Our days have turned into a week in this idyllic place. We’ve arrived in the midst of a lantern festival, a full moon celebration and the corn festival. Lanterns reign. Glorious hot-air-ballon-shaped lanterns are strung across streets, around buildings, hung on lamp posts, adorning the sterns of cigar-shaped pole-pushed boats on the river. Large float-sized lanterns in shapes of dragons, turtles, puppies and the like line the river in the old UNESCO town and come dusk, the place lights up to its magical best. Strings of wires across streets support the lanterns at irregular intervals. We see a big tour bus stop, a chap jumps out and grabs an extender pole with a squeegee on its end from the below luggage compartment, and runs ahead to push the lantern stringers high enough for the bus to ... read more

Returning to Vietnam after five years was decided based on our warm memories of the country and its people. The romantic notion of revisiting our path, with some new additions was appealing. So far in our travels we have chosen places never experienced before, and this is our first major reprise of a far-away country. Combined with slowing down, spending more time in a place, we are experiencing not only Saigon with the major tourist sites already off the list, but also with our antennae up for how a slower place feels to us. It sounds good in theory. We have explored in a different way. Rather more like a sigh, than a rousing “we wanna take on the place!” We sought out the local transit to do what we call a ‘circle route’ to see ... read more

Mmmm, TravelPod is defunct and I’ve overtly said I’m not blogging this trip. Instead, I’m choosing to on-line diary despite that being a subtle differentiation. Our preparations for departure were unusually calm. Starting early with visits to those we want to see beforehand, finding some warm and leaveable winter coats at Value Village, ordering tech bits early and getting a grip on next-year apartment rentals started a steady, manageable pace on the track to finally exiting unit 1106’s door. Mom and Dad are wintering in Halifax for the first time, Emma and Hannah are taking up skiing, Kelly and Marty are in high gear on their careers, we have friends and family whose circumstances are on our minds, and we leave in good health and spirits. And our suitcase holds three characters chosen by our granddaughters ... read more