Bah, now I'm pissed. I wrote a blog and saved it in my drafts, but now I'm back online, want to post it but it's gone. The good news is I'm kinda stuck here uploading pics and charging my camera batteries so let me do it for my 2nd time... By the way it's long since I had at least 8 hours to kill in between flights and 19 hours to kill flying haha. It's a mix of my journal I've kept and things I've learnt since writing it, so it kinda jumps around a bit.
Mon Oct 25th/2010 @ 0522h
So it begins! My exciting/scary adventure! It's only scary as I'm not use to this shit, I'm an FNG when it comes to the solo multinatiotional airport hopping thing. Only self travelling I've done was to Eric's wedding but I had my Mitchell to help ease the situation. Well now I'm a babe in the woods and any fears I have I have to deal with myself. this is a vacation, but on a deeper level its a test to see if I can make it on my own. Some people move from home, go off to school and I picked a 53 day long (possibly more thanks to time zones) trip to burst my cherry. Now to friends they might not detect it or think of it, but this is the biggest fucking thing I've ever done!
0540h
I'm settling and surprisingly the airport in London is busy at this hour haha. Still unsure but the pulse is slowing. Feel like I gotta pee but must be full of Aduventure! I was wearing a random t-shirt I picked up for work at Goodwill, it's a Tim Hortons Lynx shirt and I have no clue who they are. So at the security desk a guard starts quizzing me on them. He grew up going to all their games and I had to bullshit my way past him, more worried about reloading all the shit in my pockets instead.
0623h
on Learjet type bird and crammed in like a sardine haha.
0655h
AIRBORNE!!! I can't help but think "Fuck Yea!!!" when the pilot hits the throttle, the turbofans scream and you feel the wheelbreake release. The world zips by at around 160 knots, you see the taxiway you just crawled over zip by and familiar landmarks fade away. London stretches on as far as the eye can see, lit up in the dark at 1,000ft. The take off isn't a topgun moment but more like an aerial stock drag race at any street corner after watching The Fast and the Furious at the movies. I can only imagine an F-14 Tomcat aircraft carrier takeoff, balls to the walls moment. Wish I could have got a video, London looked great. Not much to do but smile at the chop making the het bounce and start reading :)
0735h
Started our descent into O'hara airport in Chicago. The pilot sounded normal at the start of the flight, but now sounds like Boomhower from "King of the Hill" hopefully because my ears are popping. "Yea man tell you wut, dis yo Cptn talkin bout like tu min fro lnding n strtn r dang go decnt man. Boom ovr n out" haha
0940h Eastern TZ - Already learning, O'hara is BIG, 4th largest in the US and one of the busiest in the world when it comes to annual arrivals and departures. Got off the jet and everyone working security or on the flight deck was black. Nothing wrong with it at all but just observing the contrast of the border we share. No help from anyone but I did get to hear about some girl's weekend before giving up, no signs or ropes herding me to where I'm suppose to go. Got on the train (O'Hara has a friggen train haha) and got lost but eventually found my way. United, my carrier has a desk in 3 of the 5 terminals here. I had to pass security again and I have too much shit in my pockets so my laptop dry sack is holding all my misc shit. I got 4 hours to kill and bought a Chicago magnet, ate at Chili's and wandered around. Impressed at what they have, McDonalds, Quizno's, Dinosaurm Shoe Medic and a lot more. Saw a USAF Servicemen and later on my flight a women in Desert Tiger Stripes but I lost both in the crowd before I could thank them for their service and chit chat. It's worse than I though too, because of the time change I'm stuck here for 6 hours!!!
1209h - Took lots of pics while in Chili's and had Mushroom Swiss burger, just hope they don't attack me on the plane later (they didn't). Also bought a lotto ticket for $118 Million so if I win, everyone in the group is getting free airfare to join me! Too bad the CDN is worth more. Speaking of which I exchanged some CDN money I had in my wallet ($30) and only got $22 USD back! Rip off but I think it was my only option thinking it could be worse in Vietnam (in VN it was easier and no service fee. Mind you it took some calculating to figure out I didn't get ripped off. girl could have given me $200dong for $30USD and I wouldn't have realized it. I'm sticking to dong now though since anyone will take USD here, but only give dong back so its easier to tell if I'm getting ripped in the same currency. I still gotta take a pic of one million dong thrown on my bed gangsta style. Checked my atm bank balence and I though it would be the only time I'm a millionaire but fuck that shit, I'm a multi billionaire! Mind you I'm not emptying my bank account for pics of me swimming in cash. Plus Dong isn't thick like at home. It's not regular paper thin, it's rice paper thin. You could shoot DNA though it, it's that thin. I'll play the waiting game and oh, by the way, no surprise but I'm surrounded in asian people.
