We made it to Vietnam...

Now it's May 2nd...Mom, Dad and I wake up at 5:30 am, and are on our way out the door. The day has come, and with no voicemails looming over my head I figure "ok... this is really happening."
At this point I start getting the nervous butterflies...

The three of us take the sunbway to the bus station where Dad would have to say his 'goodbye'. Now the hard part was happening... the 'byes' to the parentals.
Ugh how I hate this part.
There we were in the middle of the Toronto bus station with tears pouring down our faces. I tried my best to pull myself together... but I was hard to get on the bus and wave goodbye. At least Mom would accompany me to the Airport.
We made it there with time to spare, and while waiting for Steve and his Dad to arrive Mom and I had a quick breakie.  Yum Yum.. my last taste of Canadian food for a while.

Once Steve arrived, all that was left to do was get our tickets and make it through customs. Our first flight was only a little over two hours. We would land in Chicago before heading to HongKong.
Saying goodbye to Mom was pretty awful too...and as I waved goodbye from the customs line I was trying to keep it together.
(I knew this wouldn't last).
I made it through security without a problem (surprisingly!) and just like that our trip had officially started. Steve and I were on the plane.

Unfortunately for the people beside me, Steve and I weren't sitting together. As soon as the plane started to move I began to BALL.
I cried for a straight two hours. How great.
Steve kept looking at my from his seat and encouragingly giving my a 'thumbs up'...whimpering I gave him a 'thumbs halfway', and continued to cry.
The man beside me, who was some 80 years old, chose to ignore me and pretend nothing was wrong. I don't blame him.
The women on my other side was scared for my life I think.I don't know what was running through her head, but I am sure it was some crazy story of how I was forced onto the plane.
During the last half-hour of the flight we talked and she assured me that I would have the time of my life on this trip. It definitely helped to calm me down.
We landed without a problem and waiting for our next flight.
15 hours to HongKong... I was NOT looking forward to this one.

Seeing as my flight was cancelled the day before, for this flight they had forgotten to mark me down as a vegetarian, and as such there was no food for my on this flight. I wasn't to phased by this, seeing as I find airplane food quite gross (for lack of a better word).
You don't really know how long 15 hours is though, until you have to sit still for that long. For anyone who knows how much energy I have- you'd also know that its not an easy task for me.

Steve and I slept for maybe an hour... but that's all. When we finally arrived to HongKong we were both exhausted  and faced with a five hour layover, we decided to nap (hugging out belongings of course) for an hour or two.

The HongKong airport is NUTS. This place is like a country of its own with some 500 gates.
It took as an hour just to find out where we left from. But we figured it out.

After an anxious wait, we were finally boarding the flight for the last leg of the trip. A two hour flight from HongKong to Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam.

I was seated beside Mrs. Wrinkles. She was amount ten zillion years old, and spoke not a word of English.
When Steve and I tried to get to our seats, she wouldn't even let is through so we literally had to climb over her.
Mrs. Wrinkles proceeded by piling all her bags on me, gesturing that she needed leg room to stretch her knees.
"Fine I thought...she's old... be respectful".

I was so tired, so I laid down on Steve's lap and tried to take a nap. My money bag (hidden underneath my clothes) was just barely peaking out from under my jacket.
I couldn't believe what came next.
Mrs. Wrinkles had found the little part that peaked out, and while Steve and I had our eyes shut, she tried to pull the bag off me. At first I thought it was Steve trying to do something, so I swatted (what I thought his hand to be) off me...But then I realized I was sleeping on his hand...I popped upright into my chair and looked at the old lady. I gestured to her "what?!"... she pointed to my money bag, smiled, and put her hand out...
Was this was all of Vietnam was going to be like? I certainly hoped not.
At this point I couldn't sleep anymore, and rather I was wide awake clutching my belongings.
When we finally landed I was excited to get rid of Mrs. Wrinkles.

Steve and I had booked our Vietnam VISA online, and all the books and webpages we had read assured us that getting our VISA upon arrival at the Airport was no problem. Well isn't that nice for all those lucky people.

It's now one o'clock in the morning, and Steve and I had been traveling for nearly 30 hours. We were exhausted to say the least.
I hand the VISA man the paper we needed to print off and bring, confirming our acceptance for a Vietnamese VISA.  
He runs it through his computer and tells us in broken English: "sorry, you are not in the system....you will have to fly back to Canada now."

I nearly burst into tears, and I am sure that my face expressed my utter shock and disappointment.
"there is NOTHING we can do!? I am sure that I booked a VISA".

Here I thought these guys were being nice, and seeing how tired and upset I was, let me use his computer to check my email for the letter again.
Of course they let me use a Vietnamese computer, and as such I had no idea what anything said, or what I was typing. They watched me, and saw how confused I was...
They then clicked around a little bit and said "see...it's not there..."

Now we were desperate. And just as we thought there was no hope of getting into Vietnam, (I was ready to go back to Canada and never leave)...they turned to us and said:

"for 160$ each, we can let you into Vietnam with a 15 day VISA".
Of course this whole situation was a huge scam, but what were we to do?

We didn't have 320 dollars on us, so they pointed us to an ATM just around the corner.
320 US dollars is equivalent to over 7 million Vietnamese dollars...
We weren't yet used to the conversion rate, and this number seemed so outrageous to us...what other choice did we have though?

We made it through customs (they don't ask you ANY questions), and were completely disillusioned by Vietnam. Our fist impression wasn't good (to say the least).
I was in the most foulest of moods, and so was Steve.
We made it to our hotel (after getting ripped off by the taxi driver too...16 dollars to drive 2.5 kms), and I was SO MAD! (I'll add here that is is one zillion degrees outside)
Once we got up to our room the only nice part about it was that there was AC...other then then, they gave us used sheets, used soap, and used shampoo. How lovely.

I quickly checked my email and low and behold our acceptance VISA letter was right there.
It was a bad start to the trip, that much I can say...We hoped that the next day would be better...