And now the end is near. . .

(singsingsing) I did it my way with some help from Intrepid Travel. Anyway, this particular adventure is drawing to a close. I'm looking forward to landing and staying put for a bit and maybe even finding a shallow rut to get into for awhile but I'm not sure I'll get to do that right away because it appears I get to hit the ground running when I get back to Corvallis and the PNW Juggling Convention group!

But before I get there, I'm still here and here is Viet Nam. We flew out of Saigon to DaNang and then took a bus to Hoi An which is a great little town. The major thing to do there is to go to the beach except since we had traveled north quite a bit we have left the hot, humid weather behind and were into more cooler, almost cold stuff now. The other thing to do there is to find a tailor. Lots of shops for that kind of activity and I went with the flow and now am the proud owner of two tailor made suits although I have no idea where I will wear such fancy duds. After just two nights in Hoi An, we hopped the bus and headed north back through Danang to Hue. Here we did regular tourist stuff-a tour of the citadel and then a motorbike tour of the countryside surrounding the city, a visit to an Emperor's Tomb and a guided boat tour on the Perfume River. Hue was two days and one night. The other night was the night train to Hanoi. I had some bad take-out on the train so my first day in Hanoi, I was driving the porcelein bus and missed the surrealistic tour of the Ho Ch Minh complex. I still have time here so I might be able to fit that in. Having mostly recovered from my tummy ills, I rejoined the group for the bus ride to Ha long Bay and an overnight stay on a boat on bay after a kayak tour to some of the found there. After the boat on the bay we bussed back to Hanoi and then had a farewell dinner as an Intrepid Group. I do gotta say that I was tired of eating by that time! Except for the bad choice of a take away sandwich (that was my bad, I'll own it) the food has been great here. A few of the places where we have had meals provided as part of our tour package don't know when to say when, though. I've had lots of 4 and 5 course meals on this trip and they've been really good, too. I still skip the bits that are too weird or not quite identified but mostly I try them.

Between the India part of my trip and this part I treated myself to a 4 star hotel in Bangkok and it was great. I had hoped to go out that way here and booked into another 4 star but I guess the stars are of different standards. It's not a bad place, it's just not as posh as the Rembrandt was. However, I'll be checking out the pool tonight so who knows, maybe the stars will align!