Andrew Pell: From northern Vietnam to Balfour, Scotland!

Vietnam has been one of the highlights of my trip so far. The people are so friendly, the food is extremely tasty and the scenery is beautiful. 4 weeks here is not enough and its a place that I will hopefully come back to again in the future. Anyhow it was time to make the long journey from Sapa to Scotland. First it was a 1 hour mini bus ride from Sapa to Lao Cai in order to catch the night train to Hanoi. This time I paid a little extra for my train ticket and was put in the westerners carriage with 2 Japanese girls and one Canadian guy. A very quiet trip compared to the previous trip up to Sapa in the Vietnamese carriage/casino! After arriving in Hanoi at 5am I took a 30min taxi to Hanoi airport where I had a 3 hour wait for my flight to Bangkok. A quick nap and i was on the plane to Bangkok where I had a 12 hour lay over!! What to do in Bangkok airport.... Well I checked my backpack into a luggage holder and did a grand tour of the whole airport. Not the most exciting place but I managed to lose a few hours wandering. Next it was time to suss out the food! Mara and I had found a really nice restaurant last time we were here that wasn't too pricey so I stuck with this place and had both lunch and dinner here! Pad thai again and cashew nut chicken. Next I decided to get an hour foot massage which was heaven as my feet were a little sore from the trekking in Sapa. I then found a quiet corner in the airport and had a few hours of reading, sleeping & ipod action.

Finally @ 11pm I checked in to my British Airways flight and was on the plane for London. I sat next to 2 Aussie girls, thankgod i had an aisle seat where my legs could hang out! We were served a pretty decent pork & veg dinner with a weird custard fruit desert. I managed to watch 30mins of a movie before falling asleep. I awoke at 6am and was served a cheese omelette for breakfast. Before long we had finally touched down in London and I had 1 hour to make it to my flight to Edinburgh. Goodness me! Heathrow was an absolute shambles! People everywhere all with a super grumpy look on their faces. The security was super tight, this included taking off shoes to walk through the security check point. I only just made it onto my Edinburgh flight, i think i may have been the last one to walk onto the plane. Although just eating breakfast on the Bangkok to London I was served another breakfast on the way to Edinburgh. Not bad hey! After arriving in Edinburgh I soon realised that my bag hadn't arrived as the carousel stopped turning after everyone else had collected their bags! Ah shit. After a few stressful moments I was told that my bag would arrive on the next flight, 20mins later and thankgod it did! With all my bags in hand I jumped onto a city bound bus and had an hour walking around Edinburgh. I can't wait to come back to this place! Absolutely stunning!

I booked a bus ticket to Forfar where Bill & Morag (Aunty Joys friends) were to meet me. I was instructed to change buses in a place called Perth to another bus which would take me further north. I jumped on a bus that appeared to be waiting for more passangers, showed the driver my ticket to make sure I was in the correct place and I thought I was finally on my last leg to a comfortable bed in Balfour! I was wrong!! I somehow ended up on a bus to Glasgow, a good 2-3 hours away from where I was supposed to be! After a quick consultation with the driver and then a guy in the ticket office, they apologised and put me on a bus for Aberdeen with a special stop in Forfar! Another 3 hours and finally after a good 2 and a bit days in transit I had reached some home cooked meals and a cosy bed! Bliss! Thankyou to Bill & Morag for taking such good care of me!