The Tour Begins

Today was the first day of our 16 day tour of Vietnam. Colin's mom and step-dad arrived yesterday and of course not without excitment. We had arranged to have a driver from the tour company to pick them up at the airport but on their expected arrival time there was no one there. The driver called the hotel to see if we knew where they were... of course we had no idea. He had waited at the Saigon Airport for 2 1/2 hours and nothing. At this point, Colin thought that they probably missed their flight in Vancouver as they may have misjudged the time/day (flight was leaving at 2:55 am on a Thursday). So here we are, in Saigon expecting Colin's parents and they are no where to be found. The even harder part is that his parents are tech-phobics and likely did not have a cell phone with them and they probably could not figure out how to send/receive a text message. We thought to send them an email but knowing that they are far from being tech savvy, they probably have no idea how to check their Telus webmail. So we decided to text Billy (my brother) because he would have taken them to the airport and would know if they had missed their flight.



When we heard from Billy he said that as far as he knows he dropped them off 3 hours before their flight and assumed they we are their way. Ok so next thing... call Cathay Pacific. Of course, being in Vietnam things don't happen as quickly here. I go through the gammit of phone prompts from one selection to another and finally I get to flight inquiries and the pre-recorded message says that I need to fax the request and wait up to 24 hrs for a reply! Talk about A1 customer service... brutal.



So the next thing is to actually go down to the Cathay Pacific office. Thank goodness it's just across the street from our hotel. When we get there I asked the agent to look up Colin's parent's flight. She refused as it is a breech of passanger privacy. So I pleaded with her in Vietnamese and let her know that his parents were very, very old, they cannot speak Vietnamese and this was their first time visiting. I told her that I was worried they they would not be able to find their way to the hotel because the driver they were expecting to pick them up had already left for they day. Now how am I going to get two old, white, non-Vietnamese speaking people to the hotel without knowing when they would be arriving... if at all??? She hesistated for a little bit and I continued to beg. Finally she broke and gave me all the information I needed. As it turns out, they were in Hong Kong and their connecting flight was expected to arrive at 4:15 pm. I quickly called the tour guide to let him know what had happened. They had been bumped from their earlier flight and were delayed in Hong Kong for 7 hours.

Of course by now the tour guide did not have access to the van that would have picked them up. So I begged him (I'm doing a lot of begging as you can see) take his motorcycle and meet them at the airport. He could just put them into a cab and send them to the hotel.

So all in all, they arrived jet-lagged and tired but safe.