Landed in Vietnam! By Matt

After a worrying moment at Gatwick check in when they couldn't seem to find our tickets on the system, we boarded the flight to discover to our delight that we were in premium economy. Before our excitement was over a flight attendant came over and asked if we were all together. Our hearts sank thinking we were going to be moved back into regular economy where we belong. To our utter astonishment she asked if we would mind giving up our seats and going into club class. With the 'downside' that we wouldn't be next to the kids. It took us a fraction of a nano second to decide and 5 minutes later we were stretching our legs out in our club class beds ordering champagne!! It was unreal. We'd gone from a seat where you could see about 30 people without moving your head to one where I could just about see Simi's shoulder. The only people I saw on the flight was an occasional Millen with a manic grin on his face and the stewardess asking me if I wanted a champagne top up, food from the menu, chocolates, wine, more food, more chocolates and more wine! I put my footstool down, wrapped up in the duvet, relaxed onto the giant pillow and blissfully dozed imaging every flight would be like this from now on.

7 hours later we were turfed out of club class into Doha airport, bustling, full of glitzy shops and, bizarrely, a giant yellow bear. Our 3.5 stopover became 4.5 hours then 5.5 as our plane was delayed due to technical problems. Sadly there were no upgrades on our next flight and we fell asleep on each other, exhausted and dreaming of club class comforts.

We landed in Ho Chi Minh city 8 hours later alongside hundreds of others and it took us another hour to get through passport control. Finally we met Tango, our friendly tour guide for our brief stay in the city. He cheerily started filling us in on facts about the city, housing over 10 million people, pointing out sites along the way and a noodle place round the corner from our hotel. Breakfast at 645 and pickup at 715 he declared and left us to relax for what was left of the evening. As we sorted ourselves out in our rooms, a thunderstorm blew in and we watched the lightening and sheeting rain out of the window, a walk for some dinner less and less appealing.

Judging the worst of the storm to have passed we stepped out into the rain to walk round the block to Tango's recommendation only to discover it closed at 8. We tried another place with the same result and struck third time lucky. As we sat down a cockroach the size of a well fed cockroach scuttled by our table but no one seemed bothered, least of all the waiter dancing to the beats of local pop music. It sounded like Gangnam style to me but that's probably like saying the Beatles sound like the Stones.

After noodles, egg fried rice, prawn rolls and fried chicken we headed back to the hotel to collpase into bed after a very long journey.
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