I knew Vietnam had changed, but I had no idea how much!

[Music] it would be hard to come up with a better first day in Vietnam the day began with a walk through the Exotic and bustling streets of District 1 in historic Saigon as I looked around I reflected on how much Vietnam had changed the Vietnam surrounding me was completely different from the Vietnam I knew decades ago the economic boom had transformed the country first stop was at a stylish local restaurant serving some of the best Regional dishes from Central Vietnam Rod a kind Planet Doug supporter treated me to lunch there as a way of welcoming me to the [Music] country after lunch we embarked on a fascinating 45 km roundtrip Expedition on the VIN bus a free shuttle bus that travels between vinhome residential communities it was a great way to get my feet wet in terms of exploring this unfamiliar area Upon Our return rod and I enjoyed some delectable iced Vietnamese coffee while seed on pint-sized plastic stools inches away from the unceasing Saigon traffic it was a classic Vietnamese experience perfect for my first full day in the country speaking of classic Vietnamese experiences don't sleep on the humbled Bon Me This Savory sandwich with its French and local influences is available everywhere and I Dev powered one while taking in the street life around [Music] me the day ended with me back in my humble but very well-appointed hotel room enjoying a rare ice cold beard so sit back relax let me do all the work and enjoy this video about my first full day in captivating and glamorous Vietnam good morning welcome back to Planet Doug in Vietnam this is my first full day in Vietnam I'm in hoochi Min City I arrived uh yesterday afternoon I flew in from koala Lampur hopped on an airport bus and made my way to uh District 1 where a uh Hotel was waiting for me the adenia hotel they gave me room 502 way up here on the fifth floor so uh there is the city of Saigon hoim Min City from my window yeah it's always a shock to open a window or a door because my room is nicely air conditioned and has a fan you feel so nice and cool and then you step outside and boom it's an oven out there pretty hot and humid that's okay I'm kind of used to that from koala lumur it's been a heat wave all across southeast Asia so I didn't expect anything otherwise when I got here a lot of rain I think so I'm making sure to bring my umbrella with me there's going to be rain today it rained heavily last night there was a big rainstorm as well but anyway that's the city that's where I'm heading out right now and this is my room uh rented for me by a kind plantet Doug sub subscriber by the way so yeah twin beds here get to sleep over here and I usually lay out all of my gear on this side I'm trying to be neat and tidy right now so I actually have all my gear packed away inside a wardrobe right now but as I said it comes with a fan and an air conditioner I love that combination because you don't always need the air conditioner running so you can turn that off and then just have a fan going sometimes yeah the room came with a refrigerator which is kind of cool Kettle and they even give some amenities here some instant coffee I haven't tried any of that yet toothbrushes a comb some soap and then the bathroom has uh let me turn my little light on the bathroom comes with some body wash and uh shampoo and stuff like that actually to my surprise it does have hot water so if you move that little lever to the right or to the left to get hot water or cold or I should say hot water or room temperature water very low water pressure but hey it comes out piping hot you can't put it on hot because you'll scald scald yourself based on talking to a lot of people and based on just looking around the city a little bit last night I think any time spend in Vietnam is going to be a lot about food a heavy focus on food I'm pretty sure so it's appropriate that right now my first foray out into the city I'm meeting up with a planet Doug subscriber fellow Canadian Living here in Saigon and he suggested that we get together at a restaurant so I'm heading there right now I have the name of the restaurant queued up on Google translate just so I can record the name for you with a with proper Vietnamese here it is [Music] rest [Music] restaurant restaurant resta so something like some chiau that's where we're get going uh that's where I'm going right now and uh meeting up with uh with a friend there so yeah I'm going to have my GoPro running it's about 2 kilometers away I'm going to start walking right now and uh walk to this restaurant for this lunch and after lunch we might be going on a bus tour not not a tourist tour but some sort of a residential shuttle bus that we can hop on and it's just going to take us through some local neighborhoods and districts something like that we'll see how the day unfolds so uh I guess first I have to navigate my way out of the adinia uh Hotel seems to have a bit of a storied history when you come at it from the outside I'll show it when I get out there it does say adinia hotel but then there are a whole bunch of other names so it seems to have various names throughout history and it's listed under different names uh different places but so yeah let's go a hallway just outside my room and uh luckily it does have an elevator and I pointed I took a picture of this yesterday the stairwell very interesting and people have told me that stairwells like this are very common in hoochi Min City and even the the restaurant that I'm heading to is up on a upper floor and you go up to the up to that restaurant through an interesting stairway down to uh down to ground