I appreciate all the well-wishing from the people about my nerves about flying a few nights back and all that. I kind of feel like a baby when I complain about something that is so normal as traveling, but that is just the kind of person that I am. It was all just fine in the end but it was a bit more of a story than just "I got lucky." I recall a line from the film Titanic where the one asshole rich guy is commenting about something and he says "real men make their own luck." Because I don't really like to allow the cosmos to have their way with me I decided to kind of rig the situation in my favor and popped some messages off to my visa agent who is well connected in the travel world to see what he could do for me to perhaps ensure that I made my connection in Hanoi.
The Hanoi airport isn't terrible but as far as Asian airports go, it is a little substandard. Most of the airports in this part of the world, even in ultra-poor Laos, are very modern and put most airports in USA and Europe to shame (seriously guys, what the hell is going on over there?) but Hanoi is a bit dated. You can tell that it has been quite some time since they did a refurb and it really needs one. It is still many times better than the likes of LAX, Ohare, or any of the airports in New York City though.
The fact that the domestic and international terminals are a damn kilometer away from one another just defies all logic to me. Were they planning on needing a bunch more space in each of them than they actually did? There is almost nothing in between the two buildings and there is no indoor part connecting the two.
There is a shuttle bus that can get you between the two and there are a few signs as you are departing domestic that this is the case but good luck figuring out which bus is the transfer bus because they are not labeled in English and there is a rather large bus rank over on the side. Given the fact that my timeline was really tight the last thing I needed was to accidentally end up on a bus that is going into town and have to run back so instead I just decided to walk between the two terminals and kind of followed a crowd of others that were doing the same thing.
You would think they would have some sort of walkway with signs on it but nah... I think they just think everyone is going to use the shuttle bus but honestly guys, that thing needed to be labeled a LOT better than it was or have an information desk nearby. Since I am sure that many many people are doing exactly what I was doing it should be evident, perhaps marked in many languages EXACTLY where it is. I started feeling like I maybe was not in the "correct" place for making this transition but I wasn't stressed out and there is a very good reason for that.
I got this message in an email while I was on the way to the airport in Da Nang and I had already given up on making my connecting flight once I read it.
You may recall that I said my layover in Hanoi as a mere 1 hour and 40 minutes and any sort of delay could be disastrous for my capability of making the connection. However, and this is the first time I have ever had to take advantage of this, since I booked using kiwi.com, the connection protection or whatever it is called had already kicked in and by the time I made my way to the front of the line of ticketing to learn my fate, the kiwi.com internal system had already kicked in without my involvement and booked me on another flight to the same place but now, it was departing half an hour EARLIER than my original flight. This now meant that I had about 2 hours of layover time. Still not good enough for me though.
While I was getting on the flight from Da Nang to Hanoi I contacted my agent and asked him if there was any sort of VIP track program in Hanoi for nervous people like me that want to get to the front of the line and skip immigration and security queues and I was delighted to find out that he responded that "yes there is." It costs $40 but my own peace of mind is worth at least that much and it was actually kind of funny how it turned out.
This program is not an official program and it might be of questionable legality and I found out why when the guy met me. I had to send a selfie to the agent who forwarded it to I don't know who but when someone approached me in the airport who looked like a police/army personnel and he had a picture of me on his phone, I was very happy about what being in this VIP program was.
This was the line for my ticketing counter, which I was required to use so I am super glad I did the VIP service. I was already stressed enough so having my guy, who was wearing the usual stern-looking green and red army outfit, simply moved the line tape out of the way and walked me up to the front of the line. I was getting some funny looks from the people who were all waiting, but when you are walking with a member of the army in an airport, you get to do whatever you want.
I didn't dare take a picture of him because the police and military here are very sensitive about this sort of thing and the last thing I wanted to do was piss off the guy that was helping me.
After getting my ticket and the staff being super-polite to me in the process, he escorted me to the very front of security, where they immediately stopped the regular line and opened the gate for me. My documents were just glanced at and I didn't even have to do most of the things you have to do in security such as I didn't have to take off my shoes or watch, and I didn't have to remove my electronics from my bag.
Then I was escorted to the immigration room that is normally only for airline staff and diplomats. Once again there was none of the usual scrutiny of how many stamps I have and other such things that I have gotten used to from using the regular line and I was through immigration in under 1 minute.
At this point the soldier or police officer handed me my passport back, sternly pointed towards the gates, and it was clear we were done. At no point in time did this person smile or even speak to me. What can I say? They are a serious bunch.
So now this connection that I was worried that I might not have enough time for, it was easily made. I had an hour to spare actually and then I was subjected to something that someone had already told me about the Hanoi airport and that is that they have banned or shunned all international businesses from taking part in being there. There was none of the usual places like McDonalds, Burger King, or whatever other chain store you can imagine. Everything was some unknown local brand and all of them had the same crap on offer. It was also horrendously understaffed and since it is an airport, extremely overpriced.
Well, maybe that doesn't seem overpriced to you that live in the west but outside of the airport you can get all of these things for a dollar or less so yeah, there is a slight markup going on here. I don't know why they did everything in USD though and the person at the counter had to do a currency conversion into the local currency in order to charge me. Strange huh??
So this tight flight schedule that I was so concerned about ended up not being a problem at all. Because kiwi.com has that built in "connection protection" I ended up having 2 hours layover and even with that crazy line at the ticketing counter, I likely would have been fine as far as making the flight is concerned.
However, I really enjoyed the VIP treatment and all the envious stares I got from the regular people that were all in the cattle lines so since I believe that one of the most valuable things anyone has in their lives in their own time, I think in the future I will pay for this questionably legal VIP treatment every time that I use a Vietnam airport at all in the future. I have already booked it for my return flight when I go back to Da Nang on tuesday the 20th.
I don't get many chances in my life to feel like I am important even though I am faking it, but I have to say, there is something really special about having my own army guy walking me through to all the parts of the airport. I think next time I will press my luck and tell them I need to go to the bathroom and have them wait for me outside the toilets. haha, I wouldn't really do that but imagine the looks you would get from people as they would probably assume I am some sort of celebrity or a son of some sort of wealthy family. Had I been dressed a lot nicer than I was, people might have assumed that anyway but I'm a cargo shorts and loose t-shirt kind of guy when it comes to travel.
I was quite happy when I landed in Chiang Mai after reading a few chapters of Gold Coast because as you almost surely recall, I lived in Thailand for over a decade and even lived in Chiang Mai for a few of them. It felt like I was coming home because unlike Vietnam where I speak none of the language and don't really even understand the culture all that well, I am conversationally fluent in Thai and can read it as well. I guess you could say that I tried a lot harder to become a member of society when I was there.
Things went smoothly and I made it to my hotel, which was a lot nicer than I had anticipated for $30 a night.
I'm going to cut this off right now even though there is a lot more to tell. It is already 2000 words long and if you made it this far I congratulate you.