Why fly 13 times when you could fly 14 times?

The airport day.

In my last post, I suggested the ludicrous possibility that that post would be my last. Silly me. I am far too self indulgent for that. And I like web-logging too much.

Today we went to Dalai airport 70 minutes before our 11 am flight, only to show up nearly an hour after it left. I had printed an out-dated flight listing for our itinerary, which did not reflect the updated flight time. Oops. We booked in November, they changed the flight in December and emailed, and I incorrectly thought I had a correct time. Those of you who have been to Dalat can vouch that it is not exactly a hub of activity. There are two airlines there, and a total of maybe 6 or 7 flights a day. To their credit, Vietnam airlines were pretty helpful in getting us sorted out. The best option turned out to be to fly from Dalat to Hanoi and then from Hanoi to Danang. So that is what we are doing; we are on the second flight now, and will land just after 9pm. A long day considering th original direct flight was about an hour long. The very clever title of the post refers to our extra flight today, which will bring our total to 14 for this trip, provided nothing else goes wrong…

…which would have probably happened if we did not get things messed up this morning. While looking at our flight records, the station manager noticed that our next flights (Danang to Hong Kong, transfer in Hanoi) were problematic. “Did you get the email about this yesterday?” No, I did not. Basically, they postponed the first flight schedule so that it was due to arrive with a 0h00m stopover. That’s not ok. We figured it out and as long as everything goes ad it is supposed to, we will be fine. But without this morning’s fun, I expect we would have shown up at the airport on Saturday and been told that we were screwed. At least we had time to figure it out today.

Once we had that figured out, the rest of the day was pretty relaxing. We decided to just wait at the Dalat airport for a few hours instead of trying to do something more interesting. We had a few brown pops, a little bit o lunch, then took our flight. 

Big day at the Dalat airport

We did about the same at the Hanoi airport. Soon we will land in Danang and then we will continue our vacation. Oh! I almost forgot. Two days ago, we got an email from the website where we booked our next hotel that our Hoi An hotel was closed for emergency reservations. They were also nice about it and provided a replacement, but we still had to choose, and the hotel where we will go is not as exciting to go to as our original plans. We decided to ball a little at our last stop and booked a 1000 sq ft villa with its own pool along the river. Apparently needs to be renovated now L

Everything will work out, but all of the travel misery (so far, knock on wood) is totally centred on Hoi An. If the universe was trying to tell us to not go there, we worked extremely hard at not listening to it! Going to Hoi An is especially important to us because it is where we will do the tailoring shopping. They ar apparently known for their cheap and excellent tailoring services. As the last stop, we intend to take full advantage of said services. Landing 12 hours later cuts into precious measuring, choosing, sewing, fitting, and fixing time! First world problems.

On that note, I almost ran out of clean clothes today haha. It has been super hot, so I have been crushing shirts. Yesterday I wore my new tourist communist Vietnam shirt: to canyoning, hiking, in and out and in and out of the river, back to town, out and about, to the flower park, put for dinner… because that was my last clean shirt. After dinner, we found a nice t shirt store in Dalat and I bought a couple more. When it is $1.50 to get hotel laundry and $4 for a new shirt, choices get weird. That means my new last shirt is tomorrow. Hmm.

This airport day gives me the chance to write about some more random stuff that has happened on this trip, you know, those little anecdotes. If you have made it this far and beyond, you probably don’t need to talk to me after I get home.

THE THAILAND SHOWER EQUATION

Temperature = ( H * (F1) + C * (F2) ) / (F1 + F2)

Where

H = temperature of hot water

C * temperature of cold water

F1 = flow rate of hot water (L/min)

F2 = flow rate of cold water

In north america, we have two usual situations:

1.       There is one knob thing which controls the temperature, and there is basically a fixed flow. (F1 + F2) is constant; the knob changes the ratio of F1:F2

2.       There are two knobs, one to control F1 and one to control F2.

In most of our Thailand and Laos hotels, there was a little box on the wall with one knob. Then a single knob for the snower. The box knob controlled the temperature of the box water, so you set this to max (H = max). Then the other knob controlled the overall flow rate (F1 + F2).

tldr?

The problem is that F1 is small, really small. In order for F2 to not dominate and make the shower cold, F2 has to be small too. You see where I am going with this? Ofw course you do! If you want hot or even warm water, the shower is a little trickle. If you want flow and pressure, you are using cold tap water. What do you choose? I picked the warm trickle. And then thought about math.

The end.

THE COCONUT SCAM

We decided not to talk about this one, but it turned out okay, so I think I can. In Saigon, guys walk around carrying sticks on their shoulders, horizontally. On each end of the stick is a rope attached to a bucket. On one side are coconuts. On the other side are the tools and whatever to make the weight balance out. These guys sell you coconut drinks, but we haven’t bought them yet. Anyways, a few of them talked to us without trying to sell us things so we thought maybe these guys are okay. Then one of them was joking with me and got me to hold the stick and carry it for him and laugh laugh photo okay bye. And then he walked off, and it was nice. And then he circled back and was like oh you gotta try this while you are here, and cut one up for Lisa and put it in her hand, and then oh one for me too. None of this is English of course, all just gesture tourist whatever. And then it was $15. And we are already holding them and surprised and should have seen this coming.you see what I mean from the last post – peope don’t seem to want to rob you. They just want to scam you out of 20 bucks. Anyways fine, we got got, here are the coconuts, great.

But

Then Lisa went from drunk-tired and dehydrated and all slow like – this is the day after she was in Bangkok and confined to our hotel room – to alive and happy and silly, in like 10 minutes. The magic coconuts (I didn’t like it so she drank mine too) saved her! The best $15 we spent all day.

THE MARKETING STUDENTS

I remember thinking that I forgot to write about this, so when have internet I will check. If not, I certainly meant to. In Chiang mai, Lisa was getting ready to go out for dinner, so I went downstairs to get us waters and beers. And see about renting a motorcycle. Then a Thai guy started talking to me which was nice. And then I was being audio interviewed by his friend for her Marketing class. Why do I go to Thailand? What do I like? (umm, about what?) where do I live? What food do I like? How long in chiaing mak? It was all very cute and nice. Then I busted out my sweet Thai sentences from my audio learning and they knew what I was saying, which was pretty fun. Not that I can say anything useful. Mostly Lisa and I say dee maaaa! To each other. Oh, then another student  did the interview with me too. It was due tomorrow, you know how it is. (so… go find a tourist and interview them in English? An assignment that would be pretty tough to assign in Toronto, I think).

The end.