May 6 - 18, 2015

We transitioned from our guest house in Ho Chi Minh City to an apartment in a different district outside of the hustle and bustle of the city. The idea was to find a comfortable place with a pool and good internet to chill for a week and get some work done. Ah, the best laid plans....

Liam got a cold and then passed it to Michael. Eventually, I got it as well. Maeve locked herself in her room for most of the week. We only visited the pool twice during the week and the internet crapped out. So there is not much to report on our last week here. We went to the mall twice. That was where we would get groceries. While we were there, we saw a poster of Demi Lovato. We knew she was in Southeast Asia because we saw her posters in Cambodia. She was heading to HCMC and would be in the mall this week.

Well, Maeve was thrilled beyond words. For those of you not into former Disney Channel stars who become famous singers, well, Demi is another Christina Agulilara or Britney Spears. She even had a reoccurring role on Glee. She was scheduled to appear at the Samsung store for an hour. We made plans to return for a potential 'meet and greet'.

We got there about 90 minutes before she was scheduled to show and we waited with some die hard Vietnamese Demi fans. And we waited. And we waited. Liam and Michael gave up 20 minutes in. They wandered around the mall for a bit, but ended up watching the drama from two floors up. I am seriously too old to be standing with a bunch of teens, in a foreign country no less, waiting for a singing idol to make an appearance. The things mothers do for their daughters. About 2 and half hours later someone shows up, gets the crowd riled up and picks two people out of the crowd. What??

Turns out none of us would meet Demi, except the two selected. After over three hours of waiting (a true parenting award due now), Demi finally shows up with her body guards and handlers. She walks by the crowd lined with security, waves, takes her obligatory sponsored Samsung snaps plus a few more with the two honored selected folks, says thanks for waiting to the crowd, says she loves us and see you tomorrow (at her scheduled singing performance). Then she walked past again, smiled and waved. It was all over in 5 minutes. Ugh.

Maeve was crushed. She just expected more. Well, we both did. So that was the highlight of our final week in HCMC. We booked a flight to DaNang and made arrangements to travel to our homestay in Hoi An.

From our balcony. People are living on these rusted old barges

I created a still in case that ten second walk by wasn't enough.

Hoi An is about 40 minutes from DaNang airport. It is a lovely, quaint town and has received rave reviews from everyone on our Facebook group Families on the Move. We planned to stay there a while, but would first start at the Redhouse Homestay.

Another flawless flight and transition. We arrived in Hoi An and were warmly greeted by our host. The property was lovely, but it was a bit away from the main part of town. Fortunately, they have complimentary bicycles and we used those to explore the town.

While I was exploring the market, I ran into the couple from Canada...small world. The other family from the UK was here as well and we all made plans to meet up at the beach in a couple of days. It was fun to have proper plans.

In the meantime, we went out looking for houses to rent for one month. There was not much to choose from and we were not thrilled with what we saw. We decided to book a few more nights at our homestay until we could sort things out.

Our homestay hosts decided to have a dinner party for their guests. It was a lovely gesture. We thought perhaps this was offered because he had thrown a party the previous night for friends and it got a bit loud. Eventually I had to go outside and ask him to keep it down. But the reality is that they are kind and generous people who like to have fun.

Dinner was beautiful and very traditional. I made things difficult by being vegetarian, but it was fine. There was a lot of beer and we were not able to finish one before another came out. Even the kids were offered an endless supply of soda (Liam would have gladly drank it all if not for us). The host did not seem at all in pain from the other night and he continued to drink. Next thing we knew, he broke out his guitar and played the Vietnamese version of 'Silent Night.' He sang several songs and he clearly wanted us to participate. Despite Michael's assurance to others that I could sing, I was confident that the entertainment was best left to the host.

Even with all of the drinks, the night ended rather tamely. That was a good thing, because we had to venture out in the morning to find a place to stay.