Diary
Dates: 13 – 20th June
Visa Process: None up to 45 days
Visit Purpose: Visit universities with distributor
Fun Facts
Over a third of the world’s black pepper comes from Vietnam
The vast majority of households own atleast one moped / motorcycle
Capital: Hanoi
Population: 1m Da Nang || 100m country
Land area: 331k km2
GDP (PPP): $1.559 trillion
Per capita (PPP): $15,470
Note: PPP is adjusted GDP to make comparisons easier (difference in cost of living etc)
13-14th Arrival
In Heathrow and the layover I passed the time in both the AMEX lounge and the CHASE lounge, which were both excellent. At Hong Kong would slightly recommend the AMEX lounge over the chase one (they are right next to each other).
Arrived in Da Nang after a pretty pleasant flight. I watch Midnight in Paris after Kyla said she watched it a couple of days ago. Traveled in the evening of 14th and arrived in the evening of 15th. It worked well, I slept a bit but was also tired enough to go to sleep once I arrived at the hotel. During the flight I purchased a SIM card for around €8 for 7 days which has worked fine. There were a lot of different QR codes it said to scan, but in the end just popping it in the phone and activating data seemed to work just fine.
From Da Nang airport, it was easy to get a “Grab” (local version of Uber) and I was impressed by the step-by-step photos to find the arranged pickup point at the airport. The car arrived promptly and easily made it to the hotel. As expected, we passed by a huge number of mopeds and motorbikes zipping across the road and the driver also gave me his number for future business.
At the airport, I got stopped by security for the first time and they were very interested by the device. “How much?” hmm… “What for?” hmm…. “You VISA?” hmm…. They saw my Nothing phone and somehow this defused the situation whilst we awaited confirmation from the universities as to my purpose here.
My hotel, which is kindly arranged by the distributor, is inbetween two golf courses. Very fancy. It also seems to be the only hotel within the entire resort location. After a session in the gym and a sunburn inducing swim in the pool, I decided to investigate. I quickly found myself in a very strange ghosttown. Buildings left semi-constructed. K-Cafe’s closed. Even a truck that seemed to be in mid-loading was abandoned.
A spookily closed K-Cafe amongst an entire resort of closed or never finished units.
Even after the spooky sounds of plastic hitting walls in the wind, it got weirder still…
In the middle of the resort was a gateway and a wooden bridge (which was close to cracking at every step). It takes you to a temple… to remember the dead!
Interestingly, it turns out “coco bay” was planned to be an exclusive high-end resort that was partly opened in 2019 before falling into bankruptcy even before covid hit. There seems to be news stories of its eventual continuation of construction but they seem a lot like the bridge… hollow.
My first night out with the team and there’s lots to remark. Beers in an ice tub with an ice cube in the glass. This one takes the prize: goat’s blood soup / jelly. Yum!
The next few days I got to work. We visited a number of universities around Da Nang, everytime giving a presentation, followed by a translation, followed by a hands-on demo. Everything went according to plan and it also gave me the opportunity to see my presentation from fresh pairs of eyes and the need to introduce the basics and use visuals / videos more.
By the end of the thirs day we entered into negotiation with one of the universities to purchase some equipment. Result!
On one of the nights our business partners cooked for me from their rented flat. An entirely fishy meal of octopus, crab and more. Yum!
One of the things that surprised me during the meal was just how drastically the octopus changes colour just from being in hot water. Niave perhaps but it really took me back – it turned into that pinky purply colour that I so often put with octopus.
Well and truly sunburnt I now made every effort to keep away from the sun!
Photo Album
A little bit of ‘bonus content’ I guess, was flying back to the UK, meant flying into Hong Kong. The trouble was the switch was pretty tight, so it didn’t help that some guy was going crazy on the plane – just before lift off – because he’d lost his passport. Que the drama of him going off the plane, us all waiting around, then they got his partner off the plane, and then we have to wait for another slot to fly off.
I was probably too tired to really worry so I just went with the pushes. Arriving in Hong Kong there’s a guy waiting for me, I didn’t book this service so was a little concerned, but he went on to explain I was going to miss the connection unless we hurry.
The only reason I even note this to myself though is for the hilarious moment of being walked past other passengers to get to the gate. The guy, who was absolutely lovely, cliché gay personality, would put his arms out in an over the top fashion as if to almost protect me from these other passengers that we had to get in front of. I don’t know why the scene tickled me so much but he was brilliant!
Heard of the Dubai bar? £15+ for a single bar of chocolate stuffed with pastry and pistachio. Some trends are just crazy… I bought one.
