- Welcome to the absolutely beautiful
Sheraton Grand Resorts here in Da Nang in Vietnam.
What an incredible place this is.
Look at this beach, it's amazing.
I could stay here forever, just relaxing.
It's just so nice.
But sadly I can't,
because today we're taking a flight
with a Vietnamese low cost airline.
Right, I don't really wanna be leaving this view behind,
but unfortunately we have to.
So yeah, let's get out of here.
I've had a fantastic time here in Vietnam
on a few days off between flights,
but now it was time to say goodbye
to this beautiful country.
I really hope to be coming back here again soon
and exploring some more.
For now though, I had to get across to Da Nang Airport
for my flight down to Ho Chi Minh City.
All right, so I'm flying with these boys today.
Pacific Airlines, a Vietnamese low-cost carrier,
and they're gonna take me down the length of Vietnam
to the south of Vietnam.
So, let's head inside, get my dropped and head through.
Pacific Airlines operates on a co-chair basis
with Vietnam Airlines, who I'd booked with today,
and would be connecting onto in Ho Chi Minh City.
Despite this, they're a low cost airline,
operating on a very no frills basis.
Can I check in, please?
- [Employee] You're going to Ho Chi Minh City?
- [Noel] Ho Chi Minh, yes, and then connecting to Singapore.
With my bag dropped, it was time to head through security.
All right then, all checked in,
all through security and we've got about...
What time is it?
About an hour and a half until the plane leaves,
so I'm gonna see if I can find a lounge somewhere
to get in with my priority pass here in Da Nang.
Thank you.
All right, thank you.
Finding a lounge didn't take too long,
and I was soon in the Vietnam Airlines Lotus Lounge.
All right, welcome to Vietnam Airlines Lotus Leaf Lounge,
here in Da Nang.
And it's quite a nice lounge, actually.
I'm able to get in here, not with my priority pass,
actually, it's because I am business class
on Vietnam Airlines on my next flight.
And with it being within 24 hours,
they let you into the Lotus Leaf Lounge here in Da Nang.
Absolutely a lovely lounge.
I'm very impressed because I've actually got me boiled eggs.
It's the first time since I've left home
that I've had boiled eggs.
I've missed them.
So yeah, I have them with me porridge,
and a coffee and a bit of watermelon, of course, as well.
So yeah, let's get a bit of breakfast,
and then boarding in about...
Oh, about an hour for me flight
down to Ho Chi Minh City.
All right, now time to go and get on board
the Pacific Airlines plane down to Ho Chi Minh.
All right, so I've come down to the gate here,
but the flight's now showing it's delayed.
It's about a 30 minute delay,
which is not great because I've only got
sort of a two hour connection down in Ho Chi Minh
to get my next flight.
So yeah, we'll see what happens.
Okay, so now I'm really confused,
because that flight that's delayed,
actually I've just noticed, isn't Ho Chi Minh, it's Hanoi.
I'm not going to Hanoi, I'm going to Ho Chi Minh.
But there's no gates I saw for Ho Chi Minh down here,
so let's go and see where that one's going from.
All right, so Ho Chi Minh's now got no gate assigned at all,
so I really don't know what's going on.
No.
Well that's really not good.
Apparently we're boarding after this one from the same gate,
and this one's not going for another half an hour yet.
I've got a two hour connection down in Ho Chi Minh City
to another Vietnam Airlines flight,
so it's all on one ticket.
So, I am sort of protected,
but I do have to sort of change terminals
and collect the bag and everything
when I get down to Ho Chi Minh,
so I'm a little bit concerned
that's just gonna cause issues later on.
Which is a bit frustrating, really.
I thought it was gonna be a nice easy day today.
Never mind, we'll just see what happens.
All right, the Hanoi flight is almost finished boarding now,
so hopefully we'll be able to get on board pretty soon.
It's all a bit annoying really, but nevermind,
we'll see what happens and hopefully it'll be all right.
We'll see when we get down to Ho Chi Minh what happens,
in terms of my connection.
But yeah, for now, still waiting.
This delay was not a good sign.
I'd heard the connections process
in Ho Chi Minh could take hours.
My connection time was eroding away all the time.
It didn't comfort me though that translating
the reason for the delay into English
simply resulted in, "How long do you have?"
