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Published: March 7th 2014
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As last year, finishing our trip at the easy-but-expensive option of the fab airport hotel, rather than the hang-about-for-hours free hotel courtesy of China Southern! No upgrade to a suite this time, but not too shabby!
But I digress - back to last night.....
Back again to Sentral Station, now fluent at ticket-buying, just one stop to Pasar Seni, from where I hoped I’d remember the way to Petaling Street (Chinese night market) from 4 years ago. I did! It was easy. Much busier than the daytime, and very insistent traders, but not aggressive and so easily ignored. We found a row of outside restaurants and were the first greedy westerners to order dinner. It was OK, but more expensive than buying from the food court next door. Less than £10 for 4 dishes with a beer (main courses divided into small, medium and large) and 2 pineapple juices. We bought some tissues from a lady with a badly twisted foot – she was walking on her toes – for 10p a packet. She was very good-natured, with an official seller’s badge, then felt sorry for her and ran after her to buy more, then even more
when she came back along the street. You need at least 4 to blow your nose, but all in a good cause. The public toilets were inside the food court. Roll up trouser legs, breathe through mouth and ignore the large hole in the door into which a plastic bag had been stuffed! Back home early, past the brothels.
Travel information – the buses to LCCT start at 2.45am, in time for the firsrt flights out, I guess. We walked over from the hotel (brothels still open) and got straight on an Aerobus, it was nearly full and left immediately, price 10 ringgits (£2). They leave from the ground floor outside the station – you have to exit and go down the escalator, then turn right if coming from inside. Ground staff for checkin and immigration very friendly, Malaysian-style. 1 ½ hours back to Saigon, one hour time difference.
I was slightly anxious about our multiple entry visa for Vietnam, as it expired today, and I knew we would have to show our onward flight leaving at 15.30, and hoped it would not be a problem. The VOA company had had our flight details
when we applied, but even so, it would require the immigration official to decipher our itinerary from our e-ticket and allow us in. He frowned a lot, asked if our onward flight had come in yet (dunno – probably hasn’t left China yet), how long you stay Vietnam (hopefully 5 hours maximum), where you come from (KL – Airasia), then he looked a bit hot, flapped his hand at the very long queue behind me and stamped my passport. Phew. No problem for Sam – I pointed to her and said samesame. She was through very quickly! We then counted out what was left of our Vietnames currency to see what we could buy in the way of lunch – 160,000VND, 2 cups of tea, 2 filled croissants and a large tube of pringles we didn’t actually have enough for but he let us off the extra 6,000. Bless! Too early for our flight to be on the board yet. Hung around and read for a few hours.
Next anxiety - arrived at Guangzhou having done no research on the entry procedure, hoping that it was the same as last year. So I had made Sam fill in a
Stay Permit application (see last year's last blog if you are interested in the nitty gritty of this), but as soon as we approached Immigration we were pounced on by a sash-wearing young Chinese girl, and she slapped a green sticker with the number 24 (?) on each of us and told us to go to desk 19. I waved our painstakingly-completed application and she said 'Not any more', so now it is very straightforward, especially as we did not need an official to sort out a free hotel, having invested £72 in the super-posh one, 5 mins' walk from the terminal. Sailed through with our hand luggage, no queues anywhere - quickest exit ever, and saved having to wait for up to a couple of hours for a transfer to the free hotel provided by China Southern. We have a stamp in our passport valid for 24 hours and just need to go back through security in the morning and straight to the gate. Now drinking long island iced teas in the bar - no idea how much 68 yuan was but xecurrency converter says £6.68! It's much cooler here, and an hour behind Malaysia.
Looking forward to
seeing lovely friends and family really soon - missed my bbgrls very much!xx
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