Who’s crazy for banana? The Belly Achers have once again buried themselves in a serious philosophical debate over an issue that, like a bad cough, just won’t seem to go away. Why, we ponder over and over, is the world seemingly losing its sense of humour? Maybe it’s the water.
Whatever the case, being the funloving bunch we are, we just want to see a happier, funnier world. That would be our answer if we ever make it into the Miss Universe contest – forget that stupid ‘world peace’ answer, it’s ‘world funny-ness’ that will fix all the problems.
But enough of this drivel, we’ll solve the problems of the world another day because we have something far more interesting to talk about – beautiful women dancing in bikinis! Yes call us sexist (it won’t be the first time), but we like this item…which goes something like this…
On a recent VietJetAir inaugural flight from Ho Chi Minh City to the beach resort city of Nha Trang, passengers got a bit of bonus that helped take the edge off the knee cramping seat pitch and meal-less flight when the budget carrier (the country’s first privately owned airline) surprised the passengers with a new and novel approach to in-flight entertainment.
Shortly after reaching cruising altitude a bevy of five attractive young women strutted through the narrow-body jet’s cabin, clad only in vaporous string bikini tops and sarongs that flaunted the company colors of red and yellow to present what the airline described as a ‘Hawaiian dance performance’. The ‘fab five’ then proceeded to dance – well as much dancing as you can do in an A320 aisle! – to a catchy dance tune titled ‘I’m Crazy For Banana’ while throwing kisses at the cheering, mostly male passengers and handing out stuffed Teddy bears.
Woohoo! Way to go VietJetAir! The Belly Achers give you a fun factor of 10/10 for that one! While we might not be so surprised to see this on some of Asia’s other fun loving carriers like AirAsia, Cebu Pacific or even Singapore Airline’s new Scoot which bills itself as fun and funky, although the jury is still out on that one (we tried to help them out a few issues ago by rebranding them Scooby Doo Air), we were a bit surprised that a Vietnamese carrier would tread into such seemingly salacious airspace. And apparently we weren’t the only ones.
Sad to say the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) took a rather dim view of the in-flight disco and slapped the creative carrier with an approximately US$1,000 fine. Woohoo just became boohoo and we’re forced to give the CAAV a 0/10 for their kill-joy attitude. The chief inspector of CAAV was quoted as saying the fine was administered not because of the fact it was a bikini dance show, but because the carrier had held an “unapproved show” on the aircraft.
Yeah right, does anybody actually believe it would have gained official approval!? We think not. And hey, the song was only a teensy weensy bit sexually suggestive! The official did admit, however, that using mobile devices to record the bikini models during the flight did not present a safety risk, as the phones were in flightsafe mode. Phew! We were worried there for a bit. Actually they probably would have gotten away with it, had it not been for the dozens of videos that were posted on YouTube immediately upon landing. Those Google search terms would be VietJetAir + bikini by the way (and yes we CAN read your minds).
