We spent most of the day near Da Bac, having lunch and dinner at our homestay, with a hike between the meals. After dinner, we were treated to some members of the village singing and dancing.

After our overnight train arrived in Hanoi at an early hour, we went to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the grounds around it. We then walked through the Old Quarter, including watching a train go right in front of our café table. For dinner, we did another food tour.

While in the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, we went to two different caves, one by foot and one mostly by boat. We then hung out in Dong Hoi until our night train left.

As we enter the last week of our tour, we will be doing some traveling between places each day. Today we crossed the DMZ which used to divide North and South Vietnam. We went through some tunnels and ended the day at a national park.

The big outing for the day was a tour of different sites by motorbike. We went to a market, a pagoda, an incense village, an emperor’s tomb, and finally lunch. In the afternoon, we all did our separate things, with Melody and me hanging out in a chocolate house.

We said goodbye to Hoi An and drove several hours north to Hue. In the afternoon, we did a tour of the Imperial City of Hue.

This day centered around two items, a bike tour covering a couple of the islands around Hoi An and an acrobatics show.

Arriving in Hoi An in the morning, we got breakfast and then did a walking tour of Old Town. In the afternoon, we returned to Old Town for dinner and to wander around a bit.

This was a day on the water on a tour boat and basket boats, then in the water. The rest of the afternoon was laid back until we went to the train station to take our overnight train to Hoi An.

We had another travel day going to the beach town of Nha Trang, making a few stops along the way. Once in Nha Trang, we walked near the beach to the Po nagar Cham towers.

We had only one full day in Da Lat and we certainly made the most of it. We strolled through a large display garden, looked through the King’s palace, climbed around a Crazy House, and rode a train to a pagoda. We even had a bit of downtime sprinkled in there.

Another travel day, this one on the bus for most of the day. We made several stops between Ho Chi Minh City and Da Lat, several with things to eat or taste.

For our first tour day, we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the War Remnants Museum. We also drove around the city a little bit, then some of us found a place for dinner.

For our last day by ourselves in Ho Chi Minh City, we had a relatively low-key day. We walked through Japan Town in the morning and met a cousin’s friend for lunch. In the evening, we met the other people who would be with our tour group and all went out to dinner.

We dodged the rain (mostly successfully) to walk through the Reunification Palace and went to the Saigon Central Post Office to buy and send a few postcards.

For our first full day in Ho Chi Minh City, we got an overview of the city, dodged rain (sometimes heavy), went to the Fine Arts Museum, and took a food tour for dinner.

A lot has been happening over the past few months. We said goodbye to my dad, celebrated Tynor and Mallory getting married, started adjusting to me being a new retiree, and did a quick road trip with Melody’s sister Celeste to Yakima and Spokane. Mere hours after Celeste left for the airport to return to New York, we were there ourselves beginning a trip to Vietnam that would last for over three weeks.