Advertisement
Published: February 12th 2016
Edit Blog Post
Whaaaat a stressful day of travel!
First yesterday, it wasn't! Down for breakfast after a strangely good night on the concrete mattresses, to find not much left. Had heard people going down at 7, but Sam was dead to the world so I finally woke her up at 8.15. To be fair, she was wide awake and out of the room in 5 minutes, dressed and everything. Skills! But a lot of stuff had run out. Luckily Moon from the Phillipines was on fried egg duty and I had 2, tea, bananas, all was good. I had brought our yet-again unspeakable laundry down but they didn't do it, flapped a had at the street and off I trotted to the backpackers next door where it was weighed, 3.5kg, cost £3, back at 6pm. Let's hope they use some soap. I didn't bother miming ironing.
Then we set off for the Landmark Mekong Hotel, where travelfish said we could use the pool. It was a bit of a hike, maybe 40 minutes, not very exciting, but not a tuktuk to be seen, and it wasn't too hot at least. We wanted to get there before all the guests took the
sun beds.
There were no guests to be seen at all! Found the pool reception and paid our £5 each, nice white towels soon super-grubby from our feet. Sam was up for chancing it and not paying again, but there were no other guests, so we stuck out like sore thumbs. Just pay up and feel legal! The receptionist had seriously nothing to do, equally the security guard who sat with her and occasionally fished flies out of the pool with a little net. We moved the sunbeds so we wouldn't get all stripy, and lay around and read. It was lovely, but not totally relaxing due to all the staff hanging around. The hotel is huuuuuuge, luxurious and badly unoccupied. After 3.30 some Chinese families arrived, kids no trouble. We had lunch (not expensive) and walked back around 4.30,really thirsty as we'd finished our water, consumed illegally by the pool (no outside food and drink!). In the park there was a drinks stand selling bottles, paid the same price as the local girl in front of us. The lady emptied the bottle into a plastic bag with a handle and ice in it and added a straw.
Collected the laundry, and it was our best yet. Smelt LOVELY and was folded BEAUTIFULLY, no need for ironing. Clean clothes - yay! The promised cocktail happy hour at the hotel didn't materialise, so we went out foraging. Turned right out of the hotel. Nothing doing. Turned left, to the street behind ours, full of expensive looking restaurants with menus in French (where were the Party People? - not here - dull as a bag of spanners) and one cheaper place, had chicken, chips and salad. Doesn't make us bad people! Then off to the night market, which was a huuuuuge disappointment. It was really geared towards the locals, fair enough, but this meant that the clothes were tiny - couldn't have got one of our arms in the legs of the jeans if we'd wanted to!
Back to the road along the front and tadaaaaa, here were the Party People, having a right good time and eating delicious street food. We went home and did our finances, to see if we had enough kip to pay the hotel bill with and the tuktuk to the airport. We did, just.
This morning we tried a new tack with
the tuktuk driver. Airport 60,000! Stated rather than asked, this is the going price. No problem and saved all the haggling argybargy. At the airport (15mins) we could only check in for the first of our 2 flights today, althouh they were booked as connecting ones. Not totally relaxed with this, knew we'd have to go through immigration and get our bags, then transfer to the domestic terminal by shuttle bus. But we had 2 hours, which should be fine. SHOULD be fine...... The only problem was our first flight left nearly an hour late. We kept being herded from gate to gate and back again like sheep, Sam and I being the quickest off the mark and getting to the front each time. I was busy making contingency plans, in case we missed the connection. Sam was chanting in her head, she thought it would be useful. We asked on the plane but didn't learn anything. Luckily we were near the front, shot off and ran to immigration, no queue. Sam was through super quick and the guy I had took my passport without looking at it and was looking at something else. I had my suspicions and when
I stood on tiptoe and peered over the desk he was PLAYING SOLITAIRE on his phone, the little rat. I had to pointedly repeat this hostile staring two more times before he punched a few keys and let me through. Then ran to baggage claim, our were nearly last off. By this time we had just over an hour before our next flight in the next terminal. Sweating! Ran to the shuttle bus, learnt that checkin closed 45 mins before the flight. It was the slowest bus in the world, but on it another passenger going to Da Nang on the same flight had been told there was a 2 hour delay. We still had to check in though, made it with 7 minutes to spare.....
So now we have 2 hours to wait. I emailed and finally skyped the hotel to change our free pickup. No problem.
So no problem all round, but jeez, what a day!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.148s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0928s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb