Friday, October 02, 2009

Travel to Hanoi and more...

Reaching Hanoi was smooth, except a few anxious moments at the Bangalore Airport. The Airline had put me on standby as the flight was overbooked and everybody showed up. Interesting isn't it :-) I was like "This is an important travel and I am not staying back. Especially with so much preparation expectations and excitement, I am not ready to postpone my trip". Then the manager shows up and checks something on the system, comes back to me and says "I have one seat and its a middle row". My response - "Anything is fine, as long as I get into that flight and smiled at him :-)". Finally got an aisle seat and reached the flight on time. The travel was smooth. Transit in Bangkok went without any hassles and there I met my other team member from India. Took flight to Hanoi, immigration went through fine.

The hotel taxi came to pick us - reached the Golden Lotus Hotel in Hanoi. The hotel was in a crowded part of the town. The buildings shared a common wall, without any gaps between them. Hence the hotel was also dark and needed lights throughout the day.
Me and another team member checked in and went to our rooms.
I saw a "Do not disturb" sign outside the room given to me, which was weird. I knocked the door and did not hear a response. Then rang the bell - no response. So assumed that the sign was turned on by mistake. Hence used the card and opened the door - saw an opened suitcase and sounds of shower :-)) Silently closed the door and went down. And there I see my other team member standing at the reception and talking to the front desk. He had the same experience, except he encountered a half naked man in his room :-D Apparently, the front desk assumed that these people had checked out and gave our rooms. Excellent customer service :-)
Realising their mistake, they put us into a single room for an hour so that we can get refreshed and gave us our rooms later. So that was a good way to start my visit to Vietnam :-)

As in any new work, the first week is always exciting. Meeting new people, getting to know the place, who you are working with etc. For me, the first week was filled with so many events I will never forget :-) More to come.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

LOL.. Absolutely hilarious.