Our final site visit was to the Cat Lai Terminal port in Ho Chi Minh City. We first saw a presentation talking about the ports operations. It was very cool as they talked about how this port and all ports owned by them work together to supply Vietnam and the world. They also showed us who they ship and receive the most from, which was interesting to see as the US and China are at the tops of both lists. After the presentation we got a tour of the port, which was massive and way bigger than it looked in some of the pictures. One of the things that was fascinating to me was that they are able to keep track of every single item that comes in and out of the port. They see hundreds of shipping containers per day and are still able to keep track of each one.

After the site visit and lunch we made our way to the famous Banh Thanh market. My goal going in was to buy a watch and maybe some other gifts for my family. With the help of Fred from UEF I was able to bargain with the guy at the watch stand and get two watches for a pretty decent price. After that I made my way to one of the T-shirt stands to get some more stuff. Overall the experience was really cool at the market and it was not what I expected. There was so much stuff at the market and I had a great time just walking around.

This trip has been amazing and I’m so grateful that I got a chance to come to Vietnam, and I’ll remember this trip forever.