First Week Back

Ly Thuong Kiet is eerily quiet just after 5 p.m. this Saturday as I sit at the hotel’s streetside patio, taking advantage of their half-price beer.  Normally this street is a madhouse until close to midnight, but many sidewalk merchants closed shop early this afternoon because of the national holiday, and the sidewalks were much less crowded than usual as I walked some 18 km. earlier today.  But, more on that later, as this is the first post in almost a week.

It’s gray again today in Hanoi, but the vastly reduced traffic has substantially reduced the smog, and a mild breeze makes it feel almost cool.  Rain has been threatening all day, but nothing so far.  The forecast calls for us to be pushing 90 by next weekend.

Had a mild cultural shock earlier this week – the first time anywhere I saw a woman squat to urinate in the road gutter.  I am used to seeing guys use almost any venue (including off the Long Bridge into the Red River during my last trip), but this was a first.

It occurred to me that Korea Airways was a bit inconsistent on my trip here.  Boarding in Columbus, Delta spit out boarding passes for all three legs of my trip.  Trying to board Korea Airlines in Atlanta, I had to go back to the gate desk and get a new boarding pass.  But in Seoul, they accepted the original Delta pass without any question.  I can understand needing to change passes, but not the lack of uniformity.

I also got a first chance to test foreign medical facilities this past week.  Just before leaving Columbus, I had a long-standing lump on my shoulder re-inflame, and chose to ignore it (as anyone knowing me would expect).  Anyway, it broke open just as I landed late Saturday, and by Monday I finally decided to have someone look at it.  Four trusted contacts all recommended the French Hospital as the top med facility for expats, and they seemed to be correct.  The dermatologist took a quick look, de-pained the area, cut it open, scooped out the crud, and stitched me back up very professionally.  She also did a liquid nitrogen treatment on another growth I’ve had on my back since high school.  Both are now healing quite nicely, pending a return visit in a few days.  Total tab was only about $225, plus $9 for bandages, antiseptics, and antibiotics.  For a bad situation, not an adverse outcome.

Just spent a fine 45 minutes conversing on this patio with a couple of German gents who are here advising Viet vocational schools on how to bring their training up to international standards.  I love the meeting-new-people-and-cultures part of these trips.

The week at the bank started off very badly…the project has been in disarray with the rapid-fire changes in personnel, and coordination has been a joke.  Finally, after a presentation the IFC made to the bank on Thursday, the CEO gave a go-ahead on the strategy that had been worked on since last July.  With that, the mood and focus shifted, and while a shitload of work remains for my next three weeks, at least it looks to be worthwhile work.

So, after the successful presentation to the CEO, the head of the SME department at the bank took 7 of us (2 consultants, 3 IFC people, and a couple of bank associates) to a celebratory lunch at a top Japanese restaurant here.  The food was superb.  It was truly the first time I had ever enjoyed raw fish, fish eggs, seaweed, and all of the other assorted things many of you reading this have already experienced.  I was also a source of amusement, as it took about half an hour for me to re-acquire the chopstick skills I had learned last fall.

Not wanting to be self-confined to Hanoi as during my first trip, today I booked a 2-day group tour for next weekend to Mai Chau, located in the mountain highlands about 100 km. (4 hours by bus) from here.  Leaving at 8 Saturday morning and returning about 6 Sunday night.  I’m sure the mountain villages we will be visiting are not quite as “authentic” as they are portrayed, but it is a chance to see another aspect of this beautiful country.  The tour includes transportation, full meals, visits to at least 4 villages, a cave exploration, performance by a Thai tribe dance troupe, and other stuff for $205.  Seems like a good investment.  If all goes decently, the following weekend (my last in Vietnam) I’ll book a 2-day trip to Ha Long Bay, which was just named by UNESCO as one of the seven new natural wonders of the world.  Stay tuned for many pics.

So, back to today and the 18 km. walk.  Nancy and I have become immersed in geocaching (www.geocaching.com), which involves trying to find objects people have placed around the world, using clues and latitude/longitude coordinates.  We have been pretty successful doing this in Ohio.  There are 19 sites of which I know in this area of Vietnam.  I found one last weekend, at the National Military Museum; and am still trying to find a second that involves a 7-tiered rendition of clue solving.

For today, there is a cache about 1.7 km. from here that relates to the 12-day bombing raid Americans administered to a specific neighborhood in Hanoi in 1972.  So, after scoping out the clues online, and plotting my route, I set off at 10:30 this morning.  Finally admitted defeat about 3:00.  In essence, the site is supposed to be obvious once you see it, so I was kinda looking for plane wreckage or a sign saying “American Captured Here”, but found nothing of the sort.  I stopped for lunch (wonderful fried rice with pineapple) in a place that had wifi.  Used that and Google translator to ask the server if she knew where the wreckage might be. Another server knew, pointed it out on my map, and still I couldn’t find it.  So, back to the site to gather more clues, and I will make another attempt.

But, the afternoon wasn’t a bust as I re-visited Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and strolled the beautiful grounds again.  I spent most of the walk in the grounds of a massive Buddhist temple, during which services were being held and many school groups came for their pics.  Much as Greg found out in Indonesia, everybody wanted their picture to be taken with the white guy, so I may be popping up on Facebook sites around the world tonight.  Many pics came from my wanderings…hopefully the hotel internet will allow me to upload them sometime tonight.

Tomorrow?  Well, there is yet another cache, located west of here past some nice parks I saw on my trip to the hospital Monday.  A whole new section of the city that I have yet to explore.

Final thought.  I converted more USD at the hotel desk this afternoon, and they rejected a $100 bill that has a small tear in it.  The local currency has a lot of plastic fibres in it to make it durable, and locals refuse anything that looks as if it may not function in an ATM.  Interesting.

