S1-07 8 Tips for travel during TET Episode 7 8 Tips for Vietnam travellers during TET Go to Episode S1-03 Travel within Vietnam Episode 3 How should you travel to and in Vietnam and is it safe? Go to Episode S1-06 Culture and Visas Episode 6 Vietnam from a cultural and historical standpoint. Go to Episode S1-02 Best Time to Travel in Vietnam Episode 2 Know the best time to as a travel manager and “its important”. Go to Episode S1-05 Accommodation Episode 5 Five golden rules on getting the best accommodation Go to Episode S1-01 Vietnam Travel Planning Episode 1 In this session, I talk about food, people and experiences. Go to Episode S1-04 What can you buy Episode 4 What does your Dong buy you in Vietnam? Go to Episode

S4-25 A fun Guide to droning - Photos Part 3 Episode 25 A fun guide to droning in Vietnam - Photos Part 3 Go to Episode S4-21 Beyond the Phong Nha caves Episode 21 There is more to Phong Nha than just the caves Go to Episode S4-17 Vietnam Traveller Insights 2022 Episode 17 The best Vietnam traveller insights from 2022 Go to Episode S4-13 Citizen 44 podswap Episode 13 A feeling of an injection of colour into my soul Go to Episode S4-09 Hanoi A Foodies Paradise P1 Episode 9 What is truly distinct about Northern Vietnam cuisine Go to Episode S4-05 Nha Trang 10 best things Episode 5 10 best things about Nha Trang you may not know Go to Episode S4-01 Art in Vietnam Episode 1 The artist’s true technique of storytelling Go to Episode S4-24 Take beautiful photos Part 2 Episode 24 Mastering photography in Vietnam - Part 2 Go to Episode S4-20 Life changer for singer songwiter Episode 20 Hoi An – A life changer for a singer songwriter Go to Episode S4-16 Mystical Ninh Binh Episode 16 Mountainous peaks and a labrynth of waterways Go to Episode S4-12 Contemporary Art in Vietnam Episode 12 Contemporary art is shining fresh eyes on Vietnam. Go to Episode S4-08 Travel Addict podswap Episode 8 Travel Addict Show (podswap) talking Vietnam with Kerry Newsome Go to Episode S4-04 Vietnam Wedding Planning Episode 4 When planning a wedding there are so many factors... Go to Episode S4-23 Take beautiful photos Part 1 Episode 23 Mastering photography in Vietnam - Part 1 Go to Episode S4-19 Vietnam wins the heart of the daring Episode 19 A country to feel safe in while pushing boundaries Go to Episode S4-15 Travelling as a solo woman Episode 15 A favourite destination amongst female travellers Go to Episode S4-11 Revisiting Vietnam Episode 11 It's my turn to to revisit Vietnam and check it out Go to Episode S4-07 Hue the city Past Present Future Episode 7 Boasting a patchwork of imperialism and French colonialism Go to Episode S4-03 Travel Outlook 2022-23 Episode 3 I am the guest here talking about Vietnam travel Go to Episode S4-22 Trekking in Sapa A wide lens view Episode 22 The cultural component of trekking in Sapa Go to Episode S4-18 Luxury Brand Travel Experiences Episode 18 Luxury brand travel experiences in Vietnam Go to Episode S4-14 Con Dao Islands Eprisode 14 An archipelago of pristine beauty and complexity Go to Episode S4-10 Hanoi A Foodies Paradise P2 Episode 10 Northern Vietnam cuisine diversity and charm Go to Episode S4-06 Craft beers in Vietnam Episode 6 The “biggest” best leaked Vietnam travel secrets Go to Episode S4-02 Fine Dining Vietnam Episode 2 Vietnam is legendary for its street food and chefs Go to Episode

S3-25 One teenagers holiday views Episode 25 Be pleasantly surprised by the views of this teenager Go to Episode S3-21 Learn "shopping words" Episode 21 Language tips in Vietnam Learn best shopping words Go to Episode S3-17 Mui Ne Beach bliss experiences Episode 17 A sun kissed paradise with amazing experiences. Go to Episode S3-13 Vietnamese Noodles Episode 13 Experience the quintessential favourite, Pho. Go to Episode S3-09 Photographic experiences Episode 9 Rich in history and culture and yet bursting to change. Go to Episode S3-05 Ha Giang Loop Episode 5 Ha Giang Loop adventure, Vietnam's final frontier Go to Episode S3-01 Travel Industry Experts Episode 1 Insights into Vietnam travel beyond 2021 Go to Episode S3-24 Phu Quoc A scenic island paradise Episode 24 Pgu Quoc is a highly sought after destination Go to Episode S3-20 Learn "special dietary needs" Episode 20 Language tips in Vietnamese Learn "special dietary needs" Go to Episode S3-16 Things NOT always in a tour Episode 16 Discussing the broader challenges in travel planning Go to Episode S3-12 From Tourist to Resident Episode 12 What would it be like to live in a foreign country? Go to Episode S3-08 Food Adventure Episode 8 Fun Hanoi foodie adventure to blow your mind Go to Episode S3-04 Dishes of Danang Episode 4 Must try local dishes with Vietnam Food Safari Go to Episode S3-23 Your next wellness destination Episode 23 The Alba Wellness Resort - a great destination Go to Episode S3-19 Learn "Greetings" Episode 19 Language tips in Vietnam week 1 - "greetings" Go to Episode S3-15 Travel time in Vietnam P2 Episode 15 How much time to allow for a visit and to where. Go to Episode S3-11 Saigons Covid Recovery Outlook Episode 11 Lockdown insights and upcoming travel advice Go to Episode S3-07 Positive tourism Episode 7 Leaving a positive footprint through social enterprise Go to Episode S3-03 Saigon HCMC Districts Episode 3 Samantha Coomber guides us through Saigon's districts Go to Episode S3-22 Phong Nha Caves in depth Episode 22 Fast becoming a major draw card for adventure seekers. Go to Episode S3-18 Emerging comedy in Saigon Episode 18 A happening comedy scene for laughs in Saigon Go to Episode S3-14 Travel Opening up P1 Episode 14 After months of being closed, the doors are opening Go to Episode S3-10 Top 5 Travel Podcasts Episode 10 These episodes remind me why I started this journey Go to Episode S3-06 Diving in Vietnam Episode 6 Jeremy Stein takes us diving in the best locations Go to Episode S3-02 Mu Cang Chai Episode 2 Colourful landscapes of the village of Mu Cang Chai Go to Episode

S2-25 River Cruising Vietnam Episode 25 Cruising Vietnam is a truly immersive experience Go to Episode S2-21 Vietnamese Trail Marathons Episode 21 We discuss the fun of trail marathons in Vietnam Go to Episode S2-17 Wellness and Healing Episode 17 In all the natural beauty and culture you can find yourself Go to Episode S2-13 Skin Wellness retreat Episode 13 Special retreat focusing on skin wellness Go to Episode S2-09 Phong Nha Caves Episode 9 World's largest cave at Phong Nha National Park. Go to Episode S2-05 Explore Mai Chau Episode 5 Exploring the threaded history of textiled in Mai Chau Go to Episode S2-01 Historical Hoi An Episode 1 We share with you some of the history of Hoi An. Go to Episode S2-24 Explore Bac Ha Markets Episode 24 Discover a world time forgot at Bac Ha markets Go to Episode S2-20 Saigon Nightlife scoop Episode 20 Finding the best nightlife in buzzing Saigon Go to Episode S2-16 Danang Community Sprit Episode 16 How Danang offers up a new kind of experience Go to Episode S2-12 Health and Wellness Retreats Episode 12 Health and wellness retreats - what to look for. Go to Episode S2-08 Vietnam wedding Destination Episode 8 Inspired by love, Vietnam is an idyllic wedding destination Go to Episode S2-04 Tam Ky and Tam Thanh Beach Episode 4 Tam Ky and Tam Thanh beach - not on the regular tourist track yet! Go to Episode S2-23 Vietnam Cooking Classes Episode 23 Why you should do more than one cooking class Go to Episode S2-19 Culture History through food Episode 19 When it is about the food it is because it is fantastic Go to Episode S2-15 Sapa North Vietnam Episode 15 Phil Hoolihan takes us beyond the tourist tracks Go to Episode S2-11 Golf in Vietnam Episode 11 Unrivaled golfing experiences and locations Go to Episode S2-07 Hoi An Top 10 must dos Episode 7 Expat guides us through the top 10 must do things in Hoi An. Go to Episode S2-03 Family Friendly Vietnam Episode 3 Is Vietnam family-friendly? With guest Suzie Slingsby. Go to Episode S2-22 Wild Monkeys of Danang Episode 22 Monkeys in the wild at Son Tra Nature Reserve Danang Go to Episode S2-18 Masterminding your trip Episode 18 Discover and mastermind your Vietnam experiences Go to Episode S2-14 Social Enterprise Travel Episode 14 Vietnam is the ideal place for social enterprise travel Go to Episode S2-10 Dental Holiday in Vietnam Episode 10 Holiday and save money on dentistry Go to Episode S2-06 Top 5 Photography locations Episode 6 The best locations in Vietnam for photographic scenic delights. Go to Episode S2-02 Shopping Vietnam Episode 2 Shopping for Designer, Tailoring and Sustainable in Vietnam Go to Episode

Special Offers

Out & About in Saigon – UNCUT with host Kerry Newsome & Kelley McCarthy Kerry Newsome : Xin chào and welcome to What About Vietnam. Look here we are still in Saigon and I'm delighted to still be sharing my Out and About mini-series with Kelley McCarthy. Say hello Kelley. Kelley McCarthy : Good morning or good afternoon listeners. Kerry Newsome: Look, we have had a fabulous time and the reason I wanted to produce this next show, the one we're in now, is because we just kept uncovering more and more things and we said, yeah, we need to do another show, we just need to expand. So, this one is really intentionally going to be quite chock-a-block with some of the experiences that we managed to do during the last few days and hopefully for you when you consider coming to Saigon, which for many of you is really just a leapfrog location, you come in, you go out and you go somewhere else. We're kind of thinking more around that you might want to extend. you stay a little bit longer because there is quite a bit to do. So I thought we'd start at the very, very beginning when you've booked your accommodation or we've got you a hotel that either has a breakfast included or it doesn't. Now to be really true and fair and like keeping it all authentic, Kelley's looking at me with this great cheesy grin because we're talking about breakfast. And I'm not a big breakfast girl, but let me tell you, Kelley is a breakfast lover, so I'm going to ask her to speak to the breakfast scene, the cafe scene for that option. Kelley McCarthy: All right, so for myself, I've been going out and having breakfast each day here in Saigon while Kerry's been catching up on, I think, a little bit more of that beauty sleep. So, I have just done Google searches. I like to try a different cafe each day. You have multiple options. So, basically, if you quickly do a Google search of Western breakfast near me, if that's what you're after, Keep in mind, you've got all of your street food, so if you're wanting to have traditional Vietnamese breakfast. There's a couple of great ones that I go to and frequent regularly. One is called The Running Bean. There is two locations in District 1 for that. There's also another great one I discovered this time. It's called The Godmother. That was fantastic for breakfast. Keep in mind also, you can If you do want to have a buffet breakfast and you're not staying in an international hotel, you can actually go to those and purchase breakfast and sit in the hotel and have breakfast. So that is another option. If you sort of want to stay in a hotel that's just a little bit down in the price rankings and then you want to do an exquisite breakfast, that is an option. So keep that in mind. There's a couple of other places, the Runam cafes, they're scattered everywhere and they have multiple options when you go for breakfast. You'll find one of those in Saigon Centre and also in Vincom Plaza, both in District 1. So, plenty of options out there if you want to go from traditional to fully Western. Kerry Newsome : And, you know, I kind of kick in with Kelley, you know, around the more cafe, coffee kind of time of day. So I'm more that midday. I'm more that brunch is what I'd like to call it, thanks Kel. But certainly I really love my coffee and coffee is definitely on the menu here in Vietnam and certainly in Saigon with the cafe scene. So, every 50 metres you're going to find a coffee or cafe scene option anywhere you go. Kelley McCarthy: And that's a great time for me to then kick into the second morning snack, which is my coffee and cake delight, which, let me tell you, are everywhere. I'm like a bunny looking for the next food place just to try something different. So Kerry gets the giggles each time it's, oh, oh, it must be cake o'clock. So off we go. She has her mid-morning coffee and I have my second bout. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, look, if you need someone to try something or to sniff out something that is delicious, she seems to have antennas that will, oh, look at that over there. We need to cross the road now and we need to, sure enough, we open the door and it's this glorious scene of cakes and smells of coffee and yeah, delicious, delicious. Now Kel, we got to think about planning for the day, girls and guys. Now, I've got a really big guys audience, so to you out there this is kind of how we think things could roll for you. So, depending on your appetite, depending on you know, the weather, like how hot it is, depending on whether or not you're an adventure seeker, maybe you're a historian, you know, there's just so many options apart from your main tourist attractions, so places of interest, You know, adventure-wise, you can definitely go out and do the Coochie Tunnels, you can go and explore the Mekong Delta. There's lots. And you can do that through your hotel or you can do that through a local agent. We have a guy that we deal with, Lee Hogan, who does a fabulous job for us and for some of my clients. So, we would definitely put him forward for that. But if you don't want to miss the game or you've got to watch that match or something like that, you might want to head to a bar called Phatty’s Kelley McCarthy : That's P-H-A-T-T-Y’s Kerry Newsome : Yes. And it's pretty famous for, yeah, you'll find a lot of people seeking the same thing in that bar. A lot of expats tend to go there and you know it's just kind of a famous place for keeping up with sports and things like that for that taste I guess. Now, Grab is easy to get around to find Phatty’s. It's in District 1. So, for that kind of interest for you guys, if you want to let us girls go and do our thing, which might be totally different, yeah, that would be our recommendation. Kelley? Kelley McCarthy: Yep, and for the ladies, if you want to drop your husbands off there, it is literally 30 metres to Saigon Centre for some shopping for you to sit down and either have one of those cakes and coffees I talk about, or you could have a walk around the stores in there. So, it's very, very close. Kerry Newsome : Yes. So, that's a good segue into us talking about shopping. So, we'll start with the mains and the reason I want to talk about the mains is in the sense that there is some aspects of each of the main shopping centres that we've kind of figured out that differentiates them and we'll go into more of that in a minute. So there is Saigon Centre, Vincom Plaza, Diamond Plaza and Vincom Megamall. So Kelley maybe you could talk to us a little bit about some of the key differences between the main ones being Saigon Centre and Vincom Plaza. Kelley McCarthy : So Saigon Centre has a large department store in it called Takashimaya. It's a Japanese department store. It is a high-end Japanese department store, but if you go to the lower levels in there, you can get some great specials. Downstairs as well. There's lots of little boutique stores through that shopping center And that one also so Takashi Maya also looks after all the ladies Fragrances skincare products such as your Estee Lauder's and you know all of those skincare groups It also has a couple of stores that are the store independent such as your Chanel, NARS for skincare. So, and then you've got your rotating levels in that centre for other things like your Calvin Klein, and a lot of other independents. So that's the individual boutiques there as well. Where if you go across to Vincom Plaza, that will then have things like Zara, H&M, and another lot of independents, but they don't seem to double up in the larger stores in the same shopping centers like in other countries do. So, that's where it is. Vincom Mega Mall is out in District 2, very similar to Vincom Centre here, but on a larger scale. And then Diamond Plaza is very, very high end. So, that will have your Burberry's, Prada, all of the fragrant houses and then independent brands going up through the levels is there as well. Kerry Newsome : And like, you know, these major centres, you know, sometimes people think of them and say, you know, who wants to go to Vietnam and go to a shopping mall and that kind of thing. You'd be quite surprised to the experience you can have in those shopping centres. It's not, you know, like coming from Australia, I do see the shopping mall becoming very much same, same. You'll go from one shop to another and everything seems to be the same, where there'll be a really big mix in these shopping malls and even to the extent of food and coffee options, really cute cafes And definitely food-wise, certainly in, you know, the centres that we did, Saigon Centre mainly and Vincom Plaza. Kelley, that really cute Japanese-style one that we had that had a kind of a tapas lunch. Yeah, Miava. Yeah, that was just fabulous. And, you know, we actually discussed the fact around, you know, people would not possibly seek it out because it is in a shopping centre. But wow, we were just, price wise it was great, the quality of the food was excellent, and just the variety plus was just, I was really impressed. Kelley McCarthy: Yeah, they have some great little places in those shopping centres. And they generally have the food set out on certain floors, but there'll be a couple of little ones scattered through the other level. So really seek out these food places in those shopping centres. Kerry Newsome: It might mean you get a bit dizzy going round and round in the elevators and the lifts, etc. But it's worth doing a search. Now, we would be remiss if we don't talk about markets here. And I guess this is another thing I want to kind of demystify. You know, Vietnam is not just about markets. Definitely not. It's just not now the focus being on copy products and all the rest of it. It has come up into some really high quality artisan goods, creative concept stores and things like that. So, the markets are definitely there and it's an experience you do need to do, I think, at least once. Probably Kelley and I have done it quite a few times. So, we're well practiced in the Ben Thanh markets in the Saigon Square. And Saigon Square is kind of a very smaller version just opposite Saigon Centre. So, you can kind of do both those in the same visit and maybe a little bit more expensive. So, I'm going to lead Kel into just talking about the bargaining side of things because I'm a shocking bargainer. I get what I want, but I probably don't get it at the super best price. But there is a skill to it. And as Kelley was reminding me this morning, you've got to go hard in Ben Thanh Talk to us about going hard in Ben Thanh, Kelley. Kelley McCarthy: So , Ben Thanh market is more of a, you get your fabrics, you can get food in there, you can get a huge variety. It's under one large tin roof, so it is hot in there, so I suggest going in the morning to get your best price. Go in the morning, you get a morning price, and go hard in your bartering. So, they will start off at an astronomical price. So keep it in mind what you would realistically pay for it in your own country if you were happy with it. And that's where you roughly want to be. So for example, 50% at least is what you want to get of what their first price is offering. And just remember, haggling over 20 or 30,000 at the end of the day is a couple of dollars. So don't wear yourself out on that. Do it with a smile. It'll be a lot of good for me, good for you pricing. When you win. When you win. good for you, not so good for me, and with a little bit of a not so much of a big smile, and then they seem to come down. And if you do it with a smile, you'll get a lot further, don't be aggressive. If you're after a lot of the high-end copies, I would suggest Saigon Square for that. A, it's air-conditioned as well, ladies, but that's where you will get, because there is definitely a difference between good copy and bad copy. So in Saigon Square, that is where you'll get the more high-end copy. You will pay a bit more for it, but you'll get a great pair of copy runners for around, I would suggest 1 million to 1.5 million is where you would go with those, but they will start off at 2.5, 3 million, sometimes even higher. So just keep in mind what you're happy with as your price, and then if you come out happy, that's where you go. Don't discuss it with anyone else, because they might then shut you down and make you feel a little incompetent by saying oh we got it for this but at the end of the day it'll be a couple of bucks. Kerry Newsome : Yeah and like for some people you know they really want to treat it like sport and really their talking point for the night will be just how they were able to you know bargain down this person and you know get them for this you know astronomically low price and yeah good on you but like you know this is these people's livelihood too so I don't, you know, Kelley mentioned, you know, $20,000, $30,000 in your own currency, you're going to find that's, you know, $0.30, $0.50, $1, $1.50, $2. And you go, well, if it's really that important, yeah, move on. But if you really want that item, And it's just worth walking away with you both smiling, with a win-win situation. Sometimes it can be a lot of fun. They make jokes. It's a real event, so you can really enjoy your time. part of shopping here in Saigon and certainly around the country is becoming more prevalent and I'm seeing more of and I'm delighted to do so. And that's the concept stores, so that's where you know locals are designing their own goods and making their own goods locally, sometimes out of local produce, and they can be really interesting. So, we kind of had a really good look around the Katinat building, and it's opposite H&M, and H&M is in… District 1. District 1, and the… And it's in Vincom Centre. And in the Vincom Centre. So, when I'm out and about, I kind of get myself to the Vincom Centre, walk out the H&M door to outside and then cross the road and you'll see the Playground and you'll see the Katinat building. And that's how I best describe for you to visit these stores. Definitely make a time to visit these. Now, you're probably not always going to find your size and if you are a mixed size group of people like in your family or whatever, unless you're the small, very small. Size 10. And under. Kelley McCarthy: I buy lots of sunglasses, earrings, bracelets, handbags. Kerry Newsome : Yes and look occasionally I can fit into them you know I'm roughly a 10 in Australian standards but yeah I'm not small shouldered. Kelley McCarthy : Don't be precious about looking