The First 24 Hours...

Well this story starts where any good story starts, Fresh off the back of the best send off a girl could ask for.

I’m lucky enough to have some of the best mates ever. No exaggeration, these girls paid hundreds of dollars, took time out of their days (over a long weekend where they could be doing anyyyything else) just to have a few beers with me in New Zealand’s largest city. After a rough morning clean up, a hug and a kiss for one of the babes and one awkward goodbye, four very dusty girls were ready to leave the air BnB and on the lookout for some food.

After dragging our sorry asses around for a few hours it was time to head to the airport! For me it was a bit of an emotional goodbye but the girls helped me hold it together. I gathered my bags and headed for the check in desk, to my utter shock, it wasn’t open for another 2.3 hours.

This was the first thing that went wrong (for those of you playing at home you might want to grab a pen to keep track).

I found a PowerPoint, opened Netflix and parked up. The check in opened at 4.30pm so I waited. 4.30 rolls around and I am at the back of the longest line I have seen since Kmart at Christmas. 1 ½ hours later I make it to the front, give the lady my documents feeling nervous but excited... Oh no, I can’t even do that right.

“Where is your return ticket”, five words I was not expecting. Apparently the airline required I show them proof that I am leaving the country when my visa expires, which I didn’t know.

Strike two.

As another lady comes over she explains to me that it can be anything, plane, train or bus ticket to anywhere else as long as it’s leaving Vietnam. She tells me to go online and book anything so I can show them. In the meantime they asked for my Visa approval letter. This is easy; I thought I know I have that...

Strike three.

I look all though my documents and its nowhere to be seen. I am shaking, I have the spiciest armpits at this point and I am on the verge of tears. Check in for my flight closes in 20 minutes, 20 MINUTES. Four hours early and I’m not even going to make check in.

They tell me to find somewhere that will print my visa letter off and to book my ticket out of Vietnam. My phone plan had just cut off and the WiFi was shoddy at the best of times, 10 minutes to book a ticket and $15 NZD later I’m booked on a bus to Cambodia. Next I had to print my letter, I was running like forest Gump fighting back tears like I’m watching Marley and Me, trying to find someone to print my damn letter.

Emma R, From the Air NZ help desk, I owe you a drink girl. You saved me.

I get back to the check in desk with 3 ½ minutes to spare. FML

One tearful call to my mother and I’m ready to head through security.

BONUS ROUND --- SPEED ROUND

I set of the scanner, twice. Have to be waived with the handheld detector. Set that off in two different locations. Have to be patted down. First carry on fine. Second carry on, flagged. Have a liquid that was over 100mL, asks me why. “I didn’t even know it was in there”- classic response. “You should always know what’s in your bag, did you not pack them?” Officers swarm me (Well two come closer). I apologise, show her my passport. She realizes I’m a kiwi and waves me off. So.Damn.Lucky.

After all this I am ready to be on the plane. Board, sit down and get ready to nap, I’ve got 14 hours in the air, headed straight to Taipei. I’m running off 3 hours rest and a red bull that I regretted. As w are leaving the ground and I’m taking my last breath in on NZ soil the intercom goes off “Hello and welcome to Southern China airlines flight C1054 to Brisbane, Australia”. Panic. You have to be kidding me.

******************

False alarm, the plane was apparently scheduled to stop in Australia, just nobody told me!

Imma just skip the rest of the journey as nothing else too eventful happened, except every time I tried to catch some Z’s they woke me up to feed me! Four meals in 12 hours when are doing nothing but sitting is a little excessive, even for a big rig like me.

So fast forward to Ho Chi Minh airport. I fly through my Visa line and even though I did have stuff to declare, they told me “No”, refused to scan my bags through the X-ray machine and I was on my way.

Walking out the door the first thing that hits you is the heat. It engulfs your whole body instantly. Head to toe, pure heat and humidity. The next is the smell. Cigarettes. Inside and out, the smell of Darts fills the air like a pak ‘n’ save trolley on 99cent day.

I make my way through the absolute chaos which is the Ho Chi Minh airport where I see a tiny wee man with a sign that reads “Genininie Cooper”- Close enough mate.

There is another girl there waiting, Jaida; we make some small talk before we are whisked away into a taxi.

The next thing we have to deal with is the traffic. There is one road rule in Vietnam, which is making sure you don’t hit the thing in front of you. That is honestly it.

We get to the accommodation where we meet the next girl in our crucial five some, Hannah. We start chatting away, completing all the cut and paste formalities when Haley, my roommate arrives. Our wolf pack grew by one. 20 minutes later, Brooklyn arrives and here we are, two Canadians, an Australian, a British/Australian mix and a kiwi (which sounds like the start of a really lame joke). An hour goes past and we are chatting like we have known each other our whole lives.

Five hours later and cackling like a pack of rabbit hyenas its time to meet the rest of the group. Hand on heart the best group of people I have ever met in one sitting. To do something as crazy as this you have to obviously have quite a similar personality type, but everyone just meshed so well! A quick awkward ice breaker later we were starving and decided to search for some food

.

Around twelve of us found a cute little hole in the wall place that we decided would do. As we walked inside it felt as if time stood still. Like the classic scene from every movie ever, everyone stopped and looked at us...

Side Note...

Obviously as a white woman I have never been anywhere where I am part of a minority. I have had friends, partners and co workers that have been, but never myself. It has been such an eye opening and humble experience to understand what it is like to be a minority. Around HCMC my white face sticks out like dogs balls. It is such an odd thing, but so humbling.

Anyway back to the meal...

The easiest thing to do was order a round of beers (Duh) and food for us all to share. After eight dishes of food it was time to go hard or go home so we ordered a hot pot. A dish where they bring you a pot full of soup (with a flame under it) and a plate full of raw meat, noodles, eggs and vegetables. After a few confused glances I decide to take one for the team and start piling the food in. A man rushes over with the most disgusted look on his face and starts scooping all the noodles and meat out. After a broken conversation and the international symbol for boil we worked out that the soup was not hot enough. It finally starts to boil so we go for it again and add the noodles, meat and the eggs. I decide that everyone loves hardboiled eggs so just plopped them in. As quick as you could say Pho, he was back scooping our eggs out. He whisks them away and brings back two chickens eggs (to this day, we still not know what the first eggs were). The beautiful man then proceeds to crack the eggs into the soup. Obviously. He then sits the next table over, calls his mate and decides to watch us and laugh at our attempts to cook the rest of the hotpot.

No one died from the under cooked meat, so well feed and watered we braved the heat and headed for the room.

The next morning we had to meet downstairs at 8.45 so with that in mind we called it early and headed for the very hard mattresses.

The only other thing we had to concur was the dreaded “Bum Gun”. The thing with the Vietnamese toilet systems is that they don’t handle toilet paper. So after you have done what you need to do, you spray yourself down, and then use the toilet paper to pay yourself dry. You discard the toilet paper in the bin and flush. Wild right??? The Bum gun itself is a high pressured hose that looks like a smaller version of a boujee garden hose. It is the oddest thing by far I have experienced.

And there we have it the first 24 done and dusted. The Next article will just be the week in review! Get at me if there is anything else you want to know!