The End - At Last!

It is now the evening of Monday, April 30.  Having caught up on a number of lingering items both physical and mental, it’s a good time to address the final points of my trip and put this blog to bed.  And, of course, start to write new e-books about Armenia and Vietnam. 

It is a joy to actually have daylight extend past 8 p.m. again.  There is little variation in daylight hours in Hanoi….sunrise is uniformly 6 a.m. plus or minus 15 minutes, and sunset 6 p.m. plus or minus 30 minutes.  While winter days in Columbus are short and dreary, the extended summer nights make up for it.  In Hanoi, unfortunately, it is relatively rare to get out of the office, back to the hotel, and changed before darkness descends.  That tends to make one stay close to the hotel…the streets are confusing enough in the daylight!

I received quite a few comments on my training classes (2 days of product development, 3 days of sales skills, and 1 day of sales management).  Evidently, the training “norm” there is to put everything on PowerPoint (already off to a bad start!), hand out copies to each student (3 to a page), and sit while the “instructor” reads each slide to the students.  Of course, there are 2 or 3 quizzes each day to make sure students don’t nap too long.  It truly sounds like the same educational philosophy that prevails among our politicians.

Anyway, I spent more than half of the time in each course on group work, and a significant portion of the remainder in discussion, calling directly on those who didn’t volunteer.  And the students truly responded.  While I have slim hopes for the success of this immediate project, perhaps there will be some innovative teaching or mentoring approach invented by one of my students in the future, and it will spark others to learn better.  Too bad I’ll never truly know, but that would be a true measure of success for the effort.

The training rooms were absolutely sweltering, especially for the sessions held offsite.  We couldn’t get the A/C working properly, and the fans were only able to go at about half speed.  I found out later that particular building is programmed to have air conditioning start on May 1, regardless of the ambient temperature.  My jacket and tie lasted less than ten minutes into the first class.

It was better in the bank’s training center…perhaps word of my aversion to heat and humidity preceded me.  By then, I had also learned to get to the classroom by 7:30 and set all five of the A/C units down to 16 C.  That kept it reasonably bearable for the day, even when all 32 bodies crammed into the room.   Interestingly, I wasn’t the only one glowing in the 114 F heat index we experienced on my final training day.

One side benefit of training is that the cafeteria in each building prepares and serves lunch for all participants, saving us a bit of money and a lot of time hunting around for a decent place to eat in unfamiliar neighborhoods.  Sticky rice and bun cha are daily staples, augmented with several additional dishes such as shrimp, sautéed Viet cabbage, green beans, pork, chicken skewers, and the like.  I was constantly being asked if I would like a spoon, but managed to reasonably master chopsticks by the end of the trip.  My slowness at eating did seem to unnerve a few others in the class.  I also found it notable that nobody consumes beverages during a meal….and after-meal drinks are either hot tea or tepid water, regardless of the temperature in the room.  At times, I had to walk a couple of blocks to find a grocerette with sodas in the fridge.

As on my first trip, my tipping habits threw some locals for a loop.  The local advisor told me to never tip a taxi driver, but several whom I did tip got to recognize me and more than gave me extra service later in the trip.  Of course, we’re typically talking about bumping a taxi fare up by about 50 cents, which makes a tremendous difference for someone who might make $10 on a good day.  Restaurant servers, while still not expecting to be tipped, seem progressively less surprised when it does occur.  A minor benefit is that it also avoids receiving a bunch of 2,000 dong (10 cent) notes in change.

Employees of and guests in the hotel continued to be thoroughly impressed by my work ethic – I never went to meals without my laptop with me.  Everybody assumed I was working, while I actually spent 90% of mealtime chatting online with Nancy.  Several guests also told me that the laptop at meals was the first hint that I was American. 

The final day of the project was rather laid back.  It started with a meeting at the IFC office (the IFC-head of this project flew in from New Zealand for the meeting) where we finally agreed on what went wrong, what needed to be fixed, and a sequence of tasks for fixing the project.  Unfortunately the project will need to be extended if it is to succeed, but any intelligent being knew that a year ago.  The political games being played with the original schedule at the IFC and Bank level were ridiculous…they actually wanted me to complete all of my marketing training, mentoring, implementation, and analysis in one trip lasting six weeks.  Two trips totaling eight weeks were already too short.

The remainder of the day (10:30 on) was spent with the SME department head, Huyen, as we went over all of the pending and completed tasks in minute detail.  There was a nice break in the middle as she took all of us from the meeting to a local restaurant for lunch….fried tofu, pan-roasted catfish, 6-inch stuffed shrimp, salads, etc.  The highlight was watching the chef deliver oven-roasted rice cakes….they are made in thin clay containers, and the cakes are liberated by the chef tossing the container in the air, striking it with a stick, and catching the rice cake before it hits the floor along with the clay shards.

Huyen also arranged for one of the bank’s drivers (they have dozens…profit margins on loans are quite fat) to pick me up at the hotel at 9 p.m. to depart for the airport.  Much appreciated….and easier than grabbing a cab. 

So I am now finishing this final blog post on the afternoon of May 1.  Were I still in Hanoi, this would be the end of a 4-day weekend….Monday, April 30, was the anniversary of our retreat from South Vietnam (Liberation Day), and today is international Labor Day for those jurisdictions that recognize the importance of everyday laborers over financiers.  Of course, I would not have gotten paid for either day off, one of many reasons why it is better to be home.  If the project is extended, there may be another trip to VN in the fall…but this time Nancy will be coming with me and we will make side trips to Ha Long Bay and Ho Chi Minh City.  Until that possible re-start of this dissertation, thanks for reading, and know that you have missed going to a beautiful country and fascinating culture.

Winding Up My Second Trip

Friday, April 20, 2012

Well, folks, it has been a long time since I have sent you an update.  It’s 10:30 at night local time, and I’m sitting in the airport café at Hanoi International, sucking down espresso and ice cream and charging the PC batteries enough to get me to Seoul.  That is just over a 4-hour flight from here, landing at 6 a.m. their time.  4 hours to kick around, then I kill 13+ hours directly to Atlanta.  Less than 3 hours there, and I should be landing in Columbus about 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

There is a lot to talk about since my last blog post almost two weeks ago.  Let’s see if I need to break the narrative into more than one blog.

Last weekend, Tu tracked me down on Facebook…he is the high school student who rescued me from being lost, and led me to the B-52 remains.  Anyway, he is also an apprentice jazz sax player, and invited me to any of three open-air concerts his band was giving at the Luala fest, near the Opera House.  Unfortunately, Tu’s teacher was there all weekend, and he bumped Tu from playing at all.  Regardless, I did make most of the Sunday morning concert, and the smooth jazz was quite enjoyable.  I took Tu out to lunch afterwards at a lakeside café, and he regaled me with tales about Viet legends, local shamans, and similar stories I would never have heard.  He will go far in life…intelligence, personality, and a drive to always learn more about almost any topic.

I spent a few days in the bank proper last week, and most of the rest of the time since then was spent training.  The first week’s training, 2 days, covered product development and was held at leased rooms in the stock exchange training center (preventive maintenance ceased about 20 years ago).  This week’s training, 4 days of sales and sales management, was held in the bank’s training center which was a much shorter cab ride away.

