S4-03 Travel Outlook 2022-23 Vietnam Travel Outlook 2022-23 Episode 3 S4-03 Travel Outlook 2022-23 00:00 / 58:37 This is a Podswap from the Conor Kelly & Kerry Newsome interview - ComebaCK Podcast #371 If you are sitting on the sidelines Googling madly, watching and reading social media chatter, but still unsure if it’s a good idea to take your next holiday in Vietnam, or go back there?;- then this show is for you. Why? Because Conor asks the questions I think many of you want to know the answers to. The doors are open, but is everyone rushing through the gates? And if not? Why? This is a totally different show. As I am the guest, not the host on the ComebaCK Podcast and this is what we call a Podswap. Essentially this allows me to share his show with you, on my channel. Conor Kelly, the host and ambitious podcaster of his own show ‘ComebaCK’ generously invited me to come on his show to talk about my thoughts on the future of travel in Vietnam and the ‘What About Vietnam’ podcast. Of course, I was delighted to do this, as it gave me a chance to share my journey with Vietnam from over 15 years working in the travel industry, talking with Vietnam travel organisations, industry boards and chambers, and travelling back and forth. Conor and I got down to business very quickly and settled into a hearty discussion on my personal history with travel in Vietnam as far back as 2007, and how I am tracking Vietnam’s comeback!! Great name for a Podcast, Conor Kelly. So here you have it - Ep #371 ComebaCK To make it easy- Some of the subjects we covered are here:- 00:02:34 – Kerry’s first visit to Vietnam 2007 00:08:33 – The travel boom 2019 to now 00:10:13 – When Covid hit 2020 – Kerry’s reaction 00:14:48 – Keeping tabs on Vietnam during Covid 00:18:16 – The launch of ‘ What About Vietnam’ 00:20:21 – What’s trending on the show 00:29:54 – Tourism forecasting beyond May 2022 00:36:01 – Over-tourism to sustainable tourism 00:37:27 – Hidden gems needing more promotion 00:42:54 – Managing over- tourism – some ideas 00:46:35 – Crystal ball – 2022,23,24 travel trends 00:48:45 – Sustainable tourism opportunities 00:51:35 – Is Podcasting a good platform to inform people on travel in Vietnam? 00:56:01 – How to access Kerry and What about Vietnam If you prefer to read please check out the Transcript on the www.whataboutvietnam.com website. Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

9d1abf46-8039-4709-ab25-207ac4f01231Ha Giang Loop adventure, Vietnam's final frontier The Ha Giang Loop - Vietnams final frontier Episode 5 S3-05 Ha Giang Loop 00:00 / 30:17 In this episode we take you to the Ha Giang Loop - with my guest - Tom Stone. “The Ha Giang Loop”, as it is referred to on many a travel website and Instagram page is a region of approximately 350Km located in north Vietnam. About 5 hours drive or 300kms from Hanoi. It is commonly referred to as a bike riders paradise. One of the most photographed scenery of the whole loop, is the Ma Pi Leng Pass which links the towns of Dong Van and Meo Vac, and is carved into the side of the mountains. My guest Tom Stone, who now lives in the main town says “If you are prepared to make the journey”, you won’t be disappointed.” Tom has been running tours in the Ha Giang region for nearly 12 years. Find out :- - What to expect on “The loop” - Forms of transport - Best times of year to travel - Considerations when booking a tour - Accommodation misconceptions Its a big episode talking about a big area ….definitely worth checking out. Download Transcript PDF Read transcript

02ac6bda-343e-4b58-9776-faed892cffd7Inspired by love, Vietnam is an idyllic wedding destination Vietnam the perfect wedding destination Episode 8 Vietnam the perfect wedding destination 00:00 / 29:57 Despite Covid, brides and grooms are invited to hold out for their dream wedding and consider Vietnam in 2021 /22 as the perfect location. In this episode, I speak with Nadine Zeigeldorf, a wedding planner who elaborates on the kinds of things a wedding program can include to make the event incredibly special. Imagine a beautiful sunset and beach wedding. Fabulous tasty food. Chilled long stem glasses overflowing with bubbly served to you while curling your toes in the sand. After listening to this episode you will find yourself easily transported mentally into the romanticism of a 16th-century old town, or atop a mountain staring aimlessly at the amazing views of a Unesco World Heritage bay. Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

65dfbab5-85d9-46bf-b803-c8167282dec0Discover and mastermind your Vietnam experiences Mastermind your best Vietnam experience Episode 18 Mastermind your best Vietnam experience 00:00 / 39:34 How to pre-plan so it meets your expectations. How can you get everyone on board, and savour the anticipation of going there, even though you may not know when that will be!! It's tricky, but not impossible to do, as you will find out. I am delighted to have Kerstin Pilz on the show, a TED X speaker, published author and former academic with almost 20 years of university teaching experience. A wellbeing coach who runs her own online business and writing retreats in Australia & Hoi An, Vietnam; Kerstin discusses some of the benefits of journaling or writing, …..as a form of research to tease out those things that will make your trip fantastic. Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

3f0e6c92-f3f3-4950-8fa3-5b1ae46c7755Five golden rules on getting the best accommodation What About Vietnam - Series 1 - 5 What are the best forms of accommodation in Vietnam? What is a Homestay? How long should I stay in each place? When looking for accommodation in Vietnam I want to offer you some rules to follow - to ensure you get the type of stay, and value for money you want:- · Always check the location and proximity to city centre or places of interest - Hanoi best to be near Hoem Kiem lake in the old quarter - Hoem Kiem lake · Hoi An - walk to old town or at the beach. · Either is ideal but if it says 2-4 kms away, that’s too far. Less than 1 km is ideal. · In Hoi An - I have been known to move from a hotel because it was falsely described as close to a particular area I wanted to be. Being stuck out somewhere too far away can be annoying and when you know you don’t have to pay that much more to be closer why put up with it. · Always check size of room. 15- 20sqm is very small. For a middle size room for 2 people start at 25sqm. I never go for less and possibly I’ll go for 30 for a long stay. · Check it has a window. Some people may find no window claustrophobic. I know I would. · Check any mention in reviews about construction noise and cleanliness. This is very important. Roosters crowing and being close to city centre noise often can’t be avoided, but cleanliness can. · Check if it has a 24 hour manned front desk. Or if not make sure you have communicated with someone who can let you in that speaks English. I have had a flight delayed and cab couldn’t find location and no one understood where the new bungalow was, I was trying to find. It took the driver getting his mate to drive to us who spoke English to get the info and then him to wake up the guy sleeping on the floor, to let me in. When you are tired and just want to get settled, it’s the last thing you want to happen. One thing about Vietnam. It has lots of tiny streets, alleys, battle axe blocks and some roads are not accessible by car, so be sure,……. prior to arrival, you save as a screen shot the map location and full address on your phone. Based on the fact you may not have a sim card so cannot access Google maps, to get details to find your hotel. You may also want to think about the level of stay you want…. prior to booking. Let me explain values and gradings so you know what I mean. Let’s talk 2 star - These are most likely best suited to budget travellers or long stay persons, as their facilities certainly in cities, may not be at a standard acceptable in western societies. However, in outer regions you can get great value. Mostly will be homestays and it will feel like you are part of the family. You can only go by the reviews in these cases. 