Back to Hanoi

Back to Hanoi. It’s a two hour drive to the airport in Hué to catch a lunchtime flight. The town is a tourist hotspot and a Unesco world heritage site – it was on my list of things I wanted to see when I was here in the summer on holiday but I ran out of time. My sightseeing this time is restricted to looking out of the window. Phoung is flying back with me and while we are at the airport gives me a thoughtful gift of some postcards of the town so I can at least see what there is to look at. I’ll have to come back.

When I arrive back at the office in Hanoi there is a lot going on.  Lots more people have arrived since I was here on Friday afternoon and the office is full of whiteboards, maps, laptops and people running from one place to the next. Decisions are made in seconds, important meetings happen over a cigarette, and biscuits and chocolate take pride of place in the table in the operations room providing vital energy to the emergency team who can’t stop for a minute.

We leave the office about half nine and go for pizza. It’s the first time the team have managed to have dinner before 11 since they started. Switching off at the end of the day is always tough so it’s good to spend a little bit of time with people in the same mindset to de-compress before bed time.