{"id":1348,"date":"2023-10-31T06:42:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T06:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/?p=1348"},"modified":"2024-12-09T23:54:16","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T23:54:16","slug":"a-heart-pounding-halloween-across-three-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/31\/a-heart-pounding-halloween-across-three-countries\/","title":{"rendered":"A Heart-Pounding Halloween Across Three Countries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Activity level: \ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modes of transportation: \ud83d\ude97\ud83d\udc5f\ud83d\udeeb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We woke up and packed up again to head out. We still hadn\u2019t paid for our tour from the day before or our hotel, so we rounded up our cash and headed downstairs. We have no idea how, but we ended up with about 400000 more dong (about 16 bucks) than we expected, even after asking the hotel about it. Not the worst problem to have (but we think they charged us half price for one of the nights. So nice!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got to the airport well before our flight, since we knew we had to mail a few postcards. Luckily, we had no issues and were able to get them out and make it to our gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For once, an easy mail experience!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We decided to head to the lounge to get breakfast since we had some time to kill. It was may be the nicest lounge we\u2019ve ever been to (and it was a regular priority pass lounge). They had amazing Vietnamese food, and all kinds of local snacks and drinks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Loungin\u2019 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eric wanted to get just one more bahn mi, so he ventured out into the terminal and bought one last one (it was delicious). On the way, he also bought a chicken tender from Popeyes just to see how it was (pretty good! The seasonings were definitely different too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That didn\u2019t stop him from discovering his favorite dish of stewed pork with olives (thit lon sot o liu), which he ate too much of. Eventually we both ate too much and got kicked out (just kidding). But we made their way over to the gate and found nobody there. Luckily, they were still boarding (and we didn\u2019t even end up leaving for about 45 minutes anyway) and we made it on. We even had the exit row, so we had plenty of leg room this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We were feeling good because we finally made it to Bangkok, and we landed with about 5.5 hours until our flight. We thought it would be easy to transfer to our gate because we were already in the international terminal behind security. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We thought wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The airline didn\u2019t actually issue us a boarding pass since we had to get our passports and visas checked again. That\u2019s what the transfer desk is for, we thought. So first, we looked up our outgoing airway (Thai Airways) and found that our transfer was on the other side of the airport. No problem. So we walked about a kilometer over to the transfer security. We asked information, and they said we had to go back out through immigration (meaning actually enter Thailand) and go to the normal check-in desk (which seemed odd).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we walked back to immigration (about 500 meters), and discussed our options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sarah\u2019s shoulder started to hurt after the flight, so Eric carried her bags.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At this point, Sarah, who was carrying 25% of her body weight, pulled something in her neck. So we didn\u2019t want to have to carry our bags back through security and all across the airport. So Sarah went back and asked the transfer security people, who said we had enough documentation to get through (Sarah was feeling pretty good at this point that we asked again). We went back to security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because they can\u2019t verify the security of the nation we arrived from, we had to go back through another security checkpoint to get to the transfer desk. Once we got there, they informed us that the first information desk was indeed correct: we had to go all the way back out. So we came up with a bright plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah talked the lounge people into letting us in without a boarding pass, since we had to go to kiosk to get it. So we left our bags in a corner at the lounge then grabbed our passports, some money, and our postcards, and made our way back through immigration to enter Thailand and check in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eric wanted to finish writing postcards before we left to go back through security.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And that started possibly the most stressful two hours of the trip. Would not recommend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we got to immigration, we found that a bunch of huge flights had just gotten in, and the lines were waaaay longer than they were before when we had originally landed. So we had to wait for about half an hour, all the while worrying if the lounge people were going to question the left bags. Even when we got to the front, we fumbled in pulling up our flight info since we had thrown away our boarding passes from the incoming flight. Oops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
If only we went through immigration when no one was here 2 hours ago. This line took about 40 minutes. Which was about 35 minutes longer than we would have liked to leave all of belongings alone for.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We headed over to the check-in counter and there was a line. So we waited. When we finally started to get checked in, our check-in person told us we needed printed visas (isn\u2019t the whole point of the eVisa that it\u2019s electronic?) and our lives flashed before our eyes for a quick second. Also Eric\u2019s eVisa had his portrait rotated 90degrees for some reason, so the attendant had to make a bunch of calls. He checked us in eventually, but told us we needed to go get our visas printed through Tourism Police, down a few levels and on the other side of the airport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cOh wow, I forgot we were in Thailand\u201d then back to stressing that all of our belongings were unwatched on the other side of security.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But first, we had to drop off the postcards! We got bad directions to the post office, so we ended up walking back and forth across the airport a couple of times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Priorities!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then we had to go get our stuff printed, which was (again) on the opposite side. Luckily that was relatively easy and we had everything we needed to make it to security (again). But they told us we had to go through the \u201cfast lane\u201d since we were business class (even further on the wrong side of the airport).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Printing our \u201ce-visa\u201d so we could go through security, get our abandoned bags (if no one had picked them up), and catch our flight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We made it through and then had to go get our bags (ok I\u2019ll stop saying the other side of the airport, but just know that every time we had to get something, we had to cross the entire place). Luckily, they were still there. We had to walk to get to our gate, and we went to a lounge much closer to that side of the airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Biggest relief of our trip was finding our bags still in the lounge (and no bomb squad).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At that point, we needed a drink. So we sat in the lounge and enjoyed a few cocktails (and a coconut).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tired but so so relieved!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Entrance to the lounge reminded us it was, in fact, October 31st.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We got onto our flight with a quick stop to get rid of some Thai currency, and finally got seated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eric ordered the thai style chicken, and Sarah got the panak paneer, which were both excellent. We got a bunch of wine and decided to watch Inception (still holds up). For our second movie, we watched Kong: Skull Island, which was filmed in Ninh Binh province where we just were (and we recognized many of the sights!) so that was fun. Terrible movie though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eric pretending he\u2019s in Inception.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was a fairly sleepy flight since it was late, but we had a great time watching movies and relaxing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got in, got through immigration no problem, and a driver was there holding out names. He introduced himself as Ritan and drove us the hotel. It was pretty foggy, and we asked Ritan if that was always true (he laughed). It\u2019s just smog (and yes, it\u2019s always true).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We knew we were in for a treat when he stopped on the 4 lane highway and backed up about 400 feet to catch our exit (that\u2019s just how they do it in Delhi).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Made it to India! (It doesn\u2019t look like it in this photo, but we didn\u2019t take any images from the airport) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But more of that tomorrow. Happy Halloween!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For a day spent entirely in the airport and car, we somehow hit over 13k steps!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A journey of 2000 miles begins with 10000 steps<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,6,22],"tags":[8,27,23],"class_list":["post-1348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-thailand","category-vietnam","tag-bangkok","tag-delhi","tag-hanoi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1348"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3749,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions\/3749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}