This Flight To Vietnam was Chaos (flying to Hanoi)

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. But actually, where do we go? Our plane leaves in an hour and a half. We're meant to have four and a half hours here. We're trying to go and get our ticket, drop these off. Don't even know where we're going. We've just come out. Everyone's heel and toe together. Can you see it's raining? I don't know. Today is a high of 15 degrees Celsius here in Perth. Absolutely hideous. We're leaving. We've only been home for five weeks in the in the cold weather, and we're like, all right, we already need to go somewhere. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. It is now the winter school holidays here in Australia, here in Perth. We have two weeks of no school, which means we thought, hey, should we go somewhere warm? I asked the kids. They said they want to go somewhere with a pool. And I said, we can organize that. So we are going to go take the kids to drum roll. Where are we going today? Where are we going? Vietnam. And today is our nine year wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary, Bob. So we're going to use this as a wedding anniversary trip. Nine years. Next year's our tenure. That's crazy. We've been together for 19 years this year. Yeah. Isn't that wild? So we're going to celebrate in Vietnam and, you know, get sweaty and complain about the humidity and heat. So we come back to Perth and then we're like, OK, we like the cold. Yeah, true. True, true, true. So the beginning of our two week adventure to Vietnam starts now. We're packing our bags and tomorrow morning we're going to the airport. It's 6am. Kids are still asleep. Packing the car. Absolute cereal overpackers. I feel like we're bringing in as much stuff as we normally do on like a three or four month trip. We're going for two weeks. We have so much stuff. But these bags do feel lighter. Make us feel better. It's too much stuff, seriously. Like we have our normal two bags, but then all this stuff. It's because the two bags turned into two bags and a duffel because of the weight. And then we got the pram and then we got the car seat and then Hunter wants her own cute little backpack. And then we need our cute little backpacks. Is that everything? That's everything. It's like, I don't know, eight pieces of things. I think we're ready. So our flight's actually not till 1030, but it's we're leaving pretty early today like and four hours before our flight because it is a Monday morning where we live, we're in a hit with every side of the morning traffic of people getting to work. Plus, we're parking the car at the airport. Normally, Cleo will drop us off or we'll catch like a taxi in about two weeks. It was cheaper to just do car parking and we booked the cheapest one, which is like the furthest away from the airport. So factoring that all in, we also find a low cost airline that we've never flown before. Let's just be safe now that we're packed. We just need to get the kids in. Sneaky sleep transfer. We're going to the airport, Daddy. OK, shall we go now? Yeah, we're finally going, Kawa. He's been asking all week when we're going. But I was wondering, do any families have traditions when they're going to the airport? Because if we are having to drive really early from our house to the airport, we always get the kids. Ash Brown's from Maccas. Aren't we driving? I know it's night time because it's winter and the sun doesn't come up till like seven. But it's 6.30. It is 6.30. Well, actually, we'll be able to watch the sunrise on the drive. One thing I do love about winters in Australia, because normally we are actually running off to Europe or the Americas, is that the sunrises are so beautiful because, of course, they start later. It's 7.30 and I see the sun is popping up. And it means you can catch them so much later. So you can have a bit of a sleep in. We're even in a car park and it's beautiful. All righty, next family tradition is everybody gets to pick a snack for the plane. Pringles? Oh, Snickers Pods. Good one. Guys, that is so cute. Cheers, bubs. Our last Aussie coffee for a while. Can you tell every Australian is going to Southeast Asia for the school holidays? All right, guys, bye, cold Australia. Honestly, just love living in Perth so much, especially it being our home airport. I think by the time we got into the airport, checked our bags, it was dead quiet. Today is like day one of school holidays. We're talking like everybody probably wants to get away, head to Bali, Thailand, Vietnam and just get some warm weather because it is quite chilly in Perth. Ten minutes to drop our bags off. We, I feel like for the first time, sat and had breakfast before immigration. We're so many times we're like rushing through immigration. I feel like the toughest thing as a parent getting your kids is that waiting period between like the airport and the plane. And the best thing is like you guys can pick out a snack. You can pick out like a magazine, which makes their flight more enjoyable. And it helps us get it through, like gets through customs, gets through security, which is like a lot of waiting around. But we board in like 15 minutes. It's a full flight, so we had to surrender our pram. But that's fine because they said because of that, we can board first. Never flown Vietjet before. So I was like, that's a win. Excited? Yes, we've never flown Vietjet before. So it's the first time we're flying this flight. Six and