level yeah I didn't sleep tremendously well uh last night so struggling a little bit this morning but that's uh that's nothing new entrance to the hotel right behind me so as I said uh they have a a sign up there the adinia hotel and that's the building am I up on the top floor I'm not really sure I may be up on the top floor but then when you come down here to the bottom the actual Lobby entrance says I Island Garden Hotel so that's one name that you see and then right beside it is the fat daddy fried chicken restaurant I think right beside it is the Circle K just handy got some uh drinking water there last night when I arrived and as I mentioned uh I think life here is all about food food Every Which Way You Look So I think you could spend the rest of your life here going from restaurant to restaurant Wayne's coffee and uh yeah no need to point them all out you'll see them in the video the best noodle soup in Vietnam that really caught my eye when I walked by yesterday and then of course you'll have all of the food stalls as well like right up ahead here there's a food alley and all kinds of uh services for tourist here because this is a a part of the city that caters to foreign visitors like me it's known for that so you get all kinds of motorbike rental uh tour Services Visa services like this like this place here basically offers uh everything airline ticket ticketing spas and massage things like that yeah check this out here's a place I saw last yesterday as well basically everything a Backpacker like me would might want is available here know you can spend few minutes just reading all of the signs everything that you can get there tours motorbike rental taxi Visa Run bus Journeys ah here's the alleyway that I mentioned I wasn't sure whether it was only a nighttime thing but um now it looks looks pretty active even now everything's open [Music] and in a way this is both my um first and my second trip to Vietnam because I I came to Vietnam literally decades ago and it was a very different place back then you didn't see anything like this on the streets at all and it felt like it would that the uh the Vietnam War was more recent and and my visit to Vietnam back then had a lot to do with that anyway I remember going to the war remnants Museum and you saw a lot of old posters and here's a little shop here selling old uh propaganda posters so you see a lot of the um yeah government posters from that era I have a memory buried deep in my brain of finding a place where I could buy the original full-sized posters and I found some really interesting ones and I I remember buying a bunch of them but that could be a false memory because I have no idea where those uh posters could be today and I don't know if I can really trust my memory or not but from my first trip to Vietnam I have a memory of a strong feeling of a division still between uh North and South Vietnam so when I was down here in Saigon people just seem to be very conscious of oh we are from South Vietnam and then North Vietnam seemed like a a different area and there were a lot of people still in military uniforms and as I talked about in some other videos in order to do any traveling oh look at these uh restaurants nothing so the Little Saigon restaurant another one up there man yeah you could just uh spend your life eating here oh look at that McDonald's funny I wasn't expecting to see that uh for some reason there you have it a McDonald's in hoian City getting into some construction construction Towers up there and it looks like I'm heading towards some skyscrapers I was just saying that on my first trip uh travel was very restricted as well so all the places where people go now the classic motorbike tours in the northern mountains none none of that was possible you couldn't leave the the cities basically the countryside was off limits to uh foreign visitors and even to travel from here to Hanoi uh before I could even leave I had to go to the police station and apply for a permit that specified every city that I was going to stay in with dates attached to it and you were restricted to those dates and only um yeah those those cities and when you stayed at a hotel they checked your police permit and if you didn't have one for that City you were not allowed to stay in their hotel and the police would come by at night to look at the guest list for the hotel make sure that everybody had permits so it was a very different time back then now it's much more open how open I don't really know I assume you can travel anywhere you please as long as you can figure out a way to get there and have some Transportation dance troop over there there it's probably a camera filming them from some Direction when setting up this lunch I did say many times yeah I just want to walk I just want to walk there resisting this idea of taking a grab or a taxi but of course now now that I'm walking I start thinking huh all these people saying I should take a grab motorcycle might be on to something it's getting hotter and hotter as I walk along but I'm going to persevere here I don't really know where I am exactly I don't even know what I'll be passing by but it looks like that's the famous benan Market I've heard a lot about that place all visitors uh drop by there at one point or another guess one of the advantages of staying in district one is that you are uh close to some of these attractions benan Market the war remnants Museum these are all places I visited decades ago and I feel like I have some small memory of them but to be honest I probably only remember the pictures that I took I've seen the photos so many times I feel like I remember the