3 star - These are the ones which are hard to make a general statement about. I have had the fortune to stay at some amazing places that are classified as 3 star because their facilities fall short of the grading system. So don’t dismiss them so easily as I stayed in a very cute place in Can To, that was absolutely divine with a rustic charm you just wouldnt get anywhere else. Furniture made by local woodcarvers, ….room had an outdoor shower, beautiful beds with mosquito nets draped over them…. snuggled into a hidden location close to the Mekong river, but it only had one thing on the menu. A dog would walk me to my door each night after a few beers. It was a very authentic experience and that’s where Vietnam is great, as you can mix up your stay with these kinds of accommodation options. You can make your next stop a 5 star resort if you like. 4 star - Hotels, are very popular in Vietnam. There was a shortage about 5 years ago, but now this gap is well and truly filled with very nice hotels starting from around $40USD. From anywhere up from there, the only difference you are paying for is location. You will pay more in this category the closer you get to the city centre. If you are prepared to take taxis to everywhere, then you will get great value, but you may make up the cost in taxis, so give it some thought. In Hanoi especially, in the Old Quarter you can get some great 4 star Boutique hotels with rooftop pools. With the only thing being it may be noisy with street nois, so just ask for a room at a higher level. Its worth it, to be in a nice place and close to the action and have access to boutiques, and restaurants in easy walking distance. Plus the lake is divine at sunrise and sunset. On weekends they shut off the streets to traffic and people dance and walk around it as the sun goes down. 5 star - In this category, you will get all your famous brands, massive land areas, mostly out of town, mostly close to beaches unless you are in district 1 of HCMC, where they go UP instead of out. Typically the prices are conform to their brand. You can however find a few brands that may not be well known to you, these may be owned by Chinese or Koreans and therefore they may typically be the predominant guests. Which is fine, it will just influence the food and style of accommodation to suit. Homestays - Is a unique kind of accommodation, that began with humble kinds of expectation where a family had extra rooms they would rent out and bring the guests into their family for meals and help them with their travel plans. These still exist, but they are dying out sadly. They tend to exist in more remote regions like the Hills districts in the north and places like Sapa. Due to the fact you get what you get, as in don’t winge about the bed bugs, they are cheap. Guest houses - these have kind of morphed into a version of a Homestay and a Homestay has kind of morphed into a boutique kind of Pension or bed and breakfast…..The kind of place run by a family. Often they are just like over sized homes with lots of bedrooms - all upstairs. And more stairs…. Some now have pools as owners have seen that a pool draws customers. So before you know it, you might think you are booking a homestay, when in reality its a small hotel, and there is no family cooking meals at all, they have a kitchen and you can help yourself to teas and snacks. Read the fine print with your bookings to make sure you aren’t disappointed. Or check with your travel agent. Vietnam has never really cottoned onto the Villa concept like places like Bali or Cancun for example. They do exist, but to me the ones I have seen don’t quite hit the mark as they don’t tend to be self-contained. Just big rooms opening out to pools or lush grounds or paddies. But knowing Vietnam that could change moving forward, especially as we travel post the Covid-19 Pandemic. Accommodations that offer self-isolation of a kind as in self-contained may be the preferred small group or family stay. Lets stay tuned for that one. Airbnb - Once Airbnb got a foothold in Vietnam. It went crazy. There are lots, especially in the private room category. They offer very good rates for long stays. These are your best bet if you want some kind of self-contained option with some cooking and refrigeration options to eat in. Not many will offer car parking and there is a reason for that, as they don’t expect you to drive yourself in a motor vehicle. If you do decide to hire a bike they will have a safe parking area for bikes. Your host, or hotel staff can arrange almost anything. I was staying in a hotel one time in Hoi An. I was bringing the girls I sponsor into Hoi An for a visit, and a swim. The hotel agreed on the basis they had swimmers. To my dismay, both girls had never been in a swimming pool nor did they own a swimming costume. So I asked one of the girls at the fornt desk to help. The next thing I knew I was on the back of a girls bike and we were off to a shop to buy the swimmers based on the fact I would guess their sizes before they arrived. The story has a happy ending it that the swimmers fit perfectly, but the girls were terrified of the pool, so we sat in the baby pool end and had a lovely day together. So, dont; be afraid to ask. In Vietnam, anything is possible. Finally a couple of things, that go as a pretty standard practice. · Handing in your passport at reception. Usually, they will keep it as by law they need to. Don’t worry you will get it back when you pay the bill, some take a photocopy and give it back to you straight away. · Most places include breakfast · Not all hotels have lifts - so if you have lots of luggage and you are a big group, you may want to check before booking. · Camping and camp sites are not common, you can do it mostly in National Parks, but don’t expect to check into a Caravan park or log cabin stye of place with all mod cons and plug in electricity. NOT available I am afraid. · You might like to check out a guy who does a lot of this style of accommodation as he gets about on a bike, called The Rusty Compass. I’ll put his contact link in my notes. He’s got the best tips and maps to help you if this is your gig. So as your trip planning starts to crystallize the biggest question you are going to have to ask yourself is what will your length of stay be in total. I have seen people say, its only a small place so we only need a night here and a night there, but by the time they have flown from where ever...into Hanoi or HCMC, settled in to their hotel, their one night has not afforded them any time to explore the region and truly immerse yourself in the local culture. It can really taint your view of a location by being tired, or rushed or exhausted from heat due to trying to fit too much into a day. Please if you do one thing from my podcast, think carefully about how long in each place, as it will impact your enjoyment factors. If I may, Id like to share with you some recommendations for main city locations. Hanoi - min 2- 3 nights which includes the night you arrive, and dependant on if you want to take a day tour to Ninh Binh, which is 4 hours from Hanoi. Something you will want to do. HCMC - 1 - 2 nights - Halong Bay - 1.5 overnight stay Hoi An - 5 nights - as a place to relax and so much to do and best done at a relaxed pace Danang - 1 night plus Nha Trang - 2 nights Dalat - 3 nights Sapa - 2 nights min Hue - 1 night Phu Quoc - 2-3 nights relaxation. Flop and drop. Please use this as a guide, it really all depends on how you are going to get around, train plane or automobile?? Activities take time, they eat up days...the heat adds another level of exchaution and you can fund tourself in bed early after a morning climbing Marble mountain ro visiting the Golden hand at Ba Na hills. Time flies, trust me.. My last piece of advice here is:- afford yourself more time, in less places. And come back another time. So in wrapping up this session, covering _ booking accommodation. There are of course many ways to book, online, via travel agent or direct. With the advent of Online TA’s like agoda etc, booking.com etc, sometime going direct is not the cheapest option, but sometimes you can get extra value built into your price so always check both options. I know one hotel in HCMC that is now my stock standard favourite include airport pick up free if you stay 2 nights. You don’t’ get that through Booking.com and its same price. So there are deals to be had. Please check with the Episode notes for any links mentioned and feel free to contact me anytime. I look forward to paving the way for you to have a magical time in Vietnam as I share more trip planning tips over future episodes ... ….stay tuned for more to come in the super 6 series, What about Vietnam – traveller Insights Thanks for listening.