a half hours direct from Perth all the way to Ho Chi Minh. And then we're doing a little domestic flight as well after that. But like it's pretty good. Six and a half hours going to be a brand new country. Kids have never been to Vietnam before as well. I feel like it is one of the most family friendly countries in Asia. I'm excited. And the last time we went to Vietnam, it's coming on seven years now. I think we hosted our very first flying the nest expeditions there. So, yeah, seven years does not feel like seven years ago. So it feels refreshing heading back, sticking to the north and making the most of our two week school holiday. Because if you guys didn't know, at the moment, we are doing like half the year the kids are in school, half the year we do homeschooling while we travel abroad. And we are backing up the term. So Hunter and Koa just did a full term. Now they're off for two weeks and they're going to do another full term. So we thought, let's make the most of these two weeks. So yeah, first time flying Vietjet and low cost airlines. It was still cheaper when we added baggage for three of us. Plus the cost of the ticket was still cheaper than any like full cost service. Plus this got us directly into Vietnam, whether if we flew like Singapore or airlines probably would have like taken us to Singapore. Then onwards, at least we get the big flight out of the way first. And I'm not even a tall person. Look at my knees. So like no screens, no food. Other sad things. They don't have like, you know, the little things out. Yeah, it's all flat. So let's be honest, it's thicker than some of the other ones. Try to try to stay positive here. Let's see. Let's see if you're right. Oh, yeah, we have. We have. We have. Luckily, Flighty, which is the best app ever. You can actually scroll by airline size. So I have no memory of flying this airline. Scroll down, fly on Vietjet. We did a flight to Tokyo on it. That's three years ago. And just as a reminder, I remember this song. We flew Vietjet before. It's actually called Hello, Vietnam. It's playing right now. And I've heard it and I was like, we flew Vietjet before. Because I remember this song playing on repeat when we landed. She has the absolute best memory when it comes to music. She can hear one song and she will know the entire lyrics by the second listening. OK, we've been digging deeper. We realized it was Koa's second ever flight. His first flight was his first ever trip to Bali when he was like five months old. And then we were on our way to Mongolia and we did a quick layover in Japan. And that's how we flew them. Don't know if we vlogged it. If we did, I'll pop it up here. So can you help me with the with the transfer? OK, you enjoy your time off. OK, so Vietnam is one of those places where when you land, even if you have a domestic connection, you have to go through immigration. Immigration sucks for a three year old, by the way. I'm so glad that it's for us. Why is this six and a half hour plane ride easier than him? We're in the immigration line. We're more than an hour. Our plane leaves in an hour and a half. We're meant to have four hour, four and a half hours here. We've got an hour and a half to go. We're trying to go and get our ticket, drop these off. Don't even know where we're going. We've just come out. Everyone's yelling taxi out of us. But actually, where do we go? I feel like we have to go on a bus transfer, which is going to be so fun. Yeah, it sucks, but we're at the other side of it all. I'm happy now because we have our bags. We have our happy kiddos. So we're currently just following the domestic terminal sign because no Vietjet employees were there. Bags are now checked. We have our tickets. Boarding's in 20 minutes. And I haven't seen what the security is like. So let's see how the security is. And then hopefully we make this plane. Oh, my goodness. Final boarding and we made it. I can't believe it. We made it, baby. Now that we know who we're on it. This is the best feeling ever. How was that last boarding call? We had five, almost five hours. Oh, my goodness. Legit surprise. We made that. Which was meant to be a over four hour layover. It's final boarding call, it's 8pm now. And this flight takes off in 20 minutes. The next day. It is our first morning here in Vietnam. We all got in. I think maybe it was 1.30, which was like 2.30 in our body when me and Jess finally put our heads on the bed. And we all said our favorite first thing is hit up the buffet and then go for a swim in the pool. Khoa has been asking about this holiday all week. And I think he's finally happy that he got through his two flights and that we can go hop in the pool. But welcome to Hanoi. As you can see, it is a city here in Vietnam. It is quite common to have your rooftop pool on top. And we seem to be right in front of a river. We came in so late last night. I'm still getting my bearings and it is like seven in the morning. So we'll take you along. But let's just enjoy this pool. We have timed that so well. We just got to Hanoi like the train street. It is probably the most famous street in all of Vietnam. And what is so famous about it is you can sit in these little cafes and right here, right in front of us, a train is about to come past. And we timed it perfectly. We thought we might have missed it because it's we got here what, five minutes ago, so 8.45. And there is no tourists here waiting at all. We just thought, oh, maybe we missed the train