BOOM. I was a little later than the Cathay Pacific kids but United Airlines did right by me and I've arrived in Vietnam. Overall the trip from Boston to San Fran to Hong Kong to Saigon was uneventful - until the first second we touched down on southeast asian soil. The elderly vietnamese woman sitting next to me (with an empty seat between us) seemed very nice from the get go, smiling being our only universal language. She woke me up when our meal arrived mid flight and even separated my chopsticks and rested them next to my cup-o-soup. Again I fell asleep after the meal until the pilot came over the loudspeaker and announced our descent. The women seemed fidgety and I thought nothing of it at first but what happened next will explain and yet only experiencing it would have done it justice. The landing gear is prepared and we touchdown relatively smoothly and BOOM the lady jumps from her seat as were still zooming along the runway. The flight attendants shouted at her to sit back down and as they do I catch a whiff of the most vile smell imaginable - yep, human feces. The lady with her drawers full of cup-o-soup is literally climbing seat rest to seat rest towards the bathroom as the G forces of the plane resist her journey. Finally a flight attendant gets up from her seat and drags the lady back to hers - two feet from me. I am pretty sure I held my breath all the way off the plane, across the terminal, and through customs. If I was in any way doubting how wild and weird a few months in southeast asia would be, this was certainly a shit-smeared slap in the face wake up call. WE HERE!!!!! fallin asleep in front of a tupac movie now but more to come soon enough.
M.M.
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