Our flight to Tokyo got off the ground about 20 minutes late, which will be easy enough to recuperate over the almost 14 hours we'll be in the air. Fortunately, the Boeing 777 has a very good entertainment system with 125 fairly new movies on the menu. So far I've watched Godzilla, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and half of Tammy, which I fell asleep on. And there's still 8 hours left before we touch down.

Now here's something you don't hear every day: The in-flight lunch was excellent. It was an Indian theme with a mixed vegetable curry, chana masala and basmati rice. Quite delicious.

After watching a few more forgettable movies and eating another Indian based meal, we arrived in Tokyo at just before 2:00PM local time. Another 3 hour wait at the airport, sampling more scotch, Japanese confectioneries and finding my inner Samurai, before we catch our flight to Ho Chi Minh city at 5:05.

The service on the ANA flight was markedly better than United. The flight attendants were cheerful, smiling and, (huh!) attentive. More movies, another pretty good meal, this time with free red wine, and several short power naps and lo and behold, 6 hours later we arrive in Vietnam at 10:00PM local time.

By the time we taxi to the hotel, we've been traveling for almost 30 hours from the time we left our home in Ottawa. Our taxi ride was uneventful, but even at 10:30 PM, the streets are already crowded with scooters that seem to come at you from every direction, seemingly with no regard for traffic laws or the rider's safety. We ain't in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.

By the time we settle into room 201 at the Beautiful Saigon 3 hotel (no kidding, that's the name), it's 1:00 AM on October 17 and I can't keep my eyes open any longer. See ya tomorrow, Saigon.