at the size tag, go with what fits you. Kerry's a size 10 and I know she's looked a couple of times when they've said Oh, you be extra large or extra, extra large. So, don't let that offend you. That's just their sizing system. Kerry Newsome : Go with what fits. Absolutely. And, you know, while we're in this shopping headset or this part of the program, probably worth mentioning that size thing in a very trip planning mode. So, when you're packing and you're thinking about what to bring, If you are a shoe size over 39, bring all the shoes you need. Kelley McCarthy : So, that's in UK, US and Australian. That would be above, basically a size 8.5. If you're a size 9 or 10, you have got no hope in getting shoes here, unless you buy men's shoes. Kerry Newsome: Yes, but I mean I know even I took my grandson here and he was the size 13, we couldn't find anywhere like shoes to fit and you know my husband coming over for the wedding and I'm thinking about you know shoes I'm going you know 11, 12 is that going to fit maybe? But then we're stuck and he's got runners to wear to the wedding, so no, we won't be doing that. But for me, I'm a 36. So I can pick any shoe off any shelf and it's just a delight. And devastating for me. Kelley stands there and growls. But like seriously it is a pleasure for me to buy shoes over here. So I get all the really natty bits and pieces. So I buy a lot of shoes girls. I'm just I'm just putting it out there. So yeah, and the other aspect, a little bit delicate, but in the undergarment. Kelley McCarthy: Underwear and bras. Ladies, I'm a size 18 and a size 18D in bra cups. Please don't forget this in your suitcase, because you are going to be doing a lot of non-underwear moments. If you do, you will never buy them here. At all. I, for example, I even asked a dressmaker if she could insert a bra into my dress so I didn't have to wear one, a false bra. She just looked at me with this horrified look and said, no cup size big enough. Kerry Newsome: So. No, and they don't know like how to wrap their head around women with busts. So, you know, like if you are. Kelley McCarthy: King Kong comes to mind for them. Kerry Newsome: But have you seen them try to get their arms to get around you when they're doing that tailoring? Like they've got these, you know, beautiful like delicate figures and they're kind of stretching themselves to get around you and you feel like… I get a lot of bear hugs when they're trying to measure me. Yeah, I know, it's crazy. But like, yeah, so don't come and then get stuck with, oh, I really should have bought another sports bra, I really should have bought… And think cotton also in definitely in the hot months because you know, 90% humidity is an average day, so when you're out and about and you're doing things, I've got to tell you, you are really churning and burning clothes, just pure saturation point. So, yeah, just we thought that was definitely worth mentioning for you because we want you to feel good. Kelley McCarthy : It kind of goes for you guys too so you are not going to find extra large underwear if you forget them. Most men here would be a 28 inch waist at best so don't forget your underwear gentlemen as well. Kerry Newsome: Okay point noted. Now, I'm leading now down the path of tailoring. Now, we have to kind of… there's a bit of a caveat with this with us as we have done, as you can tell, lots of shopping in the past and in this trip, but also we've done a lot of tailoring in the past, etc. But we wanted to try tailoring in Saigon. Now, I really have to invite Kelley to share her experience, which came with a reference from a local. So, we didn't go in blindsided. We went into this place, you know, as being told that this was a quality tailor. So, over to you Kelley. Kelley McCarthy : So, going into the tailors here, first tip, be very direct with what you want. Don't sugarcoat it. It's very direct. Pictures are a great thing and they're a great thing to keep hold of to reference back to. For example, our tailor here, I showed pictures, told her what we want, I came back and it wasn't how I'd requested it. They tried to say, you not tell me this yesterday. So, I quickly snapped my phone, pull up the pictures, show them that what I requested is not in the imagery. I think in my situation here in Saigon, had I just nodded and said yes, yes, very happy on the first fitting, all would have gone well. But when I wanted them to tweak a few things, change a few things, and tell them basically that their tailoring wasn't up to scratch for what I wanted, things went a little pear-shaped. In the end, I just walked out saying, thank you, I take this one, I hate it. It was much easier just to write off that bit of money. Kerry Newsome: There was actually kind of almost fisticuffs happening between the tailor and the shop owner. So, the shop owner was trying to be the mediator and her English was a lot better than the actual tail, the seamstress herself. But she was really starting to crack it. And yet, so the poor shop owner was going, like, I don't know what to do here. And Kelley's just going, I hate it. This isn't right. This isn't what I asked for. here's the picture, blah, blah, blah. So, we can't kind of say it was the perfect experience and we have been treated very differently with tailoring in Hoi An. But Hoi An, it is its superpower. Kelley McCarthy : It specializes in tailoring. Kerry Newsome: There is a tailor every corner. They're only shop fronts because the tailors are actually working from home and working in other places, but it is the mecca for tailoring. If you do have tailoring you want done, Like, we can't really put hand on heart and say, look, definitely get it done in Saigon. We would, you know, we kind of made this agreement before coming on the show and said, look, you know, it wouldn't be our go-to recommendation for tailoring. So, Saigon, sorry to say, we're not going to put you up there for tailoring. But you've got plenty of other streets to talk about. Kelley McCarthy : I feel the best way to describe it is in Hoi An, they are perfectionist. So, if you're not happy with something, they will tweak it, whether that takes one alteration or 10, till you walk out that store happy, where here in Saigon, it was more of a business transaction. Had I've got it right the first time and just accepted it, it would have been okay, but there was a lot more complexity to what I wanted. and it was more about the tailor herself, the seamstress, didn't want to undo what she had already done because it was in the too hard basket. Kerry Newsome: Yeah definitely and they really didn't care whether we walked out with a smile on our face or not. So it was a totally different experience and a bit disappointing and flavoured by the fact we had had such pleasurable experiences in Hoi An. So, we're a bit tainted, but we want you to have that knowledge when you're making these choices, when you're staying in these places. We just don't want you to come to Saigon and go, oh, well, I can get my tailoring done here, you know, you heard on the What About Vietnam podcast, it's fantastic. Well, we're just saying you might luck it, you might find that one, And it might all go absolutely fantastic, but Saigon to me is not known for tailoring. No. Okay, so moving right on, I'd like to kind of get stuck into food. Kelley McCarthy : Oh, my favourite topic. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, like I was going to put this section and kind of call it the foodie havens that we found, and we found a lot. We found a lot. So, I don't know which way to begin this, but we tried lots of cuisines. So, I'm going to start with just the overall parent subject of different cuisines. Don't think for a minute when you come to Vietnam and Saigon in particular that you're stuck with just Vietnamese. Not that that's a bad thing to be stuck with, but you can get Italian, Korean, Spanish, Kelley McCarthy: Japanese, Chinese, Indian, basically any cuisine you could imagine, you can get it here. Kerry Newsome : It was an interesting journey on the foodie trail for us. because we tried some really high-end restaurants, so we had very high expectations. They'd also been referred to us. So, we then tried probably what you'd classify as more your mid-range, and like, I don't know, Kelley, how do we say this? Kelley McCarthy : I feel as though some of those mid-range, presentation-wise and taste-wise, far exceeded some of the high-end restaurants. And the same as like we talk about in the shopping centres, some of those bistros in those shopping centres, because we have a very strong French influence here in Saigon, so presentation is an utmost thing for them. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, I mean we were walking along a street yesterday looking for a lunch place and Kelley walks into this kind of dodgy kind of alley and I'm going… Get down those alleys. Definitely, but like have you got a place in mind and she said well I think there's a few here I've tried one of them and we stumbled across this really old-worldly kind of French restaurant and just had the most delightful meal and felt like we were in mini France, like even like the furniture and the… It's like a bistro in Paris. It was, it really was and you know we went to places like Zumware and the one that we liked the most was the one at Social Complex. Kelley McCarthy : Social Complex it's called. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, but it's got about eight locations hasn't it? Kelley McCarthy : Yeah, eight locations in the city and this is on the ground floor on the corner. It's open from mid-morning right through to I think one, two o'clock in the morning. Not saying we didn't stop in there for our last coffee and cake at about 1.45 in the morning. Kerry Newsome : Absolutely, but previous to that Kelley had fallen in love with the salmon. Kelley McCarthy: They did an amazing salmon sashimi with a truffle vinaigrette and a small amount of caviar on top of the salmon. I think you get about eight pieces. I probably could have had about four plates, but did stop at one. Did stop at one because I needed to move along to the next food location. So, progressive dinners here are a delight. Just have a nibble at one, move along to the next. Don't commit to just one restaurant. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, I was a big fan of the roast duck with caviar and gold leaf. It was beautifully arranged. You might see it in some of the images I share on our social pages, so keep an eye out for that. But it was just, it was melt in your mouth, but just the flavours of the caviar with it. I would never have put those two together. But the presentation with the gold leaf was just, it just had that wow factor. And I think that's where we got to with trying some of the other high-end restaurants. It just didn't have that wow factor. Kelley McCarthy : It fell short in presentation as well. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, so you know we really love our Runam. Runam is very, very well known in Vietnam and it's a beautiful coffee shop. They're very nicely, the decoration, the whole layout, their food is reliably good and tasty. Best chicken wings you'll try anywhere. Yeah, and you love the salads as well. Yes, and they're great little salads. So definitely your runums. Kelley discovered this one called Miyama. Kelley McCarthy : That's a Japanese restaurant. I think it's level three. Kerry Newsome : Modern Tokyo restaurant. Kelley McCarthy : Yeah, that's in Saigon Center for all those people that are wanting lots of nibbles or even just beautiful. They do, once again, do beautiful salads. There's a great Italian restaurant called Basilica next door to it, which is also in Vincom Center. So, Kerry Newsome: Yeah, I had the clam chowder pie at Basilica and it was just to die for. And sometimes, you know, we talked about the fact that you can be trying so much Vietnamese food, you just want to then have something really hearty or you want to have something that's a bit more typical of home and that might be Italian or that might be a pizza or that might be You know, just something that reminds you of home. And I was really feeling like I wanted something really hearty. And that clam chowder pie, I thought, how are they going to do this? Are they really going to know how to do clam chowder in Vietnam? Oh, yeah. It was just to die for. So, we did explore, you know, some other places and we probably wouldn't be suggesting those for food but probably more for that moody bar, nice experience to have a lovely cocktail, you know, really lovely stuff and things like that, you know, like at Loon, like at Kaya San, beautiful, beautiful restaurants. So, you get the ambience of the restaurant but you might, you know, choose to do what Kelley was saying about the progressive style. You might want to go and have a cocktail at one place then move on and have, you know, a main meal somewhere else and you can really mix it up. Yeah. And I think that was the learning curve for us is don't feel settled to just stay and do everything in the one place because everything is close and everything is easy to access. Kelley McCarthy : And keeping in mind too, if you're in District 1 and you're wanting to go from one side of District 1 to the other, it's going to cost you only about $32,000 in a grab. So, you know, you can duck and weave to any restaurant that you see fit. So, that's like a couple of dollars to get in the cab and go to the next restaurant. And they don't mind serving one plate and then moving on to the next. It's not… Absolutely. Kerry Newsome : And I think, you know, this is where this city becomes a really great place for men and women. And I think, you know, families as well, you really get the opportunity to try such a variety of food. and get it or have it displayed to you or offered to you in the consumable way you want it. Like the restaurants are open for extensive hours, the menus are very extensive, they're very clearly laid out to what's in them. So a dish is going to tell you exactly what's in it. Usually the staff are pretty good with English so they're going to be able to have someone there to explain it to you if you can't see in the menu what it is. So, you know, if you are vegan or if you are gluten intolerant, you know, don't think coming to Vietnam is going to really dull down your experience of food options here. You're going to be able to find some. You might have to look a little bit further than us, but you definitely will find different options. We've seen them on all menus that we've Kelley McCarthy: The only thing I'd be fearful of would be people with such as a peanut allergy or something like that. As much as if they tell you they don't use peanuts or anything, just keep in mind the preparation is not necessarily going to be like home. I don't know that they're going to have that separate chopping board or that separate knife or anything like that for allergies. So just be wary of that. Bring your EpiPen if that's what you require. Just be really open-minded to that. Kerry Newsome : And also for those who have allergies to MSG, I think you're going to find MSG in most dishes. I checked with one of my guests, Tracy Lister , who has written some fabulous Vietnamese cookbooks and worked in some amazing restaurants and has her own restaurant actually back in Australia. She confirmed for me that really if there's a broth or a sauce or that kind of thing, MSG is going to be in it. If you are MSG intolerant, we would suggest you stick with fresh options that you see, you know, like you bought it out of the tub and it's fried or it's whatever so you can see how it's cooked. Kelley McCarthy : But that MSG makes it flavour. Flavour, flavour, flavour. Kerry Newsome : I'm with you, girl. Yeah, I hate to say that. Now, taking you further through Saigon and some different kind of experiences. Now, just another caveat here. We're not going to talk in this show about the main attractions, about, you know, the tourist attractions that everybody would see on a map of the to-do places for first-time visitors. You're going to get that through Vietnam tourism, Ho Chi Minh City tourism. And we do, we think they do that more than adequately. So, we want to take you to the, I don't know, off the beaten track kind of things. Now, we've talked about shopping and let me say I probably might have gone a wee bit overboard and did a bit of swap around, you know, I brought something then I didn't like it because I found something better and blah, blah, blah. So, we tracked down the idea that I would post some items back to Australia and we thought well let's make that a kind of part of our day and a few things to add to that. So, my experience at the post office was absolutely fantastic. So, I arrived with my bag, all kind of neatly packaged up as best I could to the counter and got greeted by this lovely guy who, apart from saying hello, giving us the forms and me filling them out as diligently as I could, was easy to do because they had English as well as Vietnamese. As I'm signing the paperwork, etc., he says, do you like pink? And I look down and I'm wearing a pink shirt and I've got pink fingernails. And I said, yes, I do. He goes, hmm, pink is good. Okay. And then I hand the parcel over and I've got to go to another counter to pay for the parcel to be sent back. And I said, so what happens now? You have the parcel? He said, yeah, I have the parcel now. My parcel. And off you go. And I go, oh, okay. And he goes, no, go over there, pay there, I look after, it's all good. I went, right, you have my parcel, right. Kelley McCarthy : He even provided a great little tip as we were filling in the paperwork for Kerry. Kerry was putting down values on it and he said to us, oh, no, no, must be under $200. If over $200, government want receipts. So keep a note, put in your value on that, keep it under $200 in total so that you can just get that parcel on the post and get it home. Kerry Newsome : Don't think about posting back really valuable items. are either sentimental to you or have a high end value. Like I don't think along those lines, I'm just really swapping out. Getting rid of the bulk. I'm getting rid of bulk and heavyweight things that I've changed up. So very close to the Central Post Office and it's cute. you know, we really, you know, had a quick walk around and did a few things. It's actually on the list of visit places for the city, so if you'd like to check that out, please do so. And you know now, you've got it in your back pocket, if you do do some shopping and go a bit crazy like me, you can, you know, backtrack yourself there on your way to the airport, get in there, ship it back home and it'll be home about two or three weeks. Kelley McCarthy: It was approximately $30 Australian per kilo. Yeah, so it's not super cheap. Yeah, but it would just be weighing it up as what your excess luggage would be, as whatever works best. Exactly. So if we give you that guide, that will be something that you can look at against your excess luggage. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, for sure. Now, so kind of a street and a bit over is what they call Book Street. Kelley McCarthy : Yeah, sort of just keep walking past the post office and it's on your right, sort of next lane way up. Kerry Newsome : Yes and I didn't think it would be as visible or distinctive but it is. It's got kind of a statue of some kind sort at the very beginning of it and then as you look through the statue you'll actually see the street sort of goes on. everywhere books everywhere but like not only just books there was arts and crafts there was books there was like gift cards it was just it was just And what? There was little coffee shops in there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was just if you wanted to spend just an hour or so just off doing something a little bit different, maybe didn't bring something with you to read. There was English as well as Vietnamese. You had to dig a bit deeper for that. Kelley McCarthy : I think if you just ask, they usually give you the version in English too because they have it in quite a few languages. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, and some of your very old classics were there. So, I just loved it. I thought, you know, I could just meander here and pick little bits and pieces etc. to take back or to read later. So, I loved Book Street. I really thought it was a nice add-on. The other thing that Kelley's got me on to, which I think is a fun thing to do when you're wearing your white runners, shoe cleaning. Kel, talk to us about shoe cleaning. Kelley McCarthy : You will get this wherever you walk around in District 1, but mostly near Saigon Centre markets and Bentang markets. you'll be walking along you'll have some little man carrying a little wooden basket come up to you and he'll just point to your shoes generally what they're wanting to do is clean them and it's okay people take them off you the first time i did it i did watch him walk about 30 meters down the street to clean them thinking he's just taking my brand new sketches But no, he did come back with them. So they will give them a good clean. They generally take them away from you. And I think it's because of the dry cleaning fluid that they use on them, but they come back dry, spotless. The price for that for everybody is 50,000. So just to let you know, they start trying to sting you a little bit more. It is 50,000 dong. They may come back, try and sell you some inner soles for another 30,000 and you might need this and you might need that. Average is $50,000 for a clean and wherever we come back via Saigon, there's some great little local ladies selling beer for the men that want to sit down and have a beer across from the markets whilst the ladies shop. You can be sitting down there and then you will get your shoes clean. Kerry Newsome : How long does it take actually? Kelley McCarthy: Two or three minutes. two or three minutes to do yeah so this time i literally was walking down the street heading back to the hotel and the man grabbed me and said shoes and i said ah yes forgot perfect so i stood on the side of the pavement he did give me a pair of scuffs to put on but they would fit my big toe and so i sort of just stood there on top of them so i wasn't with bare feet on the pavement i was gonna say that pavement would be hot wouldn't it oh no it's not so much the heat it's more the color of the pavement. So I just stood there on top of the little shoes while he cleaned them for me and it was literally a couple of minutes. Paid him my $50,000, we both smiled at each other and off I went with clean white shoes again. Kerry Newsome : Love your work girl, love it. Yeah look these opportunities come up and you do sit there and you go will I, won't I, you know what's the risk factor here and that's why I hope you're loving our show because we're telling you as it is how it happens and look we can't hand on heart say, you know, when they take your sketches, they're not gonna run off into the hills, but you know, on average, that won't happen. So, you know, just use your sense and sensibility headset. Have a bit of a laugh with it. Have a bit of a laugh. What's the worst thing that can happen? They can run off with your sketches, you're gonna go and buy another pair down the street. So that's how we think about it, but like, we don't expect you to, but Kelley McCarthy: And be prepared to be touted if you're sitting down there while you're having a beer. You are going to be offered a bookmark, a magnet, a pair of sunnies, a fan, you know, some twisting, noisy toys, all sorts. So, in the end, my suggestion is make no eye contact. That's my best suggestion. