The Jaded Empress Chronicles

  F ollowing a notably lengthy absence (disruptions and adjustments caused by obvious reasons - hint! begins with 'C' and ends in '19'), the Jaded Empress is back with a vengeance!  And so it appears, is her beloved Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)!   After all the horrors and surreal-ness of Covid-19 and the global pandemic, or more precisely, the Delta Variant, which bulldozed through Vietnam from May 2021 onwards - the lockdowns, the curfews, the food stamps descending into the farcical citizen's weekly food shop by the  military,  the police check-points, the sanitized spray-downs by Hazmat-suited officials, the cordoned off city alleyways indicating rampant Covid-19 spread, as chronicled in my compelling Ho Chi Minh City: the Covid-19 diaries Part 2   HERE - this megacity seems  to be back to normal -  that's if you can class Ho Chi Minh City as 'normal,' ha ha ha!  Borders are open again, expats and visitors are flocking back, business is booming, the caf