Hanoi, Vietnam

We only had a couple of small hiccups at the airport and made it to Hanoi by mid-afternoon. Our hotel was amazing and our group took over nearly an entire pavilion in the lake. The King & Queen of Malaysia also happened to be staying there so there was heightened security around the grounds and they had rolled out the red carpet (literally).


I feel a strange connection to this place even though I was born in the south. Maybe it's because my family has such deep roots here or maybe I just like the slower pace of life that the city seems to have. It always seems a little foggy and mysterious too, kind of like San Francisco in the winter. In fact, the weather was sort of gray and drizzly the entire time we were there, but maybe it was for the best as the temperatures stayed bearable and it really didn't keep us from any of our planned activities.


Wednesday
We had planned a group dinner at Brother Cafe that night. It's essentially a Vietnamese buffet which makes it easy for people to pick and choose what they would like to eat. The restaurant itself is very cute and inviting, so we had a nice time as a group just relaxing together.


Afterward we hit a wine bar near the hotel. As it turns out, it's owned by an expat from Chicago who runs multiple other businesses in Hanoi.


Thursday
We did not get so lucky with our business meetings in Hanoi. One was mid-morning Thursday and the other was late afternoon Friday. Oh well, we were determined to get at least 2 business meetings in Hanoi so that was the only way to do it. The one good thing about that is we got to sleep in a little. At any rate, the meeting went better than expected even if they didn't have enough seats for all of us.


After the meeting we headed to lunch -- theme of the trip: keep the natives fat and happy -- and then go on a city tour most of which took place around Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and then a quick visit to the Temple of Literature. We wrapped up the day with a cyclo tour of the 36 Streets on the old part of Hanoi. I really liked this last year and hoped the others would enjoy it as well. It's always fun when your cyclo peddler tries to beat out another cyclo.



That night we had a "cultural event" at a local restaurant called Forest that included traditional music and dancing. We hit up the wine bar again that night but took the bottles back to my room for some chilled-out drinking.

Friday
We had the morning free so a few of us headed into town for some shopping. It's always a rush though and we found ourselves hurrying back to the hotel for the Ford meeting. The drive out to Ford is about an hour and a half and this year the head of the Vietnam division wasn't available so his replacement, while good, wasn't nearly as engaging. Not only that but the plant just happened to be on a 15 minute break, so our tour was mostly dark and quiet. Oh well...

Within the 45 minutes that we were inside the building the weather had changed drastically. We came out to a 20 degree drop in temperature and lashing winds! We were so exhausted that night, we opted to just have dinner at the hotel and make it an early night in preparation for a full day's excursion to Halong Bay!


Saturday
We hit the road early for the 3 1/2 hour journey to Halong Bay, but it was well worth it. The weather from the day before had cleared up and it ended up being sunny and warm on the water. We had a lovely lunch on the junk and way too many bottles of wine, but it was such a nice day. Did the requisite tour of the caves but mostly just enjoyed our time on the boat before heading back to Hanoi that evening. I don't even remember what we did that night, but I think it involved more pizza at the hotel restaurant.


And before we knew it, our time in Vietnam was coming to a close. Next up, Bangkok!