SABAIDEE: Traveling to the poorest communities from the poorest provinces

To be continued...

Kyrgyzstan: Second Eduction Project

My assignment in Central Asia: Kyrgyzstan

After I finished my longest consultancy assignment of six months in Nepal, my next assignment was in to be the Assessment and Evaluation Specialist for the Second Education Program in Kyrgyzstan, a grant funded by the Asian Development Bank.

My first trip to Kyrgyzstan basically brought me from Asia to Europe then back to Asia. One, I have to get my visa to Kyrgyzstan through our managing contracting firm based in Berlin, Germany. The my flight was a bit routy -- Manila to Frankfurt via Beijing, then Frankfurt to Moscow, then to Kyrgyzstan. What was also memorable was I was travelling on my birthday. I left Manila on October 2, 2008, then was in Moscow International Airport on my birthday. I celebrated it with a chicken soup, that i was quite expensive, 24 Ruble. Anyway, I have to eat something while waiting for my next flight, a lay over of 11 hours.

Since, this was first travel to Europe, my flight to Bishkek (formerly called Frunze) was 9:00 pm, but i was surprised that by 8:00pm, the shine was still up... of course, the airport was also magnificent, since it was almost covered with snow that time.... they said it just snowed the morning I arrived in Moscow.

TO BE CONTINUED....

The genesis of my international consultancy travels

My first international consultancy travels

Ha Noi Viet Nam 2003.  My first consultancy travel took place in 2003 when i was involved in the development of education sector master plan for Viet Nam, funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. I was still working with Nomura Reseaerch Institute as Senior Consultant and Assistant General Manager of NRI Manila Office. I was lucky to work with some NRI colleagues and a retired fellow from the World Bank.

This consultancy allowed me first travel to Ha Noi and got surprised how many motorcycles are ploying on any street of Ha Noi. I was lucky to stay in Hotel Nikko Ha Noi, where my room that was situated on a corner allowed me to see how many motorcycles are. There was a time that I can only count a couple of car or vehicle against hundreds of motorcycles.

Food was another wonderful experience I had in my first visit in Viet Nam. By the way, that time I got instant millionaire by exchange a hundred dollar to their local currency called Dong. For some days, I was practically a millionaire. That time, I am more of a cash person rather than a credit card person.  I remember one night, me and my colleague Dr Yamagishi of NRI Tokyo, tried to experience eating Pho’ on the streets. We don’t how much per bowl, so we just showed our money, and the noodle shop lady just took the exact amount of what we have consumed. I am impressed of their honestly as they that lady did not take advantage of us.

For this project, I got a chance to visit as many universities I can. I remember visiting the 21 universities out of about 100 universities from North to South Viet Nam. I travelled both by air and land. What I can remember was visiting Hue University and them travelled to Nha Trang  to visit the University of Fisheries. Then from Nha Trang, I went by car to visit Da Lat University. Dalat is a considered the littler Paris, France in Viet Nam.

TO BE CONTINUED.....watch for it....