and everyone's gone. But we just heard the bell and the guy who we just ordered the copies from told us the train is about to come and to not leave this little booth. So we're sitting. I think this is like the perfect way to see it for the kids, because as you can see, you can actually come and sit right on the edge of the tracks. But if you've got little ones at this little restaurant that we found, there's these little booths that you can sit in. I feel like it's like a safer way for the kids to experience the train coming past. But Kawa, did you hear the little bell go off before? That means, oh, my goodness, train's coming. Sit on your bottom. Here it comes. Oh, here it comes. Yeah, it's coming. Kawa Bean, are you ready? A choo choo train going to come fast. Did you get a ride from us? No, we just got a train pass. I cannot believe we got that so quick. We haven't even had our coffees yet. No, we haven't. Was that cool, guys? Here you guys go. Here's your mango. Kawa Bean, I got you orange juice. And then, Dad, we have egg coffees, iced. Oh, OK. All right. To make it, what they get is they get egg yolk and they whip it with sweetened condensed milk. And that's like the topping. And then underneath here, it's like a strong Vietnamese coffee. But I feel like I need to try the foam first. Some people say it's like reminiscent of tiramisu. Yes, it's sweet. It tastes like Christmas, like there's cinnamon in it. That's yum. And then we mix it up. That's going to be a sweet coffee. It is super sweet. Yeah, it's actually condensed milk is like the base. Oh, it's so good as well because the Vietnamese coffee is so strong. It's good. Yeah, it's so good. And it's so hot and humid. This is perfect. OK, if you're going to want to come and watch the train and you've got kids, come to this spot. It's called Railway Tuan Cafe. I'll put the name up. I feel like this is a really good spot. It's like a safe way for the kids to enjoy it. They've got yummy ice drinks. Of course, if you guys are like braving it more, you can sit right there. But this was perfect. If you don't have kids, they're three year olds here. It's like 9.26 and we just heard the bell ring. Honestly, come at just before 8.50, like 8.45, because you're going to get the 8.50 train. And then it seems that there's a 9.30 train. We're here on a Wednesday. So for, I don't know, we just leisurely been enjoying our coffee, which tasted incredible, by the way. And we got to see two trains. Well, we are going to. And maybe it's going to come from this way. The original one came from this way. We'll see. Oh, my goodness. Who's being brave and sitting here? Me. I'm here. She wanted to see it a little bit closer. And did you write in your diary? I don't know. What did you write about? I write about what's today. She did write, my brother is running on the tracks by diary. I'm going to the pool now. So I think she's already decided after this, we're going to the pool. And then this time I'm being brave, a little bit closer, but still reasonable. Here it comes. Oh, that was so fun. We got to see it twice. Yeah, it was so good. I love that. That was awesome. It's such a unique spot here in Hanoi. So that train street is not just to see a super close train, which is a very unique experience in itself. A lot of history. It's been there for about 120 years, built during the French colonial. There's a lot of French colonial architecture in this city, which makes it so beautiful to walk around. Still very active now, connecting the north and the south of Vietnam. If you guys didn't know, Vietnam's a very long and thin country. So it's a great way to like get around Vietnam. And yeah, of course, families lived there way before the cafes came. And now, of course, the cafes is fun. So you can try some local egg coffee, which was absolutely delicious. On paper, sounds not delicious, sounds rank. But all I can say is picture tiramisu minus the like chocolate bit. And that's it. And it was so refreshing. We actually ordered hot coffees, but I think the guy just changed it to ice coffees for all of us. And I'm so glad he did because it was so refreshing. Hey, everybody. Hope you're enjoying the vlog so far. We just want to say a massive thank you to our long time friends and huge supporters of our little family, Squarespace. And they want to empower you to help you succeed online. Thanks to their all in one website platform. So whether you're starting a little travel blog for your family or you have a personal brand, you are selling products. Squarespace is the place to go to solve all your needs. Alrighty, so let's chat for those small businesses out there. 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I'll pop it up and leave a link in the description. Thanks so much for watching, guys. I think it is a Vietnamese apple cider. Oh, nice. They're new. They made that in Vietnam. Cheers. Having our first Vietnamese meal. Cheers. I'm good. All right, here we got some Vietnamese pancakes. They've almost given it to us as like a charcuterie board. Build your own. They're yummy. Amazing. One dry pepper. Okay. Make everything pancake inside. Okay. One salad. Yeah. Green mango, carrot and cucumber. Amazing. Come with a green sauce and eat, right? So good. Thank you. I've never had anything so good. I want to take the sauce home. It's so good. Wow, it's so fresh. This is almost like a mango chutney that has like spice in there. And because you have so many different layers, you've