Spent a week in Hanoi and had a great time admiring the place and the people. My flight to Hanoi was via Saigon and I had a 5 hour layover in Hochiminh. Vietnam Airlines was so kind to provide us free dinner while waiting for our domestic flight to Hanoi. I met in Hochiminh airport a Filipino who's in charge of product and development of footwear that they sell in Vietnam. Upon disembarking from Hanoi Airport, we took the same taxi going to his hotel (Fortuna) and Sofitel, where I was booked, and shared the fare amounting to 200k dong. I met some old faces in the meeting and some new people involved in C7 planning. Each morning I would walk along the lake near the hotel to get some exercise. It's so hard to cross the streets in the Hotel area since there are many motorbike-riding Vietnamese who can hit you from any side (front, back, left and right) of the road and the traffic lights are off.

The four-day meeting went by so fast and the next day was spent in Halong bay. The place was nature's wonder and anybody would admire the 1000+ plus islands around the sea. We had our lunch on our way back to the boat station with fresh seafood of all varieties served

Vietnam may still be a third world country but their economic growth has been fast and may overtake us in the very near future.