1422h Ont time- AIRBORNE!!! to Hong Kong (HK and I don't mean Heckler and Koch) on a B747-400! BIG MUTHAFUCKA with 1st class on 2nd level. Which airplane movie has it been in? Hmm... Executive Decision, Snakes on a Plane (insert Sam Jackson quote here), Passenger 47 and every hostage/terror in the air movie! Lucky me! :) I am now the minority and will be for 53 days. Best I get use to it now. The interesting thing and opposite of VN is this flight is over the age of 35 while 50% of VN's pop. is under 35 years old. Also the stewartests I've encountred are over 35 too. Am I going to be 35 at the end of the flight, like some "Final Countdown" action? (awesome movie). Took my meds to sleep and I'm 2h behind my preplanned sleep cycle so hopefully I can catch a few Z's. Time is going fast though I think because there's always a new face to see or place to go. Also you can watch on tv where the plane is and details like how fast we're going, how high, km's travelled, km's left to go, etc. We're going about 10km a minute which is cool. 14 hours until HK haha. Some John C. Reily movie (how did I remember his name!?) is on, got pretzels, apple juice and candy from my parents to snack on still.
1422h - Testing out headphones to block the engine noise (sitting right on the wing) and hit Radio Ch#7. It's blasting classic rock like RamJam - Black Betty, VN era songs like Rare Earth - I got a line on you, Hendrix, The Who, Steve Miller Band, Box Tops and some good post war songs like Heart (who I Heart), RUSH, Van Halen - Panama (I thought the song was about the US invasion. Pictured Cobra gunships working the tree line, blackhawks dropping off troops, C-130's dropping PSYOPS leaflettes and blasting the song and A-10's looking for an excuse for some 30mm depleted uranium action haha). So far my highlights have been seeing a fat American with a mullet, taking off, landing, turblance, Chili's and rocking out on the flight.
2033h - Got some sleep, hour or two and only on my left side. I got a glass of water and while half asleep spilled it (now that's reality tv folks at home), but now I'm alert haha. Sun was setting but I think we're going faster than the earth's rotation (or at least hope we are) and it's nice and bright out again. I thought we'd head due west and go over Seattle, Hawwii, Japan and finally China, but we went north into Ontario, Manitoba, Nunavut, North West Territories, Yukon, Alaska, Russia, Mongolia and into China which I thought was weird but cool and hoped it was faster haha. Felt like I was getting a sore throat (thanks recycled air with poor filteration) and the music on Ch#7 is in a two hour loop, so I get to hear the same songs over for seven more hours. Oh, and Dinner for Schmucks was on but I dozed off.
2135h Chinese time - Chinese noodles with lemon cookie, currently over Russia, 6000km left to go till HK. Got chopsticks for noodles and I failed. If the Asians saw me I would have brought great dishonour to the plane.
Lesson: Syncronize bathroom breaks during a movie or when your meal is mentioned. After your meal there's a good 30 min line up for the tiny bathrooms and I doubt you want to be #39 to use it haha. Worked well in a row of three as I needed to go, and the two others stood up and waited to sit when I came back. Then we rotated and they took their turn. Yea, I micro-manage washroom breaks, wanna fight about it!? Thought so :)
1913h HK time - Landed in HK fine. I was trying to figure out why it was 5 o'clock and still light out. I didn't change my watches time or anything so why is it 5 after horus of flying away from my timezone!? Oh... it was 5am in Ontario and 5pm in HK. Fuck you analog watch and your lack of am/pm markers. Gate 61 we unloaded at and in 3 hours we would load at the same gate. Went through immigration I wasn't given the paperwork for it until I waited 30mins in line with 533 other people. Filled it out, waited again and ran to get my bag as it would have been sitting there for a good half hour and free for the taking. Guess what!? My bag was gone! Only two uglier bags still rotating around. I talked to security and checked my boarding pass. Turned out my bag was transferred or waiting to be moved onto the Saigon plane haha. I talked to the info centre and was guided to my terminal for my next flight. It's an awesome airport! Everyone I talked to was upbeat, nice and polite and had super happy million dolla smiles! A lady cut in front of me when it was my turn to hand over my immigration papers. She was old and rude so if she was in that much of a hurry I wanted to save her 30 seconds. Maybe let her see her grandkids for 30 seconds more before she has a stroke and dies. Anyways the immigration guy saw it and after she left we didn't speak the same language but had a good laugh over it haha. The security guy I talked to about my stolen bag was happy and didn't treat me like a retard after being a retard, info centre guy spoke awesome english and was great. I also got bugged to do a survey but I didn't mind, I had 2 1/2 hours left and hadn't talked to anyone for more than 30 secs in 16 hours other than at Chili's haha. She was all nice but really motored through the english I could barely keep up! I guess Chinese is super-go-go-fun fast and learning english she motored through it too haha. The airport also had ladies dressed in blue uniforms directing people flow like it was a police officer at rush hour so I always knew where to go. I thought it was great but fuck you Chicago haha.
