Well I made it, but what an awesome experience it was.

Flying China Airlines the whole way, (free meals and coffee on all flights are just part of the service)

After Leaving Auckland Airport at 8:35pm Friday night, I had a 3hr flight and 2hr layover in Brisbane, a 9hr flight and 3hrs transfer in Taiwan “was more like 5 by the end”, and FYI you notice the smog immediately upon landing at the airport.” I wondered why i’d never noticed so many passengers beside me wearing masks earlier in the journey. Damn good thing I never had to leave the Airport, for anything.

After my Final 3hr flight to my Actual Destination ‘Hanoi, Vietnam’. The temperature was an absolute scorcher at 10:30 am local time Saturday. and boy you notice it from the moment you step out of the plane

I had to go through airport security three times in all, Leaving NZ, the lay-over ‘same plane’ in AUS and Transer “change planes” in Taiwan.

Amazingly despite having to go through Airport Security everywhere else, even in Brisbane, I didn’t have too in Vietnam, that was a surprise, I collected my luggage “eventually” because my flights boarding got delayed in Taiwan in ended up in a queue to have its luggage emptied in Hanoi. “but does anyone tell you this, nope,”if they did, it wasn’t in English so it doesn’t count” so you just wait and wait in the sweltering heat at “the designated bagged carousal for your flight, yet unbeknownst to you, not a single piece of checked in luggage has come off the plain yet. Meanwhile your increasingly thinking “crap my luggage is lost, I knew this might happen”. Until you notice many of the people still waiting where all on your plane, so you calm down for a bit, but its still really hot, and you can’t change out of your travel clothes until you collect your luggage, so you get a bit angry again, but only at your self, cause you could have packed a change of clothes into your carry on, only the thought never crossed your mind. At the same time your also thinking, I never should have turned down that 2nd ‘smaller bottle’ of insect repellent because it looked expensive, because like your clothes your larger bottle was stuck in your luggage because it was over 100mls. So now your thinking your going to wake up in hives the following day now also. Not to mention by this stage you haven’t seen a bed for 35+ hours (I lost count) “funny that” anyway your also wondering if your pre-arranged Taxi transfer to your Hotel has stuck around because, by this stage, you’ll be out of the airport hours after you’d thought. And with all the Vietnam taxi horror stories you’ve read and heard about online over the last few days the last thing you want is to try and find a Taxi and short notice, suffering from heat exhaustion, physical fatigue, “my luggage ain’t light” and conversely probably why I wasn’t feeling the full mental fatigue I should have been at this point, physical exertion is a great way to stay awake, haha.

Turned out my taxi stuck around “thankfully”, and i quite enjoyed the 45 minute ride to my accommodation in the ‘old quarter’ of the city. heres a snippet of some of the video i took enroute

http://youtu.be/AG9_r2lyyn4

Checking into my accommodation thirsty hungry and in need of rest, i somehow noticed my Concierge had forgotten to grab one of my bags from the taxi, and he just got out of the lobby again before the taxi driver left.
after two cups of chai tea my room was finally ready and i promptly ordered room service from the menu and hit the sack shortly after