Stormy Travels: PQC - SGN - MEL - SFO

Today (October 27, 2023) is the start of our journey home! We had a pretty chill morning because Hunter was still unwell, but slowly improving. There was some impressive thunder and lightning this morning. but it was behind the hotel buildings. I could only see the flashes as the sun rose with the roaring thunder.

Going to miss our balcony here

Around 10am, we spoke with Hunter's family. Grandma Honey has been in hospice for a while and was declining, so we spoke to her over Facetime and told her how much we loved her. She was tired and had her eyes close, but she gave a faint smile indicating she heard us. She had always been so excited to read our blogs and hear about our travels so we talked lots about how much we loved her and our recent trips.

After the call, we started packing up slowly. After a week in a hotel, our things were a bit everywhere! Nonetheless, I still managed to be a pro Tetris player and got everything back in our bags ready for our flight back to SGN. We had the same driver who took us to our hotel agree to take us back to the airport. We booked him for 3pm, so we still had some time. Around 1pm, I got pretty hungry, so I decided to order room service. Hunter was still feeling a bit off, so he just picked off some of my dish. It was a local Pho dish and oh man, was it ever tasty! The broth was to die for, we've previously been underwhelmed by some hotel's local food selection but thankfully they did a really good job of making authentic local dishes here.

Not a flavor of chips we get back home

Delicious lunch

One last step outside

Before we knew it, the driver texted me letting us know he was on his way. We tidied up and called for a buggy to take us to the lobby. By the time we got there, the car was pulling up and we were on our way to the airport. The ride was about 20 minutes. We checked in at the Pacific Airlines counter for our flight BL6522. Pacific Airlines used to be the Vietnamese branch of Jetstar an Asian-Australian low-cost carrier partly owned by Qantas who we flew to Bali this summer, but now it is just Pacific Airlines, but still not its own company as it is now the low-cost branch of Vietnam Airlines. We bought our tickets back to SGN because they were so cheap and this way we were confirmed. We had seats 6A and B. Once we got our boarding passes, we headed through immigration and security. We had to take out all of our electronics, which for us is a lot. We had 3 laptops, a drone, two battery packs, 2 Ipads, and 3 phones! Other than that, it was pretty easy. Once in the airport, we headed to one of the lounges we had access to with our priority pass. We were not very hungry since we just ate at the hotel, but they had lots of water and good AC! About 40 minutes prior to departure we went to our gate where we got to board with the regular people - it always feels so foreign when flying on a confirmed ticket! Thankfully, it was a quick flight because the people on the plane were pretty gross!

Our plane, the flight to PQC had been on a plane with a bare metal paint scheme left over from the transition from Jetstar but this A320 had Pacific Airlines' new paint scheme

Vietjet, an even cheaper low cost carrier

Flying into the sunset

The beautiful Mekong delta

We landed in SGN at 6:10pm and were hardstanded. We took a bus to the terminal where we picked up our luggage and then headed to check in for our next flight. While waiting for our luggage, we got the sad news that Grandma Honesy passed away. We were so glad we got to talk to her earlier. She always had a story for everything and loved that I wrote about all our adventures in my blog, which I will continue to do so I always have something to look back on and share with friends and family! Once we got our luggage and checked in for our next flight, we stopped at another lounge for a while. Our next stop on the journey home is bringing us through Australia! We are taking, hopefully of course, VN781. We waited at our gate 1hr prior for our seat assignments and thankfully got on! Seats 42E and F. This was an 8 hour red eye flight and I was ready for my nap!

Very convoluted routing in Vietnam

Asian carriers always do a nice job with meals even in economy

We landed in Melbourn at 9:35am local time. Thankfully we were able to stay in the international area via the connections route, so we did not have to enter the country yet. Our plan was to take UA 99 at 1130am if there was space in Polaris, their business class. Thankfully we had enough time to stop at a lounge first and it had showers, so we were able to get freshend up for the day. Around 1hr prior to our flight, we headed to the gate and let the agents know we were here, and would only like to be seated in Polaris otherwise we would remain in Melbourne and try again tomorrow. They asked if we had visas, which we did, so they were okay with our plan. Shortly after, they informed us that there was no Polaris available and we would have to wait till the flight closed out and pushed before they could escort us out of the airport. While unfortunate, we had an exciting day planned to make the most out of our day in Melbourne.

The last ones off the plane

United Dreamliner arriving

Qantas is the only other 717 operator left besides Delta so Hunter was excited to see one

Our plane from Vietnam

Royal Brunei Dreamliner! Rare to see

Once we finally exited the airport, we headed over to National to pick up a rental car. It was basically lunch time, and while we did have lunch plans, a snack was needed, so we stopped at a Maccas attached to a gas station where we picked up some drinks too! Soda here is pretty expensive due to taxes on unhealthy items. After our little break, we continued on our way to... drumroll, please... Phillip Island! 5 years ago when we came to Australia, our first stop was to Phillip Island to see the penguins, and because it was so close, we decided to do it again! We also have been dying to go back to our favourite fish and chips place which was also on the way - San Remo Fisherman's Co-op. It was a quick 2-hour drive down to the fish & chips spot. We decided to first check out the beach since we were not yet ready for more food.

Windy!

The beach was nice but very different from Vietnam's, it was windy and cold, but the sun was shining and the fresh air was great. After walking about 2km, we headed back to the car and were ready for some delicious fish. The menu hadn't changed since the last time we were here, so we got the same twin pack we had last time which had 2 fried flake, 2 crumbed calamari rings, 2 potato cakes, and a bunch of chips! It was so filling!

