The too fast and the too furious

Our flight from Beijing to Hanoi wasn't that bad, now that I look back on it...at the time though, it was rather horrible. We arrived at Beijing International Airport nice and early (two hours to be exact) and sped through the check in and security only to find out that we had been tricked...horribly tricked. Anyone who is flying from Beijing Int be warned that the security leads straight into the gate, and skips the tax free shopping. At our gate there was one shop called Kiss 'n' Bake, where they definitely overcharged for their measly sandwiches. They asked me whether I wanted it toasted, I perked up thinking it would be a panini sort of do, only to be let down when they gave me back my sandwich after having popped it in the microwave for thirty seconds, making the cheese luke warm and the bread sort of mushy and wet.

We realised just before we got on the plane that we had no idea where or how long our layover was. We found out from a friendly man transporting a computer hard-drive that we were landing in Guangzou which is why the plane was full of screaming old ladies who were having shouting matches across half the plane. Our layover was half an hour long, still they insisted on us getting off the plane, trekking round half the airport, passing through three security checks and a border control only to find out that we were getting back on the same plane with the same stewards in the same seats...only slightly more sweaty from our sprint across the airport. I was craving nuts on arrival back on the plane and as soon as we took off I asked the air stewardess for some. How can you work on an INTERNATIONAL flight and not understand any English, not even the word nuts. Nuts are the most universally known airplane snack...and she didn't get it! How is this possible? She even asked two other stewardesses to come and help her understand, but they didn't know either. I almost succumbed to acting out a squirrel eating a nut, but felt this could confuse matters even more.

Finally we arrived in Hanoi and were quickly thrown into the Vietnamese way of driving. This consists of speeding down small roads avoiding pedestrians, mopeds, other cars and bicycles by swerving manically last minute and continuously honking the horn at anything. We were amazed that people used motorbikes to transport anything from trees to panes of glass, also at how many people could fit on one bike. We saw families of 5 all squashed on to one bike with the kids in the front with no helmets clinging on for dear life. Shaken from the drive we finally made it to our hotel in one piece.