Getting there

Huy, Tony and Kim at Saigon Airport, working on our language skills

We left a wet, dreary Burnie to go to an even drearier Devonport to catch our plane. We knew we had to leave by 4:00 at the latest and were pretty busy with last minute preparations, and drove out the driveway at exactly 4:00 pm. There was plenty of traffic around and we were pushed for time. However, I have this travel app on my phone called TripIt, and it was telling us our flight had been delayed by half an hour, so we just cruised to Devonport, looking at some just flooding starting to happen along the way. July is the coldest month in the Tasmanian winter. It feels like a good time to get away. 

The flight to Melbourne was a bit bumpy. We got into Melbourne and had to wait a few hours for our next flight to Kuala Lumpur (KL). We stocked up on some duty free whisky and rum, with 20% off if you bought two or more bottles. Cheapest bottle of Johnny Walker Blue I ever bought. I also had Nandos for the first time, chilli chicken with hummus and salad - tasty and fairly healthy I guess.

The flight to Malaysia went for 8 hours and I had a bloke that reminded me of a Sumo wrestler sitting next to me. He started coughing and doing some weird stretches with his neck. Worst of all he hogged the armrest. I was in the middle seat. I hate that. Anyway, I was all kitted up for the flight, with ear plugs in, noise cancelling headphones, eye shades and a "neck collar" which are a million times better than those neck pillows. I felt like I didn't get that much sleep, but I guess I did because it really only felt like a four hour flight. Having done a few 17 hour flights, it was pretty good really. The best thing was the food, a spicy Malaysian curry with dried anchovies and peanuts. They are not afraid of chilli like many Westerners seem to be.

At KL we had Maccas for breakfast. Sadly no egg and bacon McMuffin, but we had the double chicken sausage McMuffin instead, which was a little disappointing. We followed that with a triple shot latte, and I began to feel alive again. We then made our way to the travel gate and there was no one there, but we sat inside and started charging our phones. The news of the British referendum was starting to filter through and I was watching the Australian stock market tumble. I felt pretty pleased that I had sold all my shares in April.

Our next flight took us to Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon). We got another notification from TripIt that our flight had been delayed, so we sat back and enjoyed a beer in the heat and humidity of Vietnam. I bought a SIM card for the phone, 10 Gig of data for just $12 AU. The smells that we could remember started wafting into our nostrils and with that the memories of previous holidays that we had here.

We met a Vietnamese man while we were having the beers. He was practicing his English with us and we were trying to remember some of our scant Vietnamese. With the help of Google Translate, and a pen and paper for drawing things, we could have a pretty good conversation. Interestingly, another friend from Australia (originally from Burnie) was messaging me at the time in Vietnamese, while using Babelfish. We also met two really nice Australians there. I normally avoid Aussies while travelling, as they sometimes come across as the "new Yanks", but not these two. They had been to many of the places we had, so we had some common ground. They had just bought a unit in Woolongong for half a million dollars and borrowed almost all of that. Good on them :)

When it came time to check in we found out that our flight was already boarding and we were too late. I showed them the TripIt email saying the flight time was still almost two hours away, and all they could say is sorry. I am now taking this up with TripIt. Not happy, but you can only move forward. I was angry but determined not to let myself get caught up in it.

We rescheduled the flight for an extra fifty bucks and now fly out of Ho Chi Minh to Da Lat tonight instead, at 7:00 pm. We checked in to a pretty good hotel in the city and finally got some sleep while watching the BBC news on the Brexit results.

So for the rest of the day, we will hang out in Ho Chi Minh city. Maybe I'll buy a couple of T shirts and eat some more noodles.