event itself but it's probably a false memory and all I'm all I really remember are the photos but yeah there's a benan market yeah I think it's a largely a tourist Market but maybe some local food options as well nice Clock Tower I like that a lot oh yeah nice to meet you yeah friendly guy just stopped to say hello on his motorcycle he actually reminded me of my time in Saigon my first visit that would happen quite a bit and I again I could be imagining things but I have this memory of the people of South Vietnam being a little bit more on the western American English speaking side of things that was their side during the war and a lot of the people in the South spoke English and they really wanted to use their English so people would come up to me all the time and would just talk to me and like that gentleman there he was quite proud of being able to speak English and he just asked me where where am I from how long have I been here how long am I going to stay continuing with the theme of my my first visit to this one I'm fairly certain that the Saigon Center you see it across the road there that giant Tower big shopping mall I assume and business complex I'm pretty sure that did not exist on my first visit long ago and it's a pretty safe bet that the Argentinian steakhouse El gouto did not exist either back then I just have memories of a much could have been a different neighborhood too I'm sure there are more traditional neighborhoods in Saigon as well but I just remember a much more traditional Lifestyle the streets filled with people walking with baskets over their shoulders selling all kinds of different types of food they could actually carry an entire Kitchen in those baskets and they probably still exists today I just haven't seen any right so far and uh yeah you could stop these women going by with a pole or a man on their shoulders with baskets on either end and you just stop them and they would set the baskets on the ground set up a complete kitchen right there and cook you some noodles something like that and of course back in those days bicycles almost all bicycles everywhere you looked there were bicycles if I remember right but haven't seen a bicycle yet and uh this is a very different very different look very modern wide streets traffic lights yeah restaurants Galore I don't know what this building is but it looks to be something of importance either government today or government from the past I didn't actually pick out a route to follow to walk to this restaurant so I didn't know what landmarks I'd be passing otherwise I would have figured this out in advance there's something of Interest over there as well helicopters planes obviously from the war for all I know that could be the war remnants Museum I'm not sure I remember it being a smaller place though but that that could be the museum there theme of the old and the new continues look at this Vincom Center fancy Shopping Mall H&M the Gap mango Calvin Klein and yeah you can worship at the altar of modern luxury brands here in Vietnam just like you can anywhere else in uh southeast Asia they're all laid out there [Music] and somewhat to my surprise maybe again it's just this neighborhood a lot of the intersections are nicely controlled by stop lights traffic lights pedestrian crosswalks so there's no need to Wade out into traffic and close your eyes cross your fingers and just hope people go around you because like right here for example I just had to wait for the green light and then a little green man here saying I can cross and I think my restaurant might be this one right up here with the balcony let's see I don't know why I'm why I say that like what do I know yeah my friend sent me a photograph of the door into the place right here yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so this is the place right there I've already forgotten the uh the name in Vietnamese let's listen to it one more time here we go turn it around to make it more clear restaurant someu Chum Chow c something like that yeah here we go this looks like a very old sign right here the cafe was in here as well maybe the cafe morphed into this more modern place all right perhaps this is one of the classic stairwells I've been hearing about nice nine steps sham Chow ooh and right here look at that very colorful has a uh tea Boutique Tea House Vibe or is this is this my place yeah it is sham Chow I made it I made it yeah it took longer because so many people stopped to talk to me he's taller than am a little bit maybe so I'm inside the restaurant now I've said the name a half a dozen times but I still can't remember what it is but uh this is Rod who I'm meeting for lunch invited me here and uh we've already put in an order you ordered something special They local special mang yeah it's Central Vietnam okay I shied away from it because I'm not a big shrimp I don't I don't appreciate shrimp so I went for like a barbecue pork noodle dish that looked very simple and filling so that's where that's where I'm heading so here's the interior of the place very quiet right now but very nice it was nice to step out from the heat into nicely air condition fans running but yeah very nice uh Decor on the inside and it looks like they have a balcony I don't think anyone ever sits out there it would be uh too hot preps in the evenings yeah and things have started to arrive I ordered just a simple milk tea actually I ordered it because on the menu it said homade milk tea and I'm such a simpleton I get sucked in by anything it's like oh homemade it's got to be better right but I like milk tea anyway but this is homemade milk tea and this might be a snack