Getting There is Half the Battle

“I’m at the gate on standby, waiting to see if I get a boarding pass” is not the text you want to read at 3:30am from your travelling partner. We were supposed to have a reasonably evil itinerary of leaving home at 3:30pm to fight traffic for a 6pm flight to Vancouver with a realistic transfer time and then a long flight to Bangkok, followed by a short jog back to Ho Chi Minh City,Vietnam. We paid extra to be able to get from first airport to last airport within 27 hours. Life laughs at such plans. 

The first hitch happened 2 days before our flight when a major storm warning blew up my phone during a work meeting. It was scheduled to begin just as we would need to be leaving for the airport and was touted as the storm of the winter - 30-40cm. I texted K and she started the laborious work of calling the airline to reschedule. The only other flight to Vancouver would be 12 hours earlier.

This would mean no packing day. I would have to pack Tuesday after work and be up for 3am Wednesday. It also meant a 14.5 layover in Vancouver. It didn’t feel good but it felt less bad than sitting at home watching the snow fall after hearing our flight was canceled, so we sucked it up. And then learned that we lost all the seat reservations we had made, and paid for. I sat on the line for over an hour to re-book to avoid the indignity of a middle seat. I also checked in just after 6am on Tuesday.

K did not re-book or advance check-in and learned a thing very early on Wednesday morning. Anyone who doesn’t pay for their seat reservation is a target for being bumped if the flight is oversold. K and an armed Forces armourer were the first two at the gate and somehow ended up being the first 2 on standby. Seems like the early bird gets the punishment from Canada’s airline. It was a pretty tense wait until loading time to see if there were seats for them. Fortunately, there were. K got a middle seat somewhere near the back but she made it on the plane. At least one other person with a paid ticket did not.

The first flight to Vancouver was fine. I was fretting a bit about having pre-ordered US cash for the trip from my trash bank and it not arriving in time (still hasn’t as far as I can tell,) but we were in motion. We had lots of time to mosey back and forth through the airport. We ate a bit, charged some electronics, went to Tim’s, sat and chatted, and then had another 10 hours to kill. 

The volunteer at the information desk told us the international section had really good food and a relaxing river to lounge near, but once in there you can’t leave again to return to the rest of the departure area. She enticed us in there and, to be fair, our tastes may differ greatly. The “river” was a stagnant swampy pond with Saran Wrap looking fish that lead to a dreaded aquarium wall. There was 1 sit down restaurant that had 0 vegetarian options and frightening prices. Then there were fast food spots with no veg options. The only place I could find anything was an Indigenous restaurant that served vegetarian chili, because that’s what you want before spending 16.5 hours in a pressurized tube- chili. The best thing about that area is that I found a place I could temporarily be horizontal.

The leg from Vancouver to Bangkok was painful. I had lost my window seat in the first leg shuffle and was stuck on the aisle to be pummelled by all the beverage carts and bathroom goers as they went by. I also didn’t have my vegetarian meal order and, in a weird fluke, they had not a single vegetarian option available on the flight. Dinner, snack and breakfast were entirely meat. The snack was a tuna fish sandwich and even the meat eaters in my row said, “ugh, no!” Wise choice on their parts. I may have maimed someone opening a tuna sandwich beside me in an enclosed space.

The little man beside me had sat down and slipped into a coma for the entire flight. I was so envious! I kept thinking “another two hours must have gone by” only to find it was half an hour and there were still 14 hours left. It was the longest feeling flight I had ever been on. At one point I thought that we must be most of the way only to find we were half way through. It was honestly excruciating, especially as we flew over Vietnam to land in Bangkok. Let me out! This is my stop!

Bangkok was a short layover that required additional security, because the Thais think everyone else is incompetent. There was just enough time for a coconut water and we were off again to lush green humid Ho Chi Minh City! 40+ hours in transit but we made it!