[Kara] A Typical Travel Day

We're moving around quite a bit.  We've been in four countries in the last two weeks.  We are getting very good at moving around.  Grace recently told me she loves travel days.  Cannon says he loves airport layovers.  I guess I'm traveling with the right group!

I thought I'd share with you what one of our travel days looks like.  We started Tuesday morning in Hue, Vietnam.  A van picked us up from our hotel at 8:00am to drive us two hours to the airport in Da Nang.  Our flight was at 11:45am to Ho Chi Min City, where we would have a three-hour layover and then fly to Bangkok.

Seth has super top tier Delta frequent flyer status this year (because when he worked at Walmart last year he traveled all the time and racked up lots of miles), and Vietnam Airlines is part of the same network as Delta, so for the first time since we left the US, we get to go in the short check in line. 👍

But, the ticket agent in Da Nang said she couldn't check us in for our HCMC -> Bangkok flight, so we'd have to exit the secure area of the airport, pick up our checked luggage and re-check in when we arrived in Ho Chi Min City.  👎

(Yes, we have carry-on sized luggage and could potentially not check our luggage, but we've found that in Asia we're discouraged from carrying on our luggage and airlines would prefer to check it for us for free.  Whatever.  That doesn't even phase us at this point.)

While we waited for our flight from Da Nang to HCMC, it switched departure gates and went from "on time" to "late" and then back to "on time" and that was interesting.  But because of Seth's elite priority status we got to board early and the flight was exactly what we expected. 👍

(We've had some weird flights.)

When we arrived in Ho Chi Min City, we picked up our luggage, then had to walk to the airport's international terminal to check in for our next flight. 👎

Seth is pushing all of our luggage in a cart while we trudge along to the international terminal.

We got to use the special short line again, so that was good.  And they marked our luggage with "priority" tags so that they are less likely to get lost in Luggage Never Land, so that was good too.  (But we've had "priority" luggage go astray before, so we know there are no guarantees.) 👍

Seth is checking us in.

Then we had to wait through lines at passport control and security--again--before we could get to the gate area. 👎

The passport control lines weren't too long.

But we knew we were headed to a good place after we got through security--we were headed to A Lounge.  We have "Priority Pass" airport lounge access through one of our credit cards.  It's the sort of credit card perk that I'd normally pay no attention to.  But for us this year, it is GOLDEN.  We get free access for our whole family to an airport lounge in almost every airport we've been in so far on this trip.  And the lounges have free wifi, plugs, food and drinks.  It's like airport nirvana. 👍

And because it's airport nirvana, we make our kids do math homework in airport lounges because we don't want them to get spoiled.  (Frankly, it's just because it's the only time they can reasonably do math during travel days.)  You can see from Grace's expression in this picture of Tuesday's lounge math time that she thinks having to do math in the airport--even in the lounge--is cruel. 👎

Our flight from Ho Chi Min City to Bangkok was pleasantly uneventful.  Our wait to get through immigration was about 30 minutes (which is short for the Bangkok airport, from what I understand), and our luggage was waiting for us.  We made our way to the taxi stand. 👍

We weren't sure if Bangkok's taxis would be big enough for all five of us to fit with our luggage into one taxi, but when we asked a smiling taxi driver, he said "No problem!"  He loaded our suitcases into the back of his car and we stepped in to find just three seats across the backseat. 👎

Seth sat in the front and the kids and I squeezed into the back.  Oh well.  We could have taken a second taxi, but that seemed like too much work.  It was 7:30pm and we were tired, but we were on our way to the hotel. 👍

The traffic in Bangkok has a reputation for being terrible, but I'd hoped that we'd miss rush hour.  No way.  We had 30 miles to travel and it took us an hour and a half--four of us squished in the backseat the entire time!👎

The kids have been squished with me in the back of the taxi for a long time.  I don't remember Kate and Cannon acting happy in the moment, but they look cheerful here.

We finally made it to our hotel at 9:00pm! 👍👍👍