How not to travel, Vietnam style

In which Mrs G loses her credit card, and UberGrumpy loses his cool

The week's scheduled visit to lovely Hoi An is off. Disaster struck, not once, but twice; a record-breaking cyclone removed the beach, and most of our hotel's roof; and worse still, Donald Trump is due to visit.

Luckily, politicos we ain't, and Mrs G and I love a good U-turn. Mrs G quickly researches Plan B; would a trip to lovely Con Dao island suit? Oh yeah! Book it! It'll squeeze the budget, but you only live once, right?

Hotel first; Con Dao is easily sorted, but we need one more night here in Ho Chi Minh city. We enquire; the place is mobbed because Donald Trump is in town. Only their Silver Suite is left. We book it. They add more hidden extras than you'd get on a busload of ladyboys. More budget squeeze, but no worries; who needs, say, booze when you're high on the atmosphere?

On to book flights. Mrs G finds the airline site a bit odd, with its adverts for casinos, fake watches and opium dens, and lurid offers to upgrade to massage class, all in dubious English. It can't be a scam, though, decides Mrs G, it's on a computer, and there are pictures of aeroplanes. She submits personal and payment details with gay abandon.

Of course it's a bloody scam. The tickets fail to arrive. Their phone goes unanswered. At about this time the credit card company helpfully shitcans our card. Oh how we laugh. It's cash, cash, cash from now on, with a 5% hit every time we use an ATM. That'll hit the budget; but no worries, as I have a good supply of Twiglets and Mentos, and we weren't planning on eating out.

But we are not easily daunted. Setting off for the airport ludicrously early, we find our booked ticket is indeed non-existent. Time to buy another one then. The helpful ticket lady suggests an earlier flight at 9:30. It's 8:37. A bit tight? No, she laughs, and starts typing. Same-day travel being a bit costly, the budget takes another mighty hit, but hey! Mrs G has some nice clothes we can probably sell.

Ten minutes and a lot of cash later, we queue at check-in. 8:54, and we head to security. There is a line about a mile long. Mrs G goes into action and hustles us to the front in true Colonial style. But the nice policeman spots that instead of "Grumpy, Uber", my boarding pass says "Grumpy, British". They've typed my name in wrong. Back you go, English pigs. 9:01.

Five minutes later we are back at check-in. They correct the boarding pass and a chastened airline lady helps us past the security line and back to the nice policeman. Luckily the full strip-down body search is pretty efficient and we are through! 9:18. Ignoring our sore bottoms, we run to the gate and yes! We've made it. 9:27.

Con Dao, here we come! I hope they like buskers. We're going to need some cash.