S4-08 Travel Addict podswap Sorry no transcript for this episode

S5-21 - Vietnam's TET holiday S5-E21 Vietnam's Tet Holiday: Preparation and Tips for Tourists Kerry Newsome : Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. My name is Kerry Newsome and I am your host. I added that last bit to include my name as the host as I forget from time to time that you may be listening for the first time and that's kind of important that I make that distinction that I do host this podcast and I have been hosting it for coming up to five years in May 2025. So welcome to the podcast for everyone that's new. I hope you enjoy the shows that I put together over the last four and a bit years and hope to do many more in the future. For those that continue to support and subscribe and follow me through my social pages and through the show, send me feedback. Oh my gosh, I could go on. Just how rewarding it's been to work with you, to help you in your trip planning, inspire you with ideas of things to do, introduce you to places and experiences that I hope will really enrich your trip. And for those that I get to actually manage and put your whole trip together, Another big thank you for, you know, giving me that opportunity to bring that holiday to your experience in life and introduce you to Vietnam. But today we're talking about Tet and I wanted to put together just a really short and sharp detail on Tet to prepare you in the case that you are traveling to Vietnam during that Tet period. Now, for those of you who understand the Lunar New Year calendar, you're going to know very clearly that it differs from year to year. So, it's important that you have a look at the calendar for each year to differentiate it so that you understand the actual days that it falls, and that'll help you also understand what the lunar New Year's Eve will be and also what the New Year's Day will be. And that's kind of only part of the story. So, I've got eight tips in this show, but I just thought I'd lead with some of the most common questions that come up for people when they're thinking about Tet and, you know, just generally what you need to be prepared for. Firstly, it's kind of important that you get a grip on, it's not just a day or a couple of days like we have traditionally in the West for our New Year's Eve and our New Year's Day, or our Christmas Day, and that kind of holiday period. It's not like that at all. It is the biggest holiday in Vietnam, bar none. everybody gears up for Tet and for Vietnamese it is so special because they know it is their entitlement to have this holiday and they treat it with such reverence and respect and you know for many the The time they spend with family, the efforts that they go to to reconnect and to connect with people that are special in their lives is just, it's just tantamount to just so special. I've only experienced two Tets in Vietnam, both very different, but I didn't lose the main message, which is it's all about them. It's not about us as a tourist. And I think it's really important you get that firmly placed in your mind that going to Vietnam and traveling around in this period is taking into consideration that for Vietnamese, it is their main holiday and it is a minimum of nine days. So that would start from the day before New Year's Day. So, whatever date it falls on, count back the day before to get your New Year's Eve and then work about nine days. What you will find is that for some people, they will tend to take an extended break depending on what they can negotiate with their employers. And because employers understand the reverence of this period of time. And they also take into consideration that for many people, they're going to be leaving their city jobs and they're going to be traveling to, you know, possibly regions where they came from, which are far and wide. So, you're going to see lots of movement and I'm going to talk about that in my eight tips coming up. But be aware that there is a lot of movement around this time and gearing up for this time so people can be with their families to celebrate and to enjoy time together. So, work on about nine days from New Year's Eve. Now, the next question that comes up is, is it a good time to travel for a tourist? For us mere mortals that decide to visit Vietnam in this period of time. Personally, I have found the lead up to Tet more exciting, more vibrant in atmosphere. It's kind of contagious that you can feel that fever, you can see the colors of the flowers everywhere as people are cleaning their homes, preparing their homes, and getting really geared up to celebrate cooking up and doing all that stuff. So that once actually, you know, it hits, it goes very quiet. It just goes very quiet. And there will be very limited places that are open. And those that are open are usually with staff that either couldn't arrange, couldn't afford, just couldn't make it happen to travel. back to their families, so you've got kind of that skeleton staff. Maybe they've negotiated with their employer, you know, to earn some extra money during that time if they stay open. But by and large, in most cities, you're going to find a very fragmented level of openings. And all your major attractions, major restaurants, etc., are going to be closed. So, back to the question, is it a good time for you as a tourist to visit Vietnam? I think armed with that information, you can make your decision. I have experienced both TETs in two different cities. And yes, I did find the quietness difficult in the sense of unsure about what I could do. But, you know, if you're staying in a hotel, you can take advantage of the hotel facilities and really the best thing to do is to just take a big chill pill, to really chillax, take advantage of that luxury, go for walks on the beach, maybe use it yourself to take some time out to, you know, revisit some things that you'd like to do personally and set up for the year ahead. So I'll leave that one with you now that you're armed with that information. and secondly with my eight tips. The other question that comes up is about what's open and what's not. I can't really be definitive about that. People ask is Hoi An city closed? Well, the answer to that is no, it's not. There are lots of places within the Hoi An Old Town that will be, probably the majority, and from my experience, that's a bit hit and miss. I've often asked people to maybe check on the establishment's Facebook page to see if they have advertised their opening times. But just be aware that it'll be operating at lesser than normal opening times than what you would normally expect. Now, for each year also, people ask what the animal is going to be for the year ahead, because that also holds significance for all those that understand and appreciate the Chinese zodiac. So, say for example, 2025 is going to be the year of the snake. And with that comes some aspects of the snake as a zodiac animal, and inferences as what you can expect in the year ahead could be things like, you know, rebirth, intuition, and resilience. So it would be a year ahead for you to, you know, maybe be encouraged to do some deep thinking, maybe work on some personal growth. So there'll be, you know, and you'll be able to search all over Google to find everything to do with what the year ahead and the year ahead's animal dictates for you. So I just wanted to give you just that quick snapshot of just the, you know, the top questions that come up for Ted. As I said, I've got eight really top tips that are generic for every year. And I really encourage you to do your preparation and check those dates every year, especially around January and February, which is usually where the dates will fall. But where they fall each year, you know, there's calendars out there. to show you that for each year coming up. So, enjoy everyone. This is the last show for 2024. I'll be back in 2025, late January. I wanted to take this last opportunity to say a very big thank you for being my wonderful listening audience, for your feedback again. I wish you happiness, I wish you safety, I wish you travels to far and wide places that that bring you happiness and joy and experiences that will last you a lifetime. All the very best and I will see you in 2025. 8 tips for travelers in Vietnam during Tet. Number one, buy your travel tickets in advance and make sure when you're booking especially with things like flights, et cetera, that you do get your seat numbers and your allocations. Number two, be early at the airport or bus station or train station. I can't stress enough the need to be a bit of ahead of the game and be prepared for long queues. Number three, make sure you bring all of your travel documentation with you, confirming all your travel arrangements. Number four, don't expect too much activity once the day, the New Year's Day falls. There's a lot of lead up. I personally think that the lead up to Tet is the most exciting. There's just such a vibe in the air. There's an atmosphere. You'll see these beautiful kumquat trees, peach blossoms, and they will be lining the streets of your cities and your localities that you visit leading up to Tet. Number five, I really would like you to make sure that you check in with your hotel or your homestay about what services they are operating, you know, for meals and just, you know, things like laundry or just what eateries are going to be open on those national holidays in particular. may extend to things like, you know, your spa center, the gyms, anything that is depicted in your booking that is the standard may not be fully operational during the Tet season and in particular on the public holidays. And as I said, be prepared that in each area, in each location, and in each facility or hotel or homestay, they will make their own decisions based on their staff and their ability to accommodate you. They will make their own call on what's available. So be prepared to contact your homestay or contact your hotel ahead of your visit, well ahead of your visit, maybe even two or three weeks or a month ahead to ask them what their plan is during Tet as you will be arriving or you may be staying during that time and ask them to give you some clarification. Opps I forgot Number six.. Please forgive me. Number seven is around expectation of restaurants food quality, freshness and the extension of the menus. One thing I did find was a little bit of a warning from people that because of the movement of people that their standard suppliers may not be in full operational capacity. So their ability to get fresh food in and in particular, you know, seafood and things like that. So they sort of cautioned me to be careful about what I selected to see that the restaurants would probably be offering a much condensed menu and it would be built around what they felt they were most confident in offering. In managing this, you're going to have to read the play yourselves when you are out and about. You're going to kind of have to get your confidence from seeing how many people are in the restaurants, just how much staff they look like they're having on board. and use your common sense where you can to decide where to eat. Lastly is to make sure you've got enough cash. So my number eight tip is understanding that in the element of closures and organizations that close will be banks. Banks that also fill out the teller machines, etc. that are you know, quite prevalent in Vietnam. So making sure that you've got enough cash with you to get around, buy taxis, do whatever, I think is very important. So once again, I'm saying being prepared is the way to go. So I hope you found these tips helpful. And I'm going to just finish off by talking about what's possible in Vietnam post Tet. So once Tet is finished, there's a time where people are enjoying the opportunity to catch up with friends and family, and even reaching out to teachers and other principal people in their community that they want to pay respects for. I think you'll find that as Tet finishes, you'll see just a rejuvenation of the location that you're in. And, you know, expressing your gratitude to the people that you're meeting and mixing with, sharing with them some of the favorite foods, the Cheung cake in the north, the Tet cake in the south, are making sure that you express the special greetings that come with Chuc Nam Hoi is very appreciative of the Vietnamese. They will love that you have taken the time to understand a little bit about what Tet is about and that you recognize the importance for them, that you're respectful of their time to do this, their dedication to this, and I think you're going to really see a little bit about what the depth of Vietnam is in their cultural traditions and how beautiful they are. I'm going to put a few links in the show notes to help guide you with this. Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any further questions and I'm more than happy to help you. If you are trip planning, in the coming years. Please note those dates for Ted. And now that you have this information, I'm hoping that you'll decide whether or not, you know, it is for you to travel in this time period that it It suits you to do so or not. And as I said, it's really up to the individual to decide how they want to play it. For me, I tend to travel usually before Tet or after Tet so that I give the people their due in having Tet because it's really not about us as tourists, in my opinion. It's really about the Vietnamese themselves and giving respect to them for that time. So take that on board, use it as you can and how you will in the future for your trip planning. And I hope you're going to have a wonderful time. That's all we have for today. I look forward to bringing you more travel stories and insights into traveling to Vietnam in future programs.

