We arrived at the Hong Kong International Airport in the morning where we joined the other medical team members flying from Los Angeles including Project Vietnam coordinator, Dr Quynh Kieu.

Two hours later we left for Hanoi and arrived in Hanoi in the afternoon. Processing through Passport Control at the Hanoi Airport went smoothly until it came to the issue of getting the free medical supplies, which Project Vietnam had brought along from the United States. Despite much convincing by Dr Quynh Kieu, the airport custom officials continued to refuse to let the medical supplies come into the country and thus, the medicines were locked up in the bureaucracy and the medical team left the airport for the hotel without the medicines.

We checked into the Daewoo Hotel in the West Lake section of Hanoi. Here the medical team joined up with some of the others who had arrived earlier. Some of the Canadian members had airplane connection problems and still had not arrived. It is good that there are two days before work starts because it takes that long to get everyone there with so many people coming from different places of North American with all the usual air transportation problems getting the medical supplies collected (both free medicine from Canada/USA and those bought from within Vietnam). A lot of things can go wrong at the last minute on such a complication mission--and did this time

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