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Well...we are coming to the end of our travels so here I will overview these past two days (for my dear sister Claire :-)) and then tomorrow I will aim to do an overview of the whole trip (as long as you understand {Claire} that most of day I will be on a plane or on a coach and with no signal therefore being unable to keep you in the loop).
Right, yesterday...
Leaving Vietnam was hard. Mainly because of the endless security we had to get through. Just a word of warning-it doesn't matter what jokes you crack, then airport security are there for serious business and do not smile (on very odd occasions do you get a happy Vietnamese passport controller-it's a bit like the queens guards). It was also hard because it was a place we'd fallen in love with from day 1. There was also the fear that our cases would explode on the plane-not because of Laura and her hand grenades again, but because of all the bowls we had purchased in 'Nam. Luckily we still had our luggage straps from London which were keeping our cases from falling apart.
Our flight from Ho Chi Min was unspectacular. We jumped through the security hoops and landed at the hate advertised by the board. The board lied. So we then had to move to another gate for our plane. After all of that we threw ourselves on the plane and took the short journey to Bangkok (just over an hour).
In Bangkok our cases came off quicker than other times. But my suitcase belt was missing!!!!! This meant that my suitcase was vulnerable against the elements (the elements being the amount of shopping of packed and the care and love the suitcase handlers give the luggage when throwing it onto then plane aka none). So I knew i'd need another solution before my next flight.
After getting the sky rail (train on stilts :-) similar to the BTS-or for you Londoners the DLR) we dropped our bags off at James and Rachel's and caught a cab to Kao San Road. This mission was to have a cheeky beer and to keep one woman and her leather bag stall in business for life. Mission completed (and ahem several other purchases made-just to help out the local businesses) and so we headed back to the condo for a TV, packing and take away night. Why? Because we were shattered!
Moving onto this morning...we arrived at Bangkok airport with two hours to get through customs. Fools. We should have remembered how they like to check our luggage 5 times and make us wait in passport control for ages. So leaving Bangkok was probably even harder than leaving Vietnam.
Of course at first there was the problem of my case exploding and so we found a hadn't man who cling filmed it for us. I was carrying precious cargo (your bags sisters, your bags) and I didn't want them lost in the luggage hold!
The woman at the desk said we only have non reclining seats left. We were like 'what?!' Then after a few of our questions 'so where are we sitting?' 'Do we have any room to breathe at all?' She ripped up our tickets and gave us two new ones. We had no clue what was going on as 5 minutes earlier she wanted to charge us 400b for a seat change and then she did it for free?! Strange. (We got extra leg room too! Woo!)
They opened our gate an hour before taking off which meant we needed to be there early...why? Oh so they could check our bags again and wave the metal detector around us. Lovely.
The plane was nearly 4 hours long and when we landed we had gained 2 hours.
At Delhi airport we decided the wise thing to do would be finding the taxi man with the fake grass. Unfortunately they laughed at us and said 'half hour wait' which is precisely what his neighbour did too. So we hauled our cases over to a 'pre paid taxi booth' and fought to get into the queue there. Our taxi man took us to the tiniest car ever and promptly started to pack our worldly goods inside. He was very friendly and asked about our travels, he was also upset we were arriving in Delhi only to leave tomorrow. We had to explain we'd already been to Delhi and enjoyed it!
Unfortunately after all our travelling all we could think of was food and bed, so we're currently watching the second bad boys film! Early to bed tonight!
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