S4-07 Hue the city Past Present Future What About Vietnam – S4-07 Hué the city – past, present and future Kerry Newsome: 00:18 Xin Chào and welcome to “ What About Vietnam !” I'm really thrilled to bring you today's program, because we're going to be talking about a city, which I've wanted to talk about on this show for quite some time. But it's taken me a little while to find the right person, and to really do it justice. Now, the city is steeped in history. From the French occupancy through to what they refer to as the American war. So just to give you a little bit of background, Huế actually was the capital city of Vietnam for about 150 years, during 1802 to 1945, which, when you think about it, wasn't that long ago. It is very well known for its imperial Citadel, Royal mausoleums, and iconic pagodas. But what you don't get a real feel for until you've spoken to someone who's seen it and has really done a circumference of the city, having lived there, is some of the relics of that past and some of the wartime scars that still exist in those relics. 01:52 Anders Krystad is my guest on the show today, and what makes Anders special is that he's written a travel guidebook about Huế and did this just prior to COVID. And after reading it, I just knew he was the right person to be able to present Huế to you in the correct manner of respect that I wanted to give it. And also, to give you some rich detail. So just some things about the river. Some things about the food, which, whilst we've known for quite a long time, that Huế is right up there on the totem pole, as far as food, I didn't really understand why. But after this podcast, you're going to know why. And just some bits and pieces about accommodation, and the variables that are available to you. He's just got so much to share. 02:49 I just want to fill in a little bit of his background. He's former director of the project Football For All in Vietnam. And he did that between 2001 in 2016, retired in 2018, but obviously not one to sit idle. He contracts now to the project part time. In addition, he set up his own consultancy company, and is involved with a football club for kids, a not for profit grassroots club. I hope you're going to enjoy the program, stick with it as it's a beefy one. It's got lots of elements to it. So, use your timestamps. If you want to click through to certain aspects that you think you're most interested in, you'll definitely want to spend more than, one or two nights in Huế after you hear from Anders, what he has to say. And I just hope you really enjoy the show as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Let's say hello to Anders. 03:53 You're going to go to a short message and then we'll be back to the show. 04:03 Special Offers – by What About Vietnam Just before we jump into our chat with Anders, I thought I would just give you a quick snapshot of two offers that we have just put up on the What About Vietnam podcast website. One offer is called the Nurturing Indulgence Package . And the other is called the Immersive Indulgence package . Now the reason I wanted to tell you about them in this show is that they are at the Alba Wellness Retreat , just outside of Huế. So, I thought well if you want to go to Hue and then you'd like to experience a wellness day spa, then you can jump on these offers as they're only 40 minutes away from you, from the main city. The team at the Wellness Retreat of Alba are just so switched on, and I'm privileged because they allowed me to have a say in what we put together and I wanted to put something together, that would mean that you could go there and you could enjoy all of the facilities that they have, including talking nutrition, meditation and yoga. 05:11 They've got a natural spring pool, walks, beautiful ambience, the area is just divine, but you're going to get the good advice as well. It's an eco-resort, so you're going to feel in a really good space. And just the fact that they allowed me the opportunity, to put it all together, so that you can go there and take advantage of it all, as you see fit. As I said, two offers, one is nurturing. So, it's a two night stay. And one is the Immersive and it's a 4 night stay. Absolutely reasonably priced. It's not over the top, but it is actually over the top in the experience. So, I've sent lots of people there, they've all raved about it. So, I hope you'll enjoy it. And please, if you've got any questions, just reach out to me at the website. WhatAboutVietnam.com. But without further ado, let's get back to the show. 06:11 Anders, welcome to the "What About Vietnam podcast", I'm really keen to talk to you about Huế. A city certainly entrenched in imperial and wartime history. Welcome to the show. Anders Krystad: 06:27 Thanks a lot. It's a pleasure being here. Kerry Newsome: 06:30 Let's start with the history and some of the history that relates to the architecture, some of the major attractions, some of the pagodas and monuments, etc. And maybe if you can talk to that, for my listeners, I think that would be really helpful. Just to give context. Anders Krystad: 06:50 Yeah, let me take you a little bit into the geography first, because Huế is on the plane, from the mountain range around it, and out to the sea, it's about 50 kilometers, maybe a little bit more. These are all-- that plane is made up by sediments from the mountains over millions of years. And in prehistoric time, there were already people here, hunters and gatherers, there, we found things that have been carbon dated for more than 50,000 years ago, so, people have been living here. Most of those people were, what we call ethnic minority groups today. The majority of the people in Vietnam being The Kinh, they're about 85% of the population. But they were living out on the plains in forests and have a lot of wildlife and fruit and an easy life. 07:52 Between four and 5000 years ago, the Kinh people, the Vietnamese came to the area. And once they started irrigating and doing the rice fields, all the wildlife went away. Meaning that these groups these tribes had to follow the animals and they went into the mountains. So, the French, called mountain people. And it wasn't necessarily a conflict between those who lived there before and the people who came after, but it certainly changed their life. And it's good to know that when you come here, this is not only about the last empire which lasted from 1802 to 1945. It goes much further back in history. “Montagnard” 08:45 The city itself, officially now there's 350,000 people living here, I would guess that number to be much higher, maybe around half a million people because there's a lot of people coming in from the rural areas to seek their fortune in the big city. And they don't report it. They don't tell the government that they've been moved from the rural areas to a city. But it still has a charming little, small-town appearance. And people in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh said that people are really lazy because they only work seven days a week. But there is a different atmosphere here than the one you find in Ho Chi Minh city or in Hanoi I think and that is one of the reasons I like it. 09:38 The river divides the city in two, so north of the river you will have the old citadel, which is the Old Town surrounding the Forbidden City, which was the home of the Emperor's, which again lasted for about 150 years. The placement of the Citadel and the Forbidden City was calculated based on two islands in the river. There was said dragons watching over the city. So, it's a lot of sanctuary and superstition about that. There are also previous, at least two previous citadels that are hundreds of years old, sorry, hundreds of years old. Because the Nguyen lords, they were here in the area already in 1600, in the 50s, when small town Huế was basically a trading town with especially the trade to towards China. Kerry Newsome: 10:49 So essentially, there is a Forbidden City as part of the city, as we know as Huế. So, there is like an old part, which is the Forbidden City where the Citadel resides, is that correct? Anders Krystad: 12:16 Yeah. And the whole of the Citadel has been surrounded by a great wall. And with moats in front of it, and also man-made canals on all sides, that water is actually also led into the Citadel and into the inner place in the Citadel, which is the Forbidden City. Kerry Newsome: 12:36 Right. And then apart from that, out of the Citadel is the- for one of a better word, the old town of Huế, is that right? Anders Krystad: 12:48 Yeah, and as I told you, a lot of it has been destroyed. There aren't many original houses left. If you compared to, for example Hội An, where they managed to save the whole Old time, we just have scattered all housings. And for the local people who live there, they want to tear it down and build something more than with a kitchen and a bathroom. And they're not allowed to. But they neglect the maintenance, hoping that it will fall down one day. So, we need to step up, we