Amsterdam to Hanoi and my first two days in Viet Nam

At 8.45 pm on the 10th of July I flew away from Schiphol Amsterdam to Hanoi. I had a transfer in Bangkok, Thailand where I had to wait 4 hours. The flight to Bangkok was 10 hours and the flight from Bangkok to Hanoi was another 2 hours.
In the plain was told that the temperature at Bangkok was 31 degrees Celsius, sounds good I thought. But when I stepped out of the airplane I felt that this was not the kind of warmth you have in Spain or Italy. The air was not only very warm but also very humid. I knew this in advance but still it was kind of a shock. It almost seemed like I stepped into a sauna.
I didn't see too much of Thailand because I had to stay at the airport for the full 4 hours.
After the waiting and the flight to Hanoi, Viet Nam I arrived at 19.00. Marco, the Dutch guy were I am staying until Friday, was supposed to pick me up but he thought that I was arriving Sunday in stead of Saterday evening. So I took a cab to the center of Hanoi. In the cab I first experienced he crazy traffic of Viet Nam.
Everyone drives everywhere, and the one who has the loudest motor horn goes first. When I arrived at the house Marco was already waiting. Luckily I have AC in my room so I can sleep properly.

Sunday the 12th we went for a ride on the bike to see a little bit of Hanoi. We planned to go to the city to buy some presents to take home, but after lunch the change in climate and my jetlag really took over so I lay down for the rest of the day.

Monday the 13th was my first day at work. I didn’t really know what to expect of the office and the work in general. The office is quite small, but it has air-conditioning so it is always nice and cool inside. The work is not what I expected it to be. I expected to be a lot at the project sites to see how everything is working in such a big project, but until now I have only been reading a lot of documents behind my desk. Thursday I will be going to another project of Royal Haskoning with Marco Neerings. This project is not lead by the water department but by the department of architecture and building. Next week I might me visiting some sites of the BHH project, but that is not sure yet.

This was it for this time, but I’ll keep you up to date!