Really, flying is very much the way to go from Hue to Hanoi. I'm glad I did that trip by air.
When I arrived at Hanoi however I wanted to find the Thai Airways desk.
I have a return ticket booked and I'm seeking to alter the dates.
First I go to the ground floor. The lady tells me that they are located on the 3rd level. I go up te lift and walk around perhaps 30-40 offices for all different airlines. I finally find tr Thai Airways one - and its closed .. as in ... all the furniture is removed and a sign on the door says press the buzzer.
I press the buzzer. I get a small gay sounding tune and that's all.
I try again. Same thing.
Ok, so I go back down to the ground floor where the lady tells me that they must have moved to terminal 2. And that I would need to catch the shuttle outside. I go outside and ... hello ! ... no shuttles.
I find a bus which say it can drop me at the other terminal. Nearly 15 ins later I'm at the International terminal. I go to the Information desk (which is not signed as such). A lady there tells me to go to the check in desk. I talk into the manager at the checkin desk, they tell me they only know of mVietAirlines things and I must go to the other booking desk. I do this and they direct me to the man at the front door. Who in turn directs me to the information desk. By this stage I'm quite pissed off.
I have carried my back pack all the way thus far. I decide to go up into the office space and take a look around ... only to find that they are not built yet, they are all empty shells.
Frustrated I walk over to a familar sign "Burger King"... yes that's what I need ... comfort food from home. Hello ! ... its not open yet. aggggh
By this stage I'm ready to rip somebody's throat out and use it as a belt.
I walk near the door and buy a milkshake. The guy who serves the milkshake could see I was not happy at all, and asked why. Through conversation he told me that Thai don't have an office at the airport any longer, as they only have about two flights a week.
OMG ! - it took the soft drink guy to tell me that !
I decided to catch a bus back into town ... guess what ... you can only do that from the other terminal. So I found the shuttle bus this time and made the journey back to the first terminal.
I found a taxi shuttle waiting and he invited me in. Then he spent 15 mins trying to fill his bus. I got frustrated and exited the bus and found another that was already quite full.
Again they loaded more and more people into the shuttle van - when it had nearly 600 people (I joke) in it - it finally left ... struggling under the weight.
(just for the record, a normal Taxi trip would be 460,000 vnd for the 30 plus KMs. The van I took was only 40000 vnd)
This whole process had meant that after I had landed I had spent nearly 3 more hours at Hanoi airport.
