It hasn’t been easy the last week. We took the 8 hour van ride to Hanoi and got to the Silk Path Hotel which is a beautiful new hotel in the center of Hanoi. It is on Hang Bong Street which is a great shopping area.
It took almost 1/2 day but we were able to get our flight reservations moved up a day and make reservations to get to Utah for the viewing and the funeral. Trying to change the flights over the internet was an exercise in futility. Trying to call the airlines didn’t work. Getting a 24 hour help desk was usually only accessible with an “800” number which doesn’t work overseas. The online sites either were showing no availability or outrageous surcharges to change the tickets. Fortunately we had trip insurance and I called them. They were most helpful. The representative patched me through to a live person at the airlines and stayed on the phone while arrangements were made. That was important because the call kept dropping and the agent would call me back so that we could resume. I believe the travel insurance company we used was CSA so I will use them in the future and will recommend them.
We made it back to New York at about 2:00 pm on Tuesday. That gave us a day to unpack, go through the mail, pull some things together, repack and catch a flight to Utah on Wed. evening. We got a rental car and got a few hours of sleep at a hotel near the airport.
Fortunately, Marie’s family had everything pretty much under control. All of the arrangements had been made. The days up to and through the funeral were a very nice gathering of friends and family. The funeral was very emotional because of the close family ties.
Tomorrow night we return to New York. We will have to make arrangements to get reunited with Augie & Basie. We will try to reestablish some temporary routine into our lives.
What will the next adventure be? Well, there is a chance that in May we will travel to Cuba (legally). We will see how that shapes up.
Check back to this site. We will try to go through our pictures and and post some final thoughts and images from our Laos trip.