I got to Sydney this morning. My journey here was, of course, an adventure! I flew from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and had a four hour layover before continuing on to Australia. I was a little concerned at first - all those hours by myself at an airport in Vietnam! I checked e-mail for a bit and then wandered over to the waiting lounge and sat down near these two guys around my age who were chatting away in English - both with Aussie accents. I happily put on my headphones and began writing in my journal, but was still able to catch parts of their (loud) conversation, particularly the part about Canadians and Americans being "obnoxious, loud" and a bunch of other interesting adjectives. I kept quiet for a good while, but finally I couldn't resist asking one of them, "Do you know what time it is?" Upon hearing my accent, they both turned bright red: "Oh...oh no...are you...I mean, are you American?"

    "Yep," I said, laughing. Their embarassment was amusement enough for me. Their names turned out to be Ben and Pete, and they had just met each other an hour before in the airport. Apparently, they had both just come from Tokyo and had six hour layovers in Vietnam. The three of us forged an instant friendship based on being stuck in Ho Chi Minh for hours on end and spent the next five hours (flight was delayed!) talking about Japan, traveling, Australia, the States, and a bunch of other stuff as we consumed large amounts of cheap Vietnamese beer. By the time we were finally ready to board the plane, we had decided that we absolutely had to sit together on the flight.

    This posed a bit of a problem, as the flight was full, and FAMILIES were fighting to sit next to each other and swap seats. I'm not sure how we pulled this off really, but we randomly chose a middle row that NONE OF US were even assigned to, and pleaded with all passengers so that we could retain our spots. I'm sure we were the most irritating lot, but we miraculously ended up togehter for the 8 hour flight.

    Very enjoyable flight, I must say, though it was marred by two people. The first guy was an Australian ex-pat who felt the need to BOND with Ben and Pete over Japanese women and car-racing (the latter of which neither of them are interested in talking about). This irritating man inflicted himself on poor Pete for a good hour and a half and the torture only ended when he finally had to excuse himself to the toilet. When the ex-pat returned, he found all three of us in a "deep sleep," unable to converse. What a shame.

    The second irritating fellow was a prissy Australian man sitting across the aisle from me. Pete promptly re-named him Mr. Righteous. Mr. Righteous constantly complained and bothered the poor air hostesses, making them dance circles around him. He had "special" airplane slippers and an inflatable neck rest for the flight. He then started telling the three of us, "It's nice that you're all young and happy now, just wait til you get older, you'll be miserable." Can you believe this?

    Australian Customs requires people entering the country to declare a number of products, one of them being wood. Pete was fretting about declaring his wooden chopsticks from Japan (haha), and Ben turned to him and said, "Listen mate, this is what you do. You walk through 'nothing to declare' in front of Mr. Righteous and tell the customs officer, 'Sir, I'm clear, but I think you better check the man behind me, he needs to declare the stick that's up his bum.'" This joke had me giggling for hours.

    Ah well, we landed in Sydney, the best of friends and it was sad saying goodbye. Pete lives two hours south of Sydney in Canberra and Ben lives two hours north of Sydney in Newcastle. Oh well, new e-mail friends. That's what makes single serving friends so special - you really treasure the time you have together. Who knew that Ho Chi Minh airport and Vietnam Airlines could be such a laugh?

~Hope