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, and I think after the experience with the tailor, and I hate this, I think you've got that Kelley McCarthy : eye thing going down. You will see what I am thinking from my eyes. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, I'm totally with you. So then the other thing that is on our list of to-do's is to visit our partner Worldwide Hospital, the dental hospital that we have a partnership with. And Kelley's been going back and forth to this hospital for over 10 years. So she always includes a visit there to get her teeth cleaned or whatever. A bit of a check-up. A bit of a check-up. So, that was another visit and it was just great to see those people. The staff there are just so lovely, aren't they? Kelley McCarthy : They're like family. Kerry Newsome: They are. They are so nice to us. I don't get that feeling when I go to my dentist, unfortunately. Kelley McCarthy: Yeah, we do here. Yeah, so like I said, been going there for over 10 years, referred family, friends, even have taken my son there since he was four years old. And it's just like family, we get the hugs when we walk in. They do offer cosmetic surgery there, but I can't put hand on heart and say that I've done that yet. Keep an eye out, I have had a couple of quotes done this trip, so I may venture down that path to be able to refer it. Kerry Newsome: We just watched this space on that. There will be a whole show devoted to that if we go down that track. Kelley McCarthy : That's right, but dentistry I can honestly put my hand on my heart and refer them for any dental procedure. Generally when they give you a dental procedure they will probably give you a couple of options. But just keep in mind, whatever option they're giving you, they are confident in doing it. We referred a client a few years ago, they got two options. One was $40,000, one was something like $18,000. They chose not to go down the path because when they converted that to Australian dollars, it was quite close to what they were being offered in Australia. But the $18,000 option would have been suffice. And especially at the age group they were at. For example, I'll give you my scenario. I have had crowns done over most of my teeth. I have three teeth that are not crowned. I had gaps in my teeth, so I had bridging crowns done. The quote in Australia 10 years ago was $48,000. I came here to worldwide, it cost me $5,500. So, in Australian dollars. So, there's the comparison. 10 years down the track, I have had zero complications. I had one tooth that I cosmetically wasn't happy with. There was nothing wrong with it. But in one of my checkups, there was no problem for them to knock that out, replace it and put it in and they didn't charge me. So where do you get a lifetime guarantee in your home country for your dentistry? Like I said!!! Kerry Newsome : All the way. And, you know, we've formed a partnership with them because we have this confidence with their skills, their staff, their abilities. It's a hospital. It's not a shop front. It's not like a dentist off the street. It's a seven level dental hospital. so you know they choose yeah like they make everything you know on site so we've been through the rigours, and I’m terrified of dentists so this was a real big leap of faith for me uh but with Kelley because of her experience and the positivity that's come from that and you know she's shared this same experience with friends and relatives and we've got clients now going through and really loving the time and the workmanship that they put in, the care factor, everything. We can arrange travel, we're their travel partner and if you come through us we can actually give you a 5% discount off their advertised price. So you get it less by coming through us. Anyway, what have you got to lose? You could get a quote and while you're here, it's a short visit, reach out to us, we'll make the appointment for you or you can do it direct, we don't care. Kelley McCarthy : And make sure you mention us. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, to get that discount, to get that reference or get in touch and we'll send you a voucher. So yeah, just a thing to add to the mix of out and about in Vietnam. Now, once again, we really wanted to delve into the hair and beauty side of things. Oh my God. We have traversed this path before in the hair aspect. Now, we're blondes, both of us, right? So, for a starters, they look at us and their eyes roll because their version of blonde and our version of blonde may not be simpatico. Theirs is orange. Ours is blonde. And then there's the aspect of the moisture aspect of our hair and the volume, texture and product. So, you know, they may have different variations of the products that we may never heard of, but, you know, because they start with the word natural, Kelley McCarthy: Avoid natural ladies. Natural is not the go in Vietnam. Kerry Newsome : Not for us anyway. We have tried to go down that path and I have to say failed abysmally and ended up with tortured hair that took us weeks to repair. So it was a pleasure this time, Kelley had managed to find us a really clever dude who runs a salon and he's called Tommy's and Kelley over to you of that experience. Kelley McCarthy : Yeah so Tommy's is trained in the gentleman there that runs that he is actually trained in hair from Europe and from London and it's in the Grand Hotel Saigon level one you can reach out to him via Facebook We'll put all of those links on it. He knows anyone that's got blonde hair, he knows to take some moisture out, then he blow dries down the hair shaft, not up, so you don't look like you've had an electric shock. Very sweet, gives you cups of tea, water, cashew nuts to die for, and the experience. Not the cheapest, so probably similar to Australian prices for blow-dry, as in $40 to $50 Australian for the blow-dry, but this experience takes an hour and a half. So you lay down and get the shampoo, you get a massage, they even give you ears clean. So don't be offended by that when they shove the cotton buds in your ears. They're just giving your ears a little clean as well. And then you sit down for the blow dry. And like I said, I come out of there every time smiling with my hair done. And it lasts quite a few days. Kerry Newsome : And I might add, we have a wedding to go to in a few weeks, a Vietnamese wedding. And Kelley's going to go back to have a Up style done. So that's kind of the confidence level we've got, the kind of treatment that you can get from this guy and his staff. They're all lovely. It was just fully air-conditioned, extremely clean. I felt really comfortable. So yeah, we paid a little bit less than what we would pay at home. But it wasn't the cheap and cheerful. It wasn't with natural products. It was with good quality products. And I walked out with hair that I could… Because you're proud to walk down the street with? Kelley McCarthy : as opposed to our last experience? Kerry Newsome: I don't think I'm even game enough to share with you some of those photos. And I might add, they used some product which I was allergic to, so I turned into Elephant Man. And my whole face, so I couldn't get enough antihistamine, Panadol, whatever I could get down my throat to calm my system down because it just went berserk. And I ended up with a frizz ball of hair. Kelley McCarthy : to dry frisball that was expanding as it got drier they rinsed their hair and the natural to give you ladies an idea out there in lotus water so yes i'm talking about the cricket lotus the locust water which was black so i was terrified that i had blonde hair and i was getting black water put all over it so needless to say natural is out hit me with any chemical you can Kerry Newsome : And like, we're probably not the best advocates for natural wear. Other people would have no problem. So, don't write it off. Just take it from us. This is what our experience was and we're just sharing that with you. Now, I can't finish Hair and Beauty without the experience right up to last night that we had, where we found this beautiful place called Bliss Beauty . In District 1. In District 1, yeah. So, we're staying at the Silverland May at the moment, so it's very close by, about a block and a half. Kelley McCarthy : Yeah, not even that, sort of. And that's in the Japanese district, for those people that are wondering. Yeah, really sweet hotel. Yeah. Kerry Newsome : Anyway, so we stepped into that doorway because they were offering pedicures and eyelash Perming and they do do extensions and extensions and all the rest of it. The girl was lovely She had very good English So she was kind of your meet-and-greet person where everybody else in there couldn't speak much English but still talented in what they did and So I had the eyelash curling and the tint, yeah. It's a long process that, that was like 45 minutes was the time period, but just wrapped. The pedicure alone was fantastic, but that process to get that done, like this morning I'm looking and I'm going, you know what, I'm not going to need makeup on my eyes for the next few weeks, which is just going to be fantastic as I go further out and about in Vietnam. And yeah, I just thought the whole experience was good, don't you? Kelley McCarthy : It was amazing. I must admit for myself though, I did go to have the eyelash perming done and I did start to feel a reaction. So I did put up with it for five or ten minutes and then it was just starting to get too irritable. They were absolutely gorgeous. They removed the product, got it off, then blow-dried, washed my eyes, and didn't want to charge me for the process. Of course, I insisted on paying because they've opened their product, they've tried it, it's not their fault that that's happened. So, just that little bit of good karma back, I insisted on paying, which they were very taken back with that. Kerry Newsome: And he proceeded to give us a gift as we left the premises, which was a hair clip. And you just go, where would you get that back home? Kelley McCarthy: It's that smile, friendliness that gets you across the line. Kerry Newsome : I'm kind of conscious of time, Kelley, and my listeners, I know there's a lot in this, so I hope you are enjoying it. I just want to wrap up with a very quick overview of Saigon After Dark. I mean, Kelley and I aren't at that stage of our life where we're probably getting the full Monty of After Dark experiences in Saigon. But we definitely did venture out and I think we already covered with you the Ciocan where it's like a cigar cocktail bar. We would definitely suggest that for that experience. We mentioned the Zumwhere which we went for the salmon, we went for a cake, you know, like that was all through the night. We mentioned the acoustic bar. There is one in D3 and D2. D2, we think is a little bit more westernized. Kelley McCarthy : It's one… Yeah, international expat area. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, definitely. And I just think the theme of the music and the whole environment, they have one band on for the whole night. where D3 tends to be every three songs it's a different band on and many more artists. Still all very good and it's an absolute fun night. I mean these places don't charge you a door fee but you'll pay that a little bit more in your drinks so just be aware of that. Kelley can speak a bit more to Bui Vien Street more than me. Kel, do you want to just expand a bit on that? Kelley McCarthy : So, Bui Vien Street is worth a walk through, whether you go out at night, whether you want to hit the bars, whether you want to do anything, I think it's a great place just to go down. The lighting, the system of it all is worth a walk through. They call it the backpacker area and the backpacker drinks. Pricing is not of a backpacker's level. For example, a Tiger Beer in a bar along the main strip there, you can be paying $10 to $12 Australian for it. So, it's somewhere you probably wouldn't go to have lots of drinks and lose a bit of control. You want to have your wits about you a little bit. There could be pickpocketing going on down there, so make sure you hold on to everything. I took my 13-year-old through there and he just thought it was amazing. There's live music. Yes, there's some girls in clothes or lingerie or men in jeans with shirts off dancing on podiums out the front, but it's not offensive. It's just an experience. So, you could probably get into the seedy underside of it if you wanted to, but just for an experience to walk through, just the lighting and everything, it's amazing. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, I mean the only caveat I want to share on that one is just being careful with your drinks getting spiked and things like that for everyone. So just keep your wits about you, but yeah, definitely worth a wander through. I want to wrap up, if we can, just on a couple of travel tips , just some things to help you along the way that we think would be handy. I want to talk to you about getting a SIM card. Obviously having data when you're out and about, you'll definitely be able to get Wi-Fi As soon as you put your bum down pretty much anywhere, hotels, restaurants, cafes, beauty places, bars, everywhere, everyone's got Wi-Fi. It's basically a fairly unsecured option for you. So don't maybe look up your bank accounts in it, but you know you'll definitely be able to get your Google Maps and your grabs and everything. But if you want to get a SIM card, Kelley's got some really great advice for everyone on that. Kelley McCarthy : Yep, so generally one of the main ones here is Mobifone , so you can actually buy that I think at the airport, but if you go into Circle K, which is just like a little 7-Eleven or your little convenience store, you can get the SIM cards in those and they are really helpful. They will even put it in your phone for you and set it up. And then it runs for a month, what you purchase. So generally I would say to everybody, put a 100,000 dong on it. That's going to last you a fair while on it. But then as you need to top up, you can just go back in there, say to them you need to top this up. They will check your credit for you. They will show you how to put it on or they will even put it on for you. The tip for that though, I have had somebody travelling with me previously from America. She bought a burner phone from America, didn't work for her. So I think they need to be ensured that they're unlocked. That's an unlocked network phone that you can then just drop another SIM into. And yeah, like I said, we've got one here that we use and we swap it around if we're here. But for myself coming from Australia on a short stint, I just use the $10 a day option. That works well for me. Kerry Newsome : I think the SIM card comes in for people now that we've got the 90-day visa and we've got the multi-entry. You know, over three months and if you're moving around the country, as you know on the Out and About series for this trip for me, you know, I'm going to be in Vietnam and across a lot of out back, for want of a better word, locations coming up. Please stick with the show as we get around. I think the SIM card is definitely a good idea. Definitely. Because you do want that access so you don't get lost, you want Google Maps to understand. you know, it might say… Google Translate. Google Translate with your driver or, you know, just situations which over an extended stay. If you were going to do, you know, a week or a fortnight, well, you might weigh up the options to see what's easy. But the fact that you can top it up at Circle K, if it's an unlocked phone is the key, a mobile phone is the branch. So, I think just we wanted to make sure you got that. Using ATMs is the second thing I wanted to talk about. Now, I have traditionally used ATMs. I'm not really good on that devil of detail as far as every single transaction fee I get charged. However, I do mostly use credit cards in hotels and major shopping centers, etc. It's where I need cash. I try and limit it to getting as much cash out of the ATM as you can. Traditionally, that's around about 3 million. Some will only do 2, which is a real nuisance, but 3 is about the average. You can sometimes go up to 5. Best places to do that would be, you know, your Saigon centers or your Vincoms if you really want that. safety kind of thing. So, you've got to kind of get your head about you and going through DONG with lots of zeros, you can go through it quite quickly because remembering in Australian standards, a million DONG is about 66 Australian dollars at its worst case. So, like just to keep in mind having cash is really important in a lot of street stalls and very outback areas, where if you are in your major cities like Saigon and Hanoi and Hoi An and Da Nang, big cities, you will be able to use your cards fairly easy. Now the trap in using the ATMs, I'm definitely going to lead Kelley into that because she's been able to identify some things with fees. Kelley McCarthy: So if you're using an ATM, yes I'll give you a great exchange rate as Kerry's always said, however I did mention to her the other day just have a look on my card for my bank fees now go and look at yours. So this will vary from bank to bank but you are going to get charged for example I took out 5 million dong and I had a bank ATM fee, then I had an international transaction fee, and then I had a conversion fee. So to take out that five million dong, I got charged bank fees of about 17 to 18 Australian dollars. So it doesn't make it that great when you're doing that. So that's why we say maximize taking it out. Depends on convenience. In all my years of traveling here, I've always bought cash. But that's how comfortable you feel traveling with cash. You can get a great exchange rate for those in some of the jewelry stores and also all the gold shops. And there is a couple of money changes that are really competitive. In fact, they even give you a higher rate than XE, I've found. Kerry Newsome : You're a pretty good negotiator with those gold traders. Kelley McCarthy : And the other tip too, if you're changing $1,000 or something at a time and they've given you a rate, if you've got clean, crisp $50 or $100 notes from Australia or even from your own country, ask them is that the best rate they can give. They will usually increase it if you're doing a larger transaction too. Keep that in mind. My other tip is changing money cash in Saigon. You are going to get a far better exchange rate than what you will if you're changing money in Hoi An or Nha Trang or any of those other places. You get a far better exchange rate here. And sometimes in those other places, it gets a little hard to change cash too. So, Saigon's your spot when you're doing that. Absolutely. Or Hanoi, probably. Kerry Newsome : And as far as the ATM machines themselves, we suggest to avoid HSBC. They have a higher charge. They do. And be very careful when you're looking at the machine that it has the MasterCard or the Visa symbols. Kelley McCarthy : Or the Cirrus. Kerry Newsome: Yes. So that, you know, you're not trying to access it from a machine that, you know, isn't tied to your card or the network payment channel that is tied to yours. So if you've got a MasterCard, try and find the MasterCard symbols and keep it neat. Be very careful to make sure that you pull the card out of the machine. with a receipt. Sometimes you can get receipts and sometimes you don't. But I've got caught with that only once in Laos and it ate my card. Kelley McCarthy : And on that note, I would always suggest if you are relying on just using your card, make sure you have two forms of withdrawing money, whether it's from a credit card or an ATM card. For example, I got hacked the first day I landed here this trip. This trip. And I'll be honest, it's the first time in the 18 years I've been coming here I've ever had my credit card hacked in Vietnam. And who's to say it was Vietnam? You know, these companies sell numbers these days, so it could have been just a coincidence. So, I had to cancel that card immediately and then start using my ATM card if I needed money, which with that debit option now, it's just like a credit card, so it hasn't really been a problem. But make sure you've got two forms of withdrawing money. Kerry Newsome: Yes, definitely. I always travel with two cards. And you can actually look at different travel money cards. So, it's just for travel and you can put the currency of your own country on it. Very few of the travel money cards would carry Vietnamese dong, but certainly I put Australian dollars and then of course it gives me dong when I get here. So, I use that as a second backup should something like what happened with Kelley when she first arrived. Look, everyone, I hope you've got a lot out of this show. I know we've enjoyed exploring Saigon in the last few days and probably going a little bit deeper than I normally would. But also, I hope that you're going to stick with the show as we get further about. Kelley and I took the opportunity to go to Ho Tram, which is about a two-hour trip from Saigon. And that was really lovely. And we've got some fun to share with you on that coming up. And of course, I've got many other places in this whole series. So, please watch out for our social pages, WhatAboutVietnam, TikTok, social media, platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, all of the ones you normally use. And just thanks for supporting the program. Kelley McCarthy : Before we go Kerry, I just want to mention to everybody that please note we haven't been paid by any of our mentions today. It has all been funded out of our own back pockets and today I return back to Australia to take up my day job for my next return trip here. So, we aren't paid by any sponsors, but you know, feel free to drop some money if you really want us to come back and do some research for you. Just reach out to Kerry, see where that deposit can go, we're open to that too. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, I love your work Kelley, absolutely. We do this because we love this and we love this country and this country's been very good to both of us and we love what we do. Definitely. So, see you next time people and thanks again.