just sort of a complimentary thing yeah I I was surprised when we got let's open it up and Ste it oh no it's going to be uh I forgot what this called kind of a jelly yeah ah all right so that's what's hidden in there let you give it a try all right and if you don't pass out I'll have it well I'm pretty sure I won't pass out we'll see what's going on here little bit it's like a wrap of some kind so it's a wrap with something on the inside last Tri to explain this no idea I thought it would all be veggies but it's a um Brown M something crunchy in there but it's not spicy I haven't bid into a Pepper or anything so but our Hostess was telling us something about the restaurant and the food here and it seems to be connected to a central Vietnam did I did I get that right I think it's from Central Vietnam what is the name of this Bo Laos and that would be rods the miang something like that and I'm getting the impression in my short time in Vietnam that whatever you order your entree it's going to come with stuff like these little things that are showing up on the table which I was not anticipating but yeah got all these little things here I come along with that and that appears to be mine over there yes mhm so you'll be putting this into here well that's yours right no this is your uh that's a meang cuz it has it has the shrimp you're right you're right you're right you're right is yours a soup or it's rice I don't see any soup in there there's no no broth I don't think so it could be a dry noodle dish and maybe there's rice underneath there or not we'll find out okay we need just want to this one for the short for this okay and this one for this this one for this it's like a puzzle you have to put together and this one to if you don't want to a little bit sh you don't want to use this one because that's one to a little bit many people you want a little big S you can put it if you don't want sh you can know this small this is sweet sugar no just F fish oh fish fish sauce like fermented but the flesh I I don't know why even seaweed I guess a little bit littleit just here and this here goes with the missing together okay so we and this here what is it called it's like a sausage uh shrim shrim po shrim po here here so the meal has begun the server came and and explained everything to us I don't know if I got her voice on the microphone or not but as I commented it looks like the meals here come with a lot of extra things you have to basically mix it all together and all the things that were brought to our table I didn't know which went with which we each have a main course but of all the little ones we don't know I don't know what I what to pile into mine and Rod doesn't know what to pile into his but she straightened it out for us so now for his his meal he gets this one and this one and this one he gets three and I get this one so that's what I add to mine and it doesn't have a broth in it I thought it was a brothy sort of thing but it's dry and then I'll find out in a second what that sauce is all about I'm assuming the sauce is spicy but I'm just going to dip my Chopsticks in there get a little bit of it and try this no sweet sweet all right all right we're making progress here okay so I guess I'll dump all of the sauce into there maybe you mix it up maybe you don't I'm not really sure and then I will um try it out so there it is and um yeah I want to dig down a little bit find out if there's anything hiding under there oh ooh nice Greenery I guess that I think that's also very typical of Vietnamese dishes a lot of leaves yeah lot of leaves different exuse me from here I can to invite you to Cofe you this one a kind you call this a jelly yeah the jelly but a one p of uh one of the jelly from the cheese and that's one PA from the the of the that's when I to invite you there thank you so the ice goes with this in some way what do we do with the ice I add and to the I see the some ice and this together yes ah okay is it normally a dessert yeah normally DT a dessert U because uh the the make from the sugar and ginger very special sugar and ginger ah thank you we should get a menu again take a picture of the yes menu yes I he you told me you had a you had a right yeah yeah can you give me by the name sure I have a card here you you don't need a pen it's uh the name there your name planet Doug one more okay best thing I ever did was make those name cards makes my life so much [Laughter] easier the that's the only time I feel thank you your stop here and I need to go now in for your time okay thank you we'll put this next to the camera it's the only time I feel like I know what I'm doing or like I see someone a very famous YouTuber and all throughout their whole video they're constantly what is the name of your channel you're like um um let me I'm like at least I have name cards I'm I'm one step ahead of you when it comes to that everything else you're better than me but again I don't know how much of that got recorded on on the audio but she brought us a special jelly which is normally a dessert and the way she explained it to me at least what I understood is you take a little bit of ice some of the jelly and you eat it together and she said Ginger Ginger and and something else maybe while I'm talking about it I'll try a piece just to uh then I can figure out what the flavor is if it very light flavor it could be Ginger but it's not very strong so so as I was saying a lot of it's all of this is sitting on a bed of leaves which I think is a very typical Vietnamese thing and got different types of leaves too like these look like mint leaves lettuce all kinds of things and I don't know what