Regardless, the salient point is that the bank and training truly do shut down completely from 11:30 until 1:00.  Most people had a quick lunch, as there is a cafeteria in the bank and the training centers routinely have lunch and tea breaks for any classes.  Some may go out for errands, but the others recline in their chairs (or in a row of three folding chairs) and literally nap.  Lights are also turned off, so make sure you bring a flashlight if you stick around and want to read.

I continue to be astounded by the lack of customer service orientation.  While people are friendly to those they meet in person, there seems to be an innate inability to orient oneself to the customer’s POV.  This extends to areas such as only selling what the bank thinks the customer wants, or creating products that have absolutely no reason to exist except that some mucky-muck thinks they are neat or shiny.  More on that later in this drivel.

Breaking in the new team leader, Jane, has been a challenge…more so for her than for me.  At least I had 6+ weeks of experience in Hanoi…she has none.  The streets befuddle her, and she has a hard time picking up the local accents.  OTOH, she is a tireless worker, and is not afraid of hammering at a point until she totally understands it.  That is badly needed in this relatively rudderless project.  If I could pass on some of the deeper details about what is going on, you would think I was crazy to still be here.  At our IFC/Bank meeting today, Jane found out that she was expected to stay until early July (as opposed to May 29, June 4, and June 30 dates that had been suggested earlier).  No problem as far as she is concerned, but one would expect the project hierarchy to have its act together 9 months after it started.

Boarding starts in about 5 minutes…time to power down, pay the bill, and truly start back home.      

Saturday…very early morning in Columbus, and we are about to cross the Date Line on our way across the Bering Strait.  Both flights today have been absolutely jammed, and this one has its temp set at least five degrees above comfort.  Plus, this plane has no individual air vents for passengers.  Not a way to spend 13 hours.

The training classes went quite well…students were attentive, ready to speak up (after some initial coaxing), and did not object to the sales role plays even when I gave them no prep time.  I see one of the students has already posted a photo on Facebook from the class.  There were two disappointing aspects.  I rapidly found in the first week’s class that the bank product managers know how to write, but have no concept of using Excel to create sales and financial forecasts.  Inexcusable.  During the second day of the sales training class, it began to dawn on me that the branch managers had not yet been briefed on the new path the bank is planning, and how it would affect their customer mix, daily activities, and task responsibilities.  So I took it upon myself Thursday to give a half-hour summary of the project and what might occur and when.  That will probably annoy some mucky mucks in the bank, but the people in the training certainly should have been up to speed on why there is this sudden need for new training.

Anyway, the evaluations came in with very high marks.  Wednesday evening, the sales class (probably all but 5 of the 32 in the class) took me out to dinner at Bia Hoi, a rather famous and traditional open-air garden diner.  At the close of class on Thursday, they also presented both my interpreter and me with a kilo of Viet coffee.  Very nice of them, and maybe a response to my habit of rewarding them with candy throughout the trainings.  

Weekend in Mai Chau

Just before 1:00 on Saturday, April 7, and I am safely in the lodge at Mai Chau, a mountainous village about 4 hours (100 km.) SW of Hanoi, near the border with Laos.

It is steamy, with a lingering drizzle, but I cannot let that deter me because I have but one day.  Tentatively on my schedule, there is a group bike tour at 3:00, a Thai native dance troupe at dinner, and a walk thru the Sunday H'mong food market.  I leave just after lunch tomorrow.

Chilled bean sprout salad was just delivered to start lunch.  The menu is fixed, and comes with the room.

My driver picked me up right on time this morning at 8:00.  Surprisingly, I had the 9-person van all to myself.  It was pouring as I left Hanoi.  We stopped in a foothills village halfway where I bought bun cha and coffee for the driver, and sated myself with coffee and Pepsi. 

Steamed rice, steamed banana buds, and grilled beef were just delivered.  Far too much for one person.

The roads here were paved, but full of bumps and holes.  The driver was quite skilled.  Traffic rules were normal....if you have clearance, any lane will do.  If there is not enough room, beep your horn and the smaller vehicle  will get the hell out of the way.  Worked so far.  In the 20 or so villages through which we passed, I saw hordes of schoolkids heading home from Saturday morning classes.  The schools were often the best-kept buildings in the villages.  Too bad the state of public education here is so low.

The room is small, but fancy.  Two beds and a balcony on the second floor.  Internet is fairly robust, and I shall investigate TV late tonight.  Complimentary plate of fruit, bottled water, and rice wine awaited me.

Everything is so incredibly green here, a welcome change from the noise and concrete of Hanoi.  We saw rice paddies interwoven with banana plantations and sugar cane plantations our entire trip up.  Local farmers are quite adept at terracing the rice paddies to minimize erosion.  Despite that, every river and stream was the color of copper, reflecting the red clay soil that is washing down to the Red River Delta and the Sea of China. 

The sun is coming out, and I want to take a walk in town before the bike tour.  More later.

Close to 6 p.m. now.  Rain prevented the walk into town, but cleared just before the bike tour started.  Once again, I was the only one.  My guide, Duong, is a 39 YO local member of the White Thai tribe, the predominant tribe in this area (migrated from Laos and China in the 7th century A.D.)  Duong has been working at the hotel since 2008, when his livestock farm was wiped out by disease.

Duong took me on about a 10 km. leisurely tour among about half a dozen villages, some Thai and some H'mong.  We stayed mainly on the concrete sidewalks that curved through the rear portions of the villages.  He seems to know everybody, which makes sense because he has never left this area, and the largest village we visited has just over 1,000 residents (the smallest had maybe 60).  Unless you are working at the lodge or are a small retailer in the village, there really is no occupation here except for agriculture.  Rice paddies are everywhere, but the cooler weather at these altitudes only allows for two crops per year.   Winter rains did not materialize this year, so many people were out today planting corn instead of rice.  It is truly a subsistence situation.  Two women were seining a small pond for tiny fish, and another was investigating the irrigation channels for snails...all intended for tonight's dinner.  Almost every family has chickens running about, and there is a decent number of water buffalo for milk, hard farm labor, and meat.  For the most part, meals are a combination of corn and rice, along with fresh veggies from the garden that dominates every front "yard".

Each family unit has an assigned agricultural plot, measuring about 3/4 acre.  The local government has not redistributed land since 1986, so you can find families of 2 members and families of ten members with the same-sized plot.  There is no purchase of land...this is a communist society.

Duong took me into one house in his village.  Almost every house is built of solid bamboo beams, with bamboo veneer and smaller stalks for the roof, sides, and floor.  Houses are two story, more from tradition because when the tribes moved here, wild animals were still rampant and families lived on the second floor for protection.  Now, the open-air lower levels are used for storage of wood, tools, and sometimes livestock.  The living area consisted of two rooms.  One, perhaps 15 feet sq., was the kitchen with basically kettles and an open wood fire.  Wood is gathered from the surrounding forests daily.  The living quarters were perhaps 20 by 30 feet, shared by 3 generations.  A grandmother, mother, and two kids live there.  Both husbands died in the war or its aftermath.   Nylon net tents are used for sleeping quarters, and beds are mats perhaps 2 inches thick.  There is no other furniture save for a couple of cushions to sit on.  There is, however, a TV and two florescent lights (although I saw no direct evidence of electricity), and a shrine to ancestors and featuring photos of the dead husbands.  In the frist floor storage area were three coffins being built...always a cheerful sight.

