We were up at 4:30 am to get showered and ready for our big trip. We went through the usual summer routine of unplugging servers, turning off timers for the air conditioners and shrink-wrapping the top of the toilet closed to avoid evaporation and stinky pipes. We’ve got a big checklist and it helps when we’ve got foggy early-morning brains in our heads. This travel day was full of foggy brain moments – it was going to be a long journey.
We rolled our suitcase to the station and took a quick “before” selfie on the platform, and then transferred from the train to a bus at Sannomiya – the bus took us to Kansai Airport in record time. I slept through a bit of it but we still had no traffic and it felt like a blur.
Kansai Airport Terminal 1 was pretty busy. Travel is back – in a big way – and as we approached our airline check-in counter Vietnam Airlines had a very full flight. Not only full of people, but most passengers were Vietnamese families each bringing boxes and boxes of… what? Everyone had so many taped up cardboard boxes and it made getting through the check-in line a little more tricky. Along with the boxes were some misbehaving kids, and somehow the parents had to get them all through the long line of tired passengers waiting.
We finally got to the check-in counter, and I was a little worried because the flights of this trip were all purchased through a third party – using my credit from cancelled trips years earlier. I wasn’t sure I trusted the travel company – but we were in the system and everything was fine as the check-in staff input our information from the passports.
Suddenly, the staff asked me out of the blue if I have a visa for Vietnam. What!?! We are transferring through Ho Chi Minh City, not entering the country so I don’t need one, right? But now I’m second-guessing myself – did they change the rules? The staff wouldn’t ask me about it if I didn’t need it, right? Kuniko has a Japanese passport so she is fine but I needed a visa on arrival when we traveled to Vietnam last winter… did I screw up our trip right here at the beginning?
It was “Oh, shit” moment #1.
I told the staff that we were transiting, not entering the country so I didn’t think we needed a visa. And she looked back down at her computer and said, “Oh, right. You’re OK.”
It took a while for my pulse to calm down but it was a hell of a way to wake up in the morning.
After clearing security we bought a couple of small sandwiches, some snacks, and we toasted the start of our trip with a canned highball and a beer near our departure gate. That’s right – a highball at 9 am in the morning because we’re in an airport on vacation!
As we waited by the gate, Kuniko was startled to hear our names get called over the PA system – we are to report to the airline staff immediately.
Oh shit moment #2!
In a really weird moment the staff said that the two seats we were assigned do not recline so they want to change our seats to more comfortable ones elsewhere. I figured they were rearranging family members and it just worked out in our favor, I guess. What a relief!
It was a five and half hour flight to Ho Chi Minh, and we spent it watching movies, eating the not-so-bad inflight yakitori-don, and trying to stay warm under some pretty oppressive air conditioning. I was just sweating on the journey to the airport and now I’m struggling to stay under my tiny airline blanket for warmth. For the first time I saw full size sparkling wine bottles on the economy drink cart, and to my astonishment they opened one up for us to have with our lunch. On the second round I asked again and they opened up yet another bottle. Not bad, not bad!
We had spent time in Ho Chi Minh International Airport last winter and found it a pretty good place – there is a choice of restaurants, a place with a bar, and so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad spending a longer layover. The layover was for eight hours, extended to nine with a flight delay from the airline. I imagined sipping cocktails and eating noodles and relaxing – but there is a limit to how many cocktails you should consume in a nine hour period.
We got started with a couple of drinks and a plate of Char Kway Teow (I know it is Malaysian but it sounded great). The seats at the bar were the exact same ones we used in winter, and it was kind of fun to recreate the moment. We were determined to get our fill of noodles so we walked around and built up our appetite and then sat down for more noodles (braised beef pho). There was a black bean sweet miso sauce on the table that really went well with the noodles – it is my mission to find a source in Japan once I get back.
As we sat at our table in front of the big airport observation windows a huge thunderstorm rolled in, and through the rain we watched the planes come and go. Bamboo Airlines – that was a new one for us to see.
We eventually found our way back to the bar, passion fruit margaritas, fresh and fried spring rolls, and just watching people and killing time. The bar staff were walking around talking with customers, and I noticed that while they talked their coworkers were secretly taking a picture of them talking to foreigners – what was that about?
More walking around, more people watching from various benches. A young woman sat next to Kuniko and promptly fired off a smelly fart. Apparently the rules are different in the airport. Slowly getting tired – but still eating well.
Our last meal in the airport was a delicious bowl of dry noodles that were the best of the day – I’ll go straight to this shop next time we’re there. The staff at the shop were super-friendly, and everyone was smiling. How do they keep that up?
Now we were getting close to boarding time, and it was tempting to lay down on the bench seats and get a little nap – the fear was that we’d sleep through boarding and blow the whole trip for a little bit of sleep. So I stayed vertical, and we eventually got on the plane at 11 pm local time. As soon as we sat down in our seats (window and middle seats) we pretty much just crashed. I don’t remember the take off, I do remember the flight attendant trying to wake me for dinner and I sort of waved her off like she was a bothersome mosquito.