the uh proper method is here but I'm going to take all of my sauce and just pour it over the top and and let the chips fall where they may this is a great introduction to the country thank you very much for setting this up so rice noodles I think I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure these are rice noodles sweet sauce and then um yeah barbecued pork nice what I'm it's good yeah what I'm normally worried about is my superpower of always ordering the wrong thing in init you know my mood whatever I feel like I get the wrong thing but this this was a good choice I'm going to enjoy this very much [Music] he [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] lunch is done rod and I are out here on the street and there's some kind of a shuttle bus here you're saying it goes between Vincom residence areas residence building Vin homes so there's a VIN homes in the Vincom Center here right yeah that was that that huge building I pointed out as I was walking by I guess Vincom is a large corporation here and that's a VIN home residence and they have their own shuttle bus that takes you around the city from building to building so next one will be Vin holes golden river vinom and then next one is Vin Holm Central Park that's where I'm living and then there's uh a bit Comm mega mall or something like that and after that there's uh I forget what it's called so do you have to live in a VIN home in order to ride on the bus or anybody could hop on they're not checking ID or anything like that they don't check my ID I don't know if it ever got too crowed I guess they would start checking yeah but I I didn't summarize the lunch experience but I think it was pretty obvious from what you saw in the video really good food great presentation nice people the setting was really nice and as I was leaving I I was just telling Rod that when you first get to a new country your eyes are like really open you're seeing new things but that mood only lasts for a little while so I'm being very careful to look at everything around me and in that restaurant there were so many decorative elements a very elegant sort of design involving plants and flowers and a very artistic touch that to be honest I don't think I saw very much in in Malaysia in koala lumur there a very distinct style even in the bathroom I used the the washroom there and I walked into the washroom and I was quite taken back I going whoa It's like a little Palace in here I wanted to move in plants flowers very spacious and just design everywhere little design elements in the corner in the alos that's what really struck uh jumped out of me about this place enjoyed that quite a bit but here here we are back out on the streets and uh waiting for this uh shuttle bus and uh it's going to take us just around the city we get to sit there look out the window and uh just take in our environment a shuttle bus has [Music] arrived and uh Rod has the whole system figured out when you get on at what stop [Music] here we go maybe we should switch seats so you can see ahead okay sure it's good for uh put the camera I guess more and more people are using the terminal to get on I know it's like a regular bus bus stop in a way so we're on the Vincom bus now and I've got the best seat in the house there look at that very very modern again I've been harping on this but I I can't get over it my memory Vietnam from my previous trip has nothing to do with a bus like that with a bus driver and those controls it's like a completely different place and uh yeah we're just going to tour around yeah we're on the other side of this uh Vincom Center now now the giant building if you take out um know countries of you know 5 million people 3 million people that sort of thing uh Vietnam has been the fast on the top 10 sometimes top five fastest scoring economies for the last 10 or 15 years so it's real real fast growth yeah you can sense that incredible honestly like I'm shocked I had no idea that this was Vietnam now I had no idea I feel like this typical dumb American who leaves his home and finds out that other countries have cars like what they have cars too look at the Saigon Hotel so this is like sort of the tourist main tourist area here district one and you know this the main part of the river but the river meanders all through Hing City so there's like Islands or peninsulas all through the city and you can cross a river like several times going from place to place and we just went through an area that was a whole roundabout that was jammed with five star hotels there the Hilton is incredible and now the Riverside here with this bridge and right on the other side of this bridge I notice this cityscape up there all of those skyscrapers very different look to the city than I was expecting oh we can't quite see it we're going to miss it but I think I I caught it on video a little bit but there it is right there I don't know if that will be the theme of my entire time in Vietnam but it's certainly the theme of my arrival that everything here is different I mean I knew Vietnam had changed but I had no idea the degree of change that I was going to see the level of economic development is really surprising to me passing by another major new development this is still Master but this is a Vines here I think or no vom start here there's a have Vin homes so they have both like apartment buildings and they have Villas ah and Villas are I think overpriced they're you know they're expensive like they're Vancouver level expensive maybe not Vancouver level about to be 1 or 2 million us I think these are some of the tall buildings that I remarked on earlier one of them there