If a new villager moves here (initially crashing with a relative), or a household becomes too large, it takes about three years to gather enough wood from forests to build.  Then the entire village comes together to build the new abode.

We also passed through villages where the company that booked my tour has built schools, rec facilities, and other benefits that the villages couldn't possibly afford.  Glad to see a company doing exactly what it should.

The only downside to the tour is that my phone battery died, so I got no pictures.  But, tomorrow morning we will be walking some of the same paths, and I have the sucker on charge all night.

Speaking of which, it is after dark now.  The village of Mai Chau does have streetlights.  There are no other lights to be seen anywhere.  Too bad low clouds have moved in, as the stars would probably be beautiful.

Dinner beckons. 

  

Just before noon on Sunday.  I have checked out of the hotel and am sitting in the outdoor patio, just above the pool, awaiting lunch (spring rolls, sauteed pork, baked apple).  My van doesn't come until 1:30, which should get me back in Hanoi just after 5:55.

Dinner was also wonderful, a combination of spring rolls, pond-raised catfish, rice, and bean sprout salad.  Fresh fruit and thick coffee for dessert.  At 8:30, we enjoyed the hour-long performance of a local H'mong dance troupe.  But my camera was still on recharge, so you will never see how good they looked.  The native costumes looked good, the drums were certainly handmade and authentic.  But, I'm not sure that the electric accordion has been a mainstay of their culture.

After the troupe, the town and hotel essentially shut down.  I was struggling with the totally sucky wifi in the room...I seemed to lose the connection at least every 10 minutes. I tried TV, which consisted of 7 channels, and four of those couldn't be watched because of audio problems.  So, I spent a while sitting on my balcony watching townspeople journey by, and called it quits just after 11:00.  Woke up refreshed just before 6:00.  The bed was super comfortable, and I probably could have stolen another hour of sleep save for the symphony of horns from the busses that started at 5:30 or so.

The hotel has a tip jar (a ceramic pig, actually) at the front desk, with a sign asking that you contribute only if you feel service was exemplary.   All tips are distributed evenly among all staff.  So I took advantage of the opportunity to stick a bill up Porky's butt!

BTW, it just hit Easter Sunday back home.  Enjoy!

I hit breakfast right when they opened at 7:00 (fresh fruit and omelets-to-order, and again thick black coffee) and headed into town.  Not much to see...the open vendors were primarily selling cooked foodstuffs.  I tried to buy a silver necklace from the one jewelry vendor, but she had nothing that would both fit the loop around my hematite pendant, and around my thick neck.  As soon as I approached her, at least half a dozen locals crowded in to watch the exchange.  No doubt they will remember me for.....minutes.

Got back to the room and finally got my cell phone camera working in time for my 9:00 walking tour.  Surprise!  It was Duong again, and I was the only one again.  In 90 minutes, we walked about 6 km. through rice paddies being worked, small ponds for raising fish (such as the one from dinner last night), the Sunday shopping fair at the local White Thai village, and some smaller villages that are not there just to sell things to tourists.  I probably have 75 photos which, when uploaded and captioned, should show the full beauty, simplicity, and poverty of this area (and, indeed, most of rural Vietnam).  People were out working their fields as early as 8:00.  I heard a number of short stories building on yesterday's short stories.  Duong's actual village is over the mountain (well...hill...maybe 500 meters above this road) across the street from the hotel.   He has climbed that mountain many times...the bamboo at the top is extremely tensile and strong, and is prized for building houses.  He is planning to build a new, smaller home for he and his wife now that their 15 YO daughter has been sent off to boarding school.

Walking through the Thai village, I did buy a few gifts to bring back...after haggling, I probably paid somewhere between American prices and local prices.  The can use the extra money...maybe I overpaid by 5 bucks total. 

In the midst of the last paragraph, the manager of this complex came over to thank me for my stay.  We ensued into a discussion of why I am in Vietnam, and he offered his opinion that none of the banks in the country (1) have unique products, (2) have a distinct brand, or (3) have decent customer service.  Duong, in one of our many mini-conversations, proffered that banks here look for reasons not to lend to anything but large corporations, and require too much paperwork and take too much time to make decisions.  All of that ties in with what we have heard elsewhere on this project.

With that, I close on this update.  I totally recommend this resort if you are ever in this area, and suggest that you stay more than 1 night to take advantage of the many activities that are not held daily.  And, come prepared to relax.

Picture show: 

https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/MaiChauApril2012

Greetings, all.

Just a few parting thoughts as this week winds down, and I look forward to a weekend excursion to Mai Chau, an enclave of mountain villages about 4 hours NW of here.

Last weekend, while I was strolling a local park, I ran into the first example of a local just staring at me.  Admittedly he was only about 10 years old, but he just stopped and stood in the middle of the path, arms down and mouth open, looking at me.  Most people are more discrete.  Maybe he was just more openly honest than most.

The father-and-son duo I mentioned regarding the B-52 cache bears more commentary. I was wandering, hopelessly lost, in deep back alleys of Hanoi when I chanced upon a lake that looked like it might have been the one in which the B-52 crashed in 1972.  No luck, but a kindly gent shouted over, asking what I was looking for.  He volunteered his son (senior in high school) to walk me to the small lake where the plane remains are located.  They were most hospitable.  The father is an entrepreneur, focused mainly on importing and selling trucks.  He also mines gypsum in Cambodia and Laos to mix into concrete.  The son who showed me around is headed to college in Japan on a full scholarship, kinda following his brother who is on a full scholarship at Drexel in Philly.

The at-home son, Tu, is also an accomplished sax player.  We parted (after the father snuck off and paid the café bill), promising to meet during my trip at the jazz club where he plays.

It is just totally amazing how wonderful people can be, wherever one is.

To me, I am a bit skittish knowing I am in a country that we tried to bomb back to the stone age 40+ years ago.  Yet, to a person, if the topic comes up, the response is “The past is past.  Move on.”  We Americans should be so intelligent.

Over the long holiday weekend, I wound my way back to the bai hoi (beer today) dive a couple of blocks away.  It was pretty crowded on the sidewalk (their dining room) and decided I should have some food to justify taking up a table and (too low) stool. So I pointed to a plate of fried stuff, topped with greens, that many tables were savoring.  Well, about midway through the tasty treat, I realized that it was deep fried baby frogs.  Whole…bones, intestines, and all.  But, 3 days later, my GI tract hasn’t rebelled.

Returned to the French Hospital yesterday morning for a checkup on my cyst removal.  That incision was fine.  The doctor applied a deeper liquid nitro app to the growth on my back; then we agreed to have her remove about a dozen moles from my neckline.  Again, a very professional procedure.  Much less costly than back in the States, too.

I had to recharge my local cell phone yesterday…bought a 100,000 VND (less than $5) card to carry me through.  Like most reasonable countries (USA excepted), only the sender of a call or message pays.  I can send a text on this network for about 1 ½ cents.