We ended up sleeping for about six hours of the twelve hour flight. Since we were blocked in by aisle seat guy who was totally asleep, I had to wake him to get by and use the toilet in the middle of his night. Sorry dude – I’ve been there and it sucks.
Kuniko got hooked on playing Bejeweled on the in-flight system, I was listening to music, and eventually breakfast was served. Me and the aisle seat guy both chose the omelet, but it was the last one so I let him have it as a sort of apology for waking him up. The noodles I got instead were cold and flavorless – I considered it my penance.
It may seem here like this is a negative experience, but actually I enjoy all this stuff. Travel by plane is not comfortable but there is a sort of comfort in the routine knowing that when you get there you will be in someplace completely new.
We deplaned onto a bus in the cold Paris morning – my clothes were more for Mediterranean summers. Despite being an hour late on departure our plane arrived on time at Charles de Gaulle Paris, which meant that we’d easily make our connecting flight to Malta. We had sort of half-fantasized about missing the Malta flight and spending the night in Paris eating well and then going on to Malta the next day, but it remained an unused back-up plan.
The airport proved to be a little tricky, however. We had to pick up our suitcase and enter the EU there, then find our terminal for the Malta flight. I asked an information staff which terminal and he told me “2G” – but after quite a bit of trouble and a bus ride to the terminal it turned out that he had said “2D”. I guess with the French accent “D” and “G” are pretty hard to distinguish, and my big mistake was not having him write it down. But in the end it was just a hiccup and we made it to the right terminal for check-in with plenty of time.
The Air Malta check-in counter was right next to Air Serbia, and both had long lines of passengers waiting. It was absolutely fascinating to see the differences in the two airlines’ passengers. Air Malta had excited people looking forward to a beach holiday on a Mediterranean island and everyone was chatting excitedly. Air Serbia’s passengers looked like they were being sent into exile. Their faces were uniformly serious and frowning, their body language looked like they were expecting the police to show up at any time.
Once we got through check-in and security we hoped for a little champagne and the God of Wine delivered – a little bistro in the center of our terminal that had champagne by the glass. Two please! We also had a salmon sandwich (meh) and some melted cheese bread (excellent) and we toasted the success of our trip so far. We were surrounded by gourmet shops – macaroons, a cheese(!) shop, meats and wines – French people take their food seriously. As we enjoyed our second round of champagne the guy next to us suddenly left, and we didn’t notice until the staff reacted later that he failed to pay for his food/drink. Wow!
Pleasantly buzzing from our champagne we found our way to the boarding gate and got on the small jet to Malta for a two and half hour flight. After the long haul, a simple two and a half hours was a piece of cake. To live just two and a half hours from Paris – ahh…
Malta had a very small airport and since we were in the Schengen zone there was no immigration so we got our suitcase and walked right out into the hot sun. It was warm here, similar to the heat of Japan but without the humidity. I used our eSIM and the Bolt application to hire a ride to our hotel – it was convenient and cheap.
Less that ten minutes later the driver dropped us off on our street, and it took a little bit before we found the entrance to our hotel. It was a little boutique hotel called Ursulino Valletta. The owner checked us in, and we took an elevator ride up one floor to our room for the next three nights. It was clean and comfortable, with air conditioning (good) and even a welcome bottle of Maltese Chardonnay in the fridge (great).
It was the afternoon here, and so we thought we’d do a little walk around before we finally collapsed into bed. We put on our flip-flops and headed out to explore a tiny bit.
Our hotel was in the center of the historic (world heritage site) city of Valletta. The buildings were unique in architecture, with wooden windowed boxes covering the balconies and slick stone streets that made stepping around in our footwear a little dangerous. Surrounded on three sides by the beautiful blue ocean it made a wonderful contrast with the color of the old buildings, and the long streets tended to slope upward and downward in the distance.
It was hot in the sun, tolerable in the shade, and fairly windy. Since the streets were so narrow you had a chance to escape the sun by staying in the shadow, depending on where the sun was in the sky. Later we’d stay inside until the sun went down a bit to make it cooler to travel. There were quite a few tourists on the street even during the hot afternoon – but I suppose if you stay in the historic city center you should be ready for tourists (like ourselves).
Nearby there was a big food hall – full of different international restaurants. We found a little place in front of the food hall that had more traditional food – and settled down at a table to catch our breath and do a little eating.
We had fried goat cheese balls, served on top of a fig paste, with a sweet cranberry sauce on the side. It was OK, but lacked something – maybe the cheese wasn’t salted? Interesting taste. Kuniko ordered a cosmopolitan, but she wasn’t too impressed. The place was OK for a start, but we’d have to seek out some better dishes in the future.
We stopped in at a gelato place that was doing good business – I had a blood orange and ginger combo with lime and basil, and Kuniko had tiramisu with hazelnuts. It was so hot the gelato started melting right away – you had to eat it fast to protect your hand and clothing.
Pretty drained we finally headed back to the hotel, appreciating the air conditioning and struggling to stay awake. Finally gave up at around 4:30 pm and went to bed. What time was it in Osaka? Who knows? The last thing I remembered before drifting off was the crashing sound of furniture tumbling down the stairwell of our hotel – I hope everyone was OK!