actually looks a little bit like um Mera 118 in KL the shape of that building there almost mimics it a little bit a little bit more angular though so we're circling around another Vin home residences I'm getting the sense that this Vin VIN company is pretty large controlling interest in a lot of things and apparently Vin also owns taxis these blue ones here there it goes oh there's the barber 1995 it looks like a pretty cool little shop oh there's another Vin taxi turquoise that color right kind of a turquoise turquoise I had to pick a favorite color that's probably what I would pick the turquoise and over there you can see uh sort of a metro station part of the it's not operational yet Rod tells me so that's an actual subway tracks up there or elevated train tracks I guess not really a Subway but uh yeah still testing it still building it it's not operational yet yeah I wasn't sure about that I was talking to someone on the plane a guy who from Vietnam and I had this vague idea that there were trains here and I asked him and he says no no we don't have anything like that but I guess you solved the mystery for me they're building it but it's just not running yet it is underground like in district one it's underground oh it is okay or on here it's they don't look to be far off from opening I mean they got this big long track and they've got entire stations look like they're completed so huh who knows shuttle bus trip update we've really gone on a journey it's been really interesting we left district one all those districts we left them behind a long time ago I guess the next uh vien home is quite a ways out here we're about 18 maybe 19 km away from Adia hotel where sort of where I started the day we went through bunch of different neighborhoods and now this seems to be some sort of a high tech Park area like of major companies out here with software Electronics different things like that and uh even even Rod my guide for this journey he hasn't been out this far he hasn't taken the bus all the way out here before and the hope is eventually it does a loop it actually turns around and brings us back to where we started otherwise A Long Walk ahead of us yeah otherwise we have a long walk ahead of us but yeah a lot of the city has fallen away this is more like an industrial park area or high-tech what is this here hot petrochemical Corporation out here yeah so that's where we are now and in theory we're going to arrive at one of these um Vin right it's Vin yeah Vin homes Vin residences and then uh we'll turn around maybe go back along the exact same road or do Loop not really sure but um yeah we've had to cross rivers to get out here and from what I'm seeing that's part of life in hoochi Min City that if you go anywhere from one District to another because the rivers are curving very Serpentine they're going to be crossing rivers a lot uh we're going around in a circle some Buffalo there oh yeah so we've actually made a went around a corner so we're not going in a straight line out of the city anymore so there's hope we're eventually going to get back to our starting point I think we've reached a destination at least as far as the shuttle bus is concerned we're in a whole Vin homes complex past a VIN school there's Vin VIN holes Grand Park and we're about 23 km away from District 1 now and I I think this bus will be either dropping us off to get onto another one to go back or he'll just turn around o yeah there's a whole bunch of the buses up there this might be the end of the line right here so the bus we came out here on it ended here everybody had to get off and now I guess this one is the one going back so uh we're going to hop back on this one maybe I think a bus leaves every 15 minutes or something like that and we're way out here in uh like I said way out in the out in the suburbs we left a lot of hoochi men behind Saigon Grand Park there a whole bunch of these buses grp one grp3 I'm not sure what the difference is between them but I'll Trust Rod to get me home alive eventually not surprisingly there's a lot of Development and Construction out here this Pond right beside the bus station look at that look at that field of cranes and buildings going up all the whole Horizon unbelievable the amount of development going on quick note we're back in in district one and there goes the bus the Vin VIN Holmes shuttle [Music] bus oh so my uh my wish that Rod is granting for me was to have a coffee on the street a typical Vietnamese style coffee and uh he's taking care of an order over there so you got your um she understood yeah and what did you say again you're asking for Cafe so this is Cafe oh okay da da okay Cafe Da sua Su is like sweet yeah and that is iced iced IC see I see I see all right so use they use condensed milk sweeten condensed milk right pretty so she got condensed milk in the bottom and she's mixing the coffee in there so they have the coffee prepared from last night or this morning you see right right right sort of like a coffee syrup [Applause] almost CA Canada my friend cuz I was wondering when I saw this little thing it's like okay where how does the magic happen but it's all pre pre-prepared and I guess ice is in here H nice okay there's one over there so waiting for your reaction your first yeah so this is where We've Ended up that was our little uh coffee place right there and we are Cafe Su okay Cafe you've got to get that um Rising falling and uh there it is here I'm just letting it get nice and cold I think it's supposed to be nice and cold and I don't know if it'll be a surprising flavor or is it just going to be coffee with sweetened milk like anywhere else