One night in China....... Pullman, Guangzhou Airport

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Arrived at Saigon airport far too early for checkin. The traffic out of the city was terrible at 8.15 am. We had an hour to wait, watching others queueing up with the biggest boxes imaginable. What on earth is in them? They all looked to have about 5 pieces of luggage each. Although they said check in opened 2 hours before the flight, we spotted a side queue forming next to the Cathay Pacific people, scooched over and joined it, so were very near the front. Given boarding cards for both flights, bye bye luggage until Heathrow! On the plane we were unusual in that we were literally the only 2 westerners and as women, also in the approx 10% of females. Git a full meal, and the request for vegetarian had penetrated their inner workings too. All good!

At Guangzhou, although there were plenty of people wearing sashes to help us, we managed to get in the wrong queue several times. We didn't need to go in the one to be allocated a free hotel as we'd booked the Pullman ourselves. Halfway along the alien queue someone spotted us and said we needed to be in queue 17 (green) if we just needed a stay permit. You need your passport, landing card filled in (no visa number necessary) and boarding card, then you get your stamp and go through. Tomorrow we just need to go through security and get stamped out. The free hotel people were given a map and told to go and get on the bus. They had blue stickers with 24 on them, presumably to get the bus for free.

Walked through airport, up to Departures, through door number 13 and the hotel is right there. I only had a vague idea of the exchange rate, as I figured we could pay for anything extra using my credit card, without having to get any yuan. At reception the girl was very successful at persuading us to upgrade. I thought at first we were just paying for breakfast, then she mentioned happy hour in the executive lounge, and my eyes lit up like Christmas at Claudia's! And we are in the new executive wing, fantabulous room and humongous bathroom with sunken bath and lovely toiletries. Very, very acceptable! An extra £48 on top of the room rate. Oopsie daisy

Went to find the executive lounge and suss it out, had coffee, stole apples. Trying to look cool, while inwardly thinking aaaaaaargh! This is great! Back for a shower with the fluffiest towels ever, strolled back into the exec lounge where the canapés were waiting for us. Not great for vegetarians, superb for me. Gill can have the hard boiled egg I took from breakfast later, if she's hungry! They still think that pizza with pork is OK for a vegetarian. People are drinking wine. I want to do this too, having not had any since Vientiane. Not sure how many are included, ie how happy is happy hour! I looked round until I saw someone being offered a second one. Then ordered one for Gill. She doesn't drink. Then they brought me another. Oops! Poured Gill's into mine. Offered more and managed to say no. There was a group of American guys, one of them very loud, really bad language, holding court, others laughing at his jokes but looked very uncomfortable.

You can certainly eat and drink enough that dinner is not necessary, so the upgrade was very much worth it. Ditto the breakfast in the morning. We didn't know what half the stuff was!

Back to the airport an hour and a half before the flight. No need to check in as we had our boarding cards, but there is a bit of queueing to do. Don't smile at the officials. They won't smile back at you. Take an empty water bottle with you to save money and look for the drinking fountain signs to fill up. The plane left on time. End of adventure!

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