It’s a long story but I had two free trips to use up, so it was a quick trip to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and a couple of weeks later to my homeland Borneo and then Bali.
The Borneo/Bali trip had been planned in advance but the Saigon was a last minute decision after having resigned myself to letting that free ticket lapse, and then reversing on that decision.
I had weighed up going to Honolulu or San Francisco but accommodation was a minimum of $250-300 per night and it was hard to justify a short break with that kind of places. It was like throwing good money after bad.
Saigon, on the other hand, had accommodation at around NZD100 for the total of three nights. It would prove to be a cheap getaway. The entire trip including spending money, meals, accommodation and airfare taxes would add up to about one night’s accommodation in the USA.
I arrived at Auckland Airport 2h prior to the flight 1320. I had done an online check-in and wanted to present myself to the airline staff to check my documents (passport and visa, or rather lack thereof). There were no staff hanging around in the usual manner, helping passengers with the kiosks. Eventually one turned up and I realised there was a long queue for his assistance.
I suppose with a Vietnam check-in in process, all Kiwis need to have their visas verified. I didn’t need a visa, so I went airside and had my visa-free logged into the airline system so that I would board smoothly later.
At the gate, I spoke to a group of four Kiwis that had paid aboug NZD150 per person for their Vietnamese visas from the embassy in Wellington. I didn’t want to tell them they could have got it online for a fraction of that cost! The full price for the embassy process is more intended for nationalities (eg. African countries) that don’t qualify for the online process.
Even though there were about 80 seats left on the flight, it felt fullish. Many people had a spare seat adjacent to them, but ther weren’t enough spare seats for me to have an entire row. With a daylight flight, having a spare seat was perfectly fine.
The flight went quite quickly. After lunch and ice cream, I settled into my computer and did a fair bit of planning for 2019. I looked into the possibility of studying Spanish in Spain or South America, and some travels in Brazil.
Due to the time back in New Zealand, I was peckish way before dinner was served so I asked for some snacks.
After having a chicken curry for lunch, I was surprised to be offered another curry for dinner (with another choice). The second curry, this time with beef, was very delicious.