Hong Kong To Ho Chi Minh (2009-12-13)
Nov 22, flew to Ho Chi Minh on Cathay Pacific.Checking out of Novotel and headed straight to the airport to check
in and then look for breakfast. We christened the first meal of
our vacation with congee, steamed rice rolls and fried cruller (all my
favorite breakfast food) from King's Palace. It was a taste so
familiar and so welcomed that I gobbled the lot. I was full
boarding the plane but still managed to clean my meal tray, no wonder
I'm fat!
Vietnam gave me the impression of sloppiness when it comes to
bureaucracy and procedures. After we claimed our bags and ready
to exit the airport, there's yet another x-ray machine to check
bags! But that's not the crazy part. The crazy part was the
officer manning the machine was half asleep and didn't care if
everybody load their luggage on to the belt! I simply walked past
KL with my purse and bag and that officer just gave me an "I could care
less" glance. And when we left the country to go to Hong Kong,
our arrival cards which every foreigner has to fill out weren't even
collected! Well, whatever floats their boat I guess.
I didn't pay much attention to the airport in Ho Chi Minh (HCM). All we were concerned of was how to get to the domestic airport from there which turns out to be a breeze. It was just a short walk--may be three or four minutes--from the arrival area outside the building to the domestic building.
HCM Domestic Airport is pretty old and bare as expected.
There's pretty much nothing on offer for passengers before the security
check point. Past the security, there're a few run-down shops and
a restaurant (more like a clean hawker place with tables) where we ate
our first Vietnam meal-- Pho Bo (Beef noodle soup). The few
shards of beef was tough but the soup was excellent, deeply aromatic
and complex. We did not have a cent of Vietnam Dong on us but
fortunately they accepted credit card however small the amount.
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