got like the crunch. But it just feels so fresh. That looks so good. Why is it in plastic? I know, it looks like plastic. This is noodles. It's rice paper. But they've made it into paper. What do you think of the rice paper? Is it good? He loves it. If you have kids, I feel like you need to come to this restaurant. The kids absolutely loved it. The food came out in like two minutes. The juices are so good. We've already got another round. Pineapple juice. Look, I did the next page of my diary. I had a best dinner. I had a noodles, a crepe and mango smoothie. Bye diary. Thank you. XOXO. Fantastic. So this is the stage. And what's the stage made of? Is it water? We've heard amazing things about this water puppet show. So I booked tickets last minute. I chose VIP because it said you get like kind of near the front. We're second row. And when I say VIP, instead of like $7 a ticket, it was $15 a ticket. I thought with the kids, worth it. So they can see. And as you can see, the stage is water. So the entire like puppet show is in the water. But everyone says it's really good. There's a little live band. I can kind of see where they're going to play up there. There are still people with audio guides. I was like, we should have got that. And I had it in English. So we kind of knew what was going on. But you know, it's puppets. I feel like we'll work it out. Okay. What a way to end our first day here in Hanoi. I just saw one of these, like, I think they've got a cyclo. Yeah. Bikes where you can sit in this little hut. And a guy's currently biking us back to our hotel. I thought that'd be a fun way to end it. Yeah. He's taking us to the hotel. But I feel like that water puppet show was better than I even expected. I feel like if you've got kids, what a way to introduce them to Vietnamese. It's all live Vietnamese music, the singing. There's always like humor to the show as well. And there's like some little effects that they do. I was super impressed. But Oh, what a way to get home. Yeah. Let's get biked along. But there's streets here in Vietnam. I just scooters everywhere, honking everywhere. But yeah. Loving it. Okay. That's a fun way to get around Hanoi. And it also started raining. So now I'm glad for what was that? A five minute ride. He did charge us like 15 Aussie bucks. That's effort. He just cycled us around and now we're back at our hotel. But our hotel is actually in such a good location. We're staying at the Oriental Jade. And we've been able to walk everywhere within 10 minutes. We're right next to the river, like very, very good. What was a 12 minute walk to the train station? How good is that? Good morning, everyone. Today is our final day here in Hanoi. And we're excited because today marks the first day of our tour here with Your Travel Nation. They're taking us all around Vietnam for the next two weeks. And we're kicking things off with one of our favorite things. We are going on a street food tour. We absolutely love trying street food. We love doing it on a tour, getting taken around by a local. I feel like they always know the best spots to eat in, the best food to try. I'm going to go head out now. So this morning, we're going to be hopping around to multiple different food markets. We're going to go to like a local market, wholesale market, and hopefully try some local food while we're at it. Ones we haven't tried just yet. We've come out to, and I'm probably going to butcher every name, Trang Market. This is going to be our first stop. Is it good? What are they? You see frogs? I think they're big toads. It's always fascinating coming to like the local grocery store, right? Compared to our toads and woolies back home. They have a different version of drive-through. They just bring their scooters straight through, get what they need, pile it up, and then just leave. We saw fruit, meat, fish markets, and of course, we are going to be trying some food on this tour, but it's always interesting to see where the restaurants and the cafes get, essentially, their fruit and veg to make up the meals. So ever since the French introduced coffee here in Vietnam, it has become so popular. You walk down the streets, I swear every second store is a little coffee shop selling coffee. We're asking our guide and they said here in Vietnam, they drink coffee here more than tea. And he's taking us to the most local cafe. We ordered four different coffees. So we're going to be pinging them after this. But look at the seats. It's just like these little tiny tables, little napkins. I'm just waiting for our coffee. This is a cool straw. That looks like a fun drink. Oh my gosh. I don't think we ordered enough drinks today. So this one's salt coffee. Like what makes it salt coffee? We got it iced because it's so hot today. I feel like I need to give it a good mix. It tastes like it's condensed milk coffee with salt in it. Am I right? Yeah, you'd think it would taste like salted caramel. To me, it's like a nutty, almost a nutty flavor. It's actually good. Yeah. I think I was like scared before about the salt. I think because we had what? Arak? Was it Arak? We had like a salted coffee years ago. I feel like it was called Arak in Turkey and we did not enjoy it. I think that's probably what we were thinking of. I like their coffee sweeter. You need to try that. You'll like it, Arak. Well, I'm going to go into my coffee. So I have... Wait, you need to try the yogurt one. Oh, the yogurt one? We'll try the yogurt