Today was packing day. What else can I say? Except “Wow, do we have a log of stuff.” Fortunately, we had most of the day to spend on packing so it wasn’t be a big rush. Also, we brought quite a few presents and gifts for people at the orphanage - kids and caregivers - so were no longer carrying those things around. And, this time we’re not putting our luggage on an airplane so it won’t get tossed around as much, which makes it easier to pack in my estimation.
But, that still leaves all of the baby paraphenalia that we need for Alyssa and, of course, Jessie requires items like games, small craft projects, dolls, too. And, don’t forget all of the electronic gear - video camera, still camera, laptop computer, portable DVD player along with chargers, adapters, batteries, cables, etc. So, we’ve still got a lot of stuff to pack and carry around Vietnam!
Eventually, we got everything stuffed into the luggage and after one last check of the hotel room, we were ready to go.
We all gathered in the hotel lobby and started putting all of our luggage into the van. You can imagine how much that was for eight adults, two children and three infants on a several week international trip. This time the van will be more crowded than the ride up to Phan Thiet from Ho Chi Minh City because we’ve got three extra passengers - the new babies. They don’t take up much space, but each family has an additional backpack with bottles, extra formula and diapers. And to make room for our luggage the back seat of the van had to be folded down so we’re now squeezed into three bench seats instead of the four that we had become accustomed to. The picture below gives you a sense of what it was like. But, it’s a cheery crowd as everyone is happy to be completing the first phase of our Vietnam trip and eager to get phase two started.
The trip was uneventful other than being four hours long. The babies were, in general, very good. I had thoughts of a long drive with tired babies, crying because they were unable to sleep. But, that was not the case.
At last, we arrived back at the Riverside Renaissance Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City around 8:30 PM. We were all very tired, but too wound up to go to sleep immediately so we gathered in the lounge and chatted for a while before going back to our rooms. Tomorrow was planned to be a busy day. We had to leave the hotel at 8:00 AM to take the babies for their medical clearances and then, hopefully, we’d get appointments to see the Citizens Immigration Services officer later in the day. But, we couldn’t be sure of that until we had submitted the completed medical clearances to the CIS office.
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