My dad, Winder, AKA “Mean Wind-O,” is making his first trip to Vietnam this month – arriving on January 27th:

(The U.S. government “invited” Winder to Vietnam about 40 years ago, all expenses paid, but he ended up not making it over here at that time – probably luckily for my sister and me.)

Anyway, he will be here for two weeks, until February 10th, and today I finalized our itinerary while he’s here.  I’m getting pretty good at this trip planning stuff – maybe I am in the wrong business.

Here’s our itinerary:

January 27th – 29th:  Winder arrives in Saigon and we’ll spend a couple of days exploring Saigon, chilling out, getting him acclimated.  In Saigon, Winder will be staying at the pimptacular Hotel Sophia, which is right downtown and close to my apartment:

January 29th:  We leave from Winder’s hotel at 8:30am and head down to the Mekong Delta, specifically the cities of My Tho and Can Tho.  I wanted to go by speedboat, but it ended up being $800 more expensive, so we have a car, driver, and English-speaking guide taking us.  We’ll spend the day visiting some different places in My Tho and Can Tho, and will spend the night in Can Tho and the magniculous Golf Can Tho hotel:

January 30th:  In the morning, we’ll go by boat to the Cai Rang floating market in Can Tho:

Then we’ll continue by car to Chau Doc, which is a city right on the Cambodian border. 

That afternoon we will do some fishing on the Mekong River:

We spend the night of the 30th in Chau Doc at the ridonkulous Chau Pho Hotel:

On the morning of January 31st, we head by boat from Chau Doc to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  I’ve never gone over the border by boat before, so that should be interesting.  We arrive in Phnom Penh about noon and will spend the day exploring the city. 

I’m going to send Winder by himself to the Chuong Ek “killing fields” and the Khmer Rouge’s Toul Sleng “S-21″ political prison.  I went to both of them in 2001, and I think once was enough.  That night, we stay in the 9,000,000-star Sunway Hotel:

We’ll spend the morning of February 1st in Phnom Penh, leaving about 2:00pm to head to Siem Reap by bus.  We’ll get there around 7:00pm and have the night to have dinner and explore Siem Reap.  Staying in the supafly Tara Angkor Hotel:

February 2nd and 3rd:  Angkor Wat (perhaps obviously):

We fly back from Siem Reap to Saigon that night.

On the morning of Feburary 4th, Winder gets to fly off by himself to the hill station city of Da Lat. (I get to go back to work for two days.)  That afternoon, he will play 18 holes of golf at the Da Lat Palace golf course:

That night, he’s staying at the (I’m running out of dumb over-the-top adjectives) Novotel Hotel in Da Lat:

On February 5th, Winder will take a motorcycle tour around Da Lat and the surrounding highlands, which are supposed to be beautiful:

Winder flies back to Saigon that night.

February 6th:  Winder, Thao, and I fly from Saigon to Phu Quoc Island off the southern coast of Vietnam (where some of you may recall Thao and I went once before with our friends James and Erin):

We’re staying at Mango Bay again:

We’ll be at Phu Quoc for three nights, returning to Saigon on February 9th.  We’ll rent motorbikes, swim, snorkel, maybe do some fishing, drink some beer and pina coladas, eat some seafood, chill, etc.

And then a probably thoroughly-exhausted Winder will fly back to the U.S. on February 10th!

Here’s the kicker:  Winder’s cost for all of the above (13 nights of hotel accommodations, private car, driver, guide, boat trips, fishing trip in Chau Doc, 18 holes of golf, motorbike tour of Da Lat, guided tours of Angkor Wat, flights from Siem Reap back to Saigon and to and from Phu Quoc, etc., etc., etc.) comes to a grand total of . . . . $1,577.  Woo-hoo!  Go Vietnam!

Anyway, Winder and I are both getting very excited about his trip over.  I’m sure we’ll have plenty of good photos to post in a few short weeks!