Oh the Places I'll Go

It has been nearly twenty-one months since my last big trip ended: a Pacific Ocean cruise that found our ship sailing aimlessly around the South China Sea for two weeks as port after port closed to us because a new virus was raging across Asia and would soon infect the rest of the world.  For the past year and a half, much of the world has been shut down, more than five million people have died, and international travel has been at a near standstill.  And even though rates of new infection continue to soar, vaccinations have been discovered and deployed, and some governments are relaxing border restrictions for those who have been fully vaccinated or had recent tests indicating that they are not ill. My retirement vocation was focused on travel with a goal of seeing as much of the world as possible before my health and money ran out.   I had scheduled and paid for several trips that were cancelled during 2020 and 2021 and have accumulated a fairly large stash of credits...

This was shaping up to be my winter of Asian adventures.  Scott and I were invited to the wedding of a Vietnamese friend just a few days before Christmas, so we planned a vacation to include time in the ancient imperial city of Hue where the wedding would take place.  Nearly a year before, a friend had talked me into joining her on a cruise from San Diego to Hong Kong that would include ports in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Vietnam; thirty-two days from mid-January to mid-February.  And then another friend suggested a China tour that sounded great, so I booked a third trip to Asia for mid-March. And then things started to go wrong.  In the words of Robert Burns, “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.”  First, Ruth notified me that she was cancelling the cruise.  Oh well.  I had paid my money and would lose a large portion of it if I also cancelled, so fine, I’d go alone.  Then, on a beautiful early November Saturday, I suggest...