One of the many attendants in the hotel saw me in the lobby earlier this week and, after a few minutes’ conversation, said he also cleaned rooms and asked my room number.  He then told me I was “neat”.  I was tempted to respond “Groovy, man!”, but figured it would only confuse.  I hope it meant that I did not leave a mess for the staff every morning.  They have better things to do than to attend to slobs.

I got a nice surprise when I returned to the room this evening.  Two surprises, actually.  There was an envelope with a cert for a glass of wine at a local restaurant.  Also, the front desk manger left a bottle of Chilean merlot, with a thanks for booking a trip to Mai Chau through the hotel this weekend.  This hotel does know how to acknowledge its loyal guests.

With that, I will close.  Many pics and descriptions of the upcoming weekend’s trip to the mountains to follow.

Enjoy your lives!

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

Final Thoughts - Trip 1

This summary & reflection is being written about a week before Christmas, 2011…roughly two months after returning from my first trip to Hanoi.  While the business of the past weeks gave me an excuse to delay writing this, the lapse has also allowed some thoughts to ferment and coalesce since my initial impressions.

It is difficult to comprehend where the project is going from here.  The tasks of two of the three short-term advisors are done (HR and IT), although their recommendations have yet to be formally accepted by the Bank and IFC despite having long exceeded the 10 days allowed each by the project contract.  Yesterday was also the final day on the project for the team leader, who has yet to be replaced.  His strategic plan, submitted two months ago, also has yet to be accepted.

For my part (the last survivor unless we rapidly find a replacement for the team leader), I am scheduled to submit a 3-year marketing plan for the Bank by February 15^th.  Leaving time for Bankworld and the IFC to review the plan, that gives me a completion date during the last week in January.  That will not be difficult in and of itself, except that the Bank and IFC was recent marketing research to be incorporated into the plan that I write.  That would be great, except that launching the research is now nearly three months overdue, and there is no way I can use it unless my report submission date is pushed back at least a month.  Were that to be done, it would be impossible to give the Bank time to translate and review the plan, schedule my second visit for implementation, and work some analysis of the initial marketing tactics into the mix.  The contractual end of the project will be here well before that.

So, once Christmas is over, I shall dive into finishing the plan, which will take more than the five at-home days I am allotted.  A good part of the exercise may be futile because a marketing plan is built to progress over time on the foundation of previously completed steps, and it is not obvious that any initial steps will actually be completed by the Bank. 

And, that is probably the biggest black cloud hanging over Vietnam as it attempts to jump into the “developed” world – an absolute lack of the basic concepts of business.  The bulk of people are solo or family earners or entrepreneurs, and they will continue to scrape by on hard work and ingenuity, as well as remaining invisible from the authorities, for the next generation.  But, those deemed to be the new generation of business and economy builders are primarily anointed because they have connections in the government, not because they have any special acumen.  Much like American businesspeople have become, the initial generation of Vietnamese entrepreneurs is ready to cry for government subsidies, restrictive laws against their competition, and exclusive licenses instead of identifying and meeting a market need at a fair price.  I see little evidence of initiative, accountability, or desire for increased responsibility among most large enterprise employees. Most are quite content to remain in the shadows of corporate hallways.

It would be interesting to launch my phase of the project and return in five years to see exactly what the end result looks like.  I would probably not recognize it.

Have a safe and relaxing Christmas and New Year (and Tet), everybody.  With luck, this series will resume in March with the saga of my second Hanoi trip.

Heading Home!

7:22 Friday evening (7:22 Friday morning for those of you on the East coast) and we have been airborne from Beijing for almost an hour.  I have this unexplainable need to watch the airline maps during flights, and see that we are heading east over southern China (thankfully keeping a good margin from the North Korean border) and, presumably, over Japan shortly.  So apparently we are going to cross the north Pacific.  Curious, since my main flight coming here took me over the Arctic Circle, Siberia, and Mongolia to get to Beijing.

Left my hotel at 7 this morning (8 p.m. Thursday in Columbus) and, with luck, will be home in the first hour of Saturday.  All stocked up with charged laptops and plenty of reading material for this 13 ½ hour flight.  Sleep is doubtful…almost all of the passengers are tourists from China and, by the way they are standing in the aisles and talking, they are all from the same family and this is their first reunion since 1920.

I definitely got a different idea of the Beijing Capitol airport today…perhaps it was because I had much more time to kill today than four weeks ago.  I was scheduled to have four hours of downtime, but the inefficiency of Customs workers there took a large chunk of that vacant time away.  The parts of the airport I was in today are much cleaner than I had seen previously.  And, it is incredibly underutilized…probably less than 10% of capacity.  If I recall, it was built as an entry showcase for the Olympics 3 (or 7?) years ago, and Beijing’s growth as an international commerce city has yet to catch up with that.  In fact, it is so sprawling that two of the three terminals are for international flights – one for local international (Vietnam, Taipei, Malaysia, Australia, etc.) and the other for long-haul international like this one.  Unfortunately, the two international terminals are 20 minutes apart via free shuttle bus.  Then, in the long-haul terminal, after clearing security one has to take an electric train perhaps 2 km. to the midpoint of the 60-gate terminal.  The view from the air is overwhelming.

Inside were many employees, both government and those of the retail shops.  One could tell the difference because government employees wore uniforms as they stood around and looked bored, while the others chose other outfits to be bored within.  The port is as overstaffed as it is over-capacitated (?????). No Starbucks yet, but there is a Burger King and all of the CPG brand names that newly-wealthy Chinese flock to.  I got some vastly-overpriced newspapers and magazines, including interesting Asian versions of Financial Times and the Economist.  Sidebar – there is NO reading material for purchase, in any language, in the Hanoi airport.  Glad I had 4 ebooks stored on my phone.  Also found a reasonably-priced restaurant for a dinner of Asian braised beef (too sweet, but the sticky rice was perfect).

This has been a most interesting week on the project.  Suffice it to say that the project presentation for the Chairman of the bank, now scheduled for next Wednesday morning, has taken twenty times more work time than anyone with a brain would have justified.  Apparently nobody has briefed the Chairman about the project, so IFC (International Finance Commission, part of the World Bank) is looking to us to sell him on the project.  This, when we have had all four consultants on site and are a third through the calendar for it.  Somebody, and somebody NOT on the immediate project team, really screwed this one up on the pre-project portion.

I suppose there is much behind the scenes that I don’t know, but the image of the IFC in my brain has taken a definite his in the past month.

Speaking of images taking hits, the Chairman of this bank had a heart attack a few years ago.  Since then, one of his two personal secretaries (he has two – both are male) always travels with him on business, and sleeps in the same room at night in case another heart attack starts.  I would kill to see the job description for that one.

I still have about 400,000 dong in my pocket, about $20 USD, that I was planning to spend on reading materials at the Hanoi airport.  With a delay in selecting a marketing research vendor on this trip, and the resulting delays in my deliverables, I do not expect to make my next trip until March.  By then, inflation in Vietnam will have shrunk my dong by about 10% (yes, I phrased it that way deliberately so all of the 2-year-old-brains reading this can giggle for the next half hour).

And, with that, it is just after 8 p.m. and dinner is being served three rows from here.  Good timing to shut the laptop down and bring out a magazine.     

