Sunday, November 4, 2007

New Saigon Airport Terminal

Ho Chi Minh City - Upon landing I noticed a spanking clean new airport terminal with aerobridges. Quite different from when I arrived in March this year. This is a new airport terminal only thus at the same old location. The Vietnamese Government is building a super airport at Long Thanh to be completed by 2015.



The arrival was quite a nightmare with long queues moving very slowly towards to immigration officials. I queue at the wheelchair lane because the immigration officials were stamping entry on the foreigners queuing at this lane. There were 2 lanes, I was in the inner lane. When the wheelchair passengers starting rolling in, the immigration officials gestured with his hands movements for passengers queuing in the outer lane to move to the inner lane. The lady that was up front and next to be stamped by the immigrated official was pissed and started making a scene. She was edging herself upfront in the inner lane trying to cut the queue, obviously standing in no man's land. The immigration officials got really upset and moved all that were queuing in the inner lane back to the normal lanes. I had to start the queue from the back.

A lesson learnt in all my travels is that never get upset with immigration officials or show displeasure - they can make it very unpleasant. I encountered an experience many years ago in Beijing - an Indian passenger was running late and was belligerent. The Chinese official just took his time and the Indian passenger keep shouting that he is late, finally a senior official pull the Indian passenger aside. Obviously, this Indian chap did not make it to his plane on time.

Back to Omni Saigon again - this is a good 5-star hotel and convenient located. Went out to have a late lunch at Lemon Grass restaurant. After which, I walked around HCMC, around 6pm, it started to rain very heavily and many roads in District 1 was flooded and the mobile phones lines were down. I tried to call and it gives message "Error in Connection" only after 2 hrs was I able to get a connection through.

It was only later that I found out Vietnam has a serious flooding problem especially after heavy rains. The water reach knee high and there is a bad smell due to the mixture of sewage and rain water.

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