Sheila Is Really In Vietnam!

Left Ottawa at 7:30 a.m. January 10^th and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HMC) Sunday, January 11^th after 24 hours of flying (not counting the stop overs between Ottawa-Vancouver-Korea-HMC).  Before now, the longest flight I had taken was 10 hours.

1^st meeting Monday a.m. in HMC with my WUSC contact (Ngoc) who is extremely welcoming.  She took us to a coffee shop to give us an orientation.  Interestingly there is another woman here from Canada (UBC) and we were also joined by an Ottawa U student who is completing a 3 month volunteer program through WUSC called ‘Students Without Boarders’.  We all work on separate assignments.

HMC is an all out ASSAULT on your senses including the #’s of people, smells, extremes – from the very rich (Christian Louboutain shop (for you Teresa)) to the very, very poor street handlers on the same block  – there are over 7.5 million people in this city.  You are never alone!

Traffic like I have never experienced before, the art of crossing the street should be an extreme Olympic sport.  Actually, I did see someone get hit so you have to be very careful.

I accompanied the Dean of the college I will be working with in Phan Thiet (Binh Thuan Community College BTCC)) to the well-known Saigon Tourism College in HMC to observe their training programs, bar and restaurant on campus.  It was truly incredible to see how this school was organized and its efficiencies and attention to quality (which is their differentiating factor as compared to many other schools).  They train students to work in all aspects of a hotel operation - when you are taking Reception Management you have to stand for your 3 hour classes in order to prepare you for when you are in the real workplace.  I had trouble after 20 minutes!

I left HMC on Wednesday where 6 of us drove in a very cramped van to Phan Thiet.  It was a 4 hour drive through many small towns where market after market exposed everything from live to not-so-live roosters/chickens, raw meat, fresh fruit, textiles, hardware and just about anything was sold from open stalls.  We weaved in and out of traffic (did I mention there are no signals??), dodged massive pot holes and managed to get into the new city in one piece (my stomach might have been two inches higher by the time I exited the van…).

Today I went to BTCC for the first time for a briefing meeting to flesh out my mandate.  Many of my contacts cannot speak English so this will be a significant challenge.  I’ve been asked to sort out what style of cuisine and personality should be for their new restaurant and bar.  They’ve suggested that I go speak to the approximately 200+ restaurants in the area to get some ideas…..and I thought rebranding MD was a challenge!  Maybe I can enjoy some squid teeth along the way which is a town speciality.  I have to say I’ve certainly had to stretch my palette and am learning to greatly appreciate a completely new culture.  Trying to learn a bit of Vietnamese but there are 6 tones to each word and each have a different meaning…so I ordered my ‘grandmother’ (bà) the other night instead of ‘beef’ (bò) as they are similar spelling (oops).

Stay tuned!  Xin chào.

p.s. For the many of you who really want to know…my hair has been quite controlled in the humidity.