Here are just a couple of photos from my last week:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/FinalWeekOfMyFirstTrip

Rainy and Inactive Week

I am writing this post on Saturday evening, 8 October, after a rather dreary (rainy, thanks to the typhoon that drifted south) and boring (writing reports) week.

But, a few things did crop to make the week tenable.

For starters, I have noticed that few local adult men are bald or even gray.  But I am not smart enough to expound on the possible reasons.

Monday, four of us went to a backalley dive that serves duck for lunch.  No other meal.  No other base.  Just  duck.  You can get it grilled or boiled, but it will still be duck.  And, it was delicious and reasonably priced.  Wonder what the dessert would have been if we have ordered it.

Sticking to the aquatic theme, Tuesday the same group (plus three from our client bank) grabbed a cab to an Old Quarter restaurant that serves fish.  Only fish.  And, only sautéed at your table.  No menu needed.  As usual, it was delicious.  One can almost understand why locals have the rep of having two-hour lunches.  And, to quote our local Bank liason in her follow-up email:  “The fish we had at lunch today has the scientific name of Hemibagrus elongatus, which is a type of catfish.”

On Wednesday, 5 October, it was pretty much pouring all day as Nygene avoided us but pulled water in from the South China Sea.  Could have been a lot worse.  But, the local newspapers reported over 200 dead from flooding in the Mekong delta in Cambodia and Vietnam…fed from rains in VN and Laos from two tropical storms in 10 days.  The rice crop has been wiped out, leading to a 30% increase in the price of the staple in a month.  Fortunately, most of the region can produce 3 rice crops a year, but that doesn’t help in the short run.  Many Viets blame the flooding on massive dam projects in Cambodia which are the subject of ongoing international negotiations.  I am too dumb to understand the physics of the debate.
 
As a sidebar, I have noticed a propensity by local office workers to not use stairways.  I am met with surprise when I actually use them to descend…or to walk up 1 or 2 flights.  Americans are so strange…!

So, to this weekend’s activities.

The main theme this weekend is rain…interspersed with pouring.  Seems to be accurate so far.

Howard, the HR advisor on this project, ended his stint yesterday.  Very sorry to see him go…he is well traveled and a very likeable guy, so I learned a lot from him during my 3 weeks together.
 
Our main contacts at the Bank took the project team out to lunch at at Thai restaurant Friday in Howard’s honor.  Interesting, since Howard is the only one who speaks Thai, so we had him order everything: mango salad, squid, veggie noodles, shrimp, grilled pork, and you name it.  Finished with an interesting dessert of seaweed noodles and sweetened coconut milk…not something I would seek out, but it worked.

Then, in the evening, three of us went back to the local tourist trap named Delicious…me for the third time.  We decided to sit in the outside area…then a monsoon hit…and we watched the rain being channeled from the tarps into 5 galloon buckets that were just dumped on site when they filled.  No matter.  We three ordered tilapia, with trimmings, and the fish came whole (gutted) to be sautéed at the table by our server.  It is hard to imagine anyone could give better attention than he did, and we tipped him well for it by local standards…$2.50 on a $20 tab, on top of the standard 5% service charge.

Photos for various of this week’s activities can be viewed at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/ARainyAndInactiveWeek

Also bought a bunch of holiday gifts and souvenirs today…probably overpaid a bit, but bargained down from the posted price.  Hopefully, we are all happy.

Including the departure dinners and gift buying, and taxis, I am still spending less than $30 a day here on average.  Nice to be able to stay within a reasonable budget.

Final point of this post:  Walking back from today’s travels, I decided that three weeks of gastrointestinal happiness qualified me to stop in one of Hanoi’s many famed reaches:  a back-alley dive serving bai hoi.  Bai hoi means, literally, “beer today”, and essentially means home brew that is rolled out in the morning and served until the keg is empty.  No chilling, no pasteurization, and the mugs are washed with the same care as anything here in an alley restaurant.  It tasted great and was dirt cheap…about 50 cents a pint.  I shall reserve my full opinion until 24 hours have passed.  Kudos to Hep A shots.

More to come as it warrants.  Most of you are just starting your Saturdays…enjoy the crisp autumn weather.

Water Puppets and Away From the Tourists

Hey, everybody.

Another weekend of walking….about 17 miles…mainly alone, which can make things much easier.

The main event Saturday was a trip to see the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre, considered a national treasure.  I am not sure why.  The performance was…there…but not anything I would recommend.  The worst part is that the theatre is old, and the seats are built for people averaging about 4 ft. 6.  And in the seat next to me was a sumo-type from Thailand.  But the show is only about 45 minutes, consisting of 11 vignettes:

• festival drumming
• dragon dance
• prelude by the buffoon Teu
• buffalo fighting
• farm work
• village guardian god procession
• van singing
• horse race
• Quan ho singing
• Coconut picking
• Carp transformed into dragon

It would probably be fascinating to see backstage, as the puppets emerge from a bamboo curtain onto an indoor pool.  Once in a while one could see the rods by which people behind the curtain move the puppets.  Supposedly they require 3 years of training before being allowed to work a show.  But, for only $3, I cannot complain.

In the evening I joined the usual crew to hit a local restaurant a block away – fixed price menu at $20, $22, or $25.  We chose the midrange, which brought 11 courses to the table, including white asparagus & clam soup, fried squid, mango salad, poached fish, coconut ice cream, and green tea.  A nice sampling of local dishes.

After dinner we wandered to a jazz club about another block away.  Only stayed for one set…for some reason, the singers in bands here only do about 3 songs per set.  So, that one was not worth going back to, as the players were rather wooden in their efforts. 

Sunday dawned warm and brilliant, so it was time to avoid the damn tourists and explore a new section of Hanoi.  I headed northwest from here, seeking and walking across the Cau Long Bien (Long Bridge) crossing the Red River.  Those of you in my age bracket might remember that we millions trying to bomb this bridge out of existence in the 60s and early 70s, to no avail.  Apparently, though, no maintenance has been done on it since.

The bridge is just over a mile long, and constructed primarily of rust with a few cobwebs to hold everything together.  Crossing on foot is not for the faint-of-heart, especially since the guard railings were no higher than my knees in places.   It has seven “lanes”…a train track down the middle, two asphalt lanes in each direction for bikes and scooters (cars and trucks must use a more modern bridge 1 km. to the north), and a metre-wide cement pedestrian path on each side.  Scooter drivers were somewhat more polite on the bridge than on typical Hanoi streets, especially since many bike riders got off and pushed on the ascending sections.

But, crossing the bridge took me to the Song Hong district, a lower-income retail and residential district about 3 km. and 30 years from my hotel.  Very serene, save for the construction site of a new building.  It definitely gave me a look at a different aspect of Hanoi.  From the time I set foot on the bridge until I returned to the same spot, about 3 hours later, I did not see another non-Viet person.  I seemed to be quite a curiosity to the kiddies.

And that was it for this weekend.  I shall head out to lunch/dinner shortly, but seek and expect nothing spectacular.  More updates in a few days.  And I am more than halfway through this trip…leaving early on the 14th.

Photos of the weekend, and a video of me crossing the street while holding the camera at my chest, can be found at: https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/October22011

The Typhoon That Wasn't

Good afternoon, all.