S5-E10 Out and About in Saigon - the Uncut Edition Episode 10 S5-E10 Out and About in Saigon - the Uncut Edition 00:00 / 1:10:31 Welcome to the premiere of "What About Vietnam" – the Uncut Edition! This marks the second instalment of our Out & About mini-series, where I, Kerry Newsome, along with the ever-adventurous Kelly McCarthy, take you on a journey through the vibrant streets of Saigon. Get ready for a deeply personal and unforgettable experience as we share candid anecdotes and insider tips. From quirky mishaps to heart-warming moments, we're laying it all bare – glitches and all. From laughable moments to unforgiving encounters, we navigate the uncharted territories that guidebooks overlook with frankness and open sharing. Our goal? To inform, enlighten, and hopefully bring a smile to your face. So join us on this adventure as we uncover the hidden treasures of Saigon, one smile at a time! [00:02:35] Breakfast options in Saigon. [00:08:03] Exploring Saigon's main shopping centres [00:11:58] Shopping centre food options. [00:16:51] Concept stores and local goods. [00:20:31] The underwear essentials. [00:23:14] Tailoring tips and experiences. [00:30:41] Foodie Havens in Saigon. [00:32:16] Trying international cuisine in Vietnam. [00:42:01] Book Street discovery. [00:46:02] Dental check up [00:49:29] Hair and beauty challenges in Vietnam. [01:02:12] The importance of SIM cards. [01:05:27] Currency exchange tips. Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

Out & About in Saigon with What About Vietnam host Kerry Newsome Kerry Newsome : Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. Today I'm inviting you to join me in what I'm calling a mini-series and that mini-series is actually going to be an invitation to you to join me while I'm out and about in Vietnam on my holiday. Now the reason I wanted to do this series was to I guess chronicle the experiences, the destinations and some of the people I get to meet in Vietnam and over the next about 60 days I'll be trying to record as I go different places, experiences and just activities and things that I want to share with you that I hope will help you with your planning and give you some guidance around coming to Vietnam and what to expect. So, let me give you some context to the Out and About series. Firstly, every time you see Out and About as a title on my show, on the website, you'll know that that's what the basis of these are. So, we're going to kick off today with Out and About in Ho Chi Minh City. as this is the first city that I have arrived into and it actually kind of begins the show and the series. So we kick off with Ho Chi Minh City. Now I wanted to just give a little bit more context to this series in the sense that it's not going to be a series where I give you kind of a whole list of things to do and you know kind of send you off into various places. It's more about me trying to give you a sense of what to expect, what I have experienced personally and in each situation it's obviously going to be different but I'm hoping that you can take this information and then apply it to everything that you're doing as far as preparing for your trip because for me Vietnam is just not one of those countries that you to get the best out of it anyway, is that you can just kind of lob here and just hope it all goes merry well. It is a country that deserves some research. And one of the things that's come up over the nearly last four years of me doing this podcast has been the sense that you all are starting to go down that path of research to, you know, possibly plan a trip. And some of you reach out to me individually, which I love. But like, I think it's quite overwhelming. And I think what I'm hearing is that that overwhelm almost puts you off coming. So I'm trying to for one of a better description, kind of break through the chatter and clatter and all the rest of it because there's a thousand websites out there. There's a thousand YouTube videos. I don't want to and nor am I trying to compete in that space. I'm trying to just, I don't know, help you decipher, help you have some insights so that when you look at things you can look at them with informed eyes and you can make some decisions. So without further ado, let's kick off out and about in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City as it's known. Now firstly I want to share with you my experience getting here. as it has a little bit of a good story to it and a not so good story. So firstly, the good story. So I'm on the plane and I'm traveling from Australia and Just as we're about to arrive, two lovely ladies sitting across the aisle from me, one of them reaches out and says, are you Kerry Newsome? And of course I say yes, and they say, look, we are on our trip to Vietnam because of your podcast called What About Vietnam? We're planning four weeks, we listened to this episode and that episode, and it kind of inspired us to do this trip. So, I just want to reach out to those ladies who I didn't get a chance to get their names, but I just want to say hello and I hope you're having a great time. And for me, that was just such a personally rich experience to have that, you know, my podcast is reaching your ears and you are being able to use it to help you put your trip together and make decisions to come. Then the other not so good news. So the gentleman sitting next to me on the plane for the whole trip kind of arrived into his seat and I could kind of tell he was agitated and I thought, gee, we've only just begun, I wonder what this is about. He'd actually been to Vietnam before and had a great experience and was coming back a second time with some friends. But as he went to check in at the check-in counter at Vietnam Airlines, he presented his visa. But unfortunately, the visa was one day out in matching up with his dates of arrival into the country. So, that was actually a barrier to entry and they were not going to permit him to check in and to take the flight. So, the advice he was given was to, the only advice really they had to offer, was to go to a flight centre shop at the airport and that they had a VIP emergency kind of service, e-visa service, that they could put together, but the cost of that service was $500, $500 Australian dollars. Now, if you know what the cost of a visa doing it normally through the immigration site for a 30-day visa, it's $25 US, and for a 90-day visa, multiple entry, it's I think $90 or $100. So of course he was quite upset, he was quite irate. He couldn't believe that that small element of just the date not matching up exactly was going to be a problem and thus would mean that he couldn't join the flight with his wife and take this trip unless he did do that service. So, I know I go on and on about getting a visa and from the very first, I guess, thing that you put together as far as your planning is concerned, please spend the time necessary to get that e-visa and to get it right. It's something, even as many times as I've done it, I go through it religiously. The questions on the website have actually increased, so you do need to spend a bit of time in answering them. But as you can see, the impact that it has if it doesn't match up exactly to your passport and to your airline ticket can mean that you don't even get to come to Vietnam. So I just wanted to throw those in just to make sure that when you are thinking of getting out and about in Vietnam, you're not even going to get the chance to get here unless you get some of these pieces correct in the first instance. Now, a little bit more about the episode. When I'm out and about and I'm doing this series, I'm going to be doing it with obviously a sense that I want to continue with the quality, but there's going to be times where you're going to hear roosters and taxi hooting. You're going to hear some noises that I really can't control, but Guess what folks? These are definitely the sounds of Vietnam. So please forgive me if at times you do experience that. I'm hoping to keep that to a minimum. And of course I want to keep the program in such a way that I can be mobile with it and as I'm going to each place I can record. So over the next you know six to eight weeks we're going to be doing lots of recordings and they're going to be a bit shorter and a little bit sharper about the experiences that I'm having. Now, when you enter into Ho Chi Minh City, you know, depending on where you've come from, so for myself, a flight from Australia is roughly about eight hours. Vietnam has three international airports, so you're going to come into either Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi or Da Nang, depending what country you're coming from. So you've already been in transit to get here from Australia, about eight hours plus three hours at the airport. If you're coming from the US, it's probably a minimum of 14 hours coming from San Francisco. But if you're coming more from Southeast Asia or Singapore or Bangkok, it's only about five hours. But for me, when I arrive into Ho Chi Minh City, I'm tired so I've had a good night's sleep. I always make sure I try and get into a flight that will enable me to you know unpack, get a good night's sleep and get up on the next day. Now depending on what sort of flyer you are also you know I tend to on that first day if you have time Now time is a commodity we all know and for you, you may not have the chance to add in this day but if you do have the opportunity to make your first day a little bit of a free day so that you don't have something booked, you don't have something set or organized, I would really urge you to take that first day to just use it as a day of orientation. And I say that because when you're jet lagged, when you are a bit tired, when your body is readjusting to, you know, new temperatures, new smells, new environments, your hotel, your air conditioning, all of that kind of stuff, you can kind of experience things, but not really experience them. For me, I'm a bit of a space cadet that first day and certainly as I've got older, I'm more so. So I'm just saying that on that first day and possibly even the last day of your trip, if you have the chance to keep it free, do so. Take it up because there's some things you can still do to orientate yourself that I think give you a greater sense of where you are and is going to help you take in what you see. Now let me share with you Ho Chi Minh and what it means to me. Years and years ago, when I used to travel to Ho Chi Minh City, I kind of used it as a stepping stone. I came in and then I just went somewhere else. But over time, Ho Chi Minh City has really evolved. It's a very high energy city. It's a very busy city. And I speak of the busyness side of it in respect to not only the amount of motorbikes and traffic on the streets, but even on the sidewalks. The sidewalks of Vietnam streets, and in particular big cities, are not like controlled by councils or governments etc like they are in my country where you are not permitted to do anything on those or you have to get permissions to do that. On the sidewalks you've got people that are sitting on little red chairs and eating food. You've got street sellers selling their wares for everything from peanuts to fruit to, you know, small meals. You've got barmy vendors. So, whichever way you go, it's happening. So, getting back to what I'm saying about orientating yourself to the city, it's really good to get a handle on that just to begin with. If you're traveling in a group, if you're traveling with your partner or with a young family or whatever, everybody's kind of got to get their footing. And I speak of the footing side of it as well, as not all the streets are paved with gold. Most of the streets are in kind of poor condition. You're going to be stepping around people. You're going to be stepping over broken streets and cement. There's a lot of construction going on. There's a lot of noise. There's a lot of tooting of horns. So when you are in that state of just trying to get to grips with everything as a newbie to the country, that first day can be quite confronting, can be quite in your face. and so it's good to ease yourself into it so that it can come alive for you in its various ways and give you the experience that I think you can have here. So for me there's three or four approaches to Ho Chi Minh City. Now the first one is you can decide to hit all the top attractions. So, the city itself has, you know, various, I guess, top must visit tourist destinations. So, in that first day, I wouldn't be doing that. I choose not to do that. What I choose to do is try to find just my bearings of where my hotel is, where it is in proximity to lots of things and you know from the get-go I start to assimilate or become attached to the country in getting to know it. And I start by putting on my phone certain things. We've talked about over the years about putting some certain apps on your phones. So firstly I would suggest setting up the Grab app. Now there's other forms of Grab. Grab is kind of relative to what is in my country an Uber. So this is a car, share car opportunity where they can pick you up and take you wherever you want and it's so easy to use. I use it with cash only and I make sure I give a small tip to the drivers. I like Grab because it gives me a way to communicate with the app, with the driver, even if the driver can't speak English. I can tell from their phone and mine matching that they have Kerry Newsome on their phone and they have the same destination. So I put the Grab app. I then have the Exe app. Why do I have that? Because that gives me a very quick way to work out money. So this is another part of your orientation to the country. you know you've got to get used to lots of zeros. You know a million zeros in any language sounds a lot, a million dong, wow is that a lot of money. In my country that's around about 60 something dollars. depending on your currency, the currency that you're bringing into the country, that Exe app is going to be able to tell you when you look to buy something, whether it's a cup of coffee or a meal or something that you want to purchase, whether or not you're getting a good price for it. You're happy to pay that price for it. Or you can kind of be comfortable with the price that you're paying and not feel like you're getting ripped off. Really, really important. I've seen people get quite upset about having to pay another $10,000 for something when they find out later it was like $0.60. As far as apps are concerned, I definitely think those two are the kind of the essentials. Obviously, Google Maps is another one and it's also part of this orientation. So again, I'm sitting in a coffee shop And I'm having a look at Google Maps and going, I really want to go and have one of my favorite coffees, which is a iced coconut coffee. And I'll work out where the nearest coffee shop to get that is from my hotel. And even before I'm going to use the Grab app, I'll use the Google Maps to find out roughly how long it's going to take me to get from A to B. So if it's 17 minutes or it's 20 minutes or whatever, I know then how much time to allow to do that. So, once again, Google is your friend in Vietnam, for sure. Google Translate is also another one. I mean, the joy of Ho Chi Minh City is it's a very modern city, so in most of your tourist destinations and your hotels, and things like that. You know, the receptionist staff, et cetera, are really good at being able to speak good English in most cases. And certainly, as you're getting about in hospitality and in retail, et cetera, they'll have some basics. But on the street and street vendors, no, you're not going to be able to do that. So Google Translate is very handy there. The other thing is to decide how you're going to use Wi-Fi. You can buy a SIM card. You will need your passport for that. So you'll need to go to a Mobi phone or a phone shop, etc. to get the SIM card, replace it into your phone, etc. And that will give you mobile data. And that will mean that on the go, while you're getting out and about, you can access that. However, I found it just as easy to go to a particular coffee shop or set myself down in a restaurant or whatever and I will use the free Wi-Fi that comes with literally 99% of places that you can get that on your phone and use these apps if you need to do them. So options up to you however you want to do that. So getting back to our approaches, you can take yourself off onto the path of seeing all of these wonderful tourist destinations in Ho Chi Minh City. And that can be everything from the Notre Dame Cathedral through to Walking Street, and I want to get back to Walking Street in a minute, Bui Vien , the Temple of the Jade Emperor, The City Post Office , always great for photos. Turtle Lake. Starlight Bridge is a little bit further out. And of course, places like the Pink Church . See link here to main attraction: https://www.visithcmc.vn/en/news/10-diem-du-lich-mien-phi-o-tphcm-khong-the-bo-qua Now, the second approach you can take is actually moving a little bit out of Ho Chi Minh City. In this sense, you're going to be experiencing some of what the South of Vietnam has to offer in history and in nature and in the Mekong, I guess. So there's plenty of tourist desks around. Even your hotel can help you organize this. Or for many of you, if you've been asking me to put this together for you, I'm going to suggest a tour to the Cu chi Tunnels, or out to Ben Tre, or Cantho, or a visit to the Mekong Delta to experience. that local region and that's going to help you immerse into what I would call is the essential Vietnam. The Vietnam you've probably read about and seen the images where you're getting through all of these sort of areas where there's jungle and there is that feeling of local, you know, very, very poor areas in some cases, but you're going to get the essential Vietnam and you're going to get that with a mixture of some history and especially in places like Cu Chi Tunnels . And then the third approach that you have in your first 24, 48 hours, whatever time you decide to spend in Ho Chi Minh City, is what I choose to do now because I've seen all these things and I've experienced them all. I tend to want to go out and just wander the streets, kind of get a bit lost. And I do that very easilt I have to tell you. And I like getting lost in Ho Chi Minh City because I find different eateries, I find different vendors selling different types of goods. And every single time, depending on where I position myself as far as a hotel, even though it's in District 1 or it's in District 3 or District 5 or for that matter even District 2, there's going to be something new. And getting back to me kind of saying about the research, before I come here, I will have done some research and said, yeah, I want to check that out. Now, this time I stayed in a little hotel. It was a three-star hotel called La Opera . And I love this little hotel as it's in a beaut little area and I find it very easy to maneuver myself around wherever I want to go. So it's easy walking distance to most things. But also what comes with that is the experiences of that local area and your hotel reception staff is also going to be very good at being able to tell you what you can find close to the hotel. So really my first day just got taken up with experiencing different cafes, different shops. I still manage to get myself to the big shopping centers, so that's your Vincom and your Saigon Centre . And they're the ones that typically that you would acknowledge as being kind of the shopping mall. These are very modern, so they've got your H&M's and all of that. Or you can experience Ben Thanh Markets. And Ben Thanh Markets is prolific. It is iconic. It is one of the must-do's on that shopping experience. And you know, some people love it, some people hate it. It's an experience in itself and that That whole shopping experience is something that you may talk about for years to come. And as I said, you either love it or you hate it. but it all happens in Ben Thanh Market and it's probably where you're going to get, you know, your copy products, you're going to be able to barter and you're going to be able to get some good deals. But be aware that you need to have your wits about yourself in there because you may enter in one door but then come out another and, you know, be quite disorientated with that. So, take that into consideration. I have another market that I like called Saigon Square, and it's opposite one of the major shopping centers. And it's a smaller version of Ben Thanh Markets . And I think it's got a little bit of, I don't know, feeling that you can move around it a little bit easier. and a lot of the same stuff, but just a little bit more under control. You might pay a little bit more there than you would in Benton markets, but