Holy Shit! It’s finally coming together. We’re off to Vietnam………with a 17 month old!
It all began as a wild suggestion by me to sell up, liquidate what we could and head off on a world tour. Take on the globe and see what came our way. Understandably my cavalier attitude met with a degree of reason, commonsense and reality and after an intense period of negotiation we settled on a 2 month trip to Vietnam. Not too shabby an outcome really.
It’s taken a while to get here; to this point of imminent departure; and, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t think we would make it this far. The entire enterprise being so nearly derailed by various nasty illnesses to all and sundry, a very expensive case of misdiagnosis and the general stresses that these and the whole concept of heading to South East Asia with a toddler can bring on. But here we are, thanks to some perhaps narrow-mindedness and blinkered vision by me – which I much prefer to call focus to the cause.
I’m under no illusion, this is going to be a challenge. Not like any travel experience I have had thus far in my life. We are going to a hot, humid, wet, crazy, busy and sometimes dirty country; with a 2 ft high rocket, a cruise missile for anything dangerous, a homing device for the deadly. What could go wrong? Well, I’m not going to answer that but suffice to say the planning involved in this trip has massively eclipsed anything I have ever done before. Everything has to be thought through, all eventualities covered and then a back up plan put in place…….and even then you know you’ve not covered everything; you can only legislate for so much that life can throw at you. But my rationale is, if you think it though, and then think it through again at least you have covered most bases. But this is a toddler we’re talking about here and, quite literally, anything could happen.
Traveling with a toddler is not something I have ever done before and it does change the way you look at a destination and how you perceive what you can and can’t do while there. For example we have made the decision to not undertake any lengthy journeys by road, as the idea of spending 4 plus hours on a packed bus with a bored, angry, frustrated little man doesn’t sound that good. For us or the fellow passengers. Instead we are opting for trains and planes……no automobiles, well not for anything lengthy anyway. This and the risks inherent with taking a toddler on an overnight boat cruise, has ruled out Halong Bay. We have also decided to not venture into the mountains, hill stations and rice paddies of the north for the simple reason of keeping him away from as many mosquitoes as possible, as we are going in what is technically the rainy season. Unfortunately the Mekong Delta has also fallen into this category, for all of the above reasons. It would be a trifecta of driving, boating and mosquitoes, all of which for either of us would be fine, but there are somethings as a parent one has to accept, and this is one……..
No slow boat up the Mekong for me.
No looking for my Colonel Kurtz.
Well not this year anyway. Instead we are planning on mainly traveling the length of the country along the coast, essentially from North to South, from Hanoi to Saigon. Moving at his pace, with lengthy stays in one or two places. We intend to, where possible, break up any long journeys into more manageable chunks; we have time after all – just under 2 months all up. So in theory it should be a leisurely meander down the edge of the country.
However theory is all good until put into the sticky little hands of a 17 month old, and plans are there to be changed…….
Tomorrow we will be in Ho Chi Minh city, hopefully, so we’ll see where my theory and plans are then. I’m generally feeling positive.
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