The Big Day

The day of our departure for Vietnam, we all got up at 4:30 am, got dressed and headed to the terminal from the Novotel, where we had stayed the night. We were planning on quickly checking in our luggage, then going back to the hotel for a leisurely breakfast with a couple of friends before our flight. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned.

The trouble started when Dad tried to use his Silver status in Qantas to add a second bag to our total (the usual amount is one each). He had only achieved this status on his last flight home, so his card hadn't arrived and the airport check in terminal still registered him as a Bronze, which would mean we had to pay a lot extra for the extra bag. To prove his status, Dad tried to log in to the Qantas website, but the wifi was locked. He then had to get the password from the lady at the desk. This whole process was severely slowed by the fact that every 5 minutes, the lady had to go to a nearby office and update them or confirm something. About halfway through this, the friends we were having breakfast with, namely Kruger, Debbie and Ruby, showed up and were waiting for us. We'd taken so long, by the time we'd gotten past that stage, it was 5:45. We had to be in the departure lounge by 6:15. This was going to be close.

At this point, Dad said that we could go on to breakfast, he'd finish up getting the bags through. Relieved, we headed back to the hotel with the others to a scrumptious buffet with eggs benedict, sausages, hash browns and more! Unfortunately we only had half an hour, but I managed to fit in a few helpings. When we had to leave, we said our goodbyes and headed through the departure lounge. After a nervous wait, we heard our seat numbers called, and we trooped through the tunnel into the plane that would take us to Melbourne. We settled into our seats, the engines started, we accelerated forward and we were off!

The flight was pretty uneventful, to be honest. I watched a movie, played some music, then found Hamish and Andy and watched that until we got to Melbourne. Coming off the plane, thankfully we didn't have to find our luggage so could go straight to the next departure lounge. As we were looking for it, we heard our name on the PA system! "Would the Middlemiss family, just arrived from New Zealand, please go to gate ... and talk to the staff there". It was quite funny as just minutes ago, Mum had said "wouldn't it be cool if we heard our names here?". We went to the gate and sorted out our passports, then waited until the boarding call. When it finally came, we went through a gate again, settled into our seats again, then we were off again!

This flight was about as interesting as the previous one, with two main differences. 1, it was longer , 2, there was no Hamish and Andy! Oh well, there were still plenty of songs and movies to watch. I found a poker game, and by the time we landed again had gone from $200 to over $10000. Mum and Dad had it a bit rougher than I did though, as there was a little Vietnamese girl in the seat directly in front of them, and once she realized they spoke english, she wouldn't be quiet! To make things worse, she kept turning around and interrupting their movie by tapping the touch-sensitive screen or flipping the seat cover over to cover it. The mother, who was sitting right there, didn't do a thing about it, and Mum had to physically restrain the girl at one point so she could watch in peace.

Finally, the moment came. First, we saw land ahead, then passing beneath us. We were officially in Vietnam! The airport grew closer and closer, then touchdown! We all headed slowly towards the door, then we were out. The first thing that struck us was the heat. It felt like Auckland during a high day at noon. Next came the smells. Wherever you are in Vietnam, you can always smell something, whether it be exhaust, food or just the general smell of pollution. Getting out of the terminal took a while, as Dad had to go through a few processes to finalize his visa, then we picked up our bags and went to catch a taxi. Exiting the doors, we were faced with a huge crowd of people. It took a moment for me to realize that this was just the usual arrivals gate crowd, only with ten times as many people as Auckland. We found a taxi, then we got our first glimpse of Vietnam traffic. Oh boy.

It was insane! Motorbikes everywhere, weaving around us, each other and any pedestrians crossing the road. There were so many cars and bikes that it felt like Auckland traffic, only crammed into a normal sized street. That taxi ride was so fun, I was laughing as we pulled into the apartment where we were going to spend the next year of our lives. Dad had, on his previous trips, set the apartment up for us, buying some kitchen supplies, furniture etc., so all we had to do was unpack our bags. We were extremely tired, having been traveling for over 12 hours, but Dad reckoned we had to stay up as late as possible to help ourselves adjust to the jet lag. We achieved this by watching tv for hours (we have 70 channels including Animal Planet, Discovery, Cartoon Network and three movie channels, although most of the others are entirely Vietnamese). Finally, we couldn't stay up any more, so we shambled to our beds and almost instantly fell asleep. Thus ended our first day in Vietnam.