Professional meetings in HCMC

Today's highlight was our first two professinal meeetings.

The first was with two lawyers and a future lawyer. The atttorneys, Phong Nguyen and Claire Lieberman (on the left - she is an American with Vietnamese parents) took us through the Vietnamese legal system, highlighting family law issues. Their legal system is still under development, much of the family law code was adopted as recently as 1996.

While there are many differences between our systems of law, one similiarity was the primacy in both of the best interests of children. We found it interesting that a judicial would meet with children and ascertain their preferences starting as young as 8 years. old

The afternoon meeting was with two attorneys from a business law firm, including Albert Franceskini (who practiced law in France before moving to Vietnam). We had a general and wide ranging discusson of the Vietnamese legal system, including criminal law, business law and the growing use of private arbitration.

This is an amazing city. I thought New Yorkers and Italians had a distain for traffic laws. That's nothing compared to here. There are thousands and thousands of scooters - sort of like Harley reunion week on steroids. Stepping into the street is taking your life in your hands.

There is a real energy and vibrancy to this city, who many still call Saigon. It is easy to imagine the Saigon of the 60s with its free wheeling reputation.

The money unit is the dong, although dollars are accepted everywhere. That's a good thing because it is about 20,000 dong to the dollar, so when Susan ordered a drink tonight at dinner for 53,000 odd dong, it seem at first like that was quite a lot of dong. When I paid 56,000 (not having exact amount of dongs on me at the time) they didn't even bother to bring change. So far, the lowest dong bill we have seen is 1,000 (we haven't seen any coins) so I'll guess exact change is not a big thing here.

Tonight, we have a group dinner, then an excursion to the "Night market" - described as flea market to buy things for a mother-in-law. Tomorrow: Cruise on the Mekong Delta.

Arrival in HCMC

We are all here, safe and sound in Ho Chi Minh City.

It took us four plane trips to get here, the longest of which was 14 and a half hours from L.A. to Hong Kong. It was as comfortable a flight as possible, with nice seats, a reasonable amount of leg room and lots of movies and TV shows on demand. But, any plane trip which starts at about 2 a.m. our time is exhausting.

After finally getting to Vietnam, our guides met us and took us to the hotel. We had just a short time to rest up before our orientation (two pictures of which are above) and going on a short bus tour of the city. We are now back at the hotel for a longer - and much needed - rest, before a group dinner tonight.

Tomorrow: Two professional meetings with Vietnamese lawyers.

Welcome to our blog!

Once again, I am honored to be leading a delegation for People-to-People, this time to Vietnam and Cambodia.

Our trip will be a mix of professional meetings and cultural events. Certainly, the highlight will be touring Angor Wat in Siem Riep, Cambodia. We are also looking forward to seeing Vietnam, the Mekong Delta cruise and the professional exchanges.

We are very pleased to have seven "veterans" of last years delegation to South Africa with us and we look forward to making new friends with the others.

I hope to be blogging daily, but that will depend on timing and internet connections. Please comment on this blog as it progresses and let me know what you think and how it can be improved.

Unfortunately, our big, friendly (but not too bright) yellow lab, Cinnamon, will spending the time at doggie jail. That's her getting the news, while thinking she's packing to go with us. Sorry, Cinn...

With any help from the gods of travel, we will be blogging next from Southeast Asia.