Vietnam Telecom 2006

This is my 3rd time visiting Vietnam and the 2nd time this year. This time, we took part in the exhibition to penetrate into Vietnam market. The response from the consumers on the products are quite positive but seems it's not that easy to penetrate into the distribution channel. Anyway, it's my challenge to open this market and guess I need to work harder to get our brand and products popular there. So I should be visiting Vietnam again soon.

We went there last Monday evening as we need to do the set up on Tuesday. This time, we stayed at a apartment near exhibition hall which is about 8KM from downtown. However, the amazing traffic makes this 8KM quite a distance to reach. First night, I walked around downtown with my colleague. I actually know a bit about this area because of my last trip. It's quite fun visiting these places again.

I always like to walk around whenever I'm traveling as I think that's the best way to get to know more about how local people live. So on the second day, we started to explore HCM City by ourselves. We walked around the local market to find our breakfast.



We tried the small cake baked by the portable charcoal stove, the French baguette and the Vietnamese pho for breakfast. That was quite a interesting start.


Later that night, we went for the authentic Pho recommended by Ms Wu with my director and colleagues. Body language is really useful as we simply pointed around to tell them what we want.

On sat, our last night in HCM city, we went to the famous Binh Thanh Market which is selling all kinds of different stuff such as food, accessories, textiles etc. It's my first time going inside though I have been there a few times as they normally closed around 6pm. This is really tourist place as they are selling SKY HIGH prices there. Can just go there for experience but for shopping, I would recommend those small shops a few blocks away. Those small shops are much better as they are offering their own design at a much more reasonable prices.




We tried the local carrot cake there at roadside. It's another portable charcoal stall. Though it's a small stall at the roadside, it's really quite nice and the business is quite good as there are quite a number of local people eating there together with us. Besides, we also tried that shop that I saw at my last trip. The fresh spring roll and the fried rice with chicken slice.



After that, we walked back to the central area and this is the best dessert that I had in this trip. Restaurants or shops here tend to decorate their places with the local arts and paintings which make them very unique. The creativity part here is really amazing.




This morning, we finally got to try the French baguette at the corner near our apartment. It's another small stall with a small stove inside to fry the eggs and that's really amazing to me. The baugette and cafe are quite nice though it's just a small stall at roadside. This breakfast should be a good ending for all my meals in HCM city this time.

This is the apartment we stayed this time. I was a bit shocked when I first arrived as this is sort of one man show operation so that it's quite different from the hotel set up that I used to stay. However, this is quite a nice and warm place to stay and I can't find any other place more convenient to the exhibition hall though there is nothing much around at night.

Last, this is what I got this trip. A nice handbag costs US$4, a nice skirt with embroidery costs US$22 and the Vietnamese coffee and filer.

Vietnam now should be quite similar to what Taiwan was a few decades ago. So I did not find it very different. Besides, with my experience in Malaysia, I found it quite easy for me to survive here. To summary, it's quite a fruitful trip and I would return again soon to continue my market penetration there.