The Flight Day Has Arrived -28th July 2014

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Well finally the 28th July 2014 has arrived & I was up early to collect John from his last night shift so our holiday could begin. After having my nails & hair sorted we left right on time to drop my lovely friend Claire off at the train station & then made our way to Manchester Airport.



We arrived at the carpark right on time of our booking slot which was great news. As we where chatting at the Etihad check in desk 1 of the staff tried to shake Ollie's & ask him if he was looking forwards to going to his airport. At this point the usually chatty Ollie decided to come over all shy & went bright red in the face & wouldn't say a word never mind look at the guy.



We then made our way over to passport control where we managed to get a free fast track pass for us all, which was lucky as the queue for passport control was at least an hr long if not longer.



Finally our flight boarding time arrived after spending a lovely few hours in the airport lounge. Once we had been seated for about 5 minutes Ollie suddenly shouted out why is all the writing in Japanese!!!!!!! At this point myself & John fell about laughing considering we were travelling on an Arab airline, via Abu Dhabi to Ho Chi Minh there was nothing wrote in Japanese, only English & Arabic.



We finally took off another an hour delay & the flight was smooth if not long just over 7hrs long!!!!!! With only 35 minutes to make our connecting flight I started to worry a bit as we were still not on the ground. At this point I asked the flight attendant would our connection be held & more importantly would our cases make it!!!!!!! Luckily she said because we where flying with the same airline they would hold the flight & get our bags. As we rushed off the plane now with only 20 mins before take off there was staff waiting for us with signs pointing us to our next boarding gate. We made the flight just thinking how good we where for running threw the airport to only discover ours wasn't the only flight delayed & ended up once again sat on the runway for another hour. At this point though none of us minded cause we knew they had plenty of time to get our cases on the flight with us.



It was another long 7 hours 30mins but smooth flight on which myself & Ollie slept most of it. We did have to fill in medical forms to state none of us had had as much of a headache 2wks before we flew otherwise you had to go to quarantine & as none of us fancied that of cause we said we had had nothing. I mean what difference does it make if you've had a headache or not that's just every day in my life. Once threw passport control you have to get your cases x-rayed again then it's out into the craziness that is Ho Chi Minh, our driver was there waiting for us with our names on his sign. As he went to fetch the car we couldn't stop staring at everybody & everything it was so hot but wet & mental. Cars just stop in the middle of the roads, people shouting everywhere it was mental.

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