certainly it's got all the stuff that you need. As I said first approach is to go and visit all the major destinations in and around the city. Second is to you know just get lost in the city and then the third is to just relax. Just take in your hotel, take in just chilling out and as I said familiarizing yourself with the hotel experience. If it's got a nice pool, if it's got a nice bar and maybe save yourself up for the night time. Now for me, I love Ho Chi Minh City at night. While I've mentioned all these things about going out to the tunnels and and going shopping that's probably kind of stuff I would do during the day but once again it'll depend on the heat. But at night the city is just neon fizz, it is just It's electric, it really is. It's just got an energy about it that you will just be blown away from. And in particular, you can start seeing the city in this viewpoint from what they call Walking street. And walking street is really easy to spend time in because you don't have to kind of dodge traffic and and things like that like you do in some of the other areas. Plus what it has very close to it is some very eclectic, very kind of eccentric little cafes and it's just really lovely. You've got rooftop bars, You've got the Cafe Building which I really urge you to go and check out. You'll go up stairs and stairs and then you'll just discover all these different cafes and it's just really easy to get around and you can spend hours just getting yourself lost in that region and at night there's lots of entertainment going on. Another favourite place of mine is the Acoustic Bar and you can go there any night of the week and they're going to have a different artist on to entertain you with some really great music. and there's also a small bar next door to that which is getting local artists coming on every night of the week as well. So you're not going to be short of entertainment. You've also got Bui Vien Street which definitely comes alive at night. You've got all your big craft brewers in those streets. So you've got plenty of entertainment and that's just all in the first 24-48 hours. So you've got some culture if you've gone out of Ho Chi Minh City and you've got into the Mekong Delta and you've explored some of the countryside, or you've decided to stay in the city, get a little bit lost, have some beautiful cakes and explore the cafe culture, which is very, very rich, and do it that way. Or you've decided to relax or you've just gone shopping crazy. I hope you're going to enjoy this series. I've certainly enjoyed Ho Chi Minh again this time. I got to experience some great music at Acoustic Bar . I had a fab night that night. I found a couple of new restaurants and the food was just sensational. Don't think that you are going to be limited to just Vietnamese food. You'll just think about a cuisine and it will be here. So you've got your Korean, you've got your pizzas, you've got good Italian, you've got Thai, you've got fabulous Vietnamese food. And just go wild. Just try all the different kinds of new foods and foods that are particular to the South. And in particular, when you're looking at fur, there's a different flavour to fur in Ho Chi Minh City that you will be able to taste the difference here to how it is in the north. It's made totally differently. And of course, there are particular dishes that are exclusive to this area. I hope you're going to enjoy my next Out and About which is to be in Hoi An. That's my next stop. So stay tuned for the Out and About series. These are all going to feature on your normal podcast channels and of course on the website whataboutvietnam.com. Thank you for joining and see you in Hoi An. 00:00:02 - Introduction to "What About Vietnam?" Podcast 00:00:38 - Mini-Series Announcement 00:01:02 - Purpose of the Mini-Series 00:01:44 - "Out and About" Series Context 00:02:06 - Starting with Ho Chi Minh City 00:02:27 - Series Format and Expectations 00:03:19 - Importance of Research for Vietnam Travel 00:03:52 - Overcoming Travel Planning Overwhelm 00:04:34 - Arrival in Ho Chi Minh City and Visa Issues 00:05:09 - Podcast Impact on Listeners' Travel Plans 00:06:03 - A Cautionary Tale About Visa Dates 00:08:03 - Emphasizing the Importance of Correct Visa Application 00:09:09 - Series Recording and Sound Authenticity 00:10:15 - Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City and Jet Lag 00:11:10 - First Day Orientation Advice 00:12:57 - Ho Chi Minh City's Evolution and Energy 00:15:28 - Approaches to Exploring Ho Chi Minh City 00:17:04 - Essential Apps for Vietnam Travel 00:18:39 - Exploring Ho Chi Minh City's Attractions 00:21:12 - Day Trips Outside Ho Chi Minh City 00:23:37 - Personal Approach to Experiencing the City 00:25:17 - Hotel and Local Area Experience 00:27:26 - Nightlife in Ho Chi Minh City 00:30:56 - Recap and Next Destination Teaser 00:32:27 - Closing and Podcast Information

S5-E9 Out and about in Saigon with Kerry Newsome Episode 9 S5-E9 Out and about in Saigon with Kerry Newsome 00:00 / 33:06 Hello, I'm Kerry Newsome, and welcome to my podcast, "What About Vietnam." In this episode, I'm thrilled to introduce you to a mini-series "Out & About in Vietnam" that will take you along on my holiday adventures in Vietnam. Over the next 60 days, I'll be sharing my experiences, destinations, and the fascinating people I meet along the way. Today, we're starting with "Out & About in Saigon”, my first stop on this journey. Vietnam is a country that benefits from research and preparation, and through this podcast and series, I aim to help you navigate the overwhelming amount of information out there. I also wrote an Ebook and self published it on Amazon to help guide your plans. Cheap as chips, you can buy HERE, and read it in a day. As a precursor, as you will hear in the show, please double-check your visa details meticulously. See my Link HERE which explains the process for E-Visa to ensure you get it right FIRST GO! In Ho Chi Minh City, I recommend taking the first day to orient yourself. Use Apps ( See You Tube I did talking about Apps here ) like Grab for transportation, Exe for currency conversion, and Google Maps for navigation. Decide whether you want to hit the top attractions, explore the outskirts for a taste of history and nature, or simply wander the streets and get lost in the local scene. Stay tuned for more episodes in the "Out and About" series, where I'll take you to my next destination, Hoi An. You can find all episodes on your usual podcast channels and on whataboutvietnam.com. Thank you for joining me on this adventure, and I look forward to sharing more of Vietnam with you. 00:01:02 - Purpose of the Mini-Series 00:01:44 - "Out and About" Series Context 00:02:06 - Starting with Ho Chi Minh City 00:03:19 - Importance of Research for Vietnam Travel 00:11:10 - First Day Orientation Advice 00:15:28 - Approaches to Exploring Ho Chi Minh City 00:18:39 - Exploring Ho Chi Minh City's Attractions 00:21:12 - Day Trips Outside Ho Chi Minh City 00:23:37 - Personal Approach to Experiencing the City 00:27:26 - Nightlife in Ho Chi Minh City I hope you find this series interesting and helpful. Follow along with our social pages as I will post during my journey. My "Full trip planning" services will resume in July 2024. Send me your feedback and questions. Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

S5-E8 – Empowering the Traveller to fight Human Trafficking Episode 8 S5-E8 – Empowering the Traveller to fight Human Trafficking 00:00 / 38:19 Join us for an insightful journey into the pressing issue of human trafficking in Vietnam, and discover how, as a traveller, you have the ability to effect real change. In this episode, I'm joined by Kim Miller, who offers firsthand insights into the challenges and the remarkable efforts undertaken by "Blue Dragon" (see link below), an organization dedicated to combatting human trafficking. As a listener, you'll gain a profound understanding of the poverty and vulnerabilities that fuel human trafficking, along with practical guidance on recognizing and responding to situations where individuals are exploited or in need of assistance. We start off by talking about Kim’s experiences of Vietnam since 2016—Kim shares her deep affection for Vietnam, recounting her experiences living there and highlighting her favorite Vietnamese cuisines like "Phở chiên phồng" (see link below) and destinations you may not have heard about just outside of Hanoi called – "Ho Dong Do lake district" (see link below). Kim shares her bold ambition of raising $200,000 by swimming the English Channel this July to support "Blue Dragon's vital community initiatives". (See link below). Tune in as she outlines actionable steps travellers can take to aid vulnerable individuals they encounter. From simply reaching out or alerting organizations like Blue Dragon, travellers can ensure prompt assistance for those in need, empowering them to play an active role in combating human trafficking. This is an episode that I'm confident will offer you valuable insights and takeaways. Finally, you are one click away from supporting "Kim's cause" (see link below), please check the link here and let’s unite in making a positive impact during our journeys through Vietnam. To date, Blue Dragon has: Rescued 1,431 people from trafficking Represented 261 people in court cases Sent 6,314 kids back to school & training Provided shelter to 1,668 girls & boys Placed 445 teens in jobs Served 672,359 meals Built 262 homes for families Reunited 769 runaways with their families Obtained legal papers for 13,544 people Blue Dragon https://www.bluedragon.org/ "Phở chiên phồng" https://deliciousvietnam.net/crispy-rice-flour-puffs-stir-fried-beef-pho-chien-phong/ "Ho Dong Do lake district" https://vietnam-destinations.com/en/destination/ho-dong-do-ha-noi/ "Blue Dragon's vital community initiatives" https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=3WAmPI-ptISS4uua&v=nl0hJfRc_R0&feature=youtu.be "Kim's cause" https://au-give.bluedragon.org/fundraisers/kims-big-blue-english-channel-swim Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

What About Vietnam – S5-E8 Empowering the Traveller in the fight against Human Trafficking in Vietnam Kerry Newsome: Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. Now, while I love telling travel stories and introducing interesting guests on the show, occasionally I get the opportunity to delve a little deeper into Vietnam and maybe bring your awareness to a more human interest story of Vietnam. Today we're going to find out how some Vietnamese actually experience serious hardship and poverty and become more vulnerable to human trafficking. And while we are travelers, we may see things that we don't quite understand, or maybe we see them and think, oh, that doesn't look quite right, and we experience the poverty, we see it, we don't always know what to do about it. Do we give the beggar money or food? Do we report it? Who to? What impact can we really make to make a difference? My guest today is the lovely Kim Miller, and she's going to give us firsthand knowledge of Vietnam's struggle with human trafficking. I think you're going to be blown away when you hear the work that she's doing with a company called Blue Dragon, which is really out there trying to eradicate human trafficking. Plus, Kim herself needs our help to fulfill her dream. I'd like you to welcome Kim to the program as we talk some serious stuff, but some interesting stuff that I think is going to make your trip to Vietnam so much more richer, if that's the word. And I think it's going to give you a bit of a background and context to some of the things you're seeing. So let's welcome Kim to the program. Kim, welcome to What About Vietnam? Kim Miller: Thank you so much, Kerry. I've listened to so many of your episodes and as somebody who's lived and worked in Vietnam, I still find them incredibly interesting in learning about new places that I can visit and travel to and about the people and the culture. So I'm really excited to be talking to you today. Kerry Newsome: Oh, that's good to know. It's always nice to talk to people who listen to my podcast. That always warms my heart. Kim, look, you're an Australian girl. I know that you share your time between Australia and Vietnam. Tell us, you know, how you got interested in Vietnam in the first place. Like, what is it about Vietnam that captured your interest as a traveller? Kim Miller: I actually came to Vietnam to work before I'd ever travelled in Vietnam, which I think is fairly rare, a little bit different to how most people end up in Vietnam. I learned about Blue Dragon Children's Foundation where I work before I'd ever travelled to Vietnam. So I'd heard about it from friends, from people who'd worked and lived in Vietnam, and I'd always been intrigued. I'd always wanted to travel to Southeast Asia. But I hadn't actually travelled very much in my life. And so when I first came to Vietnam to work for Blue Dragon, it was very new to me. I was experiencing it all for the very first time. Kerry Newsome: That would have been quite pioneering, I would have thought. I mean, I know I first visited back in 2007. And, you know, people then thought, gosh, you know, that was brave. That was crazy, you know, going to Vietnam. Because as you and I would know, Vietnam has a kind of a history with us that we consider more in the view of the Vietnam War rather than it being a country. Would you say that's true? Kim Miller: Yeah, and I guess my experience of Vietnam really came from the people I'd known who were working there. In some ways, I'd expected to come to a country that was far less developed than what I found it to be. I came across for the first time in 2012 and moved across full-time in 2014. And so I guess, yeah, my image of what Hanoi in particular might look like was a lot less developed than what I found when I arrived. Kerry Newsome: Okay, so did you get a chance, and during your roles over there, did you get a chance to do some exploring in Vietnam? Kim Miller: I have. I definitely haven't done as much as I'd like to, and there is so much more to see. I've mostly seen towards the north, a little bit in the center, and I have been down to Saigon, down to Ho Chi Minh City for work and had a little bit of a chance to explore down on the Mekong Delta. I've been up to Sa Pa and, of course, Ha Long Bay, been down to Nha Trang and Dalat, and around some of the more countryside places, the rural parts near Hanoi, like Mai Chau is one of my absolute favourite places to go to get away from the city. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, it's a very interesting place too, isn't it? I went there with a friend who had sent me there on a trajectory to find and discover their textiles and some of the materials and things that they weave, some of their crafts and things like that. So, besides it being beautiful countryside, it was extremely interesting from that perspective. Kim Miller: Really interesting. Yeah, it was the first time that I'd seen the weaving happening and their five-coloured sticky rice was definitely a drawcard for me. I've been back a couple of times now in particular to try the sticky rice and the lake down the bottom of my toe as well. Mammoth, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I've done quite a bit of swimming there, much to the surprise, I guess, of the people, the homestay where I was staying. They hadn't seen people swim in that lake before, but I've spent a lot of time in that lake as well. I absolutely love it down there, Macho. Kerry Newsome: It's really come a long way too. Recently, I know that I think a fishing restaurant has been built there. It was being built at the time I was there, but it actually sits on top of a fishing farm. in the lake. Because you know the lake is huge to navigate, so they do a lot of fish farming. And this restaurant, you can't get any fresher fish. It's literally on the lake, on the farm. Kim Miller: Straight from the lake, delicious. That sounds amazing. Kerry Newsome: I know what I'll be trying the next time I'm there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So, you know, like good segue into talk about food in Vietnam. Do you have any favorites? Like what would you suggest to travelers listening to the program and thinking about food? Kim Miller: Oh, look, I have so many favorites. And I'm not going to pronounce this correctly. I get in trouble for my friends and colleagues every time. Thank you. It's called Pho Chien Phong and it's kind of, it's only found in Hanoi, in one particular street in Hanoi. I kind of call it like the fast food of Vietnam. And it's basically fried squares of rice paper that bubble up like little pillows. And it's in this really interesting gravy with beef and tomato and onion. And it's quite rare in terms of the sort of food that I generally eat in Vietnam, which is so fresh and delicious. It's just like a real comfort food, especially great for in winter. So yeah, that's one of my favorites. And of course, you know, Bun Cha, Sunday morning chicken soup for Gar is, you know, to die for. And I'm very partial to a coconut coffee, a cafe soda as well. Kerry Newsome: Gosh; You're really my best friend now. That is my first go-to when I get to Vietnam. I just adore it. Absolutely. Kim Miller: Yeah, I made it my mission to try a few different places each time I go to try somewhere different to see if I can find a favorite, but I keep going back to one or two standards every time. Kerry Newsome: And if I was to ask you, you know, do you have any like favorite things you love to do? You know, my listeners are always asking for local advice and advice from travelers who've maybe just discovered a bit of a gem that's not on the on the map yet or you know is not sort of drowned out with tourists and that like do you have a a favorite thing you love doing or a place that you love going to that we could share with you know a hundred thousand or so listeners just to keep it between us you know it's just to keep my secret places yeah yeah i think. Kim Miller: Ho Dong Do, there's a little lake Ho Dong Do, it's only about 90 minutes out of Hanoi and so it's kind of my favorite place to be able to get on the motorbike, just drive out of the city and I feel myself relaxing the further away I get and you know the further into the rice paddies you get and then you arrive at this beautiful lake, that's yeah, that's kind of my favorite just a weekend escape and I think I think people who kind of live in Hanoi tend to know it's there and head there, but I don't know of any tourists who've been there. I think because it might be a little bit challenging to get to if you didn't have your own transport maybe, but it's definitely one of my favorites. And how do you spell it? So it's H-O for lake, D-O-N, and then I think it's just D-O. Kerry Newsome: Ah, right. Okay. Good to know. Good to know. Because Hanoi is one of those places where, you know, trying to find somewhere just, you know, two or three hours away from Hanoi is a little bit challenging. I mean, you've got two hours now on the highway to Halong Bay. You're still three or four hours to Ninh Binh. I mean, I'm going to check out Yen Bai. I think it's called. It's about three and a bit hours out of Hanoi on my next trip. So, I'm always keen to find cute places or little escapes from Hanoi for people like that so that they know that, you know, that's kind of the time allotment because sometimes you can chew up a lot of time getting around Vietnam because you know, it's got some miles and not always the best roads. So, you know, finding the right transport is often challenging and you know, people are wanting to figure out, well, how many days have I got and how do I spread them about? And, you know, Hanoi is a really interesting city and very different, but, you know, maybe two or three days, four days, you're done and you want to do something, you know, sideline. So that sounds very, very interesting. I'll have to put some links, I think, to that in the show notes. Now Kim, I want to probably talk to you more now about Vietnam and the struggles that you and I have, you've certainly educated me more so recently in Vietnam. in regard to the poverty cycle and certainly where that leaves people vulnerable to human trafficking. So maybe for everyone, just to give us some context, maybe throw us some numbers. Can you give us some rough idea? I mean, the population of Vietnam is coming up to around about 100 million. they're saying now. And I've, you know, just in researching to do this show with you, you know, I'm, I'm hearing that there's over, over a million, uh, that are considered below the poverty line. I I'm, I'm thinking that's fairly short of the real number, but maybe give us some numbers around just, you know, what, how big the problem is, I