We had three flights in three days. Lots of long lines, crowded airports, stare downs from immigration officers and of course we have nothing to declare. The first flight, January 19th, was New Caledonia to Brisbane. It was easy enough and the airport was so small that we breezed through. We stayed at the Pullman Airport in Brisbane and walked to the hotel with our bags. The hotel was nice and we had free welcome drinks with our dinner. First thing the next day, 20th, I took an Uber to the bag storage place and picked up the rest of our luggage. We chose not to drag all of that through Fiji and New Caledonia. We both needed to re arrange the luggage so we spent a few hours doing just that. We opted to take an Uber over to the domestic terminal as the walk would have been too much with all the bags. As we were leaving the Pullman wanted to charge us for the breakfast that was included with the room when we booked it. Grrrrrr! The airport check in was a bit more involved but we still made it through with out a hitch. It was a business class flight so we had the lounge to ease our pain. Another night in another Pullman Airport hotel. No welcome drinks here so we just got a burger from room service. In the morning, the 21st, they charged us again for breakfast even though we verified the breakfast the night before and were given vouchers to facilitate the breakfast. No time to argue as our ride had arrived and we had to go. We were blown away by the chaos at the Vietnam Air counter. We were three hours early and the entire flight was already lined up. The line snaked all around the terminal. If it was not for the gate agent that cleared a path for us to get to the Business Class line we would still be waiting. So many people with so much luggage. Big bags and multiple boxes of stuff was crammed onto baggage trollies and it was almost impossible to navigate thought them. Once we were at the lounge we could relax. The flight was just shy of 8 hours and was good even though I ran out of English language movies to watch. The real chaos began when we landed in Vietnam. The line at the immigration took us an entire hour to get through. When we had finally made it through we looked back and there were twice as many people in line as when we had started. All of our bags were already pulled off of the luggage turnstile by the time we arrived. Then traffic was so bad that it took us another hour to go less than 10 km to our hotel. Phew! We made it to the lounge level and goat a fine dinner and some adult beverages.
The decorations at the Pullman in Sydney
Not your average large dog sculptures
We could not decide it this was a bunny or a kangaroo
A dog and bunny/kangaroo on a Vespa
It is a stretch Vespa
Please do not sit on the art
Perhaps the most disorganized and chaotic check in process ever!
Luckily the business class line was relatively fast
So many carts overflowing with home made boxes
No busses for us!
The coast by Sydney
Rivers flowing to the sea
The red of the outback
The dark spots are shadows of clouds and some old river channels
Dry as a bone
Weird colors where the lake dried up
Large scale structures
Greenish hues
An actual lake
At least it appears to be standing water
It is Lake Yamma Yamma, it is an ephemeral lake
Yamma Yamma fills up only when Copper Creek floods, the last time was in 2000
The lake starts out fresh but becomes more and more alkaline as it shrinks due to evaportaion
Evaporation at work
We made it to the northern territories where the rivers flow
Off the coast is a coral ring
Landing at Ho Chi Min City
A thick layer of smog blankets the city
It is a very large city
So smoggy and one of the many channels of the Mekong River
It took us an hour to get through immigration. The line stretches out as far as the eye can see. While we were in line the amount of people in line doubled
It is not any less hectic outside
Waiting for our ride to the hotel
This is the face of the shuttle company, hmmmm maybe time for a staff change
After an hour to get to the car we are instantly plunged into traffic
Scooters at the ready
The whole world is encircled with traffic
Nice architectural bits
A temple all lit up
The Saigon Cathedral
All lit up
It is quite pretty
A huge amount of scaffolding surrounds the cathedral and supports the lights
Fish on the wall of the hotel check in area
We headed up to the lounge and ordered dinner
Of course there were pickles
The skyline from our room
