Tokyo Day 0-The Road Less Travelled

I went there with another lady officer from KKLW. As all MAS’ and JAL’s direct flight to Tokyo were fully booked, we got there via Vietnam Airlines (VA) instead. I had no qualms upon using different airlines; in fact I look forward to observe their uniforms and the unique hospitality that they offer.

The only drawback was that we couldn’t get the direct flight, so we had to transit in Hanoi for 5 hours…uhh. Well, at least that was stated in my flight itinerary and boarding pass. The fact was we actually had to go to Ho Chin Minh City first, BEFORE went to Hanoi. Nobody told us that, even the girl at the counter, we just figured it out as we got onboard. I blamed my bad Geography for this, and also lack of information from the check-in counter!

My misfortune with the airline staff went on as we got to Ho Chin Minh, (I forgot the name of the airport). As our vessel number was the same as the one bound for Hanoi, so it was only natural for us to think that it was going to be a short stop, perhaps we didn’t have to go out at all, just like Kota Kinabalu-Labuan-Kuala Lumpur route. However, we HAD to go out of the airplane and as we entered the airport, there was this guy holding a little piece of paper saying “Transit to Hanoi”. I walked up to him and said that I’m going for Hanoi. But he just nodded and nothing. So we walked on till the dead end. Where were we supposed to go?

We walked at the transfer counter, to seek for assistance. There were a couple of passengers there and the staff just ignore our presence. I felt irritated already, until I saw this lady in uniform and approached her. It happened that the guy that we met earlier supposed to give us this ‘Transit’ sticker to be stick onto the chest. And we also had to go through the Immigration, got our luggage and were transferred to the Domestic Airport by a mini bus. It was a nuisance really since we were not being notified earlier about such arrangement.

I slept almost all the way to Hanoi. It was a long day, and by the time we got to Hanoi, I was already exhausted. After performing the jama’ for Maghrib-Isya’ prayer at a quiet space in front of an abandoned lift, I sat at the cold-hard seat and dozed off almost all the time despite trying very hard to work on the paper. I blame it on lethargy =)

But the drama didn’t end there. As it was nearly the time for boarding, we found that we literally trapped at the airport. We had check-in at KL, by then we didn’t know the gate number yet and by the time we got there it was still early and none of the information being displayed on the screen. Therefore, we headed to the waiting area and sat there. It was only half an hour to our boarding time that we found that the waiting area was not provided with the display screen. So how could they notify the passengers should there have changing of gate etc?

Anyway, we went round and around, luckily the international departure hall was quite small. It was almost 10 minutes to the boarding time but we still hadn’t found the gate yet. We asked around, but to no avail. The person at the gate either gave you the wrong information (we got: This is the gate. Same flight for Osaka and Tokyo) or did not response at all (we got: I’m busy at the moment. Go back to your seat). Thank God, the last person that we asked gave the correct info – the flight bound to Tokyo and Seoul shared the same gate, boarding time for Seoul at 11.30 pm, whilst ours was at 11.40 pm…fuh.. Finally, we were on our way to our final destination (of the day!)…….