need to protect these treasures from history. Kerry Newsome: 13:22 Yeah. And I think for people coming, I wanted to really distinguish that. So, everyone listening to when you arrive in a Huế you've got a split the township, I guess, into two, as in the Citadel, with the moats in there, and all the rest of it, that is the once Forbidden City. And then there is the old town which unfortunately due to, as you said, the war with the French and the so-called American war, it has been, I guess, existing in a state of disrepair since that time. Now if you were to pick out some individual places, in the Citadel, it's fairly obvious, but are there any particular pagodas or monuments that you think are standout that people should definitely visit? Anders Krystad: 14:21 From the Ming Nguyen Dynasty’s period, all the Emperors are buried here in Huế except the last one, Bao Dai, he is buried in Paris. And all the graves are seen as national relics, and they're recognized by UNICEF, of course. But they are very different. Some of them are huge parks and grand buildings, some of them have been totally destroyed or neglected for a period of time which has made them into ruins. They are being restored but they are at least three that you have to see. And that is Tu Duc, which was the Emperor when the French came. And then you have Minh Mạng , which is kind of replica of the Forbidden City in Beijing, it looks very similar but on a much smaller scale. 15:28 So, if you at least spend the day to see those three, and the Thien Mu Pagoda . The Thien Mu Pagoda is a very important pagoda. It was built also to reflect the status of the Emperors in the Forbidden City, but it's on the riverbank about three kilometers to the east. There is a story about the Thien Mu Pagoda, that couples shouldn't go there, because there was a young couple that weren't allowed to marry. They were forced to marry someone else they didn't love, and they attempted to drown themselves close to that pagoda, and one of them survived and the other one died, and most Vietnamese will believe that, so they will- you will not go with your boyfriend or your husband or your girlfriend. Kerry Newsome: 16:21 Right? Is that because you're afraid one or the other is going to jump ship or... Anders Krystad: 16:27 It's bad news. It's bad luck. And yeah, you've been to Vietnam a lot. You know that that superstition about bad luck? Kerry Newsome: 16:34 Absolutely. They take that as gospel. Absolutely. 16:46 Can you talk to us, Anders, about the...? They refer to it as the 'Perfume River' is that right? Anders Krystad: 16:53 If you translate it directly from Vietnamese, it means "The river of good smell ". So Hương isn't only for perfume or fragrance, it's also good smell. And it's a quite common girls' name. There's a lot of girls who are called Hương, because the parents thought they smelled nice when they were born. Kerry Newsome: 17:15 Right, I know a couple of Hươngs, I'm now going to remember that. I didn't know that before. But I do know a couple. Anders Krystad: 17:25 Girl's name in Vietnamese like a little poem. Like Về Thu Hương: Thi Thu Huong, Về Thu Hương means the girl or the one that goes to the market. Autumn, smells good. So, it's a girl that is born in the autumn and smells good. So that is quite normal with girls' names here. 17:43 The river: When it comes to Huế because this isn't that long, it comes from the mountains just some 20 kilometers inland. But it's quite majestic when it comes to the Huế city and it leaves out travels further or like 13, 14 kilometers before it hits the sea. And it used to be a lot of commerce traffic on the river bringing goods. But with the sediments increasing over the hundreds of years, the river became too shallow, and you can't bring big boats in there now at all. There is only these small tourist boats and it's a very nice way to see the river especially in the sunset, to go on the dragon boats bring some food and drinks and even if you can't afford it, rent some musicians that do the traditional music, put out the handmade lotuses with a candle to think about the people who have died on the river. It's a river that is in every Huế person's, how do you say, it's fear. They when they think about the Huế, they think about the Sông Hương, the good smelling river. The smell originally came from a grass that used to grow up on the riverbed. But that is practically distinct now because of pollution, pollution from agriculture, from sewage. Unfortunately, the grass is gone but it's kept in some private ponds so you can still actually go and smell it some places around Huế. Kerry Newsome: 19:32 Does it have a fragrance? Anders Krystad: 19:35 Absolutely. It smells good, Kerry Newsome: 19:36 Right? Can you relate it to any other smells just so that people know, "Yes, this is what he mentioned on the show.” So that when you go there like does it- Is it like licorice or is it like coriander or...? Anders Krystad: 19:52 I don't know how to describe the smell, but it's pleasant. It's good and It's not like a woman who's been sloppy with applying a lot of perfume and it's too much. It's not like that at all. It's very pleasant and soft smell. Kerry Newsome: 20:13 Right. But it's not like a spice or anything. Anders Krystad: 20:16 No, no, it's not. It's not like distinct like lemongrass or anything like that. Kerry Newsome: 20:23 Yes, that's what I meant. Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at. But it's a pleasant smell. So, you know, you're there in that pond. Once you smell that, yeah. Anders Krystad: 20:33 And they say that, this actually affected the whole city, before I was in there. So, I can't vouch for that. But it's a good thought anyway, the river has been cleaned up, it's pretty safe to swim by now. And in the summer, you can. Kerry Newsome: 20:48 Really, oh, that I didn't know. Anders Krystad: 20:49 Yes you can go swimming there. It's also got a lot of fish. So, it's quite popular to fish along the river, fresh new pathways have been made along the river now all the way from the center, and all up to Thien Mu Pagoda. So, it's a beautiful evening walk, you will be joined by a lot of local people. Kerry Newsome: 21:15 And as if you were to stay in Huế, would you look to try and stay somewhere near the river? Or would you look to stay somewhere near the beach, which would be your preference and let's talk about one versus the other. Anders Krystad: 21:33 Okay, it depends on a little bit. I mean, if you really are a heat person, and you spend the whole day at the beach, you might as well live outside but there is not much done the beach and the seafood restaurants there's a couple of resorts, but I would say that stay in the New City or south of the river . But find a hotel that has got river view. There's plenty of hotels that have that, especially when the sunsets and you see all the lights over in the Citadel, you see the great flag tower on a sunny set. Kerry Newsome: 22:11 Very pretty. Anders Krystad: 22:12 Very, very pretty. Some of the hotels have like an open rooftop, with the bar and that's a perfect place for the sundown. Unless you travel a little bit up the river. There is a little mountain called Vong Canh mountain that has some old French and American bunkers on top of it. So, some people refer to it as Bunker Hill. And that is also a great place for sundown, and some of the tourist, agents they offer their Champagne. Kerry Newsome: 22:44 Oh, that sounds interesting. What do they call it? Bunker Hill? Anders Krystad: 22:47 Yeah, Bunker Hill on Vong Canh mountain. Kerry Newsome: 22:49 That's interesting. 22:50 So, let's move into another aspect that Huế is traditionally known for and that is its food. And I really want you to expand on this because you and I both talked, and we said we both love food and certainly Vietnamese food. So, talk to us about some of the dishes that people should look out for. So, when they're going to restaurants or they're looking for what to order on the menu. Can we suggest some must tries and talk about food? Anders Krystad: 23:35 Oh, absolutely. I think one of the reasons why the Huế is so diverse is because the Emperor demanded new dishes every day. So according to history, all the best chefs from the whole country were sent to create and invent for the Emperor. So, if you asked me about one signature dish, which will be one of the noodle soups, it's called Bún bò Huế, and you can eat it in different ways. It's a soft, rice noodle but with broth and of course the recipe for the broth is a family secret so you will never get anyone to tell us exactly in Huế. But you can have it with rare beef you can have it with boiled beef, you can have it with blobbed pudding. Personally, I like the rare beef. Kerry Newsome: 24:24 Rare beef, yep, me too. Anders Krystad: 24:25 Chicken is also okay. But there are hundreds of different local dishes and many of them are made from what we call wet cakes, which is mostly rice but this could also be cassava or a mix between cassava and