Sunday, April 30, 2023

Flying Home

Last morning in Hanoi and Home

Last morning in Vietnam. Off for breakfast, I just don't feel right. Not sure why, sad it is over, list is not fun for when we get home, not sure what next stage of life will bring (retired Friday left for this trip the next Monday), long travel day ahead, whatever it was I just wasn't right. I couldn't even drink my last Vietnamese coffee!

No traffic at all going to the airport at 720am. I wasn't able to check in online so joined the queue, we also decided to check our carry on luggage. No charge for this, and neither of us care when it arrives home.

Our first flight is to Seoul Korea, start talking to the 2 women in front of us on the plane from Hanoi that are from Winnipeg, they said there are 2 people on their tour group from Moncton. Told them to point them out to us, they are sitting right behind us. They live in Shediac, but she is from the same small town as Andre, Andre went to school with her brother. What a small world.

In Korea now for a short 2 hour stop, one more stop in Toronto coming up then finally Moncton. We are looking forward to seeing family and friends, but we will be planning another trip soon! In the Seoul airport there are some many high end stores selling purses, shoes etc.. The kind of stores where they only display 1 or 2 purses on a shelf, needless to say we did not go into those stores and 1 thing would probably cost as much as a weekend getaway.

Made it home safely. Toronto airport is severely understaffed, we were late departing by 1.5 hours with the crew and plane waiting there for grounds crew, what a mess. Home at 2AM, but our bodies have no idea what time it is.

Thanks again to everyone who has written trip reports, answered questions, given suggestions for what to do, you have helped make this trip one of our all time favourites.

Things we will remember

-smell of rice in the fields when the sun and wind hit it properly, we were told sticky rice smells even better!

-crazy traffic and drivers

-honking horns

-Vietnamese coffee

-Kem

-Pho

-taking your shoes off for bus rides and bus rides in general

-cheap beer

-checking into homestays/hotels and first thing we look for is what is in the bathroom and how hard is the bed

-this list could go on and on but this report is long enough!

-most of all the amazing Vietnamese people, they could not have been any more helpful, friendlier, or nicer to us


Todays Pictures:

Love the arrows for the gates



Don't step on the toilet


Airline staff in traditional dress


The plane doors are not open but we are all checked in
Makes for a quick turnaround


Saying bye to Hanoi


Changes quick from city to country side
With rice fields


Free train ride in Seoul


Robots being charged



Books and Drinks but no drinks ????


Smoking lounge


Free games but we did not dare to try


In the food court



High end store. lots of them, more than cheaper one


You can take selfies 


Zones on the boarding pass but people just lined up and boarded, no zone called


You can use an app and the robot will deliver your food order to you


We decided to pay extra for bulkhead as it is a 12/13 hour flight from Seoul to Toronto


It's magic arrival time is the same as departure time


Leaving Seoul



Almost every flight is delayed in TO due to lack of ground staff



5 comments:

  1. Glad you enjoyed your trip. Maybe I will get there someday!

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  2. Congratulations on your retirement!

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  3. You refer to a forum several times, may I ask which forum you are referring to? I might need to get educated on some upcoming trips!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TripAdvisor Forum
      https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g293921-i8432-Vietnam.html

      Delete
  4. Maria F (aka quiltingmamma)June 19, 2023 at 10:33 PM

    It's been a while since we emailed or caught up on travels, but glad I found this when tidying bookmarks. Congratulations on retirement! I thoroughly enjoyed this trip through Cambodia and Vietnam. As luck would have it, I am heading to SEAsia in January. 4 countries, 45 days. I will be on 2 separate tours but 6 days in Siem Reap in between. I will review that time again for notes, but perhaps you would also answer a couple of questions offline. I still have your email address.
    Andre, so many beautiful photos. Thanks for sharing them. Wendy, you can read the love and care you have for the people. You created a great itinerary to allow time for that. I look forward to some of your other reports. Maria from Ottawa.

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We appreciate any comments/questions you would have or any stories about the places we visited.