Melbourne to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

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Finally! Four years, one month and 12 days after returning from our last overseas trip we are on a flight to a destination outside of Australia.

Our cruise on the Mekong from Ho Chi Minh City to Siem Reap was originally booked in 2019 for October 2020 but, like so many other holidays, the pandemic put paid to that. In due course Pandaw officially advised that the October 2020 sailing would not be taking place but, if we would like to retain our booking, they would roll it over to October 2021 and they would upgrade us to a cabin on the upper deck. So we left our deposit with Pandaw and put it in our calendar for 2021.

When 2021 rolled around, world travel was still up in the air so Pandaw offered to roll our booking over again to 2022. Hmmn, should we leave our deposit with Pandaw or should we now consider asking for a refund? With the money long spent anyway, we decided to start planning for this holiday to take place in October 2022. Then we received an email from Pandaw to say they were going to have to sell off the fleet!! Efforts to recover our deposit failed. Oh well, c’est la vie.

A few months passed and another email arrived from Pandaw to say that benefactors had bailed them out and put in enough money for them to keep their boats. Even better, when we checked our account with Pandaw, we found that they had reinstated our booking for October 2022. Vietnam here we come!

Our cruise leaves on Saturday and we had the choice of flying with Jetstar to Ho Chi Minh City on Monday or Thursday afternoon. We had to book with Jetstar to access the credit we had with them from our flight that wasn’t used in 2020! After much discussion we decided that it would be safest to fly on Monday to build a buffer into the itinerary in the case of flight delays or cancellations! Imagine booking to fly Thursday and having the flight cancelled and missing the boat after all this time!! With the way Jetstar has been featuring in the news – not in a good way - these past couple of weeks we are very pleased that we booked for the Monday flight.

Kerry dropped us out at Tullamarine just after 1.00pm for our 4.25pm flight. Even though that was more than three hours ahead of flight time check-in was already open so it was straight into the queue for us.

As we zig-zagged our way towards the check-in counter Bernie noticed that they were weighing hand luggage. This sent him into a bit of a panic because he knew that his camera bag was 11 kilos. ‘We have to swap my laptop and iPad into your hand luggage because yours is only four kilos’. Ugh! One of my pet hates is having to rearrange luggage at check-in, but we managed to shoehorn two additional devices into my little backpack without it tearing at the seams!!

Eventually it was our turn at the check-in desk. Fortunately our little digital scales that we had checked our suitcases with at home was proved accurate with both suitcases coming in under our 23 kilogram limit. It’s always a relief to be underweight. And you know what? Of course the staff member on our check-in counter didn’t weigh our carry-on!!!

Wow, things have changed at luggage screening in the last four years. It’s so streamlined! All we had to do was put our bag in a tub and put the tub on the conveyor belt. No unloading all the electronic devices, no need to separate out the liquids in their clear plastic bag. We didn’t even need to take off our belts and Apple watches to make it through the X-ray machine. Hmmn, I did need to go back to throw my little shoulder bag in my tub though when I tried to walk through with it still slung over my shoulder. So out of practice!! My excuse is that I got distracted trying to unload Bernie’s laptop and iPad before it was pointed out to me that I didn’t have to do that!

So it was all easy on the in side but, of course, on the out side both our bags were rejected onto the ‘needs further checking’ conveyor belt. We had to hang around waiting to see what the problem was. In due course the tubs with our offensive bags were brought to the desk and we had to step up to claim them. More checking was done on screen and then they were released to us without us even having to open them up to reveal the problem items. We weren’t told what needed further checking and we didn’t ask so we don’t know what triggered the system to reject our bags or if was just random???

After clearing the electronic immigration gates, our next stop was the Tax Refund Scheme to claim the tax back on our new ear pods. OMG, the TRS is just the most difficult refund you will ever try to claim. We have never had much luck making a claim. We’ve had to forego the refund when we’ve been delayed travelling via Sydney and then we’ve had hassles with our invoices not passing muster. Today we thought it was going to be quick and easy because Bernie had downloaded the TRS app and there was supposed to be a fast queue for those using the app. Nope! Just one queue and it was moving sooooooo slowly!

Some of the people ahead of us must’ve been at the counter for 10 minutes or more being processed. Unpacking all their hand luggage to show all the items they were claiming for and/or not having a credit card for the refund to be processed to. So clueless! When we reached the counter we had everything ready to go and it only took a couple of minutes each to claim the refund. Shame about the amount of time in the queue before we reached the counter!! Still, we’re just a bit better off with the money in our account.

Fortunately, we made it into Qantas Club with about an hour left to have a late lunch before boarding time. An announcement was made at 3.45pm advising us that we should proceed to the gate. Being as compliant as we are we straight away headed to the gate … even though it meant missing the end of Tipping Point, ha, ha. Then we waited and waited and waited at the gate lounge for them to actually commence boarding.

It was after 4.00pm by the time they actually started boarding the plane. When we stepped onto the plane from the air bridge is was nearly our scheduled departure time of 4.25pm. While we were in Qantas Club it had been looking so good for an on time departure but, it was not to be. By the time everyone and everything was loaded it was 5.09pm when we pushed back from the terminal. However, with all the horror stories there have been about delays and cancellations we consider ourselves lucky indeed to be on our way only 45 minutes later than expected. And the captain has advised that we ‘should’ be in Ho Chi Minh only about 15 minutes later than scheduled. Fingers crossed.

Our flight was entirely uneventful (thankfully) but not as fast as the captain suggested it would be. We didn’t arrive in Ho Chi Minh 45 minutes late, but we were still about half an hour late so didn’t make up quite as much time in flight as the captain hoped.

Baggage collection, Immigration and Customs all went smoothly. All in all we have to say that Jetstar has been OK … apart from the food which was pretty average! And the best thing, when we finally made it out into the balmy heat of a 25°C tropical evening, the driver that Bernie organised was there holding up his GAFFNEY x4 sign. Always a relief when the transport you have booked from the airport to the hotel is there!

The driver negotiated the crazy, CRAZY, Vietnamese traffic and delivered us to our hotel without being in a car crash. Three of us even managed to strap ourselves in safely (?) with our seat belts! At check-in they offered us complimentary drinks to welcome us to the hotel. Oh no, it has ice in it. To drink it or not to drink it??? Damn good manners. It seemed rude to reject the drink so we all drank our refreshing iced drink. Only time will tell if that was a big mistake??!!

After our bag was delivered to our room, Bernie and I braved a short walk around to the nearby 24-hour mini-mart to buy some big bottles of water. The hotel does provide some complimentary drinking water, but I like to have plenty. Especially when you have to brush your teeth with it as well. It was midnight local time when we climbed into bed so it had been a long, long day with it being the middle of the night back in Melbourne.



Steps for the day: 14, 296 (10.34km)

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