This is a first-person travel vlog transcript of Kara and Nate Buchanan documenting their time in Hanoi, Vietnam, and their subsequent flights to Norway (their 95th country). Highlights include a warm reunion at a popular sandwich shop (Banh Mi 25) and a special tofu-avocado sandwich, a spa that employs blind masseuses, airport lounge time and a delayed itinerary, and a panicked but false alarm on the plane when Kara thought someone was rifling through Nate’s bag. The transcript also contains a short promotional plug for their Fare Drop flight-alert service.
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I was literally crying.
I had forgotten that it happened until we got off the plane. After that, I was just like, okay, I just need to go back to sleep.
We're Kara and Nate. We've been traveling the world full time for almost four years, and we just spent the last week with my crazy dad in Vietnam, where he got to experience Southeast Asia for the first time. And after a sad goodbye, we're back in the craziness of Hanoi. Hanoi for one more day.
Tonight, we are flying to our 95th country of Norway.
But before we leave, we wanted to show you two of our favorite spots in the city.
Three and a half years ago, we were in Hanoi for the first time, and we ate at this restaurant called Banh Mi 25. Let us know how the best sandwich in Hanoi is. Whoa.
This is like a party in a month.
We ended up meeting the owner and having this whole conversation with him about life and happiness, and it really left a big impact on us.
He was so interesting.
It was the best sandwich shop in Hanoi because the sandwiches were the best. But after, like, hearing his story and his passion for his country. So last week, we couldn't wait to go back, but we weren't sure if he would remember us. And as soon as we walked up, he ran up, gave us both a big hug, remembered our names, and invited us into the restaurant for a free meal.
We could not believe it. Out of the thousands of tourists, Tourists that he sees every year, he recognizes right away. It was awesome. Needless to say, we've been back here several times, and we have a new favorite. Banh Mi. It's not on the menu. You have to special order it. One day, the owner just made it for us, and we totally fell in love. It's not something that we typically like. This is gonna sound strange, but stick with me. It's tofu, avocado, and mushrooms. I don't know what they do to the tofu here, but it is the juiciest, most flavorful tofu I've ever had.
Plus, it has all the things that are on a normal bomi, like cilantro, pickled veggies, a little bit of spicy sauce. It's amazing. And they have really good. So sad to leave this place.
So you can get a massage pretty much anywhere in Hanoi for less than $10, but you get what you pay for. So last night, we found this place that's a little bit more expensive, but it was the best massage of our entire lives. And what makes it even better is the spa that we went to has the best mission. They only employ blind masseuses here, which I think is so cool because not only do they have a career and they're empowered, but they're professionally trained. So they're really, really good. Which is why we're back two days in a row.
Perfect.
Enjoy your massage. I'm so excited. So see you in 60 minutes.
It's a relaxing way to end our massage. To the airport. Yes.
Thank you so much.
It's always a good day when they don't wear carry ons. They're not over seven kilos. They're just double. Our 18 hour journey to Oslo begins now. Starting with the lounge.
I'm out of moves.
I forgot how much I love this lounge. I love this lounge. It is bright and shiny and pretty. It has really good views of the Runway. And most importantly, it looks like it has a great selection of food. Rice and porridge.
Oh my gosh, look at these fried spring rolls. No way. Any lounge that has sushi for breakfast and dinner. My cow lounge Lovers cabinet Massage sushi.
Our flight is delayed and we don't know how long. So just found an outlet behind this tv. Just gonna get a little work done.
The only bummer about that flight being delayed that it takes away from lounge time.
It's only 9 o'.
Clock.
Already about to fall asleep. We have a long night ahead of.
But we do have movies on a two hour flight.
I love movies.
You sleep or movies on. What are you a day?
I love falling asleep to a movie.
We made it to Bangkok all right.
We have about five minutes before our flight board. So.
I feel very different right now.
What time is it? It is 12:17.
We're about to board our 11 hour flight for Norway.
The worst part is this flight lands at 7:15 in the morning. So we're expecting it to function for an entire day.
Hope the coffee strong in Norway.
Very, very bad.
So we've tried something different on this flight. Normally we try to book an aisle and a window seat and hope nobody sits between us. But this flight was looking really full when I checked in. And on the back of a triple seven, at least for Thai Airways, the last three rows are two seats across instead of three seats the across across. So grab the very back seats on the plane to ensure that we can have our own row. However, we are like within smelling distance of the bathroom. So we'll see if I've made a huge mistake. Like seven hours from now.
Seated with your signal fastened until the aircraft come to to a complete stop at the fast and See those sign is being turned on. Be careful in opening the ob lor to protect yourself and other passengers from possible injuries.
Eleven hours later, we have made it to Oslo. Thank you. And that is the second time in four years that we've been asked not to film on a plane.
It's freezing.
You didn't miss much. It was dark the whole time.
So there was one thing that you missed. So I'm like half asleep. I've been like on and off sleeping for a few hours. And I opened my eyes and Nate took bag had to be put like a few rows ahead in the overhead bin. And I saw this man get up and very violently like opened up and ripped this backpack from the overhead bin and set it in his chair. And he starts rummaging through it and I'm like, that guy is going through Nate's bag.
I woke up and she's just looking at me with like the most panicked. I thought like the plane was crashing or something. I mean like my heart was racing so fast but like I was just half awake and I had on my noise canceling headphones. So she was talking but I wasn't hearing anything and I was just like, what's happening?
I'm like ripping my seat belt off and they take my. And I'm like, I gotta go.
Stop. I think we were both the worst.
I get up. I get up.
It wasn't my bag. It didn't even look like my bag.
My God. Thanks so much.
So that was really the only excitement on the flight.
So we just spent 15 minutes baking ourselves in a little wooden box with 10 other half dressed strangers. You got it.
I can't do it.
You have to do it. Hey, real quick, before you go, I just wanted to let you know about a big fare drop update that we just released. If you haven't checked out Fare Drop yet, it's a service we created that sends you alerts when really cheap flights are available. And we've already helped hundreds of people score awesome deals since launching back in May. The biggest request that we've had from our members has been to expand our search to business class deals. Which is why I'm super excited to announce that we are now searching thousands of business class routes on a daily basis to help our members score awesome business class deals.
This is crazy.
So if you want to check out our new business class membership for Fair Drop, I'm going to leave a link in the description below and you can try it for free for 30 days. So that was all you missed?
I'm sorry I scared you.
Seriously, it took a long time for my heart to stop beating quickly. At one point, I was feeling my pulse.
I just remember when you finally took your headphones off, you, like, stopped. Because I was, like, panicking, trying to get up, and I'm, like, stuck in my blanket, and you stop me. You go, what? And I was like, you're fat.
Nice.
I'm still laughing.
Other than that, it was very uneventful. Boone is such a special person. He just told us that he is the year of dog, and so he bought us this little dog because his wish is to travel with us somewhere. And so now it's like he's traveling with us.
Are we going this way?
Feel very different right now.
I don't know the words of this.
We're all the way at the end.
We could do this. It's gonna be so much fun.
I feel like I've been excited about watching movies all day, and I feel like I'm gonna make it through 15 minutes in a chair.