we'll see uh there's anything unusual going on here there we go little sip I don't know there's something there it's almost chocolatey yes that's my feeling am I am I on track I think you're on track yeah as a I both chocolate and coffee are bitter right and you sweeten them Ian I guess hardcore coffee lovers like their coffee black no sugar yeah uh the the Robusta is more bitter harsher than the Arabica I think that's my feeling and uh you have to be really hardcore to want to have like there are men will take the cafe the black you know black coffee no milk or just Cafe hot but mostly you take it and um but uh that's pretty hard but so I'm still here getting down to the last drgs of my coffee Rod just hopped back onto the shuttle bus cuz it comes right around here very convenient one of these like circular bus routes and um yeah there goes the bus Rod is on there somewhere I'll send up a wave on the off chance that he's looking out the window yeah I'll see Rod again before uh yeah very shortly I think here in Hoi Min City I've set off on foot back to my hotel it's about a couple of kilometers and uh there's probably going to be a lot of interesting sites along the way first one that jumped out of me is something I saw this morning but I'm sort of seeing it in a new light right now it's this uh Corner building right here I don't know how old it is but look right up there at the top the balcony Cafe Cafe and shopping that looks like a very cool place I don't know if the balcony is actually open as a cafe but maybe it was once upon a time but uh I love I love the curved Corner buildings like that another Cafe right here on the second floor then coffee tea house but yeah very cool looking place but my path to go back to my hotel heads me in this direction going by these government buildings again still making my way back along this Commercial Street passing all kinds of fancy restaurants like this one Pastor Street craft beer Taco Dell so up there on the top burrito and beers really interesting buildings around here there's the A and EM hotel and I like this these buildings right beside it there another an older Residential Building here again it's got the rounded front on it that I really like balconies and I think that's the the big Market that I passed uh this morning very first thing the big tourist Market down there that would be the rear entrance or exit I guess yeah look at that District K everything here is surprising me I like these older buildings with the the front with the balconies like that gives a taste of old uh Vietnam there's no end to the coffee shops here midnight coffee egg coffee yeah just coffee everywhere golden Hotel I'm almost back at my hotel just crossing the intersection kitty corner to the big Park it's a funny thing a few people have talked to me about the chaos of a place like Saigon and the difficulty where walking is so difficult and the traffic is so crazy and I keep saying the exact opposite I'm finding everything here so streamlined and relatively smooth and efficient I mean everywhere I go every intersection has a working traffic lights with a working pedestrian Crossing every corner I get there and I just even if I don't know what direction I want to go I just wait until one of the directions get a green pedestrian crosswalk sign and then I just walk across the street and I go in that direction and check out these sidewalks occasionally you get a motorcycle driving down the sidewalk of course why wouldn't you but I mean there been there nothing like in other places I've been recently walking around here Inon has been dream easy in a way very pleasant a lot of sidewalks everywhere I go I find the walking to be quite straightforward and pleasant so uh very different from my expectations and here's a good example here's a very big busy intersection but Crossing it is the easiest thing in the world all I have to do is wait for the light to turn red in this direction green over here so I've got a little walking man and across I go uh nothing uh nothing could be easier my hotel is uh right down there short distance I just wanted to see what's over over [Music] here yeah actually this is where my bus dropped me off the uh the airport bus stopped right here 152 I think 109 comes here as well and then I just turned around came back here turned the corner and I was at the uh adinia Hotel I'm just about back at my hotel but I passed by this Alleyway looked interesting so I think I'm just going to walk walk down the alley have the camera running just curious what's down here Indian restaurant hello how are you good wow what a treasure Trove little places to have a cold beer something to [Music] eat lot of Indian restaurants Punjabi uh looks like a hotel in here Saigon Amigo and a lot of Tours being offered out of here it's like other places I've been when you're buying one of those um like a ticket for one of those tours it's not directly from that Hotel they all act as Brokers for the same place so you might they might be selling tickets for a particular tour at all kinds of different uh Outlets another hotel there the gang hotel or however you pronounce it beautiful hotel hello hello hello thank you thank you thank you very yeah all and uh hello hello I'll take one thank you not right now thank you Hotel yeah a lot of little hotels and guest houses down here I don't know if these ones are listed online or room for [Music] rent it's crazy how organized everything is here I was not expecting to see places like this at all look at this Champion Sports Bar Saigon chill bar and another man oh man it's just endless look at that long Street filled with bars and