rice. And they appear to be soft, medium thick layers of rice and it is wrapped around- it can be herbs with shrimp paste, it can be herbs with fried or grilled pork and there's a lot-- the common name for this cake is bánh. It means bread or cake. And my recommendation is not to go to the restaurant only based on the menu, but go and say- first of all, how many Vietnamese are there to eat? If it's packed, you're safe. If they don't have a menu, even better, because it means they have a very limited number of dishes. And it will all be fresh. The warning sign will be a restaurant that produces a menu with 100 pages, because that's simply mean- Kerry Newsome: 25:37 Laminated. Anders Krystad: 25:39 Copy fresh. It's not possible. If you go to-- Kerry Newsome: 25:44 That's a good tip Anders, which is really a very good tip. Anders Krystad: 25:47 I've been driving around when I've been traveling in Vietnam with Vietnamese, we are looking for a place to have lunch and I say what about that place? Now there's nobody there. We can't eat there; the food is not good. So even though I have never been there before. So, I recommend if you want to start one, you better hire your friends to sit there and eat every lunch. Kerry Newsome: 26:12 Don't I call that "Rent a crowd"? Yeah. Anders Krystad: 26:16 But some of them are really old, you can find them anything from like trolley in the street, to a little hole in the wall, to the small chairs, to go out for the Vietnamese, to socialize is part of the meaning of life. We have a wonderful little word for it. We say di náo, di nhau (to go or do “nhau”)- or meaning to go out, to eat, to drink, to talk, to tell stories, to sing, to drink some more, to eat some more and drink even more. And it can be pretty loud. And it can be pretty exciting, to-- Kerry Newsome: 26:54 Boisterous. Anders Krystad: 26:56 But I simply love it. And that little word 'náo' it covers everything that is present in our lives, socializing with family or friends. 27:05 On this plane, at the end of the plane before the sea, we have Southeast Asia's biggest lagoon, meaning that we have a lot of seafood, both from brackish water from the sea itself and from the river. And it's a magnitude of different fish and shellfish. The best restaurants will have aquariums where the fish is still alive. And you go and pick yourself. And just make sure that they take the one that you have picked and put it in the box. It might be tempting, for example, instead of that fresh lobster to give you an old one if you don't pay attention. Kerry Newsome: 27:49 Another good tip, make sure the one they pluck out of the water is the one they put in the pan. Yes, definitely, definitely. I know when I first started traveling and taking some people, etc., just for people to see them in the buckets. And that was a little bit confronting for some people because they couldn't see refrigeration and things like that. So, I think it was important to mention, and I wanted to kind of take time on that now is that they catch it literally in the early mornings. And they sell it during the day, pretty much, isn't it? And when they run out, they run out. Anders Krystad: 28:31 Yeah, absolutely. And actually, a lot of the fishing, especially in the sea goes on at night. The fisheries will come in early in the morning and there will be shippers waiting for them and they buy up the goods straight both from the fish farms and from the fishermen themselves and it's spread to the various markets, to the wet markets. And some of these also been sold on the sidewalk so it's today's product. If they, for some reason can't sell it, I think they find ways to utilize it for their own family and so on but even in my local market, when they sit down with this little bucket in front of them the fish is still alive, it's fresh, yes. 29:22 Hygiene is always an issue here, but I've been living here for more than 20 years now, and I've been sick twice, the risk is relatively low but use your head, clean your hand don't pick up anything from the floor or... Kerry Newsome: 29:37 It's just common sense mostly. I do know that some people do suffer with a bit of a tummy upset in the first few days of their visit. And a lot of that's just to do with I think some of the varieties of spices and the changes in the soil which the plants and In local produce is grown, that sometimes that's just a little bit richer than we're used to at home. You know, everything in our supermarkets here is kind of has been through several processes to get to us where, most of the food in Vietnam is extremely fresh, and especially in places like Huế and Hội An and townships, rather than big cities. Anders Krystad: 30:27 My family, they would never go to buy a fish in the afternoon, because that is already not fresh enough, they always go out in the morning, and then bring the fresh fish or the shellfish home. And most Huế people, they eat, lunch and dinner at home. So they go home at lunchtime, and they also take the rest after lunch. So, you will find that like, for example, banks and public buildings, they close hour and a half, maybe sometimes two hours in the middle of the day. So just get used to taking this. 31:09 On the other side, a lot of people go out for breakfast. So, it's quite common too, and I recommend any visitors, don't stay with the buffet in your hotel, go out and meet the people share the table and try to communicate, the level of English among most people in Huế is still quite low. But the young people love to chat. And they will seek you out and they want to sit with you. And they want to tell, and they want to share, and they want to learn. So, interaction through breakfast is actually a very good tip. Kerry Newsome: 31:44 Because traditional to Vietnam, as I've understood breakfast is actually more important than dinner. You know, where in Western societies where everybody kind of waits for, the dinner meal to be the main meal. I think because of the climate. Also, it's cooler in the mornings. So, getting early, and if you want to have Pho for breakfast, you've got to get to some places really early because it's gone by nine or 10 o'clock. So, I think breakfast is a meal. And you're right about the young people because they're studying English. So, for everyone, don't be afraid to sit down. And some of the students will come and talk to you because they just want to practice their English with you. And they just want to kind of share what they know, learn something about you. And it's just a really lovely exchange and I find it everywhere. And maybe because I travel a lot solo, maybe they take pity on me, and they go: "Oh! but talk to her. She's sitting, having her soup on her own." But yeah, I agree with you. I think mixing with the locals is extremely important. And it just adds another level of enjoyment to your stay. Anders Krystad: 33:06 When you stroll along the river here you are bound to meet some students who want to talk to you, and they offer to take you around to guide you and be your cue guides. They're not going to ask any money for that. They just want to practice their English and it's a lovely way to get in contact with the locals. And of course, if you happen to pass a wedding, and ongoing wedding, don't be shy to go in, that is seen as good luck. And you've been very welcome to sit down and drink and eat with the guests and weddings in Huế are big, if you don't have at least four or five hundred guests is laughing then it's-- Kerry Newsome: 33:46 And they're loud. Anders Krystad: 33:47 Yeah, a bit loud, because it's also involved terrible karaoke. Kerry Newsome: 33:52 Terrible karaoke. That is the only thing when I'm doing these podcasts. The only thing that's ever interfered with the show that I've recorded with anyone in Vietnam has been a wedding that decides to crank up next door. Like it's just so loud that you can't shut it out. Anders Krystad: 34:12 The problem is it only last for two and a half hours and then they're all gone. Kerry Newsome: 34:23 Can I move now to what time of year is a good time to visit Huế? because I think that's really important. Everyone wants to know, the best times of year. So, talk us through the climate and best weather and things to do. Anders Krystad: 34:40 Yeah, from the Central, Middle, and North. It's four seasons, basically follow the European cycle, not the Australian one, meaning that the autumn and winter can be really, really wet. Especially Huế and Da Nang and Hội An, we can have November, December, January, I'd be careful. You can still enjoy Huế. you can still do sightseeing, but it's raining and it's raining a lot, for a little bit better control now with the flooding, we haven't had serious flooding inside the city for a long time. The last really bad one was in 99, where hundreds of people died. And most families lost everything, books and photographs. I've tried to find some pictures of my wife's family, but it's all gone in the great flood of 99. Personally, I love the spring here because a lot of