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After a good night's sleep I woke to find Lanny, baby Ashleigh, and the 'helper' returning from an early morning swim: lovely to feel inadequate in the first five minutes of your day, it really adds a spring to your step. I had a delicious, but not conducive to my rowing return, croissants, banana, and custard apple breakfast with Lanny and Ashleigh: they'd been to the bakery too! Custard apple was a strange new taste: Tuan said, after waking up ten minutes before his bus was due and hurriedly attempting to eat breakfast, it was a must-try food as you either love it or hate it. As it turns out, I loved it, and recommend it.
After Tuan missed his hourly bus he returned home to spend some time with Lanny and Ashleigh, so I pottered about on the computer before they brought Ashleigh out to the living room. I was warned she often cries with strangers, so I warned that even people who know me cry when they see me, but she was fine, no tears, just intrigue. I think the helper (not sure what else to call her) was trying to say it was because of my skin as she kept touching my arm, then hers, then Ashleigh's, and then repeating it.I was unsure what other assumption to draw from this, unless she was taking the Mick out of my pitiful tan after six weeks in Asia, in which case it was a little rude.
Tuan and Lanny went to work, Ashleigh had a little nap after being the cutest baby ever, and I wandered off into District Eight for a little look around. The cold of Hanoi and Sapa was soon forgotten as my familiar friend Mr Sweat made an appearance. I was trying to find a restaurant Lanny had recommended, but I got distracted by a salon after twenty minutes and went in for a mani-pedi: I stayed in there even after I was given a box of tissues to wipe my face that was now dripping with sweat and melted sunscreen. Oh the shame.
I had my nails cut and coloured, and my fingers and toes, strangely, popped during a massage. Quite peculiar. I tried not to get too concerned about the constant language change, well no change really, just not English! I'd failed to spot any western-looking tourists on my walk to the salon, thinking this must be an unknown sanctuary for the locals away from the many tourists - I felt like I'd interrupted their peace. When I walked into the salon I realised I hadn't seen any on the streets because they were all in there having manicures, pedicures, and free watermelon! There were five American women in there discussing their trips to hotels in Vietnam, the current 'crisis in Europe' (the snow), and the contents of their magazines. It was hard to bridge the gap between us and those doing our hands and feet, as English wasn't spoken by many of them, only the woman taking the money. Their lack of English didn't keep them from smiling and nodding when they got a tip though - the tip that went straight to them rather than just to the English-speaker.
I thought about asking for the box of tissues when I left to help me on my way home, but forgot, to my peril. The now midday sun beat down on my face as I wandered in and out of the bakeries in search of those croissants from breakfast, fortunately for my waistline I failed. I had a final Vietnamese coffee and then headed back into the sun, realising my sunglasses had given up as an arm fell off and they failed to stay on my head: squinting was my only option for the remainder of my stay.
I popped into the supermarket below Tuan's block and used up the remainder of my dong, I resisted the chocolate that isn't anything like Cadbury's, and the dried fruit that you can buy in Holland & Barratt, but couldn't resist another Custard Apple, even though it cost nearly 50p! I didn't have time to borrow Tuan's bike for a ride around the lake, but I was glad really, as knowing my recent luck it would have ended up in the lake or stolen.
I returned to the apartment to play with Ashleigh for a while, eat my custard apple, and then shower away this morning's layer of salt. In preparation for the London weather, which Cathay Pacific's website assured me I'd be experiencing as my flights were running on time and unaffected by snow, I donned my full-length leggings, walking socks, boots, and, strangely, a floral dress. I said goodbye to the helper and left the keys on the side, then headed down to the building's taxi rank where Tuan had said to get a taxi from. The men surrounding the taxis didn't look as organised as the woman who had a clipboard when I'd walked past this morning, but I followed orders and asked for a taxi to the airport, not getting in until the meter was on.
Tuan had said the ride should cost about 200,000VND, so I kept my eye on the meter to see just how quickly it was rising to that level. The taxi didn't go the same way as Tuan did last night, and I'm fairly sure he took the scenic route, as we passed through what can only be described as a building site. The road was littered with other taxis, so it must be a common alternative route for the drivers to ensure they get their meter levels as high as possible. I'd also managed to pick the only driver in Vietnam who drove slowly and let people in! I asked him two or three times to 'please go faster', but he was oblivious to my request, I'm not sure whether that was through lack of understanding or lack of caring. To make me more annoyed there was a huge fly buzzing around the car, one that couldn't get out because the air-conditioning was on: I opened the window to let it out, but the driver decided this was me declaring war on air-conditioning and turned it off, opening the windows to let in more flies, heat, and the fumes of the cars, motorbikes, scooters, and even cyclos, overtaking us.