Now to watch Monty Python – The Holy Grail, and catch up on sleep.  Enjoy.   

Some photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/HanoiMarch312012

Second Trip, Day One

Here we are, folks…back at it in Hanoi for another four weeks of enjoying the culture and food, plus being essentially on my own in this project to fight the bank and IFC on their lack of marketing knowledge and sense.  But, we won’t let that spoil my first day, will we?

The flights coming in were uneventful, which is about the best compliment I can make about air travel anymore.  Left Columbus on time at 9:50 Friday morning on an absolutely full flight for Atlanta.  Most of the plane was packed with family vacationers, many heading for cruises out of Miami.  After almost a mile walk between the domestic and international terminal/concourse/whatever, I got to the gate just as boarding was to start.  But, the gate was packed with news crews and TV cameras….supposedly some mucky-muck trade delegation was boarding this flight to Seoul.  That set us back about half an hour, giving me time to have an unpleasant discussion with a TSA rookie about getting a new boarding pass.  We left late, but easily made up the time on the 15 ½ hour flight over the polar ice cap to Seoul.  On the bright side, my section was just over half full, so I could spread out my laptops and work, and burned thru a battery starting to watch season 1 of Walking Dead (thanks, Jaye!).  We were fed twice but I have no memory of the meals, so they were apparently in line with the culinary delight we call McDs.  We arrived about 5 p.m. local time Saturday.

After killing an hour in Seoul airport (sorry – my phone battery was also dead, but I will get photos of the beautiful airport on the backhaul), and after clearing security and their usual questions about my mass of electronics, we left for Hanoi about 7:30 Saturday night.  The 4 ½ hour flight, with another time change of 2 hours, got us here at 10 Saturday night.  While first class and business class were full on this flight, my section was less than ¼ full.  I could get used to this.  Another unremarkable chicken dinner (at all 3 meals, the choices were chicken, beef, and fish, and I have learned to avoid the latter two on Asian airlines).  The immigration lines were fully staffed but long – we are apparently in a tourist season.  But, it took a long time for the baggage to be delivered, so the net time loss was probably zero.

The customs inspectors didn’t even glance at me as I walked right by (apparently old Celtic dudes don’t look suspicious); my driver was waiting for me, and I made it to the hotel room just before midnight.  Unpacking, checking in online, and snacking took me to 1:30, and it was time to crash after getting (maybe) 2 hours of sleep during the trip.

BTW, Vietnam doesn’t observe daylight savings time, so I am now 11 hours ahead of the east coast of the U.S.  DST would make it an even 12 hours, which would be SO much easier.

Despite the lack of sleep I was up just after 7 this morning (both sunrise and sunset here are just after 6:00).  Hit the fine breakfast buffet at the hotel – the same one I stayed in last Sept./Oct.  Most of the staff seems to be the same, and they seem to remember the guy who is always pounding away at the keyboard during meals.

I’m writing this over a beer at happy hour on the hotel patio.  A bus full of Aussies just pulled up to disgorge its load.  I remember about 1/3 of them from breakfast…about half of the population of Australia is in the hotel this week.  At least it is easier to eavesdrop on them than on the Germans and Cantonese who were predominant last fall.

Today I walked about 8 miles, determined to score a couple of Viet caches for Nancy and me.  There are about 20 caches in greater Hanoi (which extends to Ha Long Bay, over 150 km. from here), two of which are within a mile of the hotel.  But, I crapped out.

The first cache is a 7- or 8-stage one, with each stage in a different area around Hoan Kiem Lake.  You have to solve the clue for stage X in order to find point X+1, which makes it difficult if you can’t even find the location of the first clue.  It is supposedly across the street from the local Calvin Klein jeans store, but damned if I could find it in two tours around the lake.  I had a photo and the coordinates, but got nowhere.  I’ll check more dutifully, and take another crack at it next weekend.

The next cache was an “easy” one…on the grounds of the National Military Museum.  It was supposed to be on a captured American tank, right side, rear wheel, under the tread.  Well, the photo clue was of a howitzer, not a tank, and when I couldn’t locate it I decided to look at the same location on a real American tank.  Still nothing.  Of course, pawing around a dirty tank wheel and tread, looking for a cache the size of your thumbnail, with a bunch of “muggles” (non-caching humanoids) wandering around doesn’t make it easy.  But, I got photos of the two points where it could be, so I will try to claim credit for finding it.

Beyond that, the museum was quite interesting.  Of course, most of it was focused on the wars against French and American aggression (they have much more loquacious names for each), and I got some decent photos of the millions of dollars of still-whole and crashed equipment we left on this countryside.  Also climbed to the top of a 35-meter tower from the 1800s that was heavily used as a lookout post during the war against the French during the 1950s.

That’s it for today, other than a trip to the mini-mart for nuts, cheese, and bread.  I converted $200 into just over 4.1 million dong, so I am feeling quite rich right now.  Prices seem to be about the same as last fall, despite an unofficial inflation rate of about 17%.  As I wandered today, the upscale stores seemed deserted but run-of-the-mill shops are reasonably packed with customers.  Construction seems to have slowed a notch, which makes sense since the federal government will not allow any bank to increase its loans by more than 20% vs. 2011.  At best, that keeps pace with cost increases.

And thus endeth my day.  I’ll catch up with online work tonight, and do a little prep for tomorrow’s battles.  Saturday is a national holiday, so offices are closed Monday and I should have a 3-day weekend.  But people are expected to travel heavily, so I will stay put.  Hopefully the following weekend I can book an overnight trip to Ha Long Bay or the mountain highlands (and eat some squeezel…ask Nancy to explain) and get a different perspective on this beautiful country.

More later in the week…take care, all.

BTW, today’s photos can be found at:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110414898143254307072/albums/5723776610304248625