the trees with leaves, they keep their leaves during the winter. But when spring comes, they drop the leaves, and they are green again within a week or so. And that freshness in the new leaves is absolutely fantastic. Kerry Newsome: 35:06 So, we're talking February, March around that. And yeah, February, March, April, Anders Krystad: 36:03 February, April, it can start to get hot already in April. But normally that comes in the summers, in May, June, July can be up to 40 degrees centigrade, but-- Celsius, sorry, it's relatively dry heat. And we very often have a little shower in the afternoon that freshens up a little bit and make the temperature drop. But if you want to go swimming in the sea or swim in the river, the water is pretty cold. Until May. I hate cold water. I don't go and swim. Kerry Newsome: 36:40 Yeah, I can't do it either, no. Anders Krystad: 36:44 And also, if you go up in the mountains, we have a great national park here called Bạch Mã. And they have some beautiful little waterfalls and the palm, really postcard style, but the water is freezing cold. Even in the summer. This is really strange; we can get temperatures up to certain degrees in the sea. But up in the mountains is still like 10, 12, 14. Kerry Newsome: 37:16 Wanting to just address an abandoned park, it gets lots of images on Instagram and blah, blah, blah. So, we have to cover it off. So, is it Thuy Tien Lake? Anders Krystad: 37:33 That's a good question. Because I don't remember what it's called. Kerry Newsome: 37:37 You know the one I mean. Anders Krystad: 37:38 Yeah, it's a huge area. And it was set up to bring more tourists to Huế, and it completely failed. When it was still open. I was there with some friends, and we just went there for a picnic, bringing some blankets and food and beers and that was very popular among the local people. But it's quite far out of the city. And so, people prefer to go to somewhere closer to where they live. I wouldn't go there at night, it feels a little bit scary, some of those-- Kerry Newsome: 38:12 Bit creepy? Yeah. Anders Krystad: 38:14 But there are-- Kerry Newsome: 38:15 Apparently daytime, it's taken on a new life. Anders Krystad: 38:19 Yeah, and you're not supposed to go in there anymore. Because there are some plans now to restore it or do something else there. I'm not really sure what's going to happen there. But there is a back way in, that all the local people know about, and you take your motorbike, and you can go around the lake, it's a big area. My guess is that they will try maybe to put some more hotels and resorts in there. I'm not sure. Kerry Newsome: 38:46 It's about 49 hectares I read. Anders Krystad: 38:48 It's huge. Kerry Newsome: 38:50 If you can go with a Vietnamese guide, anyone who wants to go there, because the Vietnamese guide will then either find a way to get there without paying any fee. There isn't an actual fee, but sometimes a small fee paid to someone to look the other way to let you in is the way forward. 39:20 The train, now, I've got a couple of people who are keen to take the train to Huế and from Da Nang and do it through the Hai Van Pass. Can you talk to us a little bit about that because that's something that I'm going to do when I'm there in September this year. So, for some reason, I haven't got around to doing it. But I'd like to, if you could speak to that. Anders Krystad: 39:50 The line is quite old. It was constructed by the French so it's twisting and turning and there's a lot of tunnels. But at the same time, it's one of the most scenic routes that we have going from the Da Nang to Huế, or the other way around. So, it goes relatively low close to the sea while as you cross the paths on motorbikes, you go up over the pass. Kerry Newsome: 40:16 You're quite high. Yeah. Anders Krystad: 40:18 I always say to people, if you're going both ways, take motorbikes one way and take the train the other way, the trains are cheap, but slow. There's major repair works being done on the tunnels, basically every night to keep it running. So, of course, there are some ideas about high-speed trains in the future that will be built more inland, but this little part of the old railway should be kept. Because it's simply stunning, some of the beaches and the mountain itself.Hai Van Pass means the place where sea and sky meet, it's very often covered with fog on the top. And sometimes when you go to the top of the pasture or above the clouds so that is also well worth seeing. And I think Tokyo Top Gear has an episode where they drive a motorbike over the pass. I think they named it the "Best motorbike trip in the world". And it's very popular to do that. Do both if you can. Kerry Newsome: 41:25 It's just sometimes when you've got a family and you've got young children and things like that, I think the train is a great option. Because then you can be looking out of the window of the train. So daytime train is strongly recommended. 41:46 Just talk to us about accommodation, the styles of accommodation that are available in Huế for everyone. One end to the other. Anders Krystad: 41:54 I would say it's far too many hotels. It's been an over establishment and very quickly, COVID set that back of course it still does. There's still a lot of hotels that haven't reopened yet. Even you can travel freely. The “Homestay” has become a new industry in a very short time, but when they say homestay, when you come there, there's nobody living there. So, it's not a homestay. It's just an Airbnb flat. But that could be nice. I think position is important. Make sure that they have convenient connections to the city center and to the sides. You can find homestays and cheap hotels throughout the whole province. But you're not allowed to, as a visitor to for example, to go to Nam Dong and to all Huế, which are the border areas and stay the night without informing the police, because its border areas, ethnic minority areas, and you're supposed to have a permit to go there. So, anything from-- of course, we have a lot of "nhà ở nghi", which is a guesthouse or a motel, some of them rent out per hour, besides not only to sleep, but most Vietnamese they need two and three and four generations in the same house. So sometimes Mum and Dad would like a little privacy and they use the hotels for that. In Huế, there are hundreds, if not 1000s of that kind of establishments. So, there's a lot. Kerry Newsome: 43:28 So, these are, what you call them guesthouses. Right. I haven't heard that before. Okay. What's the Vietnamese name for it? Anders Krystad: 43:38 Nhà ở, which means house and ngi, N, G, I. They are very cheap and some of them are really nice, they have been kept clean and they are well serviced, but some others have cockroaches. So, you have a look before you book, I think. Yeah. And you have the Two Stars, Three Stars, Four Stars and Five Stars and you can-- we have a beautiful one by the riverbank which is called La Residance. It is this form of French- but now it's changed the name, Azerai La Residence , It is 100% article building that used to be the mansion for the French governor during the time of the French in Huế. But that is probably one of the most beautiful hotels that I've seen anywhere in Vietnam. They have a great pool there. They have a great terrace with the restaurant and it's quite central. If you want to go high end that is a good one. If you want to go for the view, you have The Imperial which is 16 floors high, you have the new Melia Vin pearl ., which is really, really modern. But half of the rooms are facing the wrong way. So, you can't see the river. So, I recommend you maybe if you want to stay a few days in Huế, book for one night first and then if you like it, you prolong your stay because we don't have a pressure yet from tourism. So, it's both negotiable and very easy. Kerry Newsome: 45:24 Last piece of advice for anyone coming to Huế. Anders Krystad: 45:28 One very clear advice, don't stay only one or two days, stay longer, we have so much to offer. I think the average just before COVID was that people stay 1.25 nights, meaning that it's nothing you just come and run around to see some of the sights and then you leave. It doesn't pay Huế justice to do that. It's the history. It's the ancient history. It's the imperial history. It's the modern history. The food, yeah. As I told you, there are hundreds of local dishes and there are some great food tours done by some of the locals So, planning a little bit more time. Or if you are the first-time tourists make the round trip and then have a plan B which is to come back. Kerry Newsome: 46:24 Do that as you say that run around and then come back and spend some luxury time taking your time, and to breathe it in and do that. I strongly recommend that too. Really thankful for you to be on the show. Hope to see you in Huế, later in the year. Anders Krystad: 46:41 Yeah, absolutely. You're welcome. I will see you there. Good luck with your show. Kerry Newsome: 46:47 Thank you very much. Anders Krystad: 46:48 Okay, bye.

