Alright, I bet we all know that: you keep searching for the most cheapest of the cheapest flights for hours until you find this really really good deal. 500€ to travel from Germany to Australia, could it be any better? Nope. But then…there must be a little something that makes the flight so unbelievably cheap. Oh yea right, 13 hours stopover in Ho Chi Minh City.

The flight went well, your tummy is, thanks to some good chews on the plane, in good shape and then you land and think: What the EFF am I doing in Ho Chi Minh for 12 hours now? Here are some basic steps preventing you from massive boredom disease or the unwanted purchase of special deals in Duty Free shops:

• Start with a ‘I need to get fresh’ visit in the bathroom. But, you do not want to take the first bathroom you see. Rather: stroll around and find the perfect location. Unpack your stuff and start freshen up. You need to do this very thoroughly. Time killed: 30 minutes.

• After being (almost) fresh again start looking for some food. If you land in the morning a good breakfast will do well. Celebrate breakfast. Remember: you can actually move again while eating, you sit again and the stupid table will not prevent you from reaching the fork, which just fell on the floor. Nope, this is reality and no plane situation anymore. Time killed: 30 minutes.

• We all need to land prepared. Get out your travel guid and read every (yes, every) single detail of your future destination, including the lines under photos and even the glossary. Also, you should mark the most important things. Time killed: 2 hours.

• After having read every detail of your travel guide, start making notes in your newly purchased notebook. (Note: if you decide the notebook at the airport, this will again be pretty time-consuming thinking about the masses of various notebooks given 😉 ). Start planning things to do in the city, things to visit around the city and maybe even some weekend and long-term trips. Time killed: 2 hours.

• Ok this obviously was some energy-consuming task here. Go for a coffee and check out some Facebook or Twitter stuff. You might have even reached the human time again where people in your homecountry are awake again. So go for some skype and chatting online. Time killed: 2 hours.

• Time for coffee and a walk around. Get a coffee to go and walk around the shops. Although, Ho Chi Minh is gonna give you a hard time since shops are limited and not even an ATM is available (or hidden very well). Time killed: 1 hour.

• Now it’s time for looking at other people’s travel behaviour. Sit down and look how people run, chill or just look completely destroyed after a long flight. Especially, being stuck at one of Asia’s big hubs might give you a real cultural experience while looking at Arabs, Indian people or Africans. Time killed: 1 hour.

• Depending on the airline you might have gotten a voucher for some free lunch or dinner. Go for it, but don’t do it on your own. Remember, you will potentially not be the only person sitting at the airport for that long of a time. Look around for people who are stuck as well, start a conversation and have food with them. Time killed: 1 hour.

• Having met co-travellers leads to a nice exchange of travel experiences. A cigarette or two and some coffee will follow. Plus, talking is possible the best option of killing time. Time killed: 2 hours.

And here you go: 12 hours, killed, at the airport. As simple as that. Another nice option is still to put some random movies on your PC and watch them while you are stuck in the middle of nowhere. One last thing: waiting for hours and hours is best survived when not thought about it 😉 Go for it, you cannot change it, can you?