Directors Travel Blog September 2009: Vietnam Journal

Day 1  I said that I would keep you updated on our trek West with the NIST Standards In Trade Workshop.  We’ve arrived Hanoi a few minutes after Midnight on Tuesday. Labor Day virtually disappeared in the white haze of the polar arc from Washington to Seoul; the sun never winked out for even a moment of the fourteen hours air-time, made tolerable by alternately snoozing and snacking and in-flight entertainment. It’s probably lunch where you are now, but we’re just getting settled for an uneasy, out-of-sync sleep, twenty four hours en route and a cycle of day-night inversion. The flight was actually not as painful as some…been on worse. Hardly been on better, honestly. The trick is to ignore the saddle sores and with providence, the turbulence, and sweet sound of wailing babies…

Day 2  Another day, another dong. Actually, 15,000 dong what you get for your dollar. It’s down by a 1,000 dong since first arriving here a couple of years ago (it still goes a long way, though). The Vietnamese economy, in general, is “off”, just like the rest of the world, but the GDP growth is still something like 4%, which is positive, at least. There is a strong appetite for consumer goods, cell phone and an array of food products, which are varied and unique and sometimes creatively brought from farm to fork…

Days 3&4 Vietnam Journal: Building on a Common Past and an Entwined Future…