Days 21, 22, & 23: Roughin' it in Vietnam

On Thursday morning, we took a two hour bumpy bus ride to Cu Chi, a province to the north west of Ho Chi Minh.  We arrived at Vietstar, the Vietnamese subsidiary of Lemna, a US corporation involved in waste and water treatment.  Vietstar is a solid waste treatment center.  They receive shipments of solid waste from collection centers.  The waste is then hand and machine sorted to pick out organic waste that is turned into fertilizer and plastic waste that is turned into plastic pellets.  We met with the interim CEO of Vietstar who taught us about how different trash collection and environmentally sustainable initiatives are in Vietnam.  We learned that the wetness of trash in Vietnam means that any waste treatment center must also invest heavily in water treatment because all the liquid that runs off from the trash must be treated before it can be dumped in the river.  It was also interesting because it took so long to get this project off the ground because they had to deal with many government agencies and comply with many requests.  You’ll be interested to know that the plant operates 363 days a year because people are constantly producing trash.  I cannot explain to you how truly repulsive the smell was at this facility.  Our tour was a great wake up to how much waste we produce and how we must have business solutions to take care of it.  Here is a picture of one of the piles of trash (the trash went on for what seemed like miles):

We drove from Vietstar’s corporate headquarters to the Cu Chi tunnels.  The Cu Chi tunnels are a vast and complex network of tunnels that were created by the Cu Chi people who fought on the side of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.  This was one of the most impressive parts of the trip.  When we got to Cu Chi, we had our guide discuss how the Cu Chi people created the tunnels and how they were used during the war.  Then we watched a video about the tunnels that was communist propaganda.  It was so interesting to see because they filmed the video like it was made a long time ago but our guide told us that it made fairly recently.  The video again painted the Vietnam War as a war of American aggression.  Below is a diorama of the system of tunnels; there were rooms devoted to cooking, sewing, weaponry, etc and there were long air holes that gave oxygen to the very deepest tunnels:

The tunnels have been widened for tourists but this is an example of how tiny they were and how the Viet Cong would slip into the tunnels through disguised trap doors and disappear:

The Cu Chi people also were ingenious in how they created the tunnels because they were so complicated with so many traps.  Below are some pictures of the booby traps that they created.  It was a really sobering experience because the exhibits show pictures of American soldiers running for their lives from the Viet Cong and our guide told us how they found so many dog tags when they began to turn the tunnels into a tourist attraction.  It was also really shocking to see how they had created these incredibly painful and efficient devices to trap, torture, and kill:

At the end of the tour, we crawled 50 meters through the tunnels.  It was really scary because it was so small and dark but luckily I had lots of moral support.  The tunnels zig zag and go up and down.  This is what they look like with flash photography so imagine it nearly pitch black:

On Friday morning, we headed out to Kinh Do, a publicly traded confectionary leader.  We walked through their very impressive factory where we saw them produce the Vietnamese equivalent of twinkies from mixing the batter to shipping the boxes out.  The scale was astounding.  The company was started in 1993 and has grown to become the #4 widely recognized brand in Vietnam with 212 distributors, 120,000 retail outlets, 30 bakeries, and several major acquisitions.  They are the market leaders in cookies, crackers, wafers, and biscuits.  We were really intrigued by the fact that 80% of their business comes from general trade (general trade is distribution to mom and pop stores that are usually tiny and require distribution on motorbikes).  Kinh Do hopes that as Vietnam grows they can move more towards the premium end of the market which will mean that distribution will change more towards modern trade.  The CFO explained that Kinh Do’s real competitive advantage over MNC’s like Kraft are in its strong distribution network and brand equity.

We went to a mall for porcelain goods to enjoy a quick lunch.  The porcelain vases and dinnerware was truly beautiful—so intricate.  We then drove over to ICA Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical.  We got a tour of their factory where they produce one of their generic branded drugs and then met with the CFO who shared information about their company history, structure, and philosophy.  ICA is a very lean corporation that can price their drugs lower than other brands because they contract out their R&D through joint ventures with European, Korean, and American pharmaceutical companies.  This is a very interesting model because it allows them to have a very different cost structure and to need less capital tied up in research.  It also allows them to position themselves well in the Vietnamese pharma market because Vietnamese consumers trust foreign technology better. 

On Saturday morning, we got up early to take a long bus ride out to the Me Kong Delta through the lush rice patty filled countryside.  We boarded a boat that took us to Unicorn Island where we enjoyed some exotic fruit and saw how coconut candy is made.  We then took a canoe ride to a restaurant where we enjoyed a traditional Vietnamese meal in what was basically the jungle.   Dragonfruit and Durian was hanging from the trees while butterflies fluttered by.  We got caught in a huge downpour as we walked back from the restaurant to the boat.  The rain comes on so fast and rains so hard in the Tropics.  It made the experience authentic!  That night we went to a microbrewery with nearly everyone to celebrate Garrett’s birthday.  We had some pretty exotic food—someone ordered roasted pigeon!  It was a great way to end our week in Vietnam.

Next Stop... Hong Kong!

Thanks for staying with me,

Maddy