I can’t believe today is the last blog. These two weeks have been some of the fastest, most jam packed, fun weeks I’ve ever had. We started today with our final site visit to the Cat Lai Terminals. I thought the tour was pretty fun with hopping on and off the cart. I couldn’t imagine being one of those workers doing this day in day out for hours in the heat and humidity. Some of our group tried to load rice bags. Let it be known it was not as fluid as the professionals. Don’t be fooled by appearances – the workers pick up 100 lb bags like it’s nothing.

It was crazy to see how many containers there were and how many they transported. With all the tariff discussions, it would be interesting to see how that would change the transportation and logistics. From the Consulate, it seems like there are other options for shipping, but no country would be able to have the demand and capacity. They talked about Europe as an option, but Europe has their own in-country trade to protect. Either way the products need to be shipped somewhere unless they produce less. In that case, there might be backups at the port, or overall activity might decrease.

We then went to the Banh Thanh Market. We had gone before in the evening when some of the shops were closed but when we went yesterday it was a bit overwhelming. It was packed with all the vendors trying to get your attention and sell you, their products. Honestly, I feel like a lot of them were selling the same type of stuff – bags, shirts, trinkets, etc. It felt a little chaotic, but I got some good souvenirs for friends and family. I am so grateful for the Vietnamese students. Without them I don’t think I would’ve gotten the price down as much as we did. We learned that you definitely have to be forceful otherwise you’ll definitely overpay. I’m glad I had the experience, but it wouldn’t be a frequent visitor to the market.