If you have to go to Asia, go through HK airport. Each terminal has a mall inside it, the main terminal mall being two stories about a medium sized city mall ranging from popeye chicken to super-go-terrific-happy-fun-time action figures, high end fashion like Gucci, Rolex, Lambourgini, you name it crazy expensive fashion stuff, HK had it. I saw the kind of shortbread cookies my scottish father had as a kid and $600 scotch by a company I thought only made fancy wine. For the non-blingers and crystale drinkers like myself there's burger king, book and convience stores and the like for a good mix of shopping, oh yea, and it's in an airport of all places haha. Other things about HK airport is that I saw Nate's Grandpa's dog Maggie, the same breed of dog (which I forget again haha) for sniffer dogs. The airport also has gone through recent renovations and looks futuristic and industral, a nice mix. I went to get something to eat but I got disorientated and lost in the airport mall (yea, it's that big haha) and started running low on time. They did have Chinese food but not the Canadian modified style. I wasn't feeling up to food adventure and found a nice aussie style bar and grill but time was too close so I ate more candy haha and headed for my gate.
Again I got onto another B747-400 but somehow it looked even bigger than the first. All I could see out my window was 200ft long of wing which made it look bigger. The only downside was I was in the middle of the wing so I couldn't see any HK or Vietnam on landing, just friggen massive wing. I tried to take a pic because at night without the curved upward wing tip, in the night it looked like a big air force bomber like a B-52, B-66, etc. It does amaze me that something so big, so heavy can take off and fly in the air. Thank friggen god for a few thousand pounds of thrust! It was funny but I was seated with an Asian girl. She had an Australian accent. She also was a US citizen visiting family back in Saigon. It was nice talking to someone since around that time I'd gone around 28 hours without talking to anyone for more than 10 seconds, other than the survey lady and that was just yes and no haha. So far though people are interested that I'm Canadian and ask me a ton of questions. I got to ask her about Australia and she quizzed me on Canada.
2126h HK time - Currently flying over the skies in which thousands of pilots flew hundreds of thousands of missions and dropping millions of tons of bombs on targets in North Vietnam. It was trippy since hundreds of people had died in that same airspace and hundreds of thousands died on the ground in the North. I'm finally in country and everything from this point on is history! Such a nerd I know but I don't care. I'm in a place where everything I see, my knowledge on the war is relevent haha instead of the odd conversation at work or hanging out. Much like we do at group events we unload and binge our knowledge on the topic, I'm in a place where most people know the story behind Reunification Palace, Tan Son Nhut airport, the racetrack, the former US Embassy, the Rex hotel and the list goes longer with every new town I'll hit as I go. Still, before I explode with excitment I gotta find my hotel, call Kim Ngai Guesthouse and hit the rack.