Our rental car for the day

#Vanlife down under

Such a nice beach

Time for a selfie

Cool tidepools full of life

Our first stop!

Frozen but still fresh seafood

Success

Happy to be back at one of our favorite spots

Date afternoon

Trash Pelican

After eating, we headed to the Penguin Beach. The penguins arrive just after the sun sets and it's nice and dark to avoid any predators. Since we arrived around 7pm, we had plenty of time to explore the new visitor center that was not yet open when we were here 5 years ago. They had a nice little museum display and a few interactive exhibits including a comparison of all penguins. These blue little penguins are the smallest of all penguins, at only 30-35cm tall - the size of a standard ruler! After exploring, we grabbed some hot chocolates from their cafe since Hunter was dying from all the exploring, and then headed towards the seating area. They have a whole boardwalk network out to the beach. They do some talks while waiting at the beach for the first penguins to arrive, and then you can go roam the boardwalk watching the penguins closer. They do not allow pictures, because accidental flash from phones harms the penguins, but we snuck a few in carefully to make sure we had our flashes off. I also did an audio recording which can be found in the video down below! (ANIMALS ON WALK TALK)

A wallaby

An invasive fox that preyed on the penguins for years before rangers were able to successfully get it

Feral cat that was hunting penguins during our last visit, the island is finally fox and cat-free now

Hi, I'm the problem its me

The cutest, and some pretty cute penguins

Penguin sweaters

Good thing we brought jackets, never know where non rev life will take you

Fun game you could play

Wild Wallaby

Penguin houses

A baby penguin waiting for its parents

The ranger waiting for the penguins

Penguins off the coast waiting for dark

Gorgeous sunset

Penguins!

Penguins arriving

Low light cameras have come a long ways

March (more like waddle) of the penguins

Trash penguins

Hunter was very excited to finally get a photo here, thank goodness we packed nano puffs for the tropics

The first penguins arrived around 8:20pm and we stayed with the penguins till 9:30! It was a really nice experience to get to come back and see them again, and not something we were planning on for this trip. We were pretty tired and still had a 2 hour drive back to Melbourne where we had booked a hotel for the night. Hunter had booked us seemingly the world's nicest 4Points with a view of the harbor, and while I was out cold by the time we got to the hotel he got us there safe.

Our car for the day

The view from our hotel

Breakfast at the hotel

Back to the airport again

We headed back to the airport the next morning, filled our rental car up with gas, and returned it, having put something like 500 km on it in under 24 hrs. From there we headed to the United counter and checked in for the flight to LAX, although we were close to making it in Polaris we ended up getting assigned seats in Premium Plus, so I went and asked the agent to roll us to the flight to SFO, quite a few people were listed for both and some were even checked in for both so it was a bit hard to figure out what our best options were for getting home in business class. Some days MEL has both SFO and LAX flights on United while they have no Delta flights any days of the week. Additionally, United was up-gauging to a 777-300 on SFO following today for the winter season when loads are higher. Today was the last day of the smaller 787-9 service to SFO, although the flight was reasonably open, so there might be a reason there was no Delta jet waiting for us outside. Eventually, we were cleared in Polaris by the very nice MEL station agents, after the day before and there help today we were getting to know them pretty well. The agent very nicely told us after clearing that we had time to access their partner Air New Zealand lounge. Although we only had about 50 minutes until departure, we both really wanted to experience the lounge so we raced down there after we cleared security. Hunter made it first because he got a better customs line.

The lounge entrance

Food in the lounge

Hunter got black forest cake

Yummy snack!

Cool ramp view of a Singapore A380 from the lounge

Cool Chinese bear art

This bear reminded us of our friend Alan

Success! Polaris time

United's menu sounded pretty promising

The new United bedding and screens, last time we left Australia was also on a United 787-9 but in their old 2-2-2 seating configuration with smaller screens and older seats vs the new Polaris seats with 1-2-1 seating that were on this aircraft. Funnily, we have never left Australia except on a United Dreamliner from Melbourne in Polaris!

Happy to be headed home

Lunch on United

Dessert

Movie time

Midflight grilled cheese and tomato soup, with some sort of strange Australian vegemite added

Surprisingly good breakfast pancakes with berry

Relax time

Biosecurity beagle?

After arrival in SFO, we breezed through Global Entry and headed back through Precheck to the United departure gates, although there were Delta flights from SFO to ATL, the United flight was better timed and had more seats. Before heading to our gate we grabbed a lunch at the Priority Pass restaurant Yankee Pier which has great seafood and plenty of Diet Coke. We didn't get to shower, but that was okay because despite just getting off a 15 hr flight we both felt pretty good. This was the longest flight of our trip, Australia is a long way away, but we always love our time there. We were back in the US with only one flight to go till home! It was also on a 737 MAX, which through no real effort of our own, is an aircraft that we have really only barely ever flown. We have only been on the MAX one time before when we bought tickets with Singapore Airlines on HKT SIN. It was a nice quiet ride and soon Delta should have some of them too so we will probably see more of them in the future. Thankfully, we got cleared and were on our way home finally, all without having touched a Delta jet since Haneda. We landed in ATL and got to visit United's newly renovated north end of the T concourse, it was interesting to see how they do their projects differently than we do, with the recent work.