Hanoi to Paris

Hanoi to Paris. Obviously looking forward to being in Paris for my birthday and going on a Gary mystery tour because our destination was a secret, off we set from the Moments Hotel just after breakfast to fond farewells and hugs all round from the staff. Not sure what sets us aside from other travellers but we seem to have this effect on people where they become very attached to us. Anyway off we go in our taxi to the airport which is nearly an hour away. As you are aware we have had some experiences during our travels but i really do not wish anyone to get the idea we are becoming incompetent in our old age as this next story unfolds. Arriving at the airport in plenty of time we get our bags plastic wrapped and toddle up to the check in counter and present our travel documents and passports. We are travelling to Paris with a layover in Hong Kong of about 9 hours and the check in guy offers to book our luggage straight through for us which is great. All is going well until his face changes, he asks us to take our baggage off the weighing machine and pronounces we have overstayed our visas. Getting on his walkie talkie and clutching our passports to his chest he tells us to go with this lady to immigration. OMG Vietnam is sooooo anal about visas (you may recall the trouble we had with our visas getting in) and all that flashes through my mind is the programme "Border Control".We have apparantly overstayed by ONE day - well not even that really, maybe just a few hours, and this has come about because our flights from Hanoi to Hong Kong were changed by us without even considering our visas?????!!!!!! We are in deep trouble and start imagining ourselves being deported - nooooo, maybe the NZ embassy will come to our rescue and get us out of the awful Vietnamese prison we will find ourselves in. What will our families say. We discuss how this has happened between ourselves, no we have not been split up YET, so that we get our stories straight when the questioning starts. We continue to trudge along behind this pretty woman through the entire airport and in front of everyone to IMMIGRATION!!!! We are taken inside where all these uniformed people await us and the head honcho asks the young lady what the problem is. Our passports are given over by the pretty lady to the head honcho and a discussion ensues. We are not privvy to what is being said because it is all in Vietnamese so we wait and fear the worst. Our travel experience is coming to an end right here and now in Hanoi and we are going to have to head home on the next flight or, the cynical side says, this is going to cost us a lot in bribe money!!!!!! Neither of which happened. The pretty lady came back from the head honcho and said in perfect English - "all is OK, no need to worry, you can go back now and checkin for your flight". WHAT? With a huge sigh of relief we follow the pretty lady back to checkin and get our luggage checked right through to Paris, board the plane in the nick of time and say goodbye to what is, in our opinion, the good and bad of Vietnam. We enjoyed our time here but, as I said previously, it is definitely a land of contrasts. Arriving in Hong Kong we headed for the transit lounge and the Cathay Pacific counter to try to get an upgrade from economy for the 12 hour flight to Paris. "Oh no Madam the flight is oversubscribed in all classes due to the Traffic Controllers strike in Paris. All flights have been cancelled except your flight and all passengers transferred to your flight. There may be further cancellations later". This of course was the first we knew of the industrial action taken at Charles de Gaul airport which was scheduled to last 3 days and had started on the day we were booked to fly!!!!! So we settled in and waited envisaging a crowded 12 hour flight all packed in like sardines. It was a long wait. Honestly you can only people watch for so long and then your brain goes numb along with your bum from sitting too long on airport seats. Also Gary was complaining of  a sore throat which was getting worse and worse as his voice was getting hoarser and hoarser. Watching the leader board for the red alert to notify us that our flight had gone down the gurgler was really depressing however, when the flight was finally called, we were ecstatic. We had won that game of Russian Roulette, now to see if we were surrounded by screaming children and toilet needy people on the plane. To our surprise the flight was not fully booked with plenty of spare seats around the cabin and, better still, we had a spare seat beside us. We were very happy.  My recommendation though - do not fly Qantas or Cathay Pacific, the service is abyssmal. After 12hours flying and 20mins circling the airport in a holding pattern we finally arrived at Charles de Gaul airport - very, very tired. Cleared passport, immigration and Customs no sweat, looked down at Gary's bag and it looked like it had been dropped from a great height onto its head. It looked all twisted and out of shape at the top as though the frame had been bent. Disappointed this had happened so close to the end of its long haul journey we went back through Customs to report it to Cathay Pacific who were not in the least bit interested!!! Why? - because Gary could still use it!!!!!! (As I say avoid Cathay). Cutting our losses we set off to find a taxi and that turned out to be our next adventure. XX