That's the end of my journal and so i have to continue here. I de-planed and went to grab my bags. 500 people standing around two luggage belts is still a hell of a lot of people. We're all gathered around for the same reason and just starring at a small door, waiting for our luggage. It's funny, we're all thinking the same thing hoping that we win the lottery and our bag comes out first. Finally I got my bag and had to scan everything thru the X-ray machine. I forgot to mention but after passing HK security and X-ray, just before we entered our VN bound plane the Vietnamese conducted their own personal security check, going through our stuff again. It wasn't a problem but I just thought it was odd, like the HK security wasn't up to par, or Vietnam is just paranoided? Anyways I was told by my guesthouse (a family lives here and has about 4 rooms for rent, more on them later) I was to get a taxi from the office inside the airport instead of outside as the ones outside are scammers. They'd turn on the fare, take you to the wrong side of the city and finally decide to let you go to your hotel with them making an extra thousand dong. I showed the guy at the counter the address, he radiod someone and they took my stuff and led me out. It was cool but then he passed me onto a younger guy and he was going to take me by jeep. So i was traded to three people. Do they all know where I'm going? I jump in and we start to go. I found out I had no seatbelt and told the driver to which I got some Vietnamese back which I took as "Hold On" haha. As soon as I walked out of the airport air conditioning it hit me. That's right, the heat. I instantly went from a cool 20 degrees celcius to 32 degrees. It doesn't sound too horrible but it's 100% humidity. I think in Canada a hot day in Ontario is maybe 80% humitidy max. Anyways with the humidity it felt like 43 degrees. By now it was about 10:30pm haha. The ride from the airport was awesome, just seeing all the sites and sounds. It was as if everyone of the city's 8 million people came out to welcome me. People everywhere, a sea of people! With that also a sea of motos (mopeds/motocycles/vespas, etc) buzzing around. I saw lines painted on the road, stop signs, yield signs and everything was ignored haha. The only thing that mattered was that you weren't going to hit anybody, which is amazing since around the car there was at any given point 10 motos buzzing around. It was a real trip haha. But everyone on the patio, all up and down the roads it was great. On the way in I got to see Reunification Palace and Ben Thanh Market and more on those later. We entered the area my hotel was in, the Pham Ngu Lao area which is the backpack district of the city. In about a 2km by 2km square, there's about 200 hotels and a thousand rooms to rent. We stopped and the driver grabbed my stuff and pointed for where I was to go. I didn't see it and he pointed it out. Signs in Vietnam are so distracting since there's signs everywhere it becomes one jumbled up mess haha. Anyways I saw the Kim sign. I told him to come with me so I made sure it was the right place. I crossed the street (which is a skill in itself with so much traffic) and looked to see where the driver was. He drove off. I walk up to the staff (everyone is outside at night) and showed them my info on the place, address, phone numbers, etc. They told me I was in the wrong place and their rooms were full. Communication is still kinda tough even though most people know some english, but I asked where it was and they told me to go to the next street, take a left, then a right, then a left and right and I wasn't going to get much help haha. Now, taxi's (moto taxi is the biggest service so taxi = moto) park on the street, sit on their bikes and wait. So do most people haha. I had to ask a bunch of people if they were moto and finally one was. I asked them if they knew where my hotel was and they pointed to the place where I was just at haha. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere so I asked where an internet cafe was, went in, looked up my email and found my hotel info, copied it down and drew a map. Turns out my book was made in 2004 and had their old location, they've moved since. I paid 2,000dong ($.10 CDN) for my internet time, caught a moto and made sure he knew.
Taxi edicate is interesting for tourists. Show where you want to go weather it's a map, address or both. They nod and say okay. You double check that they know, they nod again. You ask how much that way you aren't charged an insane amount when you do get there. You can barter and play hardball (ex: 100,000d too beaucoup, I go 50,000d) and counter until you got a good price. Toruists are jabbed and can be charged double but it takes experience to realize it. Once you get your "deal" you legally have to be given a helmet and wear it and then you hold the fuck on for dear life!!! haha. Your first time you wanna flip out because you picture yourself crashing into the 20 motos around you, your driver ignores all the road signs you understand and you are not in control so it makes it more scary haha. Horns are used as often as brakes, but not in our "get of of my way" form, but in a "I'm right beside you don't crash into me!" way haha. In one full day I've gone on the sidewalk, down a "do not enter" and against a one way street. After your first few times you learn to have faith and relax because you see how the traffic works. Top speed is 30km/h and as long as you move slow, you're fine, just like walking across the street. You start to walk and do it slow because everyone will move around you. If you dart across you'll cause a pile up and you'll be in the middle.
I'm tired and side tracked haha. The moto had to ask for help but we were really close, so I can't fault him. A nice mamasan (older lady, translates to mother) guided me down a dark and scary alley and I found my hotel. Thank fucking god! I screwed up the booking and said I was coming a day earlier (damn time zones) so they sold my room to someone else. They still had an open room but it was lacking air con and an actual bed since it was just a matress on the floor haha. I couldn't care less though and just wanted to crash. I unpacked, hit a local 24/7 store for bathroom stuff I had the best cold shower I ever had and hit the rack!
I'm beat and I'll write about today, tomorrow sometime or when I get the chance. Take care.
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