A few minutes after I boarded the Cebu Pacific plane that was to take me to Vietnam, the pilot dimmed the lights and advised everyone that he was doing it so we could enjoy the Metro Manila night lights and what an amazing sight it was. It could be commonplace for the other travelers but I prefer to always see it with fresh eyes and I was marvelling at the lights. It seemed like a thousand prayers offered up to God and mine was one of them. I needed the trip to recharge on all the worries I had for this year. It hasn't been easy but we have to continuously go on, right?!

I planned to sleep a bit during the almost 3 hours plane ride since the excitement and adrenaline of all that I went through during the previous night at immigrations and the airport had taken their toll and of course I had also been having more than my share of sleepless nights with all the work I had been doing. I drifted off slowly to sleep and about 30-45 minutes before the plane landed, I woke up feeling refreshed and again apprehensive of facing another immigration officer, this time a Vietnamese one. When we landed I immediately took the photo in this post to mark my first glimpse of Vietnam - Tan Son Nhat airport.

After deplaning, I went to the bathroom and did my business and took photos of the cubicle because I also needed to get my camera out of the bag. I decided that I had to put the camera on my neck to look more touristy. I mean, I had no idea what I was going to face in immigrations. After doing all my preparations, I went to the immigrations portion and decided to observe for a bit. I lined up with the officer that had a fast moving line. When my turn came, I was feeling nervous and all but I tried to not let it show. Without so much as a question and just a cursory glance my way, the Vietnamese immigration officer then stamped my passport and I went through! Whew!

I found Tiane at the greeter's area of the airport and I hugged her as soon as I saw her and I told her that I had a scary time at PH immigrations. Imagine, immigrations in my very own PH were more scary than what I had to face in Vietnam. We then rode a cab and proceeded to get home where she gave me an all-American breakfast of pancakes, bacon and OJ! We ended up sleeping really late and I had to work at 5AM PH time so I got about an hour or so of sleep before I had to wake up for work.

What a memorable first international airplane ride!