HA HA! BUSINESS!

For the trip to Phu Quoc I decided to fly since it was only $80 and it would save me many many hours on buses and ferries. For a laugh I looked at business class prices and they were only $30 more. I'd never flown business class before so I thought "YOLO!" and booked myself a business class ticket.

Compared to getting a taxi from the airport, getting one back was easy as pie. I walked out to the street, determined not to pay more than the 200k VND that fixed price taxis charged, and right away had a guy cross the street and ask me where I was going. I told him "the airport" and asked him how much and he offered me 180k, 20k less than what I was hoping to get the ride for, right off the bat, so I accepted it without bothering to haggle. He entertained me along the drive telling me all sorts of stuff in somewhat broken English (including a "fuck you" to the police as we drove past :P) so I ended up even giving him a tip.

When I got to the airport none of the normal desks for Vietnam airlines were open, only business class & VIP, So I got to go straight up and check in, headed through security and into the business class lounge. I got some free spring rolls and fried tofu and had a bunch of drinks and got to sit in a comfortable chair and use free WiFi in a nice peaceful environment as opposed to the noisy-ass airport where it looked like I would have needed to fight just to get even a hard uncomfortable chair.

When they called boarding I again got to skip the line and walk straight on and sit down. I noticed that in business class on Vietnam airlines none of the normal rules seem to get applied to you. The did the usual announcement about bags going in the overhead locker or under the seat in front. I had no seat in front of me but wanted to get some stuff out before the flight so I sat down with my bag and did so, leaving the bag in front of me, between me and my neighbour, expecting them to come and tell me it needed to be stowed, but they didn't seem to care. I was using my phone camera to take some photos as we took off and they didn't bother me about it (in fact, I saw one of the hostess' using their phone during take-off too.)

We got up in the air, they came around and gave business class drinks and pretty much straight away the captain did the "prepare the cabin for landing" announcement (yeah, the flight was that short :P). Looking around it was funny watching all these people who'd got a beer struggling to chug them down quickly. Not a problem for an Australian like me :P

We got off the plane and were put on a bus, which then basically did a u-turn and stopped in front of the terminal 30-40 metres away. I could have easily walked there in less time than I spent waiting on the bus if I'd realised that's where it was going.

Business class bags were already on the carousel so I grabbed mine and went to leave in my fastest trip through an airport ever, but at the door there was a woman checking that ticket stubs matched up to the bag you had. I ended up having to just about empty my bag to find the ticket stub; it's honestly lucky I even had it, I often leave them on the plane. NFI what would have happened then? It seems like a good idea, but it would have been nice to know about it before hand so I could have kept track of that stub better.