Good riddance, covid

Since 2020, Covid had put most world travel on ice. To slow the spread of the virus, countries across the world closed their borders, which brought tourism to a standstill. In Australia, the government had also been enacting seemingly endless lockdowns, preventing us from even leaving our local areas! You don't realise how much you miss travelling until you don't have the option.
The genesis of this trip was actually planning to visit England, Wales and Scotland. We'd bought the guidebook and invested in a roadmap that we hung on the wall in our loungeroom. But, as we started to dig a bit deeper into what that trip may cost, we realised that a month on the road in the UK could add up quite substantially! We held a quick team meeting and decided that we should probably look for somewhere closer to home. But where?
We tossed around a few ideas, including Japan, the Philippines, and Bhutan. In the end, we went for something that would turn out to be "same same, but different" (at least for me). We'd heard amazing things about northern Thailand, as well as northern Vietnam. I'd been fortunate enough to visit both countries previously, but hadn't been to the north of either. So we did some modern research (ie googling) and decided that this would do nicely. So, we bought some new guidebooks and began trying to refine our itinerary.
Mel and I had learned on our first trip together that you'll have a MUCH nicer time if you just select a handful of highlights to see at a leisurely pace, than if you try to see everything at warp speed. As the itinerary began to take shape, it looked like it would be a culinary tour (for Mel), with a few adventurous detours (for me). This sounded perfect. As the weeks went by, and the departure date approached, we eventually got the whole thing booked in... maybe we should have been travel agents? We'd start in Bangkok, head north, cross briefly into Loas, then spend the last 2 weeks in Vietnam. It would be 31 days overall.
The first leg of the trip was very pleasant and uneventful, with a touch of good will thrown in. Our Uber picked us up on time, dropped us right in front of our departure gate, and we barely had to queue for check-in. We breezed through immigration, and didn't really have to wait long for security screening either. When I collected my belongings from the other side of the security checkpoint, I hadn't realised that I'd dropped my wallet. Fortunately, one of the young security officers saw this, realised that I wasn't deliberately depositing some kind of low yield IED, and promptly returned it to me. With my faith in humanity reaffirmed, we wandered to the Amex lounge and gorged ourselves into a food coma. The flight was pleasant, and 9hrs later we were in Bangkok! The trip had begun!Read more