The waiting game

Wed 13 Apr 2016 - Hanoi, Vietnam to Colombo, Sri Lanka

Arriving in Hanoi at 0500 again, we wearily made our way outside, fought our way through the army of freelance taxi drivers competing for our fare and found a proper metered cab to take us to the hostel we’d been to 8 days ago. After several unsuccessful phone calls on a dodgy phone line, and a long wait on a very smelly staircase, we eventually managed to reach someone to let us inside where we relaxed in a welcome shower. Wanting to check an email, Glenn asked Yvonne for the tablet pc. A string of expletives revealed that she’d left it on the train.

Once back in control of her faculties she slipped into super calm ‘fix it’ mode and called the guy who’d arranged our access to the hostel to see if he could help. “Leave it with me” was the reply and within the hour a guy on a motorbike arrived clutching the tablet - now that’s service! Much relieved we had a quick drink with the hostel guy then boarded the taxi to the airport that had been arranged for us. The guys from Flamingo Tours have really served us well going way beyond the call of duty to ensure our time in Vietnam, not just with them, was a success. Cheers guys, we owe you an excellent tripadvisor review.

Check in was a breeze and after wandering around the food stalls we joined the rest of the western travellers at Burger King for sausage and bacon croissantwiches - yeah, we know, what’s with all the fast food - for another wait until we boarded.

On the flight we met Joe, a young guy from Leicester, who set off travelling for a couple of months and got hooked. He was on his way to Chiang Mai (in Thailand) and had only left himself a couple of hours to clear immigration in Bangkok, collect his bags and check in. When our flight was delayed for 15 mins due to a VIP in the airport - for which, evidently, everything has to stop - he was starting to get concerned (I won’t use the words ‘panic’ or ‘worry’ as they don’t seem states young people are capable of reaching - unless they have no mobile phone signal). With some advice and reassurance, not given entirely with conviction, from us he leapt from his seat as soon as the plane stopped. We later saw him disappearing through customs, bag on shoulder saying “I should have time”. We wished him luck.

Now all we had was 9 hours to kill in Bangkok airport! After a bit of exploring, unsuccessfully trying to find a comfy seating area described in a TripAdvisor review, we found a quiet spot and settled down to snooze, web surf and read - all with limited success. 

A few hours and a cup of tea later we made our way to the check in desk and as soon as it opened we were able to get rid of heavy bags and move more freely. Passing through security we joined a long queue, with a group of Chinese tourist scrambling under the ropes queue jumping (during this trip we’ve found the Chinese really distasteful), to go through Thailand’s rather laborious exit process - more forms and passport checks - then we were finally able to reach a new part of the airport. And what a new part: lines of duty free shops, new places to eat - and, the comfy seating area. Only another two hours to go, however, with an hour before take off our flight was called as final boarding so we hastily made our way, quite a long way, to the gate and joined the plane to find it almost empty. More waiting onboard - goodness knows why they called final boarding so early. 

Anyway, four hours later we touched down at Colombo airport, found our driver (following some confusion) and, after more than 20 hours awake, fell asleep in another new country.