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Published: September 27th 2009
I have discovered that if you stay in one city in Asia to long it becomes like the movie groundhog day, same same, but different. We ended up in Saigon for 8 days or so, and each day started the same. We walk out of the hotel, the one legged man asks for money, the wonderful old grizzled toothless cyclo driver waves and yells "Where you go today?" and our all night journey taxi driver hid his face in fear that we would hire him again. Long story there but a 20 minute drive turned into a 6 hour journey for him and us. We continue down the road where the cute young girl tries to give us a brochure to "Eat my restaurant", to which Kristy responds I will never eat at your restaurant (the girl was getting on her nerves). We also checked out of our hotel several times only to be thwarted on our plans and return begging for a room. They just started to expect us and always kept a room open for us I think. The doormen never said goodbye as they knew we would return. We were to fly out to Manila on Tuesday night
and were so pumped to go and stay with cousin Warren and Gina. We packed up all our gear (which incedently has become more than a significant amount) and headed to the airport 3 hours early to be sure not to miss the flight. That was when the trouble started. What we didn't know was that in order to go to Manila you had to have a ticket out of Manila as well. We obviously had no such return ticket. Now, immediately upon realizing this the agent wanted to cancel our tickets.....seems the flight was overbooked. She had already tagged our luggage, but quickly gave it all back and offered to cancel. We opted to go back to the ticket counter and purchase a return flight that we were told we could cash in and change once we got to Manila for a small fee....pay attention here. The flight to Manila from Saigon was $125, the return segment was $1,000, serious. Hmmm, I mentioned we had booked online for a much lower price, and was there wifi in the airport so we could just do that. Oh yes, there is wifi free, but no one knows the password....so sorry. Ok,
Bird saving
Kristy found a baby bird that needed saving. She went out on the road and carried him to a safe place in the park. The locals thought she was nuts....I might have as well.She found us a return on another airline for $367 so we bought that, gathered our significant amount of luggage together, (we look like we are travelling with a group tour we have so much stuff) and fan across the airport to stand in line in the check in again. No worries, now we are on our way. The lovely check in clerk starts again. All set then suddenly her brow furrows....oh, to much luggage, you must pay extra. Interesting, it wasn't to much the first time around. "How much", we ask. She does a quick mental calculation and says 30 pounds at 10 dollars us a pound, so she says, I will cancel your tickets right? Wait I say, is there a luggage storage facility here, we will just grab a couple of things and store the rest till we return. We have now spent 2 hours on this program and I wasn't giving up. She tells us the facility is outside and to the right. So off we run with our massive load of stuff. She forgot to mention it was outside to the right and down 3 floors. No one speaks english after midnight so we were
on our own to decipher the Vietnamese only signs and complete the task. We did it! We were jubilant as we strode towards the luggage storage room only to be met by locked doors and the first english we had heard in a while "So sorry, closed now". So now we are to late for the flight and no chance of getting anywhere. The ticket clerk happily cancels us and informs us there is no refund available now. We try to have them switch us to the flight the next night but no go. Ok, we decide to cut our losses and go back to the ticket counter to cash in our return flights we had been forced to purchase. We wait an insane amount of time for someone to acknowledge our presence as well it appears the airport has closed for the night. Finally the lovely booking agent notices our impatient glares and decides to help. She informs us that we must pay $57 each to cancel and it must be in Vietnamese dong. We mention she should just credit our credit cards less the penalty but no go. It must be cash to her. We off course have
no cash so now have to search for a bank machine. Anyway, it was a crazy night and I am not sure I have effectively explained it here but lets say we arrived back to our hotel after 1 a.m. in the midst of the harshest storm we have seen. The look in our eyes served to reveal the horror we had just been through and the desk clerks asked no questions just handed us a key. Turns out Manila flooded after that night so perhaps the universe was saving us from that. We are now in Bangkok. How did we get here? Well we booked a 2 day bus trip across Vietnam, Cambodia and into Thailand. The brochure should an incredible big red shiny bus with spacious seating, air con and toilets. We were excited to view the countryside from the top seats of a luxury ride. I bet you see where this is going right? What we ended up on was a bus filled with locals, strange smelling foods combined with a complete lack of attention to personal hygiene on the part of our fellow passengers with the bathroom being a field whenever the bus stopped which was
frequent and for unknown reasons and no one spoke English. Until we actually arrived at the Cambodia/Thai border, we actually never really knew where we were. We could have been going anywhere. Partway through the trip the air cond (that never really worked) began to leak and woke my travel partner with a start as a stream of very dirty smelly water began to pour over her. Oh dear. This meant yet another stop. At this stop we were able to observe deep fried frogs, many species of bugs and baby chicks also deep fried in their entirety and this was our choice for lunch. We had candy instead. We safely arrived in Bangkok only 8 hours behind schedule, stinky, wet and well, frazzled perhaps. Wow, what an adventure. Serious, it was fun in its own special was as only a fellow traveller could ever appreciate. To be fair, we have had an incredible time in between. We visited the was memorials and learned about the US war as the Vietnamese call it. A very different view from that which we have been taught. We went on a scenic trip on the Mekong that was truly wonderful and went to
a couple of islands for visits and tours. Vietnam is an amazing country filled with new friends and experiences. We were able to watch a public trial in the park of 2 Australian girls caught trafficking herion. They have public trials here to deter others from committing crimes. Very interesting idea and perhaps a good one. There were crowds of locals watching and happy to share the details of what was happening as the trial was held in Vietnamese. The 2 young girls stood pale and shaking for hours as the story was revealed. They would be sentanced for 4 - 20 years for their crime. Once a verdict had been reached the judge will bang his gavel once for each year of the sentance. Very scary stuff as the inside of a Vietnamese prison is not a nice place I am sure. The people are high spirited and fun and very interested in our lives as well. The shopping is unmatched by any other place I have ever been. Kristy has shipped 7 boxes in total of shopping.....for real. There is a story on a bulk purchasing habit Kristy has but enough said as that is hers to tell.
She is still a match for the sellers in the market and beats them at their game everytime. Very funny to watch. The constant stream of bank withdrawals for bulk purchases was enough for the bank to shut her down leaving her without cash flow for a while. She finally got reinstated when we got to Bangkok yesterday, and believe it or not, left her card in an ATM where it now resides permenantly. The emergency contact at RBC is now a personal friend and contact of Kristy's as she is on the frequent caller program. We will be in Bangkok for a few days then heading home on Wednesday. Perhaps will update once more prior to then, hope all is well there. Today is a sick day for poor Kristy and I am wondering around town seeing what else I can experience. Take care all.
The Royals
"Life may not be the party I had hoped for, but while I'm here...............I might as well just listen to the music and Dance."
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Ryan
non-member comment
Amazing trip
Looks like you girls have had a blast! Enjoy your last few days and travel safe! Ryan