A couple of days ago I find out from Ben that when we leave Indonesia, our flight to Vietnam is on Malaysia Airlines. (Yup, the same airlines which just had a plane disappear mysteriously from the sky.) We are scheduled to fly from Yogyakarta to Kuala Lampur in Malaysia, spend the night and then connect the next morning with a new flight to Hanoi.
We keep this information to ourselves, waiting to finish the travel before revealing to family our scheduled itinerary, so as not to cause any anxiety… A bit hair raising to be going on Malayasia airlines after the recent still unresolved flight from ten days before. (Ben has a contrarian logic that says that the statistical probability of TWO incidents on the same airline within days is astronomical, and therefore, nothing to worry about).
We make sure we get to the airport early, as usual, with lots of extra time.. just in case. Well, as it turns out we have a rather big problem when we go to check in.
My (Peta’s) visa for Vietnam was filled out with the passport number from my old passport, which ran out of pages and got replaced in LA a few days before we left the States. Hmmm, we didn’t think about that!!
Who knows if this would have been noticed by the agent for Malaysia Airlines under normal circumstances, but for sure they are being very particular right now and are checking and double checking passengers.
The agent tells us we can get a visa done online in about an hour, giving us enough time to receive it, print it and show it to her before we board. This doesn’t seem feasible, as last time we waited at least a week to receive our online confirmation for our Vietnam Visas.
Miraculously it works and within 20 minutes or so we have receive an email we can print, show to the agent and board.
Whew! We get on the flight and I have a delightful conversation with my travel companion from Saudi Arabia …. 3 hours later, we are back to Vietnam. Land in Hanoi where we started our Asian adventure August 2013.
We get off the plane, arrive at customs and lo and behold there is a man with a sign saying “Welcome, Peta Kaplan”. The customs agent tells us to wait 30 minutes he will have our visas for Vietnam for us.
Welcome indeed!
We drop off our bags and do what any self respecting foodie would do in Vietnam ~ go in search of our first delicious bite.
what a relief!!!!!! Thank you for not letting your family know before your trip…..
Ha ha.. some things are better left unsaid… Much like Ben not telling me about the fact that we were about to fly on THE airline which has a missing in action plane AND, the fact that he didn’t tell me on Monday when in Yogyakarta that the very large volcano close by had had an eruption of sulphuric gases the day before! Hmmm. I actually had a sore throat and running nose our first day ~ he sheepishly “came clean” and told me. Then it rained and I, as well as many others, breathed a good sigh of relief.
I’d have done the same with family but as a practical matter I’m totally with Ben. A 777 vanishing is pretty much too weird to happen ONCE!
First delicious bite, or first delicious slurp? (I mean pho, of course…)
Combination bite and slurp. Ban Cha being the first meal in Hanoi. (Slices of pork, lots of green herbs, noodles… that would constitute the bite part, all in a saucy flavorful broth… that would be the slurp!)