one. Coffee with yogurt. Wow. Wait, you need to look. Wait, it looks really cool. Look at that. Wow. I guess you have to stir that first. Oh, you actually eat it with a spoon. It's kind of like an avocado with yogurt. Yeah. It's cold. So it's giving like frozen yogurt at the beginning. It needs to be stirred. It was like taking a bite of the straight coffee. No, that's yum. Sorry, that is so strong. Do you give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down? Thumbs up for the juice. Thanks, Colby. Okay, rather than like eating a big chunk of it, let me just have a drink of it. Yum. That is a very, very strong coffee. I feel like it's just like a lightly sweetened yogurt in there. The famous smoothies in Vietnam are the best. It literally tastes like fresh mango. It's so good. Like you can kind of feel like it's a blended frappe. Really? It's like a coffee frappe with yogurt. I wouldn't say it's my favorite one I've had so far, but I'm always up for trying something new. It's definitely insanely strong. Maybe let's just try another one here. Lightly sweetened frozen yogurt with a big shot of strong coffee. Why is it giving like affogato, the frozen yogurt? Yochi could do this. Tangy? It's quite bitter. Yeah. Because also the yogurt's a little bitter. It's not that sweet. It's okay. Yeah, I would say. I prefer the salt coffee. I need to try the coconut coffee. All these options come in hot or ice. This place luckily filtered water, so we're all safe in the ice. I always just recommend trying the ice in Vietnam because it's hot. It's hot. Who wants a hot coffee in Vietnam? All right. Oh, it smells like coconut. Oh, this is yum. Thick because of the condensed milk. It's literally condensed milk, coffee, and a touch of coconut. Again, it's the sweetest coffee I've ever had. Was there any others you got? Or was that it? That was it. But also, it's such a fun fact, especially in Southeast Asia, where predominantly we find that they drink tea, green tea, so many teas. Like if you go to China, they're mostly drinking teas there. I don't think I've ever been to a cafe before where I've ordered coffee and they've legit given me tea as a chaser to my coffee. This is a first. Our guide was saying it's because if the coffee gets too bitter, in the case of the yogurt coffee, you can wash it down with tea. Number one is the salted. Try this when you come. This is better than the egg coffee. Really? Salt, egg, no. Yeah, maybe it's salt, egg, coconut, yogurt. So we've now come down into the old quarter and he said that these streets were founded a thousand years ago and they have the same name since. So basically the family that founded the street, they named the street after what the family was known for. So there's like a chicken street, fish street, bamboo shoot street. This has to be one of the most unique, like lively markets we've ever been in. Like we're walking down the street, there's scooters just going everywhere, fresh produce everywhere. All these unique buildings, like some French, some Chinese looking, there's temples. It's very busy. You guys are probably noticing all I've heard about Vietnam having so many scooters. There is a lot. Essentially there's about 8 million people that live in this city in Hanoi and about 7 million scooters. So yum. We can see people at the front, they were making the rice paper and then what's on top is like shallots and coriander, parsley. Ah, the fried onion. Here we go. It's so good. It's like almost like eating rice noodles a little bit. Yum. With the shallots, like the fried onions adds a flavor, but the sauce with the spice and I'm having a lot of spice. Thanks, Koa. How do you say thank you in Vietnamese? Come on. Good job. They said the roost is the pet here at the restaurant. Here, I'll show you. Put a little friend down here. It's a little hay hay. Kids have found a puppy. They're happy. We've come to our last stop. It's this little local... It's a puppy chasing you. This little street side restaurant right across from the river and we found Vietnamese hay hay. There's a roost here too. They've got a roost for a puppy. But first thing they've served us are these little like rice paper rolls, which I think we had yesterday when we went out to eat. Yeah. Just like fresh salad. I think there's egg and you dip it in this delicious sauce and he said there's like papaya salad in it, but it's more looks like this. Yeah, he says the fish oil, but maybe sweeter. I feel like the dips is what makes these dishes. Also, I feel like they must think we're hungry because we're on the largest serving ever. On our last stop. I'm full. So fresh. Oh my gosh. The biggest serving ever. Wow. What do you say it's called? Pho gian. Pho gian pho. Because gian means fried. See, it's like the fried... Oh, it's so hot. And then on top, is it like a bok choy? Bok choy. Smells really good. Is there a sauce? Oh, it is. Oh my goodness. It smells so good. Is there this garlic? I just want to smell once. There we go. Yum. Like crispy rice dumpling almost. Yeah? It's good. It looks good. Yeah. And like, yeah, soft in the middle. I'm trying to have some with the bok choy. I mean, this is a meal. Like you got the fresh and then you got the fried. So yum. Yeah. So essentially like just thicker versions of these fried. Is that yum? I thought you would like it. Do you want some more? He's come back for more. You know, if the kids like it, it must be good. Is that yummy? It's good. It's so good, huh?