May 11 2008

To Vietnam we go. We got up at 5am, to finish packing and check out, painfully early. We had booked a cab last night for 6 am. We finished packing and checked out just in time for the cab to show up. We hopped in and had a short painless ride to the airport. We checked in with air Asia and made our way to the gate, we had about an hour and half to wait. Soon we were ready to jump up to get in line, the unassigned seating on air Asia is stupid in that way, that people rush the counter to get in. We planned ahead again and sat right at the front. There was only one young girl who was pushing Jes, it seemed as though her and her family hadn't flown much. We were able to be the first on after the express boarders, and get some exit isle seats. It was a bit hard to say good-bye to Chiang Mai, we felt really comfortable there. The flight went really quick and we arrived 15 minutes early. It didn't matter to us, we had 6 hours to wait. We took our time getting our bags and wandered a bit to find something to eat. We had some brunch and watched a bit of the protector at one of the restaurants in the airport. Then we decided to head to the check-in counters to wait for ours to open. We were able to find some comfortable seats in the concrete airport. It came close to our check-in time and a counter for our flight hadn't opened yet. So we continued to wait and wait, then I asked a guy about it and he said "oh its at counter 11 and 12", where there was a small line up of people and no sign. So we lined up and sure enough they put out the sign. Check-in was slow, it seemed the new baggage fee they introduced has confused a lot of already confusing people. We eventually made it through check-in and customs, bye Thailand! We had a drink and a snack before the gate, then decided to go through security about an hour before our flight. We then heard an announcement that our flight was delayed about 30 minutes. Fun, when your exhausted. After what seemed like ages, we finally boarded the bus to take us to the plane. Not a fan of this set-up, especially when you got Push-Mc. Goo and Push-Mc. Gee behind you. Finally we were on the plane in an exit isle, that reclines! Both of us were exhausted and seemed to pass out, the flight was over before we knew it, although we arrived about 40 minutes late. We survived Vietnam customs and picked up our bags quickly. We walked out looking for the driver we arranged for to our hotel. There were a lot of people around, we looked and looked at the signs being held up. Our name or the name of our hotel was no where to be seen. We walked around and found a ATM, then waited around hoping we would find our driver. The whole time being hounded by taxi drivers. After walking back and forth trying to make sure our driver wasn't around we finally decided to just get a taxi ourselves. The guy wanted $13 US which was a lot. We eventually got him to $10, which is quite sad, but we just wanted to get to our hotel. The taxi driver was pretty friendly, so we just went with it. We thought traffic in China was bad, welcome to Vietnam. Everyone was all over the place, driving over the middle line, motorcycles everywhere and I mean everywhere! It was very interesting, crossing the street will be fun. After a drive though the city, which seemed to have a abundant supply of clothing stores, we arrived at our little street. The taxi driver dropped us off on the main road and told us to go down a little street and we'll find our hotel. We were able to survive our first street crossing and soon found our hotel. The guy at the front was very nice and let us go up, by up I mean to the 3rd floor, to our room and drop off our stuff. The room is very nice, clean, we don't have a outside window, but I'm sure that's a blessing with all the hustle and bustle. We have A/C, which I missed, but would never admit it and TV, with English! We decided to go find something to eat, so we went back down to the front and the guy offered some suggestions for areas to find restaurants. He also gave us a map and marked some sights and shopping areas on it for us. Very helpful. We walked down and around the corner and found a Indian restaurant which sounded yummy. We pigged out for $15. After stuffing our bellies we were pretty exhausted from the day. We headed back and chilled out for the rest of the night. Excited to see what tomorrow will bring! Chao for now!

Source: thingsasian.com