Back to Vietnam! The joys of transit

Who would have thought, back in 2019, that it would be almost three years before international travel was possible again? Even in December 2021 when we started planning this trip, the international borders were still closed and people shook their heads when I mentioned wanting to revisit Vietnam.

But I had some long service leave that had to be used, frequent flyer points burning a hole in my pocket, and moths flying out of my passport, so I thought why not book (with generous cancellation policies, natch) and see what happened.

Last week I finished up work for my break, still thinking maybe it wouldn’t happen, but yesterday we got up at the unlawful hour of 3am to catch the flight to Singapore and then Hanoi.

Queues abounded at the Perth airport, as Border Force were suffering from covid-related workforce issues and didn’t open passport control until 5am, so we stood in a queue for half an hour, after serendipitously bumping into my cousin, R, who was on the same flight on his way to Europe for a wedding!

Once on the plane, things got back to “normal”, although I missed the traditional bubbly before pushback. As usual, the gluten free meal could have doubled as the “bland” meal, but it was served with the usual Singapore Airlines service, and we settled in.

Changi Airport was not as busy as it usually is, and the highlight was visiting the newly renovated Singapore Airlines SilverKris lounge. There are more different spaces, but probably the same amount of space overall. Luckily we were there around lunchtime which was pretty quiet — apparently the late afternoons it gets busy.

Another surprise at SIN was seeing three armed forces soldiers strolling through the airport, automatic weapons in hand and at the ready. I don’t know if this is new, but I’d never noticed an active presence before, only guards at key points.

Our second leg to Hanoi was pretty deserted — we even had the second Biz cabin entirely to ourselves! The cabin crew were delightful as always, and even packed us a bag of treats to take with us.

We touched down in Hanoi tired after a day of travel, but excited to see the city again. I’ll explore Hanoi in my next post.