Holiday Day One (the flights!)

We got up early and finished the last of our packing. We decided to just take 1 medium sized rucksack, my school bag and Andy’s bag. We wanted to travel light and we didn’t want to spend our holiday money on backpacks we could buy cheaper in Vietnam. It did mean though we only had 5 pairs of pants each and I only had 2 pairs of shoes!!!

We got to the airport nice and early and everything seemed to be going very well. After we stepped on to the plane though that all changed!!! We had read reviews about China Air and none of them were complimentary, but the cheap airfare won us round. It never will again! The air hostesses were really quite rude. If you asked for anything they would just stare at you.

The funniest and at the same time the worst thing was their terrible English skills. They could speak English, but everything they said was in one breath, and they left out words they couldn’t say for example one lady wasn’t good with numbers so she would just say it is 10 degrees Celsius, urgh Fahrenheit. It really became a problem when the plane decided to land in a Chinese City that wasn’t Beijing (we had to fly Fukuoka to Beijing, Beijing to Saigon). The airhostess had told us what was happening (I think), but we didn’t understand a word she was saying. They made us all get off the plane.

After getting off the plane they gestured to us to go down some stairs, but they wouldn’t tell us what we were doing or why. We just had to do as we were told. Once we got to the bottom of the stairs and followed some more people pointing (not speaking just pointing) we got to immigration. It was at this point we realised that we had entered China so had to fill in lots of forms etc to enter the country (it didn’t matter we were supposed to be going to Beijing for the sole reason of transferring). This wasn’t too much of a problem, a confusing inconvenience but not a problem. That’s when the fun started though!!

To get into China you need a visa, and I had one but for when I was coming back in January. Try telling this to the immigration women! Before I handed over my passport I told her I was going to Vietnam and was just transferring, but she marked my visa anyway. When I would then not move away from her desk she howled (yes it was a howl), and 2 men came to see what was going on. Thankfully they listened to me and got out the special cancelled stamp, and wrote on my visa to say I could still use it.

You might think that that is enough fun for anyone but not us! After getting back on the same plane and into the same seats we set off for Beijing. Once at Beijing airport though they wouldn’t let us just transfer they instead took us in to the airport and left us to check in again (don’t worry we had a tour of the airport as they shuffled us about for 30 minutes not sure what to do with us!). With an hour and a half to spare I did what I always do and got stressed but Andy remained calm! That was until he realised we had to fill in a form and queue just to get to our check in desk!

With an hour to go we got to our check-in desk (hurrah you may think they have done it, you fools have never been to China!) We handed over our passports to a girl whose name badge said trainee (just what you needed at the time of a crisis!). She calmly told us our visas for Vietnam didn’t start until 23rd December and that today was only the 22nd. She ignored our protests that our plane didn’t arrive in Vietnam until the 23rd. She instead had to get a man and women to call some higher being to see if it was ok to let us fly.

Whilst all this mayhem was happening an Indian man, complete with turban, runs up to our desk and says “I’ve got to get to Deli, I’ve got to get to Deli”. This is when Andy finally lost it. Andy told him to stop pushing in and queue up like the rest of us. He continued with his line of “I’ve got to get to Deli, I’ve got to get to Deli” until the check in man gave him an evil stare and I calmly told him where he should queue.

After that we had to queue in another very long queue to leave China (we never wanted to visit in the first place). We got to boarding with about 10 minutes to spare. After a 6-hour flight we finally got to Vietnam. I have never been so glad to get somewhere!