Early Friday afternoon.  Howard, Hang, and I all decided to work out of our hotel rooms/homes today because of the tropical store forecast.  So far, it has been a bust….winds under 30 and probably less than 2 inches of rain.  The strongest part is supposed to pass over us about 4:00, and the remnants continue to wet us through tomorrow, but it is nothing more than a heavy rainstorm.    I had one meeting outside this morning, and am leaving in a few minutes to visit with a Bank customer a few kilometers away.  That is all on my firm schedule until Monday.

But, retreating to earlier this week, Howard led us to a “genuine” Italian restaurant a couple of blocks away for lunch Tuesday.  These pizzas were actually good, although a shade expensive by local standards.  Definitely worth a re-visit when I tire of pho.

BTW, there is no coinage here…all money is currency.  The smallest bill is 1,000 VND (Vietnamese dong), about a nickel; and the largest is 500,000 dong, just short of $25 USD.  I have yet to see anything being sold for as little as 5,000 dong.  “Good” restaurants, however, do make a practice of automatically giving each diner a branded wet nap for handwashing before dining.  That courtesy winds up on the bill at either 10,000 or 15,000 dong.

On the way back to the office we passed an “authentic” western steakhouse, The Seventeen Cowboys.  We had Hai interrogate the employees lounging on the steps, and they insisted that there are 17 cowboys there during the dinner period.  I’m not sure if we should try it out but, being only 3 blocks away, curiosity may overcome me.

On Tuesday I also hit a boredom threshold…after a week packed with meetings, there was nothing scheduled for me these two days so I spent the time in the office catching up on digesting data and starting to write my recommendations.  The rest of this week is filled with meetings, generating data to yet lengthen my report.  Wonder if anybody ever truly reads the crap I generate?

But, the boredom left me edgy, so in the evening I wandered down to Tonkin Coffee, a locals hangout on this block.  I probably will not return.  Cheap Viet coffee is made with robusto beans which have an inherent sweetness to them in this climate.  Plus, the norm here is to drink coffee with a lot of sugar and cream (evaporated milk), and over ice.  I was finally able to convince them to bring no ice, no sugar, and no cream.  But I had left my phrasebook in the room, and couldn’t convey the message “and bring it hot!” (room temp is the default if ice is not desired).  At least the price didn’t hurt…about 47 cents a cup.

Slow forward to Wednesday.

Four associates from the Bank took us to lunch Wednesday…well, they picked the restaurant, and the three of us split the tab.  It was a five-level restaurant (we were on the top floor, of course, with no lift), and the servers communicated with walkie-talkies and a dumbwaiter (notice my restraint).  The choice menu items selected by the bankers were roast pigeon (greasy, and tasting like a tractor tire), frog legs (like chicken legs), spiced beef, and banana flower salad.  The latter may well replace my passion for mango salad.  If you want bad photos of a fun meal:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/FoodPhotosMainly

Wednesday’s heat index was 101 just before noon, and peaked at 104 around 3:30.  The approaching storm will bring a most welcome 10 C drop in temps for the weekend.

Thursday

I spent the morning speaking with, and touring a factory of, a medium customer of the bank who has carved a niche manufacturing disposable food containers – carry out trays, plastic cups.  In most locals restaurants, drinks are served in glasses and rinsed in water that I try not to contemplate (glad I got my Hep A shots).  It was quite interesting to see his machines stamp the containers out of rolls of raw plastic film.  The contrast was also watching a half dozen female employees, all of whom looked 12 so they were probably in their mid-20s, manually pick newly-stamped cups from a large sheet of plastic on the floor, and stack them into plastic bags for delivery.  Must be a very exciting job.  All of the machines in the factory were Chinese, which one could easily tell by the shoddy housings compared to German engineering.  Anyway, the trip to that industrial zone about 30 km. from the city center was quite interesting.  A very few photos, and a couple of short traffic videos, can be found at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/September292011#5657804969928107410

One of the constant complaints I hear from businesspeople is the differential between interest rates:  VND rates run 14% on deposits (capped by the feds), and 22% on a typical business loan.  USD rates here, when available, run about 2% on deposits and 5% on loans.  Everybody, of course, wants USD loans but there is a lack of foreign currency so that the dong doesn’t collapse.

The economy is also rift with low productivity.  It is not uncommon for a loan officer at the bank to have 2 customers (albeit large ones by his standards), and I have only been in one bank branch that was arguably busy.  About 24 people in one department are kept employed analyzing an average of two loans requests each month.

Enough bitching.  I wimped out and ate in the hotel Thursday night, sampling a local delicacy called Bun Cha…grilled pork in a “special” sauce over vermicelli.  Quite good, although the sauce was (as expected) a shade too sweet for my tastes.

Friday it was pouring with the first wave of the tropical storm (downgraded from a typhoon), so Howard and I decided to work out of our hotel rooms after telling Hang to work out of her house.

Meeting with a marketing research company in the morning…a light rain on the 2-block walk.

Meeting at a customer site in the afternoon – totally soaked, despite using a taxi and company car on separate legs.  While the forecast was overblown, the day did turn out to be wet, and the winds were sufficiently high (maybe peaked at 40 MPH) to make umbrellas worthless.  The next storm due thru here, Nalgae, looks like it might be much nastier when it hits late Monday or so.  Again, no matter – my meetings are substantially done, so I can always hole up in the hotel.

When I got back to the hotel (soaked) about 3:30, the Hanoi fire dept. was conducting pre-scheduled drills here.  That was all well and good…the guests had been notified…but we didn’t expect them to be transporting staff from the 7th floor, on the fire ladders, as part of the test.  Nor did I expect the elevators to be shut down.  So, I climbed seven stories of stairs to my room, changed in gym clothes, descended 6 stories to the gym, worked out, and climbed six stories back to my room. 

But, I will not fear fire in this hotel – they are prepared.

A final observation on this society…the notion of “average” seems unknown.  It started with banks that only report period-ending balances, and stare blankly when you talk about average for the month.  It ends with this hotel, where the room rate includes two free pieces of clothing laundered each day.  But, unless you argue and agree, that is only each day – use it or lose it.  Fortunately, our team leader argued and won, so I have 54 pieces of laundry I can get done at any time (of my choosing!!!) during my 54 nights here.

Enough blathering.  Howard and Ed await me at a restaurant in the Old Quarter.

Weekend Tours of Hanoi

Hey, folks. It’s Monday evening now…time to recap the weekend.

Saturday, Sept. 24, was a day of solo wandering, putting in over 10 miles. I hit Hoam Kien Lake again, circling the lake and watching a number of older ladies doing their Tai Chi in the morning mist. There were probably another dozen newlyweds getting their pics taken even before noon.

I tried to get tickets to the water puppet show, but waited too long and the afternoon show sold out. Next weekend, perhaps. Their performances are considered a national treasure, and a must-see for any tourist. You now know as much as I do.

Lunch was a fabulous plate of local fruit, accented with strong coffee. The best local fruit, the name of which escapes me, resembles a large grapefruit than is eminently peelable and eaten in sections. It grows wild in several areas in the city. The fresh mangos are also delicious; the fresh apples acceptable. Interestingly, the fruit came with a saucer of spiced salt, a local requirement that must be an acquired taste.