guess. Kim Miller: I think, It's kind of telling that, so Blue Dragon has rescued just under 1,500 victims of human trafficking, people who've been tricked, lied to, and trafficked. And that, you know, is absolutely the tip of the iceberg. We've rescued people from every single province in Vietnam. And so I think it kind of shows just how widespread that problem is. We're not even just rescuing people from remote or rural areas, we are rescuing people from the cities and trying to protect people from the cities as well. And so I think whenever people ask for numbers about the number of people who are trafficked globally or in Vietnam and Really, the only number we can give you with absolute certainty is the number of people that we have rescued because there are so many people who are yet to be rescued or who we may never learn about or who may never return home safely. And so, yeah, I think those most telling numbers is just the number of people that we've rescued and the fact that it's from every single province around Vietnam. Kerry Newsome: And it's interesting that you mention about every province and city because I was to understand the little bit I do know that there was some concentration up in the north and certainly in the ethnic minority areas and where we find Vietnam's borders very close to China. Is that fair to say? Kim Miller: So that absolutely would have been the case before COVID. That was definitely true. Since COVID though, we've seen a very different scene when it comes to human trafficking. and people being tricked and trafficked from all over Vietnam. And they're being trafficked into different places as well. So at the moment, some of our most common rescues and our most challenging rescues are actually people who are being trafficked into, it was firstly Cambodia, and now also Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and they're being trafficked into forced scam compounds where they're being tricked into thinking perhaps they're going for a job, they're applying for a job where they'll be working in an office. Perhaps they think they're just going on a date with a boy that they've met. Maybe they think they're going for a job in a restaurant or a telephone shop, a phone shop in one of the cities. But they're being tricked and trafficked into these other countries where they're being forced to work as slaves. And so that where they're coming from now isn't just in those northern border regions. Although when we first started doing this work, we definitely did find that there were many locations along northern Vietnam where human trafficking was more prevalent than in other areas. Kerry Newsome: It's such a silent, killer and so hard to detect. I know I got involved with another charity called the Children's Education Foundation, and that's around sponsorship of girls' education. And getting close to these girls that I sponsored over the years and working with an interpreter, I was able to kind of get a feel for just how they connect and, you know, they connect like us. They use, you know, social media and things like that. And just how scarily easy it was for these girls to be impressed with connections and reach outs from people offering them jobs. And I would try to explain to them that they know nothing about those people. Those people have got no credentials. They need to research and be very cautious. But in their kind of their beautiful naivety and ability to believe everybody's kind of good and would do the right thing by them, they can so easily be misguided or caught up in situations that are just not what they appear to be. Has that been your experience too? Kim Miller: Absolutely, yeah. People who are looking for a better life, they're looking for a way to be able to care for their family. You know, we had one young mum who is living in Hazang. She has four children. And she was already living in absolute poverty when her husband had passed away. And so she was left with four young children too who were, you know, a baby and a toddler. And she had been talking to somebody on Zalo, a social communication app in Vietnam that's very popular. And that person had been talking to her about a job that she could go to if she could leave her children in the village with other people to care for them. She could go for this job where she would earn good money She could send money back to her children and she would be able to earn enough money to come back to her family. And she was really lucky. We were running part of our anti-trafficking strategies that we're developing anti-trafficking boards, which is groups of people who become experts in communities to run workshops to help people understand the tricks that the traffickers use. And just like what you were saying, ways that they can keep themselves safe, red flags that they can look out for. And in this workshop that she just happened to go to, she realized that the messages that she'd been getting were basically word for word what the traffickers had been using to trick people into going to Cambodia to work in these scam centers. And so it was just she was looking for a way to feed her children, you know, to be able to help those kids survive. And we have no doubt, had she gone, you know, she would never have seen those children again. But because she went, the really great thing, because she went to that workshop, we now know she exists. And so we were able to support her. Not only is she now safe from human trafficking because she understood the dangers of it and that, you know, that what was being offered to her as being too good to be true actually was too good to be true. But we were able to buy her a very pregnant cow, you know, healthy with veterinary teeth, Very valuable. Yeah, help her learn how to care for the cow. And then to have that income, to be able to have an ongoing income without needing to leave her children and leave her community. We're also helping to pay school fees for her children, as well as helping her with that emergency money to begin with. So it's being able to help people who are looking for a way to have a better life, who might take a risk. because they can't see a way of their life improving without taking that risk. It's really important to be able to help them stay in their community and not to have to leave and not to have to take those risks. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, and it's an interesting analysis to look at the traffickers as well as those trafficked. And I'm a follower of your founder, Michael, And just some of the blogs that he's written and the stories he's told about just how desperate the traffickers are, as well as the trafficked. You know, the hype in movies and things like that about it being, you know, all big business and flamboyant and, you know, like, it's not always the story. And as you say, some of these people that are suggesting that, you know, there's work to be obtained in Myanmar or there's work to be obtained in China. You know, it's better in Cambodia. These people are actually often known to these people that get trafficked. So, you know, it's scary that, you know, you can be that close to these people and the traffickers are thinking that they're going to make some extra dollars in a much easier fashion, without any concept of the slavery or the danger that they are actually putting these people through. I mean, some are, but some are fairly innocent, from what I've heard, that they don't actually know what concept they're selling, and when it turns out to go bad, it must be dreadful. Kim Miller: Absolutely, yeah, and that was one of the things like when we started, you know, we knew at Blue Dragon that we needed, doing the rescues is fine. We have social workers, psychologists, lawyers, we have a team of people that can really care for survivors when they come home and help them to be able to rebuild their lives. But we can't change what's happened to them. And so we needed to find a way to be able to end human trafficking and to be able to keep people safe in the first place. And that was one of the things that we realized is that we knew a lot about the victims of human trafficking, but we needed to know who the traffickers were. And we did. We found that the profile of a human trafficker in Vietnam is very similar to the profile of a victim. living in absolute poverty, low education levels, people from ethnic minority communities are often overrepresented. And again, it's finding ways, it's where these anti-trafficking workshops and the anti-trafficking boards that have been set up, their goal also is to be able to stop people from being vulnerable to poverty, because then we're going to have less people also not only taking a risk that ends up with them being trafficked, but it also stops people from becoming traffickers, from doing something that maybe they might not ordinarily do, but to be able to improve their own lives as well. It's such an important thing. It's such an important thing that we're looking at both sides of it. Kerry Newsome: I mean, education is just so invaluable in this situation, isn't it? For these people to get access to it, to acknowledge that this kind of deception is out there and to be mindful, not to have that open heart, which many of the Vietnamese have, to new things and opening up their homes to people. As travelers in particular, you find yourself at the generosity of many people that have very little and they give so much. And to then discover that they're being exploited in this way, to me, it just kills me. You've told us that you do share your time between here and Vietnam. So tell us what you yourself do in Vietnam and then we'll lead into that great swim that you've got coming up. Kim Miller: Yeah, look, I'm in a really unique role at Blue Dragon. I often say I think I've got the best job in the organisation. My role is that I started in Vietnam at Blue Dragon as the school's coordinator. So effectively, I work with schools and students and teachers and supporters of Blue Dragon all around the world, and I help them understand the issues, the cycle of poverty, the ongoing cycle, human trafficking, modern slavery, child slavery, and helping them understand the ways that people become vulnerable and the things that we can do to help them lift out of that poverty and be less at risk of human trafficking. I also work with our supporters and our business supporters and our friends in Australia. And so my role is kind of that dual role of working with people all around the world of school age and students, but also working with our donors and supporters here in Australia. Kerry Newsome: In getting back to where I started in the program in talking about travelers, and I'm one of them, so when I'm traveling to Vietnam, I do come across situations where I think, oh, I don't know, that just doesn't look right, or I just get, you know, my antennas go up and I just feel like that person is being forced to do something against their will, or I don't know. It's very hard to gauge, as we've just said, that deception-wise, there's some amazing tricks in their trade on how they can represent themselves. But if you are a traveler, we talked about before we recorded this show about an opportunity for how travelers can make a difference? What are some of the things that we can do to help this process or aid this process other than, you know, straight donations? And we get to that and we're certainly going to get to where we can help you. But just as we're out and about, you know, is there anything that we can do or we should take a note of? Kim Miller: Yeah, absolutely. There was one day I was coming back from a school that I'd been speaking at in Hanoi and it was in between the two, there were two main lockdowns in COVID in Vietnam. And it was in between those two lockdowns. Kids had been able to go back to school for a little while. And I was riding back to the Blue Dragon Center. It was about 11 o'clock in the morning, a super hot day. And sitting out from the curb, about a meter and a half from the edge of the road, was a little girl sitting, holding a basket, as you often see people living in poverty do in Hanoi to earn money. And in that basket, she was selling things like toothpicks and chewing gum and tissues. And she positioned herself kind of in the middle of the road so that hundreds and hundreds of motorbikes had to ride around her. And as people walked past or as they rode past, they were often dropping some money, generally only one or two thousand dong, five thousand dong in her basket. And I stopped, she was a little girl who I had seen before, and we were very close to the Blue Dragon Center at the time. I could actually see the Blue Dragon Center from where we were. And I stopped to sort of find out what she was doing. And she very proudly pulled out a wad of money from her pocket. And, you know, in real terms, it might've been $5. It might've been enough money to buy her lunch and to buy her a drink that day. Um, and I sort of, I said, okay, all right, come on, let's, let's go to blue dragon. It was nearly lunchtime. So I said, let's, let's go to blue dragon and we'll have some lunch. And she said she couldn't go because she had had problems with her teeth. And she'd been told that day by her mom that she wasn't allowed to go to blue dragon and she wasn't allowed to go to school because she really needed to go to the hospital to get her teeth fixed. I kind of realized that she wasn't going to go with me at that time, so I went and bought us both a bottle of water and I sat down on the side of the road with her, which meant that people stopped giving her money. And in doing that, she realized, okay, I may as well go with Kim to Blue Dragon because nobody's going to give me money now anyway. And of course, when we got to Blue Dragon, I was able to talk to the social workers who were able to go to her mom, find her mom, take her to the hospital, you know, get her mouth fixed to be able to pay for her education, to make sure that they had somewhere safe to live. And it just really, you know, it really brought home to me in a really visceral way that all of those people who gave her that little bit of money on their way past, It was very generous and kind of them, but what it did was maybe help her survive with a bottle of water and some food for that day, but it didn't help improve her life. It didn't help her go to school to be able to get out of the cycle of poverty or to have somewhere safe to sleep that night. And one of the things that we can do as travelers that I wish more people knew about, and we can do this anywhere in the world, is take a pin, pop a pin, open up your phone, go to Google Maps, put out a pin, and remember where you are. Make a few little notes for yourself about what the child's wearing, where they are, if you can find a street sign that's even better, and then go to Google and find out who is a charity or an organization, a children's charity, that's working with children and homeless children in this area. Simply, if anybody had gone straight to Google on that day and they'd messaged homeless child Hanoi, Blue Dragon would have been the first thing that came up. By sending a message to us just through our social media, which again would have come up very easily, would have been one of the first things that come up. We could have had a social worker out to see her within five or ten minutes of her being there. We have a team of, we call them outreach workers. They're basically social workers who are out on the streets every day and through the night. to look for street kids, to look for vulnerable children, and to be able to help them, not just in that moment, but over the long term. And it's something that I know that we can do anywhere in the world, is just, you know, open up your phone, do a Google search, send a pin to show, you know, people, the social workers or the organization where the child is, and you'll be able to find somebody who'll be able to help them, not just for the moment, but for the long term. Kerry Newsome: And you know, I think that information is invaluable. I mean, I don't know how many times I would have loved to have had that initiative to do something like that. I think for me, getting my head around just the fact that organisations like yours, like Blue Dragon, exists and has the capacity to offer this kind of assistance is just truly amazing and inspiring. And I think for travellers, I think in their hearts, from people that I talk to, I think, you know, they would like to know what they can do if those circumstances you know, coming to their experience of the country. Because basically, you know, no one wants to see that happen, but they're not really sure where to get the support. I mean, even back onto the human trafficking, just I think in earlier years, because I was involved with Vietnam in, you know, kind of the early 2000s, I don't think I thought that Vietnam had strong enough penalties against people that did these kinds of things. But, you know, that's changed dramatically and those penalties have become quite severe now. So, you know, you can get 20 years plus imprisonment for that. So all of that has kind of spurred on, I guess, a greater want and desire for people to become more active and play a more active role. in supporting charities like Blue Dragon in doing what they're doing, because this kind of work is just so important. Let's talk, Kim, now about what your dream is. And I mean, you've already done some great fundraising work for the charity, but you might like to tell everyone about what you've got planned for July. Kim Miller: Yeah, it's a little bit crazy. The thing that I love most about what I'm doing is that anybody can do this in their own form. I'm taking something that I love and that I'm passionate about and I'm using it to do something great, to do something positive in the world. And so I am a swimmer, an ocean swimmer. I've only been able to say that since about December 2020. But yeah, I love ocean swimming and over the last couple of years I've started swimming further and further and I have the opportunity in July this year to attempt to swim across the English Channel from England to France to raise money for Blue Dragons. So I'm raising money for Blue Dragons. anti-trafficking programs. When I talked about those anti-trafficking boards and the sustainable income initiatives, paying for education, we know that to set all of that up in a community costs around $20,000. So I've set a kind of audacious goal of raising $200,000 from my English Channel Swim so that I can help 10 communities have these anti-trafficking programs initiated and keep thousands more people safe from human trafficking? Kerry Newsome: My hat goes off to you. I think it's a fabulous thing that you're doing. And for everyone listening, I'm going to be putting the link in the show notes. So it's like you're one click away, literally, for having the opportunity to be able to support this charity, to support Kim in what she's doing. And, you know, remember her tips about when you are visiting Vietnam and, you know, that pin in the Google map, easy peasy for us to do that kind of thing. We already know of the organization that we can pass that information on to. But certainly if we can get behind Kim to support her in this swim, audacious as that 200,000 is, I'm hoping that my generous listeners will definitely help you in this way and we can do more for Blue Dragon and just to break that poverty cycle and eradicate human trafficking in Vietnam. Kim Miller: I'm just so grateful, you know, to have this opportunity and to be able to talk about Blue Dragon's work. I think whenever I travel somewhere new, I want to know not just about the amazing things I can see as a tourist, but how I can help and what those social issues are underneath the bits that maybe I can't see for myself. And, you know, to have the opportunity for other travelers coming to Vietnam to do that as well. It's such a beautiful country with incredible people. I work with a team of incredible Vietnamese superheroes. And I'm so proud to be able to talk about their work and to let other people coming to Vietnam know what they can do to help keep even more people safe and create that change. So thank you so much for the opportunity. Kerry Newsome: Kim, it's been my pleasure. And as I said, everyone, look out for the link in the show notes, whether you listen to my podcast on your favorite channel, your Spotify, your iTunes, your Google podcast, your Amazons, your whatever. What About Vietnam is there. You can come to the website also at whataboutvietnam.com. You'll also see the summary notes there, which will also have the links. So let's get behind Kim and see what we can do to play our part in eradicating human trafficking in Vietnam. Thanks, Kim.