After a massive hour and ten minutes in the taxi we arrived at the international terminal, where I'd been sure to direct him numerous times, and I proceeded to get my bags on before paying him. I'm not sure how fast he thought I could run with nearly 20kg strapped to my back and front, but he hovered over that door like a looming grim reaper saying 'money' whilst I put my bag on. I assured him I had his money, and held it in my hands so he could even see I had it, but he still stated his mantra of 'money, money'. I gave him 215,000VND for the 211,000VND on the meter, thinking even this was too generous considering his driving, but his English miraculously came full circle on giving this as he asked for 5,000 more for 'ticket, ticket'. Nobody had told me about paying extra for a ticket, and he'd failed to mention it whilst standing over me, so I stood my ground and said 'no'. He continued to say 'ticket' and wave a 5,000VND note in front of me, but I wasn't budging as he'd annoyed me with his driving anyway; I stated 'nobody told me, and you drove like an idiot' and walked away. My voice didn't go as squeaky as it normally does during confrontation, and I walked away unaffected by disagreement over less than 17p, mainly due to the driver it was with.
My glee over a tiny success was soon dashed as the check-n desk said 'oh, the flight to Heathrow is cancelled'. 'No it's not, the website says it running' was my reply, but she simply said I could either stay in Saigon, not likely after the debacle getting to the airport, or go to Hong Kong and let the staff there deal with me. I said I'd take my chances and go to Hong Kong. Fighting back the tears I text Mum to make sure she and Dad didn't make their way down to the airport to collect me, then headed through security. After a foul hot chocolate and poor excuse for a chocolate croissant I headed to the souvenir shop, thinking I may as well use up the last of the dong to buy something, but when I opened my purse it appeared I had a lot less than I'd calculated. I ended up buying a drink with half dong, half dollars: not the best way to end my time in the airport.
My seat wasn't too bad, which helped, I was at the front of the plane, and next to someone who had decent table manners. Shock horror. The man to my left was not so well-mannered, but as the seat to his left was empty he moved away. Yay for me, especially as he sneezed on his hands, then wiped them on the remote of the seat he'd moved from. He then fulfilled the stereotype during dinner as he slurped, sucked, and smacked his way through the chicken noodles.Sleep took me away from the horror for the majority of the ride, so at least I had some respite.
As I walked off the plane planning how to spend the next few hours, and possibly days, my hopes of a Christmas miracle were raised as I saw my name on a placard, followed by instructions to go to the transfers lounge. I talked to a lad who'd had the same instructions, but he wasn't too hopeful of getting home so quickly: he went to the business class queue and I never saw him again, I'm fairly certain he got home.
I joined the fairly small queue, standing behind a couple who were due on the 12.05am flight, it was 10.50pm at the time. The queue didn't seem to be moving, and even by 11.55pm we were still waiting for the spineless manager to okay boarding passes. I realise he was doing his job, but he truly was spineless: he wouldn't tell us what was happening, and kept us hopeful that we'd get on the plane, telling us there were forty spaces at one moment, and then fifteen minutes later that we weren't going to fly. This flight was the one that I'd been told was cancelled, but apparently this was what staff had been told to say to keep us from flying to Hong Kong and clogging up the airport. The manager kept disappearing from the desk and letting his staff deal with us, staff who knew about as much as us.
I tried being nice to the staff, ensuring they didn't see me as one of the shouting Brits on either side of me, but this didn't help me in the least, as I was still sent off to a hotel at 1am after being told they weren't going to send us home tonight. They took down our names, passport numbers, and flight numbers, and then told us we'd be contacted tomorrow with regards to getting home. We were given HK$300 per taxi and bundled into cars to the hotel: the hotel was about an hour from the airport, rather than the one opposite the airport where we could have wandered back to the desk as soon as we woke up and clogged up their desks, although I'm sure that wasn't their thinking at all.
The adventure didn't stop at the hotel: some women were grouped together as a four in one room, whilst another lady and I had separate rooms, needless to say the four weren't too happy and made their cases for individual rooms too. Apparently a woman turned up after we'd all settled, only to be turned away by the hotel, one of the four offered to share to ensure she didn't spend a fourth night at the airport. I was lucky to even get a room following my inability to provide them with a credit card to cover any 'incidentals'. They asked if I had any money instead, but weren't happy with the HK$20 change from the taxi, or $5 I had left from Cambodia, so they made me wait in reception whilst they emptied the mini bar, just in case I decided to steal something I couldn't pay for. Nobody told me if they'd emptied it as I sat in reception, so after five minutes, and having realised I had the room key anyway, I headed up to the room and saw that they had already emptied it. A lack of communication was the today's theme.
The room was lovely, it had a toothbrush, shower cap, plenty of towels, chocolates (I left them just in case they charged me in the morning), and a bathrobe, but the three hours I had to enjoy it weren't enough.
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