Travelling to Vietnam, 26th April 2008

A picture for Nicky who knows about the best place in Changi airport

This probebly won't impress you (typical out the plane window pic) but this was one of the first images I had of Viet Na

Monday 28th April

I woke early for my first morning in Vietnam. Already the streets are full of tooting traffic and people racing about. I have been so busy getting all of the necessary things done to leave NZ that I have done little research about the city and I feel somewhat under prepared. I have been looking at a map (thanks Nicky) this morning, trying to relate the two dimensional to the three.

Traveling to Vietnam

Leaving family and friends in NZ was of course very hard. It is strange for me to think that I will not see most people again for a year and already I find myself unconsciously searching crowds for familiar faces. I wonder who I will run into unexpectedly – it always seems to happen in the strangest of places when we have traveled.

It was lovely to have a posse to see me off at the airport. I managed to get through the final hugs and waves without descending totally into the ‘ugly cry’ (the one where I get all choked up, blotchy and snotty) and successfully went through processes to get onto the plane. The flight was uneventful and nowhere near as tiresome as I recall from the past. Flying westward through the continuing night may have helped, as does being smaller and fitting much more comfortably into the seat.

Arriving at Changi airport (Singapore) sharply bought back memories of the last trip Rob and I had resulting in another bout of tears but I fairly quickly got it back together. Changi is like a city in itself. A huge, sanitized, plasticized city. It is sparkling clean with staff, many of who seemed to be quite underemployed, everywhere. The expensive shops selling clothes, perfumes, bags and electronic goods held no attraction for me apart from finding a shortwave radio. Eventually I found one, the same as I had seen in NZ for $200 for approximately half the price. I hope that it works well – I anticipate that the spoken English word will become important for me at times. Not hungry I used the Singapore dollars that Dad gave me to buy another book – I know that I will be hungry for reading material (thanks Dad).

Mostly I just mooched around for five hours. I found the sunflower garden that Nick had told me about. It is outside with tall sunflowers growing within glassed walls, a lovely unpopulated retreat. I was feeling tired but calm and thought that I had managed the whole process very well and was busy congratulating myself. Pride certainly cometh before the fall! On arrival at the check in for my flight to Vietnam and when I looked for my wallet of tickets, passport etc it was gone. Panic! Several times I unpacked my carry-on luggage desperately searching in vain. I raced to the nearest information desk and there sitting on her desk I saw a photocopy of my passport. “That’s me, that’s mine” I incoherently shouted. Eventually after some form filling my wallet and I were reunited. I cannot believe that I was so careless and can only blame it on sleep deprivation. Everything, including cash, was still in the wallet. Immediately I fell in love with the efficiency and honesty of the people at Changi airport.

The flight to Vietnam was great. There were very few people on the plane. I had rows of seats to myself. I realized how appalling my geographical knowledge of the area is as we flew over the South China sea and I was completely unable to work out which countries I was looking at. As we flew over the plains of southern Vietnam I started to see the pattern of this land that I will call home for the next year. The long narrow fields divided by meandering wide khaki brown rivers and canals. The country roads appear to have densely populated houses along each side. As the sun reflected off some of the fields I realized that they must be water filled rice paddies. As we descended into HCMC I could see the buildings; homes and commercial buildings almost invariably long and narrow. The palette of colours creams, dusty brown and terracotta with splashes of mint green and cobalt blue. Already it felt clear that I was in a country different than any other I have visited.

On arrival at the airport I had to go to a Visa counter clutching my letters stating that I was allowed to stay. With a little English on their part, and no Vietnamese on mine, it was established that I had to apply for a visa on the spot – forms, a photo and $52 US later I was free to go through customs. Because this had taken quite a long time my bag was no longer on the carousel but, seeing my consternation, a friendly official took me to a room where it had been stored. As I went outside, into the hot, moist air and crowds of taxi touts I saw a man holding a sign with my name and was gratefully bundled into a modern, air conditioned taxi for my first ride into the city. Wow! Then the adventure began.