I spent the afternoon again trying to learn the maze of streets in the Old Quarter. The street layouts finally made sense after getting lost on the Silversmith Street, Fabric Street, etc. I could have walked the Spice Street for hours. Found a silversmith to repair a pendant at an OK price.

Walked back to the hotel with lines of salt stains on my black polo shirt…while the heat was only in the mid-80s, so was the humidity. Plus, the traffic creates enough exhaust to make breathing laborious if there is no breeze blowing.

Finished the day with dinner at a nearby touristy VN restaurant with Howard, Matt, and Matt’s wife and daughter. It was the first time I had met Juliana (Matt’s wife, a native of Moldova), but I had met their daughter Victoria back in Baku. Sorry that my cell phone memory filled and crashed so you will miss pics of our mango salad, 6-inch shrimp (peeled at the table by the server), fresh spring rolls, steamed beef rolls, and several other dishes I can’t remember. Total tab for the five of us was under $30. Ya gotta love this cuisine!

Here is the link for the Saturday pictures:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/September24201103

And, for those curious, here are the TV stations available in the hotel, although I haven’t had time to really explore them. I do, however, love the subtitles in Vietnamese.

1. In-house
2. ABC – Australia
3. CNN
4. BBC World
5. TV5 – French
6. France 24
7. National Geographic
8. Star Movie – English
9. HBO Asia – Movie – English
10. Star World (Entertainment crap)
11. China Entertainment TV
12. ESPN – English (soccer and rugby, mainly)
13. Star Sport – English
14. MTV
15. Channel V (close to VH-1)
16. Kids Go
17. DW – German
18. RAI – Italian
19. TVE – Spanish
20. Russia Today
21. New Asia Channel
22. 22-25: Viet channels, closely controlled by the gov’t.

Now on to Sunday, another 10-mile walking day.

Hai, one of our interpreters and project liasons, picked Howard and me up at the hotel at 9:00. The first stop was at Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, in a beautiful setting less than 2 km. from the hotel. The actual mausoleum was closed that day for refurbishing, disappointing literally thousands of tourists. But, the grounds were lovely, and we were able to stroll around and take in his house-on-stilts, as well as view buildings from the French colonial era. Normally, the mausoleum is only open from about 9 – 11:30 a.m. for visitors to view “uncle Ho’s” body, and tickets run out by 10:00. Cell phones and cameras are forbidden. Creepily, the body is returned to Moscow for two months every January for…er…refurbishing.

Near HCM’s grounds was also a tourist stop called the single tower pagoda. I have no idea why it is renowned.

Next, a stop in a back alley café to slake our collective thirsts with made-on-the-spot fresh mango drinks.

Now, on to the museum of fine art, in a semi-decrepit building again from the French era. There was relatively little from anytime pre-1800s, but quite a bit from the past two centuries. There were many depictions of various aspects of Buddhism, as you would expect; and quite an extensive collection of art from the war of independence in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The painting styles were so-so, but there were excellent wood and stone sculptures throughout.

A very worthwhile morning.

Since Hai had to leave at noon for family obligations, Howard and I headed again to the Old Quarter so I could show him the way around. Well, that didn’t work well at all. I got us lost at least five times, and we stopped in a large mall trying to find something cold to drink. Took us ten minutes to find the restaurant in the basement…we found it only because Howard had the bright idea of following a food delivery person carrying empty dishes. After lunch, we wandered to several shops in the Quarter, where Howard bargained the prices down on some souvenirs and I followed suit on some gifts. It appeared that even light bargaining would get prices down about 30%. It also helps a shade if you bargain using U.S. dollars but pay in Vietnamese dong. Most merchants use an exchange rate of 20,000 dong for ease of calculation, instead of the official rate of just over 20,800. And, that ends today’s lesson in international finance.

Howard had departed for the hotel by now, so I went to the jeweler to pick up my repaired pendant and bargained a neighboring t-shirt merchant below $3.00 for one for me. Then back to the hotel, which took 2 ½ hours because I got lost five times. It sucks when the street names are pretty similar, and none of them are straight. Anyway, help from a French tourist and German photographer finally got me back here just after 5:00….conveniently for the start of happy hour.

One interesting thing I found out that day. I had seen a number of female scooterists who were fully clothed, including gloves and mouth masks, and assumed they were Muslim covering up in modesty. Turns out that they are Vietnamese trying to avoid the sun, in the regional belief that the fairer one’s skin is the prettier she is. So, Jaye, if you visit me here in February, you will be a goddess. Just bring your friggin’ sun screen…you will need it.

Well, it is closing in on 11:00 and World Cup Rugby is on, so time to close. Much more to come soon.

Here is a link to the pictures from Sunday:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/September252011

End of my first week

I’m in the final few minutes of my first week at VietinBank and several days removed from the last posting – time to catch up a bit from a frantic week and ease into a day of exploration tomorrow.

We have rapidly found that no meetings will be scheduled from noon – 2:00. While not everybody takes a lunch break of two hours, the opportunity seems to be there. Matt feels it is a vestige of more rural, pre-A/C days to allow people to nap in the middle of the day’s heat. The basic workday is 8 – 6 M-F, plus 8-noon on Saturdays, but it is usual to see people at their desks by 7:30 and staying until 7 or 7:30. The national government made a push several years ago to encourage businesses to only work M-F, but that endeavor has obviously failed since even this 51% government-owned bank doesn’t follow that dictate.

I am still getting used to the early nightfall…sunrise is about 5:30 and sunset about 5:45, so it is twilight by the time we typically leave the office for the 5-minute walk to the hotel. There aren’t a lot of streetlights, but lights from vehicles and open storefronts is perfectly sufficient.

We haven’t experienced much rain so far…two nights when it poured all night but relatively little during the day. If there is rain, it does seem to taper off as the day progresses. Just after Matt got here in late July, a typhoon hit and dumped over 20 inches of rain in one day. We are entering the drier part of the year, expecting maybe three inches of rain per month through November.

Traffic is all it was cracked up to be, and more. It can literally be wall to wall motor scooters during both rush hours, more so in the evening rush because it is more compacted. Once of these days I shall create a video and upload it to YouTube for your viewing pleasure. Even better, the next time we need to take a taxi around rush hour, I’ll try to get a video through the windshield so you can see how expert, or foolhardy, these drivers are. BTW, we met a fellow expat from our Baku project last night at his hotel (he’s in town on yet another project with a separate bank), and the taxi fare on each 3 km. leg was just under a dollar.

I encountered my first episode of overt government censorship earlier this week. I have been unable to post to this blog directly from Hanoi, but figured I was just forgetting some instruction. But, no, in a Skype call with Nancy she figured out that the resident censors are overriding the instruction buttons on my version of the blog, so I can read what is posted but do nothing else. Obviously we can get around the block or you wouldn’t be reading this right now, but the futility of censorship can be really annoying (and we’ll see if the censors take offense to those comments real soon, won’t we?).

Matt, Howard, and I were caught offguard in a meeting Wednesday afternoon when the Chairman, in a brief stop back here in between weeklong trips, decided to summon us (yes, that is the correct word to use) to meet the project team. A cordial but perfunctory individual. He was gracious, and left each of us with a small statue of a pair of carp as a gift. But, we have been summoned to a presentation for him on Sunday afternoon, October 2, to update him on the project…something we had not been planning until later in the month. We will, of course, bill the bank as a full work day for that presentation, but none of us had been planning to give up a weekend afternoon. The choice is not ours, as IFC is sending their Vietnam officer in from Ho Chi Minh City to also attend.

