Day 16 - Hanoi to Melbourne via Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore

---

Today was an early start, our last day of the trip and completely full of flights. We were up just before 6:00am to get ready and finish packing our stuff making sure nothing was left behind. We made our way down to level 1 for breakfast and checked out. While waiting in the lobby for our driver the reception man came over to us to say that the driver had called him and said he would be 10-15mins late as the traffic was rubbish because it was still raining outside. It wasn't really an issue as this flight was only domestic from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. He got there at 7:00am, put our bags in and we were on our way on our 45mins drive to the airport. So much of the roads were flooded on the way, clearly they need to work on their drainage. We made it to the airport, checked in after finally finding our check-in counter, went through security, waitied in the lounge for a bit then boarded the bus to take us out to the plane. Two hours later we had landed in Ho Chi Minh City, collected our bags and walked from the domestic terminal to the international terminal. We were so early we couldn't even check-in for another hour so we made our way to sit and had Burger King for lunch. Finally we were able to check-in our bags, mine was only 16kgs, and go through security to find something to spend the last of our VND on. Jess got some biscuits, I got some coffee and that was the last of it. We waited then at our gate until boarding time. We boarded a tad late but it was worth it when the Jetstar Cabin Crew guy got on the mic. Rattling things off like: "please fasten your seatbelts, if you can't find your seat belt it's probably because you are sitting on it" " if oxygen is needed one of these masks will magically appear from the roof, put it on yourself first, then children, then any adult acting like a child""there are 50ways to leave a lover but on 8ways to leave the airplane in case of emergency"And "toilets are fitted with smoke detectors, please do not smoke in them as the alarms will sound. If you need to smoke, please leave and do it ouside the aircraft"Everyone was in hysterics while he was talking and clapped him at the end. Good value. An hour and 40minutes later we landed in Singapore. On landing the same hostie said over the speaker "Welcome to John F Kennedy Airport, whoops that was last week" and on leaving said "please make sure you take your children and husbands with you".We had about 2 and a half hours to fill in at Singapore Airport so I got dinner at Starbucks of a roll and OJ, finally some real orange juice rather than the orange cordial we were told was juice each morning. And so we began our 8hr, or just under, flight home. We were happy when we boarded to be told that it was neally an hour shorter than it said on the ticket; something about the wind. So we'd be arriving in chilly Melbourne about 40-45mins earlier than expected. Score. We got into Melbourne at 6:08am but by the time we went through passport control and duty free and customs it was about 6:45am when we finally got in Jess's mums car, bound for home sweet home.

---