S5-E1- Vietnam Visa Update and Land Travel Tips Episode 1 S5-E1- Vietnam Visa Update and Land Travel Tips 00:00 / 49:10 We kick off this New Show and the beginning of Series 5 with some exciting news regarding E-Visa entry to Vietnam being extended from 30 to 90 days. Stay tuned for more news as it comes through, however it starts 15th August. Now on with the show. We invite you to sit back, relax, and embark on an exciting journey through Vietnam by train as a wonderful way to explore Vietnam overland. We'll not only explore the beautiful landscapes this country has to offer but also introduce you to various overland travel options available in Vietnam. By hopping on and off a train, you can experience the country in a rewarding and cost-effective way while connecting with locals in their own backyards. Our guest today is Simon White, an expert in bilateral business between Australia and Vietnam. Despite his professional background, Simon is a passionate advocate for Vietnam's travel scene. He loves discovering new venues, sampling street food, and exploring local food markets. Together, we'll delve into the option of booking just the first couple of days upon arrival and then improvising the rest of your trip. We'll discuss how easy it is to utilize local transport, such as Grab, to get around and the joys of strolling through towns, trying local cuisine, and discovering hidden gems down local alleyways. Simon will share his experiences in various locations, including Hue, Phan Tiep, Quy Nhon, and Saigon. [00:00:56] Visa changes in Vietnam. [00:13:12] Train travel in Vietnam. [00:16:31] $10 all-you-can-eat seafood. [00:24:04] A luxurious eco resort. [00:31:31] Exploring Vietnam's rich history. [00:35:53] Get a local SIM card. [00:38:19] Grab a motorbike experience. [00:42:25] Vietnam's different times of day. [00:45:44] Amazing food experiences in Vietnam. Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

What About Vietnam S5-E1- Vietnam Visa Update and Land Travel Tips taking in Phan Thiet, Hue, and Quy Nhon Before I jump straight into the show, I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention that there's been some really big news, really big exciting news about the visa situation to enter Vietnam. As of the 15th of August, you will be able to extend your stays quite dramatically. So the typical e-visa up until this point has been for those countries that it applies to, you would only be allowed 30 days. That will be extended to 90 days as of the 15th of August. I'm going to put detail of the website that you need to go to, which is the regular, the most authoritative website to use. And I use that sincerely in the sense that it's not a service provided website. It is in fact the immigration website to apply directly to the Vietnam Immigration Department for your visa. So you pay the minimal fee and you know, I've been doing that for years and I recommend all my clients to use that website. So that's where the information will be at present on my last check, just the last couple of days. It's not been updated to reflect this new change, but there's also significant changes to the countries that have been outlined as being waiver free. So the e-visa up until this point, those countries would have 15 days in the country that they could come and visit and not have to pay any visa or apply for any visa status at all. That has now been extended to 45 days. But all the detail will be on the website. The news has really just only come out of the last five days and you know, I'm talking to you on the 30th of June. So please check out the website, whataboutvietnam.com. As soon as the full information has been released, Vietnam, I will make sure I put that on our website. But today, I'm very excited to have Simon White on. Now, Simon's been doing business and visiting Vietnam over the last 15 years and certainly has a similar love of Vietnam. He's been going back and forth. I think he said he had something like 60 trips over 15 years. He says that he's traveled extensively across the country by car, by rail, by bus, by boat. And he just loves the experience of the country, its food and immersing himself in local culture and local traditions and just, you know, musing through the country and really meeting people and doing all sorts of fun things. He's a fun guest. He's got some great insights into some places I've wanted to talk to you about. And they're places like Phan Thip, which is very close to Muna. We have discussed Muna before on the program, but we're doing this show really with a big focus on land transport. And so we're going to be talking about train travel primarily. That's using the reunification train from top to bottom and looking at places to visit by train. And some of those are Phan Thip. Some of those others are like Hue, like Quynh On, like Da Nang, Hanoi, and of course Ho Chi Minh City. So Sit Tight. It's a really jam packed episode. Simon is wonderful at just giving his insights and experiences at a very street level, a very immersive level where he likes to, you know, get out and mix with the locals in the cities, in the country areas and really enjoy the street food, enjoy the different traditions and the nuances between the North and the South. And I think he's going to give you some insights that might help you make up your mind as far as whether you want to do your hops around the country or even mix up your hops around the country between train or whether you go by plane to visit some of these places as they're all interesting. But how you get there is, you know, all part of that journey experience as well. Without further ado, let's bring on the very learned, very talented, very interesting, very fun guest, Simon White. Simon White, welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. Look, we've got a lot to talk about in our program today, but maybe just for everyone listening, you could tell us a little bit about your relationship to Vietnam. You know, what keeps you coming back over 15 years and 60 trips I hear? 05:52 Simon White Yes, thanks Kerry. Look, I've got a bit of a long-term love affair with Vietnam, mostly around business aspects because I'm the president of the Australia Vietnam Business Council in Queensland and also I was chairing Vietnam's representative in Queensland and I'm on the advisory board of the Australia Vietnam Leadership Dialogue. And I spend a lot of time in the business aspect of Vietnam. But like most people that go to a new destination, you know, over 15, 20 years ago, I've spent a lot of time also exploring Vietnam and getting to know the country, what there is to do and the people and the excitement of visiting just different destinations around the country. I think the reason I keep going back is there's always something new to explore. There's new flavors. I say, don't just say that from a food point of view because we all know Vietnam is a food destination. But there's new flavors in what's happening with Vietnam and how it's growing up as a country. 100 million people as of a couple of weeks ago. And also the differences between the metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City and the differences between that and Hanoi and what happens all the way in between and all those amazing places and destinations and the amazing country areas where you're back to feeling like you're in the Vietnam of 30 or 40 years ago. Talk to us about your most liked land based transportation and why you would favor one over the other. I think the beauty of land based travel, you know, when you're an airplane and we know this also domestically in Australia, you fly over and look down at things and you have that bird's eye view. But you're not immersed in what's happening on the ground and you're not immersed in the people and their day to day lives. And, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about taking other people to Vietnam and I quite often think when you land in the airport in Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi, it is sometimes confronting if you're not used to it. And I always refer to it as being like a deer in headlights when I take people over there. And I also always meet everybody at the airport and they walk out into that throng of people hanging around and that chatter and noise and down south the heat and the smells and the aromas of an Asian city. And I think that, you know, that can be quite challenging to people. So I think that when you want to immerse yourself in culture, and this also depends on how much time you've got, because if you've got a quick trip and it's seven to 10 days, you need to jump a plane to see a bit of the country and get to know the differences around what happens from the difference between the south to the north and in between. But I think if you've got a bit of time, you know, getting down and getting on some sort of land based travel and we can talk about the options in a moment, really immerses you in the culture and allows you to look out the window, sit back and relax and compare Vietnam as a country and how it's uniquely different to a lot of countries, but also the same in some ways as well. And to watch people go about their day to day lives and to go through, you know, when you're on the train, for instance, you go through the backyards, not the front yards. So you don't see the shiny front of the shops and the places, but you see the backyards and the chickens and the pigs and the washing hanging out and the kids playing along the place. And, you know, it gives you a different experience to what Vietnam is from the perspective of a Vietnamese person. 09:28 Kerry Newsome And I think that's a really good point to mention is that, you know, I think Vietnam has become very much a location that's big on the Instagram set in the sense and social media sense. Everybody's taking the front yard photos and the perfect views and, you know, the rice paddy fields are in there perfectly in bloom and, you know, all the colors are perfect and all the rest of it. Whereas you and I agreed that you can experience a Vietnam that is still steeped in a lot of history. You know, the minority groups aren't just dressed up for fun. They wear those clothes as their normal day to day wear, their traditional costumes. And I think you're right. I think seeing the backyard does give you that immersion in a greater, greater sense. So, I mean, I've done very limited train travel, but in the case that you have got some time and you want this kind of experience, where would you base your train travel? 10:37 Simon White I think you either go south to north or north to south and you do the whole country if you've got time. You know, the reunification train line, which was basically rebuilt after 1975 to reunify the north and the south goes from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh. Goes all over the country through all the major central towns. It's an amazing trip. You know, you can get a sleeper. It's cheap. I won't say it's luxurious, but it's air conditioned and it's presentable and it's clean. So I think if I was to choose any mode of ground travel, as though I love getting on a motorbike and I love getting amongst it in Vietnam, because then you feel the energy and those sorts of things. Unless you're experienced on motorbikes and you don't have kids, it's not safe mode of transport. Especially on the highways. Unlike Australia, where we sort of, although motorbike riders will tell you otherwise, we're fairly observant of the rules. The smaller you are in Vietnam on the roads, the less important you are. And therefore motorbikes aren't very important. So if I was in a city area, I wouldn't ride a motorbike. But in the country areas off the main roads and highways, I love getting on a bike and going for a ride. And I'll put my son on there with me and we'll ride around the regional roads because the traffic isn't an issue. Land-based options are motorbike, probably not safe and not comfortable. Unless you're an experienced rider and you want to get on a bigger bike and do the whole country. Buses, there's regional buses, which I wouldn't get on at night time because they'll take a 20 seater and put 40 people in it. And it's terrible. And it's not safe. They have the sleeping buses that are OK if you're a five foot Asian frame. But I'm a six foot three Australian frame. So the sleeping bus, my feet are hanging over in someone's head and I can never get comfortable. But also they're not to me, they don't feel safe. And that's just a personal thing. Especially, you know, they're built for overnight travel and overnight. They just don't feel hygienic to me. So you've got private car and cars. Cars are becoming very popular. I won't say that driving ability is becoming better with the volume of traffic on the road. So, you know, private cars are great. And, you know, their Uber equivalent, which is great, is great to get around the cities or regional cities. Yeah, but longer trips. It's you know, it just isn't practical. So it comes down to flying. So I think the train is, you know, it's a great way to see the country. You can sit there and look out the window, see everything happening as I say, see the backyards rather than the front yards. Watch yourself go through, you know, rice paddies and mountains and mountain trails along the coast and back in through little towns and cities. And just just look at the country that's growing up around you. And it's an amazing way in any country to travel, but certainly Vietnam. And I think the other thing with trains is I think they're pretty safe. They don't go that fast. So, you know, so anything that does go wrong, there's not a lot that can go that's going to happen. Not a bullet train. And I think that there's a comfort and a personal space. We quite the three of us will travel and what I'll do is I'll book, I should pay the extra, the extra bed and a sleeper when to make it's four. So you have your own cabin. It costs about twenty dollars for a trip. So it's not expensive. And then you've got your own space and you can do your own thing. And my my advice would be buy some food before you leave your destination. Go to the shop, buy some snacks, buy some food. I would take a few beers because I'm an Aussie. Take some things you want to eat and take it all with you. No one cares. And then you've got all your supplies and you can look at the view. You can read a book. You can watch you can watch something you've downloaded. And it's a really relaxing way to sort of sit back and see the place. And if you get a bit tired, just close your eyes and have a bit of a bit of a rest. So I think it allows you to go from Ho Chi Minh City in the south to Hanoi in the north, for instance, and have a look. And a bit like, you know, Canada or Europe, you can have a time based ticket you can buy where you can get on and off as many times as you like. So you can buy what would be a U-rail type pass. Oh, I didn't know that. That's good to know. And you can buy that and you can basically jump on and off the trains. I mean, you've got to book each leg from a seat perspective when you get when you want to get back on again. But you can jump off at all these small destinations and, you know, ask the ask the people in the in the train station. Or, you know, I find when you ask taxi drivers and people where to stay, you know, 90 percent of the time you're going to get somebody who's going to be pretty straight up with you and say, look, there's a great hotel in town. What are you looking for? What is place to go? So I usually think the advice of the locals is really good. So if you went, for instance, from Ho Chi Minh City going north, I would recommend the people to stop in places like Phan Thiet, which is also Munai, which is the famous kite surfing beach of days gone by. The Ferry Creek or whatever. The Ferry Stream. Yep. Ferry Stream, which you get to the top and you find it just comes out as rice paddies, but it's a beautiful walk. Clean thing, but it actually comes off the runoff from the rice paddies and the farms. But it is a nice little walk. And, you know, Phan Thiet is a seafood town. If you've ever watched Luke Nguyen's series, he cooks on the streets of Phan Thiet quite often because he's got family there. So, you know, it's a seafood town. So you always find a really good seafood meal there. You know, I went to actually went to a seafood buffet there last when I was there in December last year. It was $10 or you can eat seafood. 16:34 Kerry Newsome Oh my God. I'm in heaven. But the interesting thing is whatever you wasted, they weighed and you had to pay them for every 100 grams of waste you had. Oh, you're kidding. That's amazing. I mean, that's an interesting concept. 16:48 Simon White But the food was amazing. It was just so much fresh seafood and, you know, $10 you could sit there all night and eat as much as you want to. So, you know, those sorts of things in Phan Thiet are great. What's the accommodation like in Phan Thiet? Well, I usually stay there with family. So for me, it's easy. But if you know, there's a lot of hotels there. But if you look at Munais Beach for interest, there's resorts. 17:11 Kerry Newsome Oh, yeah, there's resorts in Mui ne for sure. And there's lots of them. 17:15 Simon White And again, look, you know, along the beachfront, I can picture but I can't give you names of four or five. There's a couple of really good resorts there. You know, I'm not a five star resort golfing resort traveler. So they're not the pick for me. I'm more of a get down amongst it, you know, sort of person. So for me, I'm more of a sort of three star as long as I've got a clean bathroom of my own, I'm happy. So for me, it's about sort of casting around and looking at what options there are and what's interesting. And places like Phan Thiet have just a good feel about them. And again, it's a safe town if you like to if you like to ride a motorbike. You know, just be careful if you're not licensed in riding a motorbike in Vietnam. You don't have a license there. Then you are going to have insurance issues. And I would never recommend that everybody go there without having a license to ride a bike. Because I do know of a guy, a European guy who had a with his girlfriend had a motorbike accident. She was killed and he was put in jail for seven years because he hadn't seen this many years ago. So, you know, it's one of those places. But Phan Thiet is a beautiful place to stop. It's on the train line. It's, you know, it's hot, but it's near the beach. And, you know, it's a great, lesser known destination. And Runeau Beach was very, very popular, of course, with the Russians for a long time, but not as much these days. But the money going into the resorts there from an investment perspective means that the opportunities to stay there. 18:42 Kerry Newsome you know, the opportunities of accommodation are increasing all the time. I'm really glad that you've covered off Phan Thiet because it's an area I don't know as much about. I've got a girlfriend, Vietnamese girlfriend of mine who's just moved back there with her family because her family own farmland there and they're doing farming in dragon fruit. So, it's a place I want to go to when I visit next time. 19:10 Simon White The other train trip I've heard is very nice that maybe you can speak to about for everyone is the trip from Da Nang to Hue? Da Nang to Hue? Well, I've done Da Nang to Dong Hui to go up to Phong Nga to the caves and mountains areas that we talked about earlier. But that trip from Da Nang to Hue, it goes along the coastline of the mountains. So you go up through the pass and through the tunnels north of Da Nang and it's just actually a beautiful trip. Unfortunately, with the configuration, if you've got a sleeper, the sleeper is actually on the mountainside. So you've got to keep your sort of room door open to look out to the aisle side. Oh, it's on the wrong side. The port of Da Nang is on the wrong side. Most people just stand in the aisle and look at the view for half an hour to an hour as you go through there. Are you better to do it the other way then? Are you better to do it from the way to Da Nang? I've never done that. I'm assuming if you go south, I don't know whether they turn the train around or they just have an engine at the other end and then the carriage is the same way. Because quite often with train carriages, they just hook up an engine to the other end and go back. The train doesn't turn around itself. So the carriage is still going to have the same configuration. But that's it. If you get a day train that leaves, there's a few of them, but there's one that leaves about 10 am from Da Nang to go north. So if you're doing that Da Nang to Hue trip and you're going to the north, you're going to have to go north. So if you're doing that Da Nang to Hue trip and you go through there, the view is absolutely amazing. And it's just a great way to spend a sort of the day. And it's only about three hours. So if you leave at 10, you're going to get in just after lunch and really nice, really relaxing, beautiful view. And then does it go Da Nang, Hue and then Dong Hoi? Is that the way it goes? Yeah, it goes all the way, Dong Ha, Dong Hui and all the way up. So it just goes all the way up through Ninh Binh and up into Hanoi from there. 21:19 Kerry Newsome So just right. Have you done it all the way to Ninh Binh? No, no, I've done. I've only done Ninh Binh to I've done Hanoi to Ninh Binh and then I've gone as far as Dong Hui. Dong Hui. Well, there's two trains that go to Quynh On now, isn't there? The new Vietage through the Anantara Group. They are running that and that's kind of like from what I can gather is like the Orient Express version with the bar and the and it's very swish. And you can do that trip. And then, as you say, there's the reunification train that goes to Quynh On. Now, can you talk to us a little bit about Quynh On? Because for everyone listening, Quynh On is an area that was a bit of a best kept secret really for Vietnamese, as in the locals knew how beautiful it was. But it's now becoming very much a tourist destination and there's a lot of resorts been built over the last few years and it's really coming of age, so to speak. So, yes, Simon would love you to touch on that trip from Da Nang to Quynh On and tell us a little bit about Quy Nhon. 22:39 Simon White Well, yes, so, you know, Quy Nhon, as you said, great, secret for travelers, but is becoming quite commercialized now. I think, you know, the first time, as I think I said to you earlier, the first time I ever went to Vietnam 15, 17 years ago, I went to a business networking function in the very early days. So it was a very, very, very basic networking in those days. And I won a door prize and the door prize was a weekend at a brand new eco resort south of Quy Nhon. So, of course, the next time I went back, I flew up there and that would have been my first ever experience out of Ho Chi Minh City, except for the usual things, which is Mekong or Cu Chi tunnels and things like that. So it was my first sort of outside of Ho Chi Minh experience. And it was quite, it was a very, very high level resort, but it was quite a remote destination. I remember getting in this, getting met at the airport in this beautiful brand new land cruiser with white leather upholstery, which I didn't fit in there. And taking a drive about an hour south of Quynh On into out on this peninsula on these dirt roads where there was this brand new eco resort, where there was six villas and personal butlers in each room and your own little pool and your own beach hut with personal staff. And you pick up the phone and the butler came running. I remember saying, it's lunchtime, can we get something to eat? And the butler brought the chef down to the room. And he said, he said, oh, we've got some, overnight we've bought some, I think it was sea bass or something off the fishermen out the front, because you can see a little fishing boats, around fishing boats out in the bay. And then next thing this whole fish arrives that's been done with rice paper and vegetables and herbs and things to roll with rice paper. So it was an amazing resort. It was being run by a young 25 year old Swiss graduate American guy graduating. Absolutely amazing young guy, growing all their own vegetables and herbs. Just a beautiful resort. And they had their own fish farm as well across the hill. And I remember going over for lunch and sitting on the dock at the fish farm, choosing your fish out of the fish farm. I don't know what happened. I'm assuming it's still there, but I had never heard about that resort again. And everyone keeps saying, oh, it must be a sixth sense, but it's not. It was independent. But, you know, going on the area is absolutely gorgeous to look at. It's a beautiful beach area. There's, it's quite remote. And I went back there again about a year ago, just just under a year ago, and for a different reason and stayed in town and had a look around. And it's it's it's like a mini-denouncement like the thing was 15 to 20 years ago. Okay. Where, you know, before the masses of beach resorts and, you know, explosion of tourism. So it's a beautiful place to go a little bit off the beaten track. Is there a lot to do there? Oh, there's heaps to do. Look, it's like everything. There's islands off there too. So you can explore that. You know, you can go to the beach, there's snorkeling, there's some there's just beaches you can go to. You know, when I go over there, I quite often take my own mask and snorkel. I don't take flippers and things, it's too much. But I take my own sort of bit of snorkeling stuff to have a look around. You know, as you know, Kerry, a lot of places in Vietnam, you know, you might see one fish and it's scared because it's, you know, there is issues with fishing out the place a bit. And there's not yet a realization about ecological tourism or ecological management of tourism in Vietnam and other areas. And how long the bay would be an example, you know, beautiful place, but you go in the water and you won't see a fish. So, you know, it's one of those things that needs to be worked on in Vietnam is the management of the environment alongside tourism and business. Yes. And I know there's a lot of work being done on that space and a lot of environmental management in corporate business around other things like packaging and things that the rest of the world are working on. But I think when you go to those places, you know, one of the detractors that needs to be worked on, if we can talk to some of the little quirky things, is just the amount of floating rubbish and things like that. And how that detracts from those beautiful places. I saw one recently on a Facebook group around Vietnam. It was this beautiful place with all these beautiful seaweed beds and people taking selfies standing on the seaweed beds. And my comment was this is a beautiful place, but it won't remain beautiful if people don't preserve it. If they keep standing on the seaweed beds taking selfies, they're not going to be any beauty for anybody else to share. So, you know, you get these amazing places, but I guess the, you know, how are they going to be managed and maintained as from an eco perspective? The challenge between fish farms and tourism and the understanding of, you know, maintaining beaches and dealing with rubbish and packaging and things is still a challenge in a lot of areas, unfortunately. 