Vietnam Airport

I'm sitting on the floor in the Saigon Airport baggage collection area right now. I just cleared what I think is immigration, and customs occurs after you've collected your baggage, which makes sense. It's dead quiet. I suspect I'm the only person who is not vietnamese, or at least not airport staff, present. It's 2:21 AM. I'm not totally clear on the whole international date line thing, so it's either the 26th or the 27th of April. Note to self: resolve this before departing the country.

Oh, some blonde woman just passed by, she's probably not Vietnamese. But other than her and I, we're the only two non-locals here. And she's the only visible one.

Also distressing is the realization that I look Vietnamese. This concerns me because I've been in the country for all of 30 minutes and already two people have started speaking to me in a language I can't understand, expecting some kind of reaction.

Oh, blonde woman is looking for her mother, who just arrived on my flight. Unfortunately she's late, and her mother is nowhere to be found. Hopefully she finds her.

People from another flight, hopefully THB's, are coming down.

Why am I here? Why did I not decide to meet THB on the other side of customs? Because we had another Halifax snafu that only became apparent now: she tagged THB's bag with my name on it, so her bag came with me. The opposite has hopefully occurred and I'm hoping that THB has managed to bring MY bag with her on her flight from Shanghai.

Of course, this realization wasn't immediate. I did spend some time confused in the baggage area, and I pestered the kindly people at the Lost and Found before looking at this green backpack that is clearly not mine had my name on it, along with Emily's possessions inside it.

The waiting begins. Hopefully she's not agitating the local immigration officials.


[Update: Happy to report that a little while later I did find THB, we did get a cab to the hotel, we met up with Caroline. She was a bit too tired to go out, so THB and I hit the streets for a nighttime, 3:30 AM walk around the city before settling on a restaurant right around the corner from our hotel.]