restaurants and cafes as far as the eye can see and I guess that's the beginning of this street this is probably a very well-known Street boy vien Bo vien something like that wow H H hello how are you yeah so I guess this is a very famous place anything with a Gateway like that I don't know how to pronounce it boy vien walking Street look at the uh colors and the lights up there this is going to be my final small adventure for today this place I like it because they have chairs a chair and a table hello yeah ban me yeah uh B meit I don't know the variations I just tried to say ban me did which I'm hoping is like a basic ban me and we'll see what I end up with I have three no no drink just the sandwich can you tell me how much is it 25 25 yeah so the last of today's small adventur is a very basic banme I I don't know what banme fit means maybe I'll do a Google translate on that see if I can come up with any kind of a meaning for it a giant rat just ran between my feet little bit of local atmosphere I like that so let's see what Google tells me th h t fit doesn't come up with anything as a translation I find that's the case with a lot of food Google translate sometimes cuz it's just the name of the food it um it may or may not have a meaning it's just a word if you know what I mean maybe it's small a small bunme or regular bunme anyway we'll figure that out later on I'll just give it a uh case test take a look at what's on the inside looks good to me like a selection of Tomatoes veggies roast pork I think breaded pork and then perhaps some uh secret sauces and it was um 25,000 dong like $1 I guess yeah $1 us yeah hello uh no no drink no thanks I've learned not to pass judgment on sandwiches until you get to the middle if you eat just the end you're just getting bread for a little while so we'll wait until I get to get into the middle of this uh delightful sandwich but I do love the bread that is really good bread just right it's getting better and better the deeper I get into it it's nice it's a good good sandwich and I have the setting I'll show you where I am right now so this is me of course enjoying my Bon me and this is the uh place where I got the sandwich the banme place and that's the the main Park out there that I keep talking about September 23rd Park Al Buu cross the road it's like a happening kind of place and then that big um the big the big walking street that I spotted is just down there nice nice place to hang out and so coming towards the end of my day of small Adventures really enjoyable day great way to get introduced to the city and to the country I suppose meeting up with Rod for that lunch the walk to get to the restaurant I enjoyed that quite a bit and uh then yeah the bus tour very unusual getting on a shuttle bus between Vin uh residential homes seeing large parts of uh hoim Min City that you wouldn't otherwise see cup of coffee at the end at the side of the road and then a bon me really nice so I'm just coming up on uh my hotel again there's the the park across the street busy towards the end of the day and I'm probably going to grab a cold drink from uh the Circle K convenience store and that will be the end of today back at my hotel heading up to the fifth floor I think I remember which pocket I put my key in long ago days like this it's funny that they you end up doing so many things and covering so much ground it hardly seems possible that it all happened on the same day you know so I'm thinking back to when the day began and it seems like such a long time ago but here's my my room at the end of the the dark hallway not a whole lot of security on this um door door door lock and the room has one of these uh key card systems to get electricity there we go for the fan for the air conditioner very important for the lights and for the uh mini fridge oh here I am at the end of the day I went into the local Circle K and got a cold beer to end the day there was just a whole range of beers I don't know which is good which has a good reputation this is a die vit pilzer and the attraction to this beer was that they had a promotion going on so I got not one but two cans of beer for for 30,000 dong which is just a little bit over a dollar us so that's a in my world that's a pretty good deal for a couple of cans of beer so let's see how yeah I haven't had beer for ages I mean literally ages I can't remember the last time I had anything alcoholic let alone a refreshing cold beer that's nice I mean I'm not saying it's a great tasting beer just anything cold and wet at this point would taste delicious but just having that beer flavor yeah it's it's a nice feeling it's like a haven't had that flavor for a very long time that I can remember so that's it back in my room going to let it cool down with the fan and the air conditioning take a cold shower get nicely cooled off have the beer and uh yeah think about the day yeah that's nice so that is it shutting down for the day and as always I'll see you in the next video [Music] [Music] [Music] m oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] h [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] hey hey hey [Music] [Applause] hey hey oh hey oh hey oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey oh 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Channel: Planet Doug

Views: 13,905

Keywords: Vietnam, Saigon Tourism, Vinbus, Vinhomes, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnamese Coffee, Banh Mi, Adenia Hotel, District 1, Xóm Chợ Cũ Restaurant, Relive Animated Map, Vinhomes Central Park

Id: ZG0F_XQh330

Length: 76min 40sec (4600 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2024