We had booked a transfer to Heathrow (cheaper than parking) with Jewel Airport transfers. Their communication was great including asking us to leave even earlier than the early start we had already booked! So we set the alarm for 5am and duly got up, finished the remaining packing and waited for the taxi which duly arrived just after 6am.
We had lovely chat with Umer on the way up and he dropped us at Heathrow Terminal 4. We had a “spoons” breakfast (very average) and then chilled waiting for the plane, we we had a nice chat with some other passengers, mainly about US gun culture, while donning our compression fight socks( so glamorous).
Boarding was fine , although I had a window seat (not my favourite) and we began the 11 hour flight. I watched 3 films
- The roof man – quite a good watch based on a real story (Sue also watched this one)
- Planning for the next life – bit depressing
- Ballerina – very silly , how many people can a ballerina kill in 2 hours.
I think Sue almost read a whole book, The Women by Kristin Hannah ( – about nurses in the Vietnam War) The food wasn’t too bad, we went for the Vietnamese choices as recommended by AI 
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We got in about 30 minutes early, and everything was still going very smoothly. We got the eSims working on the phones and got a message from our hotel pick up , he was already waiting for us. Pillar No 9!
We checked into the hotel at about 6am (pretty good as the flight arrival time should have been 5am). We were taken up to our room where we dumped our bags and then legged it down to breakfast. I had a tofu/fish Pho (I think) which I really enjoyed and also got to practice my chopstick skills, which were OK. Sue had a veggie fried rice and a spicy meat, followed by an omelette made to order and then a bit of fruit. (Not keen on guava!) I finished with a coffee and pretty terrible pain aux raisins and bit of toast. Stick to Vietnamese food from now I think! We sat with Mavis and Chris who we met in reception who are also on our Explore trip. They are both a bit hard of hearing which shouldn’t be a problem as Sue is very good at speaking loudly 
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After that we crashed… I slept soundly for about 3 hours but for room cleaning service ringing the bloody bell 3 times … there was no “do not disturb” signs in the room that I could find 
. (Update – we noticed later on that there is a light by the door to signify “do not disturb” which is very easily switched on from the bed – so apologies to the Hotel for not noticing )