the first hour playing round, getting to know all the bits and pieces in the seats πΊ .
The flight attendant looking after is lovely, he is very smiley- his name is Phat π. We were served a lovely lunch, it was warm duck with salad in a lovely thick sauce to start with, then salmon with mashed potato and veggies, although I didn’t have much of mine as I wasn’t really that hungry, having had some scrambled eggs in the lounge prior to takeoff. Then they had fruit and cheese and crackers, which were nice.
I watched a movie called “You, Me and Tuscany”, a silly but fun rom-com, set in beautiful Italy, and then watched “Star Wars-the rise of Skywalker”, which was an extremely big budget movie I’d say!
Nodded off for a little while, even though it was only about 3 pm – we’ve had a lot of very early starts in this past week! Back to watching the movie and had a chat to Graeme, although his chest is feeling tight and he’s trying not to cough - we’ve definitely caught something over wedding week, so we are just relaxing as they put all the blinds down in-flight. He is sitting behind me so we have window seats.
I went for a walk down through the cabin just to have a stretch – is really not that big a plane. I think it is an A350? Premium economy was over half empty And looked quite nice, and even the first section of economy didn’t look too crowded and wasn’t too hot, but back in the rear big section of economy, you could feel the heat coming off people - there are no individual air vents on this plane. I really felt for a poor man right at the back who had his older toddler very distressed, and he was trying to quieten him down in the crew galley and people lining up for the toilet. Hopefully they’re able to settle him down. Not easy for anyone.
I toddled my way back up and reflected that I am super grateful for being able to save as hard as we do, so we can sit in comfortable seats, that we can manage at our age now.
Back to Star Wars – it’s a 2 1/2 hour movie and only 3hrs to go until we land, along with another small meal.
I used a Vietnamese company to submit visas for us, which have gone through no worries – they did check it them in Sydney at check in. And then I have also paid for expedited passes through immigration on arrival in HCM, which take the waiting time down from a potential 2–3hrs, to apparently around 30mins. Given the apparent heat in arrivals, it sounded like a good idea to us!
Then I have booked a transfer to our hotel and we will have what’s left of the evening before being picked up for the start of our imagine cruising river cruise of the Mekong River, tomorrow.
We landed after 8:45 hrs as there had been torrential rain in Vietnam so the pilot said he had to circle for an extra half an hour until the rain had calmed down a bit. Was such an easy flight really, although Graeme was feeling pretty yuck with his chest being tight and the altitude. But we both enjoyed it.
We landed and we’re off the plane pretty quick, our fast track Visa guy was right there off the plane to escort us over to a lane that was quicker – literally in a different queue! Although we were lucky as it did start to really fill up after us. We got out to the luggage carousel where our bags had already been offloaded from the plane and had been stacked up nicely with the others in BC. Such amazing service!
We went through the no declare Lane and nobody even looked at us – straight out into the humidity that is Ho Chi Minh! We went to pillar 11 where our driver was meant to be waiting but no one there, waited awhile then tried other pillars looking at the name cards they were holding. A couple of young guys tried to help us but didn’t have a lot of English and they were working with other companies. Was just getting to the point of trying to find the companies phone number and get on the Wi-Fi at the airport when the driver showed up – stinking of smoke so I’d say he gone off to have a fag. He didn’t really speak English but drove us to our hotel which was about half an hour. It is amazing the orchestrated calm, chaos that is the driving in Saigon. Everybody is very courteous though and just seems to blend in even on roundabouts with three or four different exits. Everyone on their mopeds just look straight ahead– nobody looks at anyone!
Got to a hotel very nice and bougie – five star and much nicer than I thought. It is all booked with the tour group and apparently there are 18 – Or maybe double that if that is couples? on our river cruise and Singapore F1 tour that we will meet tomorrow. They checked us in and wouldn’t let us do anything or take our own bags – very polite.
Up to our room – 357. A huge bed feels really firm but has a softness on top. Had to get the air-conditioning cranking as I don’t think cold air is a big thing here ha ha! Brought along my little portable fan anyway that works off at USB and we were under the wonderful shower and into bed by 9pm, After heading down to one of the bars to have a lovely cold beer and some spring rolls, Graeme had a Cuban sandwich.
Day 15–29 September.
Having trouble doing my blog on my phone, it’s just easier cause that’s where my photos are but the fonts in size keep going up and down and hard to manage on a small screen!
We woke up after about 8 hours sleep – so lovely but we both had a few trips to the bathroom as we are drunk so much water on our flight!
Got tidied up and went down to breakfast – very nice affair it Is too. A bit wasted on me as I don’t really eat hot cooked breakfast but they had lovely fruit as well as pastries and cereal.
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I’ve been very, very careful with washing hands after touching anything – I hate using shared spoons for food and then you go and pick up your toast or whatever to eat – I always carry hand sanitiser! Had a lovely breakfast then we decided to go out as Graeme had seen there was a market down the road.
Quickly learning the way to get across the road is wait for a slight pause and then walk with confidence ha ha! The cars are pretty good actually and will wait for a little bit. The market is huge – on a par with the grand bizarre in Istanbul, but oh so crowded with wares and thousands upon thousands of stalls with Vietnamese saying hello ma’am hello sir would you like to buy… Insert here – nice T-shirt, nice watch, nice trinkets! The smell is overwhelming – quite pungent with all the fruit and vegetables and herbs and spices there along with the heat.
Walked back and cool down in the room –We have got checkout at 12 pm – a very generous time where we will go downstairs and meet up with the group and I think it is 1 1/2 – 2 hours to the port where we get on our river cruise. Not sure how much internet will have so I’ll post this now and we’ll catch up when I can! The people here are lovely.
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