Asia Part I - Vietnam

Well - here I am in Vietnam! We left Mpls at 12:45 Sunday afternoon. We flew for 13 hours to Tokyo, walked to our next gate and flew 7 more hours to Vietnam. We arrived at the hotel 12:30am Tuesday morning local time.

First class was fun! I didn't get any pictures but thoroughly enjoyed my fully reclining seat, snacks, watching 2 movies, 3 tv shows, and napping. But, by the second flight I was ready to be on the ground!

I called Ryan and checked email for a bit, showered and went to bed for a few hours. We met for breakfast and then got picked up at 8am.

We toured two factories and I got to work with people that I email back and forth with quite a bit. We accomplished so much more in person - it was great!

We had an amazing lunch at one of the factories - spring rolls, soup, tofu, beef, rice, veggies.

We also spent a lot of time in the car! Probably about 3.5 hours total. The traffic is insane! EVERYONE rides scooters and the weave in and out of cars, in the wrong lane, with as many as four people on a bike! We saw an entire family - mom, dad and two kids - on one scooter!

We were supposed to leave Vietname at 1am Wednesday time. We got to the airport and were told it was 2 hours delayed when we checked in. After various updates, our current estimated departure time is 6:40am. We're sitting in the business lounge at the airport - all on our laptops. All exhausted! I think I've slept a total of <8 hrs since leaving Mpls. YIKES!

The pictures below are not in order but here's a glimpse of Vietnam!


Me, Lynne, Patrick, Kate by the sign with our names at one of the factories.


Look at all the balloons on the back of this bikes!

Production lines at the factory.

After dinner.


I had just followed this dress that I worked on all the way through the production line!

View out the hotel window.


Motorbikes!

Really nice bathroom at our hotel!

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