Food is a constant aspect of our non-work lives here. Monday, as we were going among branches to meet with calling officers, our interpreters took us to a popular German restaurant…the first time I had ever had an entire pig leg accompanied by a papaya salad. German beer also seemed to be flowing heavily among the locals. Wednesday night was a visit to an authentic Viet tourist trap restaurant just around the corner. Despite being overpriced, the full dinner was only $8 per person, and tomorrow night I’ll be returning with my team leader and his wife & daughter. Lunch today was the low point of eating – Highland Coffee, the local equivalent of Starbucks with tolerable sandwiches. OTOH, lunch Wednesday was at a native dive (one rapidly learns it’s OK to eat at the open air dives with benches, but not those bunched around a fire on the sidewalk and furnished with low plastic stools). This proprietor only makes two dishes a day…we got there too late for the pork pho, but there was plenty of chicken pho left. About a pint of broth, chicken, rice noodles, chives, and scallions for less than $1.50.

It’s closing in on midnight, and I’m trying to get the flight reservations for Armenia nailed before the weekend hits in D.C., so it’s a good time to close. Tomorrow I wander on my own, back to the Hoam Kiem Lake area to check out the merchants, sample some dive food, view Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, and hopefully catch a water puppet show. Sunday, our interpreters have promised more adventures.

Tour of Hanoi

5:30 Sunday evening now, and a lot to catch y’all up on. Darkness is descending as I write this from the hotel patio, grabbing a dinner/snack.

A couple of addenda to my first post. I got selected at the Beijing airport for extra screening going back in (had to change terminals between planes)…seems that every little piece of metal, and some plastics, set off the detectors. OTOH, when I entered both China (technically, while changing terminals) and Vietnam, Customs didn’t seem to care at all what one might be bringing into the country. There were two aisles to go through, one for declarations and one without, and both times the no-declaration aisle was staffed by a very bored person who looked like (s)he had 100 better things to do. I could have been bringing a howitzer in without a problem.

Fellow passengers on the Beijing-Hanoi flight took a lot of interest in me. Most were VN nationals returning from a quick hop to China, and I took a few pats on the shoulder as they seated themselves. That flight also had a rather extensive market research survey that they seemed to give only to the few obvious foreigners, but I’m glad to see they are at least asking opinions.

In bed at 10:30 and awoke at 7:15…as of this point, I don’t seem to have jet lag. We shall see how tomorrow’s 11-hour day full of meetings goes.

Now for today.

Started with a hot (unlike Baku) shower, and to the free breakfast buffet at the hotel. A good spread: seven kinds of pastry, eight local fruits, 4 cereals, omelettes, sausage, cold cuts, 4 juices, yogurt, and excellent coffee were among the offerings. Eating there daily will certainly reduce the impact on the daily food per diem.

Our host from the bank picked us up at 9:30 for her tour.

We grabbed a taxi ($2.00 for the 15 minute ride) to the Old Quarter of Hanoi, where the commerce is never ending. Name something, and it can be purchased at any of a dozen shops within 100 meters of any point. Of course, I am sure all of the designer labels are legit! :>) Bootleg DVDs were hawked for $1-2, t-shirts typically listed for $5., and every other storefront was a café of some nature. Eating at many cafes can be hazardous, as the seating is on plastic stools that are only about 15 inches tall. Definitely not built for elderly legs.

I didn’t buy anything today, but targeted several potential Christmas gifts for purchase before leaving. Will have to hone my bargaining skills before buying. While I am willing to leave some money on the table while bargaining (the locals need it more than we tourists do), I must at least play the game.

One very interesting item for purchase was a litre bottle of rice wine with a 6-inch scorpion and 1-foot cobra in the bottle amongst the liquid. It is supposedly a local delicacy, and certainly looks interesting. Just a step up from the old Mexican worm-in-the-tequila approach. Both fauna are common in the nearby jungles.

Totally dark now at 6:03.

We stopped at one sidewalk stand for drinks (hydration is definitely a concern here), and purchased iced concoctions of freshly-squeezed sugar cane and limes. Delicious! The squeezing machine was probably last cleaned in 1803, and the tourist warnings tell one to never use ice cubes, but what the hell. I’ll know by tomorrow afternoon if my immunity has built up.

Next was a taxi to the local lake (perhaps 10 acres) which is the popular strolling area in the Old Quarter. We took a tourist vehicle for a 30-minute tour of the lake and surrounding streets. Not all that exciting as lakes go, but it’s a nice bit of green in this bustling city. Speaking of bustling, my estimate is that there are roughly 3 motor scooters per resident on the roads at any given point in time.

Lunchtime. We went to an Old Quarter restaurant that is Raymond’s favorite. Raymond is working for Ernst and Young on a separate project at VietinBank, and is a Chinese Malaysian who is on his 20^th trip here. The restaurant was everything he claimed, and more. Old time Chinese décor (even darker atmosphere than Victorian). Hai (our bank/tour host) ordered communal dishes of papaya salad, squid, rice, and platters of pork, beef, and chicken. The spices, particularly those in the beef, cleared my nostrils of any clogging on the spot. The bill for the four of us, including five bottles of local beer, came to $17. That’s right – just over $4 each. Hai also taught me the best way to use chopsticks, a skill that had eluded me in my many years on this orb. I shall practice often over the next month.

BTW, tipping is unknown in this culture. That explains why the server at last night’s dinner was so happy when I paid the bill.

Next venture was a taxi to the Museum of Literature, a garden park that spreads over about 3 acres. This was the site of the first university in Vietnam, dating to 1076 A.D. The local emperor (this area was under Chinese rule at the time) set the grounds up as his primary educational institution for people desiring to be his top advisors. Stone monuments are set up for the few who attained top status (known as doctors, but in the Ph.D. sense), and only about 40 attained that status over several centuries. Aspiring advisors spent seven years enduring monthly quizzes and quarterly exams…the latter were administered verbally by the emperor himself. The grounds are also a popular venue for formal photos of newlyweds and high school students celebrating graduation – we got pictures of both groups, adorned in traditional VN garb.

Hydration loomed again, so we stopped at another small café for their iced concoction of strong coffee and freshly-squeezed coconut juice. Another winner! That was also our decision to end the tour, as Howard was running out of steam and I needed to do some prep for tomorrow (it sucks to actually have to earn one’s pay).

So, my initial impressions after a whole 23 hours in this country? A wonderful, friendly people with a tremendous work ethic and sense of national pride. There are many problems here, but most people go through their daily task of hawking enough product/service to be able to eat tonight, and do not get embroiled in the long term. Work is high energy, and relaxation only a small step down. Air pollution is even worse than Baku because there are no strong consistent breezes to waft the crap to another province. Construction is everywhere and the streets are incredibly confusing to navigate. So, it will be a fun-filled four weeks here and I will be much better off for the adventure. If my immune system so wills.

I have finished my chicken sandwich, and lightning is on the horizon. A good reason to pay the bill and retreat upstairs for the night. Until the next post.