Getting to Hanoi

Alas, this is a rewrite of a lost post and as I'm playing catch up it's liable to be brief.

Boxing the bike proved to be "fun" particularly when I found one of the stem bolts was corroded in and stripped the head of it trying to remove it (go Bill). That'll have to be drilled out... Still all was done in the end and after many last minute panics and shenanigan's I was safely delivered to the airport in time for my flight.

The flight to Doha was, on the whole fine. We set off a little early and got to Doha ahead of schedule, only to be put in a holding pattern for over an hour: I warrant I'm something of an expert on Doha from the air by night now. I had an hour and a half for my connection however my neighbour and many others had less than an hour. Not sure what happened to them, I'm hoping they held their planes as mine seemed to be delayed 20 minutes to get us (and others) on board.

I snoozed pretty much all the way waking only to be fed and to admire waiting on the runway at Bangkok. At Hanoi it should've been a simple disembark, stamp in, collect bags and into waiting taxi of the driver holding my name on a card. Ah. That hurried connection? I waited around 50 minutes for my bags and was beginning to wonder if they'd managed to sprint as fast through Doha as I had. At this point I asked a person on the desk who told me one last load was to come and to wait ten minutes. On mentioning the connection she asked my name and on being told it was Mr Watson, William Watson said they'd had word my bags might not have made it... Nooo, they were too young to die! Oh. You mean delayed to the next flight?

And with perfect comic timing a bike in a box loomed behind her and two panniers came onto the conveyer belt. Nice to see the bike ran for it as well!