Friday 9 October

You can certainly get your steps up going from one terminal to the next and then finding your gate!Back on board our plane for Vietnam and I'm in pod 17A again but on a smaller plane. Farewell Singapore.

Breakfast was an unusal offering and thank goodness I like chillies just not usually for breakfast.

We have a 3 hour flight which passes without incident.

Business Class only half full. Once we arrive I opted for the Fast Track assistance through Immigration which meant it was a seamless existing and fast and well with the extra cost. We then are very happy to see our suitcases again. Once outside the terminal we are met by our 'guide' Bobby who refers to himself in the third person. There are now 4 of us so we introduce ourselves to Roy and Bev from northern Qld (some 500km from Brisbane) from a place Roy related twice that I've never heard of and he seemed miffed that I had no idea the place existed.I just told him I was from S.A. Bev clearly isn't too well travelled as she complained to me that when they arrived in Singapore from their Brisbane flight, she was starving and couldn't believe that the food places wouldn't take her Australian, Vietnamese or Cambodian money! They expected her to use her credit card. She went hungry!I'm thinking at this very early stage she may be a front runner to get voted off the island... However some 30 minutes later another couple show up and Bobby says that he will get a driver to take the 6 of us to our hotel, as he has another 5 or so to wait for. The six of us head off with said driver and about half an hour later arrive at our hotel for the next 3 nights, the Grand Mercure. Traffic was not as heavy as I thought it would be but there were plenty of car horns and motor bikes to keep it interesting. We chrck into the hotel and as we approach the lefts to go to our room, the couple who made up numbers 5 and 6 got out of the lift wanting to know how to find out what floor they are on. I ask them their room number and they say 12 something or other so figure they must be on the 12th floor. She says that lift doesnt go to that floor. We all get in the lift and can easily see from the buttons that there are more than 12 floors. I go to get my key card to tap it and push 4 button for our floor when she realises that she didnt tap the key card on the reader, claiming that it didn't have one of those in the other lift they were in. I'm now thinking that Bev may not be the first culled from the herd! Our room is spacious and we are very happy with it, other than the fact that the shower has a clear glass wall that looks straight into the rear of the room so that whoever is in the showeris 100% visible in the rest of the room! Who comes up with this madness? Brings back memories of the bizarre room set up with no wall and lots of mirrors and the walls for the shower in Morocco.

Time for a cuppa, some cheese and crackers I packed, and to put our feet up while we get the lay of the land. Its happy hour after 4pm at the roof top bar so we may need to check that out! Time to head to the concierge to check out where and how we get to the hop on hop off bus stop tomorrow. I think we might just follow out noises rather than the convoluted explanation he gave. As it is now juston 4pm, we head to the rooftop. We are the only ones there apart from the lass behind the bar! Great views but definite pollution which makes the skyline grey.

We enjoy a glas of Chardonnay as our 2 for one. We settle in nicely and then Roy and Bev come up to the bar and decide to sit with us. We have a laugh over lots of silly things. Roy tells us that Lindsay (partner of the woman who didnt know what floor their room was on) who we had seen in the hotel foyer, but not properly met, was hit by a motor cycle as he attempted to cross the road on a walk from the hotel! He apparently is okay but clearly not a great start to his holiday. B and R are not well travelled, but have been to Bali and most of Qld. They have not been to SA and I told them that SA is Australia's best kept secret and we want to keep it that way. Time for dinner. J and I had booked the restaurant for the Friday night buffet and Roy and Bev asked to join us. The food wasn't that flash but it sufficed. Again, we found plenty to laugh about but we all agreed that an early night was required so back to our respective rooms. I was in bed by 8.30, asleep soon after and slept solid till about 4am. Finally got up about 7 andwith a cup of tea in hand can do the blog and get ready for our first full day in Hanoi.