After I got my visa sorted out and booked a flight which ended up choosing me $140 I was on my way to Vietnam. I got the the airport super early like it told me to on the ticket, something like 2 hours early only to find out that you couldn't check in until 45 min before the flight. So I had to wander around the ridiculously small airport to find something to eat. Quite a challenge when you have your huge backpack and everywhere is overpriced. I wandered around till I found a moderately priced Japanese food place where I had some pretty good udon soup. They didn't have a kitchen so not to sure how they cooked it.
After checking in and getting through security I found a couple seats to lounge out on in front if the gate.
I listened to the Steve Jobs audio book I downloaded the night before and eventually lost track of time. After a while someone came on the intercom and said that the flight was going to be delayed.
About 2 hours later we boarded the plane!
The plane that we had was super nice. Like the nicest flight I have ever been on. It literally looked like it was the first time that people had been on the plane because the green leather chairs were pristine and all the TV's in the back of the chairs were i'm perfect condition. After finding my seat (super comfortable) a made friends with a girl sitting on my left. The girl on my right who I believe was Vietnam was a different story. It was her first time on a plane and she was very excited about it. She kept opening and closing the tray table and paying with all the buttons on the TV. Then she got out her phone and proceeded to take pictures if everything including me and the girl to my left.
After calming down and putting hey phone away a discovered her touching my hair. Which she apparently also found very interesting.
The plane was getting ready for take off and I got my personal space back.
Once in the air they came around and have everyone a cardboard box and a drink. It was filled with some sort of piggy in a blanket, fruit, and a cookie. Pretty delicious lunch actually. A short while later we were landing in Hanoi, Vietnam.
We got of the plane and a cleaning crew rushed on after us and then we boarded a bus to take us to the arrivals area.
From then it was a mad scramble for people to pick up their visa on arrival. everyone had to provide their form and letter of acceptance and a photo to the back window and then go around to the other side to wait for their name to be called .they processed about 15 passports at a time so they're was always a big group off people waiting at the pick up window. When yours was ready they held it up to the window and shouted out a mispronounced version of your name. then you had to squeeze your way to the front to hand in your money for the stamp and then head for your bags.
Outside the baggage claim there was about 50 ATM's or so and I thought it would be a good idea to get some Vietnamese Dong. After trying 10 and all of them rejecting my card I gave up and decided to use the US $ that I had left over after the visa. Walking around the corner just outside the main doors there is an airport shuttle for $3 to apparently wherever you wanted to go in the city. For about 45 min there was only 3 of us in the van and they said they needed to wait for a full one before they would leave. Little did we know that Vietnamese full is different than a regular full. A van for 10 ended up holding 17. Another 30 drive into town we made it to the hostel. Along the way I discovered that like every other country it had it's own distinct driving style. More in the next post.
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