Leaving for Home - Hanoi to Hong Kong

It was an early start, but not too bad — a 6 a.m. alarm so we had time for a shower and final pack-up before breakfast at 6:30 a.m. We checked out and ordered our Grab car to the airport, which arrived very quickly. A really efficient service.

The traffic was typical Hanoi, but it’s amazing how well it flows with their cautious merging, turning, and constant looking out to avoid hitting one another. Their city intersections don’t even have stop signs — just a slow-down-and-proceed-with-caution approach. There are a few traffic lights at major intersections, but not many. There were slow parts of the drive, but we never stopped in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It works well here, but would never work in New Zealand.

We arrived at the airport before 9 a.m., having already checked in online via the Vietnam Airlines website. We’re heading to Hong Kong first, then on to Auckland with Air New Zealand. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly. 🤞

It certainly pays not to read the news on the day of an international flight — or maybe it’s better to read it to be well prepared? 🤔 Either way, news like the story below is not what you want to hear anytime, let alone when you’re about to board a flight heading to that particular airport.

We boarded and left a few minutes late. The news article said that one runway was closed because of an accident, but two runways remained open. Flying into Hong Kong I had a great view from my window seat of a very long bridge stretching across the sea. It disappeared as it neared Hong Kong and went under the water!

According to my quick Google research, the bridge is called the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge (HZMB), a 55-kilometre bridge–tunnel system. It’s both the longest sea crossing and the longest open-sea fixed link in the world.

Our flight landed with no issues, thankfully, and we then had a five-hour wait until our Air New Zealand flight to Auckland at 7:15 p.m.

When we booked our flights, we thought we’d been allocated bulkhead seats, but when we boarded, we were two rows back from them. ☹️ Sarah had a quick word with the lovely Air New Zealand cabin crew, and they said that after takeoff we could move up. Yes — leg-room upgrade! 👍

The extra space, along with a little chemical assistance, made the ten-hour flight go by quite quickly. Dinner with a Panhead IPA, then sleep. I woke up with less than four hours to go. We also had Wi-Fi during the flight, which helped pass the time catching up with a few people via WhatsApp.