Next time I mention I'm going travelling, you have permission to ask if I've got the visas arranged.
They wouldn't let me out of the country without confirmation that my visas were in order. So I ended up paying quite a bit more to get a visa approval when I got there. And squeaked my check-in less than one hour before the flight was due to leave...
It was a pretty boring flight. First to Singapore, then to HCMC (Saigon). I had a four hour layover at Singapore so there was time to go swimming in the Terminal 1 swimming pool. Damn that place is HUGE. I was going to get something to eat and then I completely forgot, so by the time I boarded the flight to Saigon, I was a little bit floaty. (I'd been travelling for 14 hours by then.) Eating the in-flight meal helped. Seriously, blood sugar levels can be a bitch, even if you're not hangry prone.
Good thing I did so. It took me about an hour to get out of the airport, because the visa took forever to get done. Thankfully, Singapore Airlines also sends their flight crew to the luggage turntable to take off the bags that came off their flight but which haven't been collected. The thing that was giving me the most concern in the wait was that someone might walk off with my luggage.
But, yeah. Next time, I will jump through the necessary hoops at the embassy for much less money than I had to pay to do the Visa business this time. UGH.
HCMC is just as crazy as ever. I never remember just how crazy it is until I'm back and then I'm all "yep, glad I don't live here". I'm in the 'spare room' here, and you don't know just how unusual it is to have a spare room here until you've seen how cramped people live. This house is actually two houses side by side, with the stairwell removed in the second house so they could put a lift in, and renovated so that it's all one house.
Interestingly, this room was supposed to be for my stepbrother, but he does his schoolwork and plays on the computer down the bottom in the 'office' front where my dad usually works, and he also sleeps down there on a mat and does so like a log. I stepped over him on the way out to breakfast, and again on the way back, and he didn't stir. Ah, teenagers.
Today's irony is coming all the way to Vietnam...to have Cantonese-style yum cha for brunch. But I did have pho bo for a midafternoon snack, and we're going to dinner shortly. I have no idea what they're planning for that.
They wouldn't let me out of the country without confirmation that my visas were in order. So I ended up paying quite a bit more to get a visa approval when I got there. And squeaked my check-in less than one hour before the flight was due to leave...
It was a pretty boring flight. First to Singapore, then to HCMC (Saigon). I had a four hour layover at Singapore so there was time to go swimming in the Terminal 1 swimming pool. Damn that place is HUGE. I was going to get something to eat and then I completely forgot, so by the time I boarded the flight to Saigon, I was a little bit floaty. (I'd been travelling for 14 hours by then.) Eating the in-flight meal helped. Seriously, blood sugar levels can be a bitch, even if you're not hangry prone.
Good thing I did so. It took me about an hour to get out of the airport, because the visa took forever to get done. Thankfully, Singapore Airlines also sends their flight crew to the luggage turntable to take off the bags that came off their flight but which haven't been collected. The thing that was giving me the most concern in the wait was that someone might walk off with my luggage.
But, yeah. Next time, I will jump through the necessary hoops at the embassy for much less money than I had to pay to do the Visa business this time. UGH.
HCMC is just as crazy as ever. I never remember just how crazy it is until I'm back and then I'm all "yep, glad I don't live here". I'm in the 'spare room' here, and you don't know just how unusual it is to have a spare room here until you've seen how cramped people live. This house is actually two houses side by side, with the stairwell removed in the second house so they could put a lift in, and renovated so that it's all one house.
Interestingly, this room was supposed to be for my stepbrother, but he does his schoolwork and plays on the computer down the bottom in the 'office' front where my dad usually works, and he also sleeps down there on a mat and does so like a log. I stepped over him on the way out to breakfast, and again on the way back, and he didn't stir. Ah, teenagers.
Today's irony is coming all the way to Vietnam...to have Cantonese-style yum cha for brunch. But I did have pho bo for a midafternoon snack, and we're going to dinner shortly. I have no idea what they're planning for that.
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