27:42 Kerry Newsome And I think it's a point that we need to raise. And, you know, it comes up intermittently when I'm talking to various guests about rubbish management, around waste, around seeing it. I guess the tourist footprint and the impact it is making on the environment with plastics and all the rest. It is some circles that I mix in and in Vietnam tourism, etc. Do tell me that they're aware of it, they know about it, and there's a lot of working group parties that are trying to engage with professionals and people that are specialized in this to come up with solutions. I think the sad part for me and for everyone listening about this is that some people will then kind of dismiss Vietnam in the sense because that they haven't addressed it at this point and it doesn't look great and it can put them off the whole scene. But I guess if we could kind of put it in the context that, you know, Vietnam is growing at such a rate and speed that I think it's having trouble keeping up with itself. And, you know, certainly with, you know, 60 or 70 million people in the domestic travel market, I'm feeling their footprint just as much as my own as a foreigner. And I think there's going to be a lot more said about this and done about this in the future. But I just hope people can say, look, yeah, it's not great. It needs to be addressed, but don't dismiss Vietnam because in some of these locations, it isn't well managed at this point. So it's kind of a work in progress for one of a better description. 29:32 Simon White You know, I had some interaction with one of the municipal councils in a major city during COVID to introduce them to the head of the UN Environmental Waste Council and things like that to help them. You know, they're looking, they're seriously looking at these things. I think there's not yet a societal awareness of, you know, I'll just chuck that plastic bag down into the area at the back and it doesn't really matter, you know. And I think that's also about, you know, we're still talking about an emerging economy. And I think we're seeing that in people's attitudes are still such that they're not, you know, still focusing on how do I make a dollar, put food on the table, not necessarily what I worry about. Just one of the other areas that I wanted to talk about was Hue. Hue is amazing. I mean, you know, a thousand year old citadel that was the capital of Vietnam at the time. You know, you can still see sort of bullet marks across some of the facies from, you know, previous conflicts from, you know, in the late 60s and early 70s. It's an amazing place to go historically. It's a bit of a place to go and it's still, there's still cheap accommodation available in Hue. There's good food, like any tourist destination, and has challenges around the commercialization aspect. But I think and the volume of people, you know, pre-COVID, when I went through there, it was crazy, the number of buses and the number of people trying to get in and out of the citadel to have a look at it. But that said, you know, I think if you're on holiday, you tend to forget a little about those things. You know, you just said, look, I'm on a holiday and I'm going to enjoy myself and I know I need to stand there some queues and I know there's going to be other people on a holiday too. So I think if you put that aside and you're not trying to rush, you can have a great time wandering around in Hue. And, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about the different, you know, the different empires that have been through Vietnam or what is now Vietnam over the years. And there is, you know, there is history across Vietnam where in places like Hue and in My Son, which is south of, you know, South of Da Nang, where there's history there that's being worked on and explored to look at how that has developed the culture of the people and their belief systems and their family cultural values that you can experience when you go to these places. And you get a feel for why the people of Vietnam are what they are because you go and experience some of the history of the hardship or of the different, different sort of ruling people that have been through. And when you look at the history of Vietnam, you know, pre, pre the 20th century, it's quite interesting to look at those sorts of things. And you see that in, you see that in Hoi An with the Japanese influence, you know, 600 year old Japanese fishing town. You see it in Ninh Binh with the, you know, the 10th century capital city when the river was obviously a lot bigger and things like that. So, you know, there's those sorts of historical things if you've got a bent towards that sort of tourism where you can get in and really explore some of the history of what makes Vietnam, you know, the country it is today. Yeah. And the people that is today and the influences from north to south, just how different they are, how it influences the food, clothing, you know, their farming styles, their eating styles, their… So socially they're different people. People used to say to me, you know, everyone says, what do you prefer? Do you prefer HCMC or Hanoi? And I used to prefer HCMC in because the people were a lot more relaxed in the south. I'm finding that the people in Hanoi now are becoming more relaxed because they're becoming more used to Westerners, you know, tourists and what they need to do. We're certainly talking about the old town who can area in that conversation. But and Ho Chi Minh is becoming now a major high rise sort of city with developments and there's a swing, although, you know, a lot of people in the south will tell you otherwise. But I do feel there's a lot more embracing of tourism and people in the north now and more acceptance and more openness and more smiles, more friendliness than there was 10 plus years ago. 34:09 Kerry Newsome Absolutely. Simon, I'm aware of time, so I'm just wanting to wrap up if we may. Do you have any last kind of comments that you'd like to talk to, you know, just around our main focus at land based travel? 34:27 Simon White Sure. I think the first thing is don't be scared to land in, you know, most international flights embark into An Ooi or Ho Chi Minh. Don't be scared just to say, look, I've got a couple of days of accommodation booked in a hotel or Airbnb or whatever it might be. Don't be scared not to do that. When you go to those cities, you will find every type of global food that you'd find anywhere else. You can have Thai food, Indian food, American hamburgers, steak houses, pasta, Italian, French, all those influences of food in there. So don't be scared if you've got dietary beliefs and you think you're going to land in Vietnam and have to eat just Vietnamese food for 30 days straight. Sometimes our Western bellies can't do that. So I think we've got to be cognizant that they are international cities. Everything you need is there. You know, you've probably touched before in other podcasts around things like, you know, medical services and insurance and all those things. But, you know, all those services you need are going to be there. My recommendation to people is also get yourself a local SIM card. I always have a Vietnamese SIM card I put in my main phone. So I've got all my data based stuff. And then I put my Australian SIM card in a secondary phone so I can still receive texts and phone calls from Australia if I need to from a business perspective. But I have a local SIM card. I put it in my Australian phone. And then I'm internet connected to all the apps and all the travel apps and all the things like that. Get on to, you know, without advertising, get on to Grab before you go and set up your Grab account because Grab is the way people get around if they're not using taxi. Absolutely. Swear by it. It's just your Uber equivalent. It's the same thing. It's a fantastic service. And don't be scared to, you know, to grab your water bottle and go for a walk. I spend a lot of time in Vietnam when I'm between work engagements, walking around the places I'm in. It doesn't matter where I am, but certainly in the cities. And I just say, look, you know, especially post COVID when I was there last year in May and then again in June, you know, September and October and December, I'd spend a lot of time just walking around, not in the middle of the day when it's 36 degrees, but in the evening. And I just put a shorts, t-shirt and a pair of joggers on. And I just walk up and down the streets and say, what's new? What's closed? What's not there anymore? And get a feel for what's going on in the city. Get into the vibe. Walk down the back alleyways, you know, the best places that you're ever going to find in those places, the back alleyways of the cities. 34:09 Kerry Newsome Absolutely. Absolutely. Simon, I'm aware of time, so I'm just wanting to wrap up if we may. Do you have any last kind of comments that you'd like to talk to, you know, just around our main focus at land based travel? 34:27 Simon White Sure. I think the first thing is don't be scared to land in, you know, most international flights embark into An Ooi or Ho Chi Minh. Don't be scared just to say, look, I've got a couple of days of accommodation booked in a hotel or Airbnb or whatever it might be. Don't be scared not to do that. When you go to those cities, you will find every type of global food that you'd find anywhere else. You can have Thai food, Indian food, American hamburgers, steak houses, pasta, Italian, French, all those influences of food in there. So don't be scared if you've got dietary beliefs and you think you're going to land in Vietnam and have to eat just Vietnamese food for 30 days straight. Sometimes our Western bellies can't do that. So I think we've got to be cognizant that they are international cities. Everything you need is there. You know, you've probably touched before in other podcasts around things like, you know, medical services and insurance and all those things. But, you know, all those services you need are going to be there. My recommendation to people is also get yourself a local SIM card. I always have a Vietnamese SIM card I put in my main phone. So I've got all my data based stuff. And then I put my Australian SIM card in a secondary phone so I can still receive texts and phone calls from Australia if I need to from a business perspective. But I have a local SIM card. I put it in my Australian phone. And then I'm internet connected to all the apps and all the travel apps and all the things like that. Get on to, you know, without advertising, get on to Grab before you go and set up your Grab account because Grab is the way people get around if they're not using taxi. Absolutely. Swear by it. It's just your Uber equivalent. It's the same thing. It's a fantastic service. And don't be scared to, you know, to grab your water bottle and go for a walk. I spend a lot of time in Vietnam when I'm between work engagements, walking around the places I'm in. It doesn't matter where I am, but certainly in the cities. And I just say, look, you know, especially post COVID when I was there last year in May and then again in June, you know, September and October and December, I'd spend a lot of time just walking around, not in the middle of the day when it's 36 degrees, but in the evening. 36:34 Kerry Newsome And I just put a shorts, t-shirt and a pair of joggers on. And I just walk up and down the streets and say, what's new? What's closed? What's not there anymore? And get a feel for what's going on in the city. Get into the vibe. Walk down the back alleyways, you know, the best places that you're ever going to find in those places, the back alleyways of the cities. And, you know, once again, that's another good point that you brought up. You know, I think Westerners have been trained or from a societal perspective, you don't go down alleys, you know, like, you know, alleys are dangerous and on that. Because I know just recently in Ho Chi Minh City, I was taking my sisters down this alley and they're going, Kerry, do you really know where you're going? Like, you know, we love you and all the rest of it, but seriously. And I go, now look, just trust me. And sure enough, we'd go down this alley and the next thing we're going up these stairs. And then, you know, we're in the cat in that building and there's beautiful boutiques and coffee shops and all of this. 37:37 Simon White Little coffee, little courtyards with trees and light food. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, I know time constraints, but look, the other thing is get out of Ho Chi Minh is district based like Paris, District 1. Yes. You know, get out of District 1. Go to, you know, don't go to Nestle District 5 for the backpack area is not the only place to go. But you get out of those places. Go out into District 3, District 10, whatever it might be. Have a little bit of a wander around, start in the daytime to make yourself feel comfortable. And, you know, you'll find things like a whole street of plumbing supplies and a whole street of coffee and a whole street of kitchen supplies. And it's amazing to get into those places. And that's why I say again, grab because you can get grab a motorbike. Yes. If you want to put, put your, they have a second helmet, whack it on, sit in the motorbike and say, I did this in Hanoi with some friends one year. I had 10 friends with me. We got, we just walked down the road. We got 10 grab guys. We said, how much for four hours? Take us around town. And they took us all over town. Ended up being six hours. We went to an amazing restaurant that you'd never find unless you're a local for lunch. Yeah. We, you know, you just saw all these things that you wouldn't see by going down all the back alleys and they ain't stopping. And the experience, that's the experience of Vietnam. It's not sit in my international hotel and talk to other travelers while I have an air conditioned buffet breakfast. You know, it's, it's, you know, when I stay in Vietnam, we're staying in Hichimin now. I stay in an Airbnb apartment where I now know the guys that runs it. So I talked to him directly. It's a two bedroom apartment. It's in an old alleyway. I have ladies who have got five or six different choices of dish all day, every day down downstairs as I walk out with braziers. I've got a coffee shop on the same floor. I've got a Japanese restaurant downstairs. I've got a pizza place downstairs. I've got, you know, noodle place around the corner. I've got anything I want within a hundred meters, but I'm a part of Vietnam's ecosystem. I'm not sitting in international hotel in a dog box room that's decorated like every other hotel in the world. 39:38 Kerry Newsome And I walk out of my room and I've got 50 stairs up and down. So that's okay. But I'm walking up and down with the locals who live in that apartment block. Yeah. And I think if you want to feel like you've been to Vietnam, that's what you've got to do. I think a lot of people do stick with their favorite brands in hotels and they want that luxury experience. And, you know, that sensory overload for some is just a little bit too much to take on. But I think and one thing I really want to encourage people is that you probably most likely not 100% not going to see or feel all of Vietnam in one visit. It's just kind of impossible to get to everywhere in one visit, in my opinion. I think if you can kind of stage it and say, look, let's let's just do the north and have a look at the north or, you know, let's have a look at some of the main areas in the south or maybe concentrate just in a region, maybe the center and the north. 40:44 Simon White And look, you know, the other thing is we've got we've now got, you know, three three direct airline flights in and out of Australia. We've got three three brands now flying directly. And as of as of June, Vietjet flies directly from Brisbane to Ho Chi Minh City, which is great. Correct. But we've got in Sydney and Melbourne, we've got Vietjet, Bamboo and Vietnam Airlines flying direct flights. So there's lots of choices at lots of prices, lots of different travel levels there. And I think you've got to get you've got to walk past those alleyways and look at them and walk. No one's going to have a gauge. No one's going to no one's going to mug you walking down an alley in the daytime in Vietnam. I often say, look, you know, sometimes I used to say to my my friends and family, I feel like my spaceship just landed because I must have to look at you. But that doesn't matter. You know, I just smile and I walk down and I find the best places. I found some amazing little bars, amazing coffee shops and the restaurants. There's one place I go to in off past and Ho Chi Minh City. And I walk up four flights of stairs past people's washing and apartments and outdoor kitchens to get to this. To find it. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. The feel of those places is, you know, look at the steps and people have been walking up and down those steps for 100 years. Yeah. You know, with their lifestyles and you look out across the rooftops and the chimney stacks and the hot water systems and the cats. And, you know, I remember being in a panoramic one, roosters crowing next door next to the hotel on the rooftop. And there's a cat on the other side of two dogs barking. You know, it's being amongst that stuff that makes Vietnam different than Australia. Even if the rooster's waiting at 5.30, get up, go out, yell at it, get up and enjoy it and walk around the town. Vietnam has different times of day that it opens up. Five o'clock in the morning, four o'clock, five o'clock, six o'clock in the morning, all the people go off to work for the early day. And you walk outside and it's a different world. But then you hit the middle of the day and all the 10 or 11 o'clock and all the shops and all the shutters go up and everything started to open up from a point of view of commerce. And then, of course, as you go into the evening and Vietnamese people will come back out again because there's no sun because they don't like the sun. So therefore the whole new world, the lights, the motorbikes, the young people, the bars, the coffee shops. I've been on the street sitting on the little kids tables and chairs on streets in towns and cities eating and suddenly a motorbike pulls up and two or three young girls get off the back with a boombox and they start dancing on the street promoting a nightclub somewhere. And they get back on again and they ride off. Just totally random stuff happens. And you sit, don't be scared to go into those little cafes and sit on the kids tables and chairs because you'll eat the best food. I was going to say, I've only ever been sick once in Vietnam in almost 20 years in 60 plus trips. And it was an international five star hotel breakfast buffet where the capsicum for the omelette was off. I've never been sick with street food. I've never had a bad, you know, never, ever had a bad meal in Vietnam. I've had a couple of average ones, but never had a bad meal. And those little cafes on the street, they put the tables and chairs out at night time and you sit down and you don't go in the kitchen. You don't know about it. But look at the food and you will find some of the most amazing fresh food. And, you know, pre-Vietnam, I would never have eaten snails. I would never have eaten duck egg embryos. I would never have eaten goats, goat meat, barbecued and all these other amazing things. But when you start into those sorts of food in Vietnam, right now, I'm salivating in my mouth thinking of going back to Vietnam. And every time I get on the plane here to go, I start thinking about what am I going to eat each day and what flavor is going to be. And I start getting hungry because there's, you know, you get the most unsuspecting meals in the most unsuspecting places by just sitting down in some little cafe and trying to work out. I've got a bit of Vietnamese, but, you know, work out what is on the menu. Do some sign language about what it is you're about to eat and say, look, I'll just have that. And then don't worry about what it is. Dip it in whatever's with it. And it's just amazing. Every time it's just amazing. Oh, no. And that's the experience of Vietnam. And ask that the young kids will come up and I say, you know, go get me a beer, will you? And they'll go across to the shop and buy beer. Come back. You know, I remember sitting on the beach in Nha Trang years ago. Lady came up with, you know, the stick across the shoulders with two pots. She had lobster with her son. You know, I was at the sailing club on the on the on the Lilo's out there. And she came up and she put down the grass, the reed mat, sat down, pulled it out, pulled out a fresh lobster. She just bought it from markets that day, marinated it, put the brazier down, cooked the lobster. And someone up and bought some beers at the shop and brought them back. And I sat there and had fresh cooked lobster with rice vegetables, corn on the brazier, sweet potato on the brazier and beer on the beach. And it cost me like $5. 45:45 Kerry Newsome I was going to say it cost you about $5. Yeah, I was going to say. 45:50 Simon White Don't be scared. Don't be scared to get involved. No one's trying to rip you off. You know, even the guys who even the guys who walk around polish your shoes just because they run off of the shoes. But, you know, they're just trying to make a living. They're just trying to make a living. They're not there to scam you. They're just trying to make a living. Stay away from offers of drugs. Stay away from offers of, you know, pool parlors and young girls and karaoke and that sort of thing. When people go past on motorbikes. But don't be scared of the old guys that say, do you want a motorbike? Because those old guys are made everything that moves in that town. 46:22 Kerry Newsome You're in everywhere. Simon, I'm so glad to have you on because you kind of support and speak of with a passion and love of Vietnam as I feel. So I feel like I'm vindicated just by having you on. So that's really terrific. 46:41 Simon White I have to say, you know, I really appreciate the conversation. It teases out. You know, I visualize these experiences. I talk about them and, you know, I'm just sitting here saying I better get on my next trip. I want to experience those things, you know, and I want to go and go and do those things again. And look, every my son will come in from the other room and listening to the end of our conversation here. And he always says, you know, what are we going back when we go back? Because he's always thinking about what the next experience is. 47:11 Kerry Newsome Yes. And, you know, I have a bit of withdrawal when I come back because, you know, I bit like you. I get out and about and I experience these things. So, you know, life back here sometimes feels a little bit vanilla after, you know, time in Vietnam. So it takes a little bit of reconditioning when you get back because the experiences and the energy and the people, the openness or all of that just is it gets under your skin. 47:42 Simon White The French used to call it Indochina Malad, which is, you know, the Indochina sickness that you catch and never want to go home. Yeah. Yeah, they used to call it Indochina sickness. And, you know, with Cambodia and Vietnam, you know, as parts of France many years ago. But and French people have disappeared and just never come back, you know. But I think that, you know, my advice is when you're coming back and you go, I'm going to miss that, is book the next trip before you come back. Yeah, I do. I sit in Vietnam. I do too. Because I start to look forward to what happens on the next one. 48:17 Kerry Newsome Simon, thank you so much for coming on the show. We'll leave it there. But I look forward to talking with you again and just thank you for your time and sharing some of your experiences. It's been wonderful. 49.00 Simon White - Thank you so much. What about Vietnam.