Queue. Queue. Queue.

I'd been warned that there would be massive queues at the airport, which I sort of took with a pinch of salt, but it was actually a good idea that I’d got there early: even though I’d checked in online, I still had to queue for ages in a seemingly stationary line to drop my baggage off. Naturally, out of the 3 positions dedicated to dropping off luggage, only 1 was open. I was cursing the Air Asia girls who were standing about the self-service check-in kiosks, helping people check-in quickly – to what purpose? What was the point of speeding everyone through the kiosk process when you then had to queue up forever to drop your baggage off? Gits.

Finally, one of them directed my end of the queue to another line, which was showing ‘Check-in for Ho Chi Minh City’, so I questioned her. She assured me that it would be fine, but I imagined never seeing my luggage again and was tempted not to move (plus I thought that the minute I move from the queue I was in, it’d clear and I’d just be stuck in another one, sending my snaffled Mandarin Oriental shower gels and soaps to Vietnam). When I got to the desk, she looked at my ticket and I am sure she was about to tell me that this line was for Ho Chi Minh, but I think she could sense my annoyance at having to stand in line for about 45 minutes so far and just took my baggage (labelled KUL – I checked) and gave me my boarding pass.

As I turned to head towards Departures I noticed, and ignored, another huge queue and followed this other couple towards the immigration hall and passport control, only to realise slowly that the queue I’d ignored was actually the queue to get into the immigration hall and was snaking round the airport. I panicked as my flight was in about 2 hours and this did not look like it was moving fast. I asked one of the guards at the entrance to the hall (which was packed and a bit chaotic as people tried to get to the quicker moving passport control line) if there was a problem, and she just shrugged and pointed me towards the end of the long, long line. Bitch.


Actually, it moved really quickly, and for your entertainment there were television screens showing you all the people in the queue on the inside of the immigration hall – I thought that was quite funny.