Excitement mounts ...

D minus 21 hours. The first leg is simply to Toronto so that will be easy. We are all packed and dreaming about the trip. I can only sum up my excitement with two words ... "Sweet Thing".

My going to Ethiopia to work for 7.5 months ... INTERESTING
Our 3 week holiday in Italy in 2007 .. HUGE
Our NYC for the weekend of our 5th wedding anniversary ... LOVELY
2.5 weeks in Vietnam with ST ... PRICELESS

The final details arrived from Cindy today and we have a yellow folder we will carry around with us with the paper copies of just about everything we will be doing. When in Italy in 2007 we had such material in a yellow binder that I lost in Florence. It eventually turned up in the back compartment of my large knapsack; hence the Vietnam trip must use a yellow container in memory of that debacle.

You can do it yourself or ...

There is a gentleman I worked with last time in Hanoi who lives in Ho Chi Minh City. He has offered to show us around the town and naturally we have accepted his offer. I will contact him the Tuesday morning after we get to HCMC. There is nothing like seeing new cities/countries when accompanied by a local ... sweet :).

A feverish pace

We are just about ready to go except for the packing and a few last minute chores. The excitement builds and we will be Vietnam-bound in 5 days. We have not yet but will soon line up the hotel for Ho Chi Minh City; it will probably be the Marriott Renaissance but not sure. It is close to the water and within a stone's throw of most of what we want to see. A major heart throb is supposedly the Củ Chi tunnels, part of a network throughout most of the country. They played a large part in the Viet Cong moving through the south, especially the Tết Offensive of 1968. We booked flights from Ho Chi Minh to Da Nang then on to Hanoi 4 days later, for a whopping $79.50 USD each; like that :).

When in the Da Nang area we will stay in Hội An. Hội An is about 10 km from Da Nang and the Palm Garden Resort came highly recommended. We will get picked up at the Da Nang airport and the drive to Hội An including lunch and a tour will be $45 CAD. We have asked Junie to sort out the trip to Halong Bay the weekend of November 12. All the ST can talk about, other than the excitement of the trip itself, is what she hopes to be PERFECT weather.

Closer every day

ST and I are trying to finalize the plans. We had Rick H. for dinner last night with a number of others. He and Naomi were just in Vietnam together for a while and did go to Da Nang. ST and Rick jammed on what to do there as well as in Ho Ch Minh City. The recommendations Rick gave us were in line with information given us at a travel agency this week. That outfit has a woman who specializes in Vietnam so we will go see her early in the week, We got information from Junie regarding Halong Bay and it was suggested we first stay at the Tuan Chau resort that Friday night then do an overnight cruise with Oriental Sails or Bhaya Cruises the Saturday overnight and part of Sunday.

Flights booked

That feat is nice to have accomplished. We booked through TD Travel Rewards and they found us everything except Hanoi to Shanghai on Star Alliance. Some of the connections are tight so I hope we do not experience something similar to Brussels Airlines' trick when I went to Portugal. I had 1h40m to get my flight to Lisbon and they left Entebbe an hour late. I made the connection but my bags did not.

We are using ANA (Nippon Airways) from Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City. We are meeting with an agent in town net week to plan the balance of our pre-work time up to and including Tuesday November 9. Junie will give us some advice about a weekend in Halong Bay November 5-7. There seem to be many hotels to choose from as well as some cruising one can do while staying on the bateau. It should be interesting to see what's out there for us.

The final plan (almost)

We will book air fare today. As I am sure many have found out, a lot of us are amazed at what we are told by travel agents and what we find out there ourselves. We want to leave Ottawa Sunday October 31 but were told airfares could be 500-600 more on the weekend. We just found something cheaper by close to $150 from the Monday or Tuesday departure and Air Canada to boot!! I sent the details to an agent in town and if she can get us the same deal we will ticket with her otherwise do ourselves by the TD Travel Rewards desk.

• Sun Oct 31 leave Ottawa
• Mon Nov 1 arrive Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC)
• Tue 2 thru Thu 4 in HCMC
• Fri 5 fly to Da Nang
• Sat 6 thru Tue 9 China Beach (??)
  
• Tue 9 fly to Hanoi
  
• Wed 10 thru Fri 12 ST in Hanoi
  
• Sat 13 thru Sun 14 somewhere out of Hanoi
  
• Mon 15 ST in Hanoi
  
• Tue 16 ST leaves for home

The location for the fest the weekend of Nov 13 is as yet undecided but maybe Halong Bay. I fly home December 8. I priced a flight to Calgary when I was going out to see the Calgarabbeys and it was close to 700 CAD. Why is a return flight to Vietnam just over twice that amount??

Now that you have all memorized the above itinerary, it will probably change again :).

Here we go again ...

Making plans for another voyage to southeast Asia for the month of November. This journey has a twist ... a lovely twist at that. The Sweet Thing will be there too from November 1 through 13 :). What a concept ... traveling together.

We are going to get visas locally to avoid the mess in Hong Kong we encountered last time I was there. The plan is

• fly to Ho Chi Minh City arriving Wednesday November 3 or so
• 3 or 4 days there
• fly to Hanoi
• spend the first weekend somewhere out of town
• start work Monday November 8
• Sweet Thing fly home the 13th
• work until December 3 then fly home

Oops ... aren't plans made to be changed. I think we realized that what we wanted to do was too much so we are now looking into just Hanoi. We have already been in touch with Junie about what to do for the time we are together in Hanoi.