Eventually we were called to start boarding
and we got on the bus to take us across the airport
to my ride down to Ho Chi Minh City.
As we pulled up to the aircraft,
to be honest, it looked like it had seen better days.
The previous livery had just been crudely covered over
with Pacific Airline's logo slapped on it,
which didn't inspire much confidence.
- Good morning. - [Noel] Hi, good morning.
All right, so welcome aboard Pacific Airlines Airbus A320.
Pacific Airlines, for a period of time,
were known as Jetstar Pacific,
as part of the Australian brand,
but now they're just Pacific Airlines again.
They've been around for about 30 odd years,
flying out various different planes here in Vietnam.
Now it's just A320s.
Yeah, this is typical sort of low cost config, really.
Leg room is interesting.
It's not too bad, actually.
Very thin seats, they're gonna be a bit hard,
but that's okay cause it's only about
an hour long flight down Ho Chi Minh.
Has a tray table and everything here, as well.
A device holder, that's quite handy,
which you don't see very often.
And yeah, all very good, so far.
And there's me view out of the window
on the Pacific Airlines A320.
My route today then took me south to Ho Chi Minh City.
Flight time today was one hour and seven minutes,
cruising at 32,000 feet.
All right then, so airborne from Da Nang,
albeit, with a one hour delay,
which is not great for my connection down in Ho Chi Minh.
Had two and a half hour connection, originally.
Get your champagne.
I had a two and a half hour connection in Ho Chi Minh,
originally, which shouldn't have been too bad.
But now that's down to a one hour and a half connection,
which, again, you think isn't too bad,
seeing as I'm connecting on one ticket onto my next flight.
The problem is Ho Chi Minh City has two separate terminals,
one for domestic, one for international,
which means that when I land off this flight,
I've gotta collect my bag,
get across to the other terminal
and then check in for my next flight.
Go through passport control security,
the whole works, down in Ho Chi Minh.
Add that, and hour and a half,
doesn't seem like that long to connect
onto an international flight.
So yeah, we'll see what happens
when we get down there in Ho Chi Minh.
But yeah, in the meantime,
it's about an hour long run, I think,
down to Ho Chi Minh City,
formerly, of course, known as Saigon in the olden days,
now Ho Chi Minh City.
So yeah, great views out of the window though,
that's the good thing that we've got on this flight.
So, Pacific Airlines operates now a buy on board basis,
being a low cost airline,
so this is the menu that you get in your seats.
Let's have a little look what they've got.
And it's a choice like noodles, potato chips,
there's your veggie bits and pieces, too.
Just soft drinks, as well.
There's no alcohol, I don't think,
available on Pacific Airlines,
which is fine, it's not a problem.
It's like eight o'clock,
nine o'clock in the morning here in Vietnam,
so yeah, no problem at all.
Scenery, just is absolutely incredible,
by the way, out the windows.
Look at the views we're getting out there.
The forests and mountains of Vietnam.
Very good, very nice indeed.
I'm just hoping that we can get on the ground,
pretty shortly, please.
It feels like top of descent now down into Ho Chi Minh.
This is gonna be a tight one.
As we started our descent down into Ho Chi Minh,
all there was left to do now
was to hope that we'd have a quick taxi in,
and of course that there would be enough time after that
to connect onto my onward flight.
- [Attendant] On behalf of Captain Otto
and your other team today,
thank you for choosing Pacific Airline.
We look forward to seeing you again soon.
Thank you and goodbye.
- [Noel] Thank you.
- [Attendant] Thank you, have a good day.
- All right, made it an hour and a half late.
We've about just over an hour to make my connection,
so I don't know if I'm gonna do this or not.
We'll find out out.
As always, a massive thank you to my patrons
for helping to make these videos possible.
You can join them at the link on the screen now
for access to my WhatsApp group,
live Zoom calls with me and much, much more.
Hi, welcome to Ho Chi Minh City.
I now need to go and get my bag
and see if I can make it to my next flight.
You'll find out if that happens in my next video, of course,
which you'll be able to click on the link
just on the screen to watch.
And if you're not subscribed already,
make sure you subscribe just so you don't miss it.
In the meantime, I'll see you on the next one,
either on the next flight or trying to figure out
the mess that's ensued.
So yeah, see you on the next one.
Bye, for now.