09c8bf5a-9903-4573-9ce5-3306acfa70c2Discussing the broader challenges in travel planning What About Vietnam - Series 3 -16 - Traveling in Vietnam Part 3 Things NOT always in the tour program Kerry Newsome: 00:35 Xin Chào, and welcome to What about Vietnam. Time, as we know is always difficult when you're planning a holiday, you only get so many holidays a year, and trying to pack everything into a trip is always difficult. And with a country like Vietnam with so much to offer, I hope you're enjoying this series with Miquel as he shares with us just some of the things that we need to consider when we're doing that planning, even things just as simple as planning in jetlag. 01:08 Miquel Angel comes to the program, as you probably know by now, as Head of the Human Resources and Quality Working Group inside Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board, he has some great insights to share, we talk about and we kind of focus on, in this episode around the highlands. So that's in the north of Vietnam. And you could easily spend your 14 days if that's the only time you've got, just in Hanoi and around some certain areas close to Hanoi. We do also talk about Phú Quốc in this and that's very topical, coming up to its early opening to Vietnam in the next month or so. Please welcome Miquel to the show. 02:03 What are your thoughts about the Central Region? What would you package in the Central Region? Miquel Angel: 02:09 Well, that central region has a lot of potential there. And as we said before, I cannot put all these destinations in a 13 day program. Because the issue here in Vietnam is that it is so rich in terms of destinations, culture, food, minorities, and all this that make it impossible to put everything there. 02:32 So, in the central region, you have from Ho Chi Minh City there, of course you have Dalat, that's a beautiful French village, may have many meters above the sea level. That's where all the French, during the French colonial period here, were going as a retreat from hot Saigonese summer. So, there are there a lot of French-built villas and houses there. Actually, most of them are now turned into hotels. Some of them are really applying good sustainability principles there. 03:03 So, making five star hotel, Relacionado style inside one of these houses, where the emperor or the prince or whatever were living, in that French style, so, that is fantastic. In some of them, is absolutely beautiful experience with some outdoor heated swimming pool, because it gets a bit chilly during wintertime. But that's fantastic. In Dalat, you have a huge flower market, they export market flower to Europe, huge number of tulips that you find in the Netherlands are exported from here. Kerry Newsome: 03:39 Wow. And they have Everlasting Flowers, don't forget… Miquel Angel: 03:44 Absolutely. Kerry Newsome: 03:45 I didn’t know there was such a thing as everlasting flowers but there is. Miquel Angel: 03:47 In that area, you have also a lot of natural resources and cascades, waterfalls, areas where you can even swim there in a safety way. And you have also other beautiful areas in that zone like can be Kon Tum, for example, or [inaudible 04:06] which are the two, let's say the king and the queen of the coffee production in Vietnam. Because Vietnam is the second worldwide coffee producer after Brazil. 04:15 Many people don't know that the Vietnamese coffee is around the world. So, when you move from Dalat to any of these villages, you either choose, from Dalat you want to continue and go discovering Highlands, · Means elephant rides. · Means coffee plantation. · Means all the kinds of fruits and veggies · Means minorities living in that areas. · Means a spectacular 100% Budhmay churches. There is one in Kon Tum village for example. So, you continue on the highlands, you are bordering Laos. So, there is a mountain range going between Vietnam and Laos which is very steep. Kerry Newsome: 04:52 Beautiful scenery. Miquel Angel: 04:54 Amazing-- Instagram lovers and picture lovers and people that love to take a motorbike I can just see that ballets, that is amazing. Or either from Dalat, you drive down by car or by motorbike, if you are interested, that you would like to go there, down to Nha Trang, which is also in the central part of Vietnam. And there you have now big developments, big hotels on the beach, you can stay there and rest two days in the mountain to discover. And another two days to recover, from the elephant, right from the tracking you did. And you keep living and enjoying your trip in the central part of Vietnam. Kerry Newsome: 05:36 And I think the good point that you made about living, and because I see so many travelers of all ages, getting to the point that they are struggling, because they haven't taken into consideration, the heat, and the humidity, it's the humidity that just absolutely wrings you out. And if you're a Westerner like me, you're just not I mean-- Australia is hot. It can be, but not the same humidity. I think you're taking in lots of different experiences, and why would you want to consume them that fast that you can't have a minute spare to sit down and have a lovely piece of fruit or overlook a beautiful scenery. 06:27 So, in that central area, it's kind of interesting, isn't it? Because there's a few hot spots. You've got Hau Giang, Da Nang is now becoming a very big city. I mean, Da Nang used to be a place where, for me, it was like, okay, I went into that Da Nang, and then I went out of Da Nang. I never stayed in Da Nang. Miquel Angel: 06:51 But you should. Kerry Newsome: 06:53 Yeah, now I do. So, the country is evolving at such a rapid rate. I mean, I can remember also, I was talking the other day to someone about Phong Nha, another region that is coming very much on people's radar. And I said, "I want to wait to talk about Phong Nha. But I think what we have to do is, how long do you need in Phong Nha? Do you need one day, two days, three days four?" And the guy said, "To be honest, if you're flying into Phong Nha, you probably need three or four days minimum." 07:34 So, it is the thing that we get most out of this podcast for my listeners, I hope. Time is the thing to plan with this trip. And I think, everyone can Google and look up, especially trips that include a lot of these destinations. And I probably jump to the north very quickly in how long it takes to get to places. I mean, there's all those wonderful pictures of terraced rice fields and all the rest of it. And people say, "Oh, you know, how far is that from Hanoi?" And I go, "Oh, about 200 kilometers",…like, "Oh, that's nothing?" 08:19 Well, yes, it is. You'd need a day to get there and then a day to get back. And you probably need two to three days to get around to have a look at some of the ways the minority groups live. Because there's still a lot of traditional markets and blah, blah, blah, … And you're going to be tired walking up those terraces because you have to walk up some of them. Because guess what, there's just no steps and there's no paved roads and things like this. So, it's kind of chunking it down for people so that they can grasp what's achievable in the timeframe. And we hope and we want them to come back and do the next region as a separate trip. Miquel Angel: 09:03 Time is always in your hands. So having a destination I think from like Vietnam, so close. To say close from Australia because you are correct. So, it is relatively close. And now with the flight also, Europe also is getting close as of now. Middle East, many opening [crosstalk] are getting easier to arrive to the destination there. Yeah, so the only question is that you need to say "Okay, I have these two weeks now in 2022. Let's move next year. So, these two weeks, I'm going to do the highlands of Vietnam and the center." That's a fantastic choice. 09:45 You will probably still have areas to visit during that two weeks, if you choose the north or the south, the same. So, let's move to the north part of Vietnam. If you are landing in Hanoi, let's say you fly from whatever place in Australia, you arrive to Hanoi. So, you have options there not to be missed. 10:02 Me, I recommend, you arrive to Hanoi, and you control your first day, if you want to take a nap afterwards and-- you don't book anything on your first day of arrival, you just lay down in the hotel if you want to, doesn't matter if it is a five star hotel or whatever, or a one star hotel, doesn't matter. It will be noisier, probably the one star, but just take rest. And just walk around a bit there. And just- done. [crosstalk] correct, without any tour-guide, without anything there, let's say that you come by yourself, or you organize a trip, but you organize the rest of the days a bit too. So, in Hanoi, you can get lost easily. Kerry Newsome: 10:40 And have a lot of fun, I think getting lost is the best fun. Miquel Angel: 10:43 Just seeing that Vietnam is, I will say, quite safe in terms of walking around. And people. Kerry Newsome: 10:51 I've never felt any issues. Miquel Angel: 10:56 Correct. So, that's important, even for us living here. So don't go around just flashing your new iPhone 13, or your camera or whatever. But if you have a little bit of sense, and you keep things there normal, you can take a picture, whatever. But by yourself here in Hanoi, these two or three days, plenty of things depending on what you like. If you say "No, I'd like to stroll around the Old Quarter and see all these; the Bamboo Street, the Painting Street, the Wherever, you get lost there. 11:24 If you say you want to visit the Red River, nobody has time to visit the Red River, 600 kilometers, just coming from China all along the north-west part of Vietnam, next to the train. That's amazing. Nobody visits that. There is also one iron bridge that you can walk and cross the Red River, you cannot believe. I have some pictures of the last time I was there. I went to Long Beach just to walk up and down and take some pictures, when the train behind you, that's an amazing experience. No time, it is not in any program, you cannot put in there. Kerry Newsome: 12:05 I know what you are saying. So, I think we've actually got the message very clear that everybody needs to chunk it down. And as you say, · maybe do a Highlands one trip, · maybe do the South and the Mekong another, · maybe do the central area another and · maybe includes some tracking, some caving. All of that sort of stuff. People might want to do more of a cultural stay, or some people might just want to lie on the beach. I mean, there's 3200 kilometers of beach. 12:40 So, there's plenty of beach stays. With the Phú Quốc Island opening first. I think even that is just a good display to people about what is available in Vietnam. And see now when I went and visited that island, what I took away was pepper. I didn't realize that it grew the most amazing pepper. Miquel Angel: 13:06 You cannot visit, it is out of the program. No way. Kerry Newsome: 13:11 My company put it in the program, they said, "We need to go, and we need to see those pepper farmers." "Really?" The pepper was fantastic, it was amazing. Miquel Angel: 13:26 Here, in Phú Quốc Island, you can also include the-- now I am talking about islands, we have Côn Đảo, we have Chàm Islands, we have Phú Quốc there. A beautiful places to visit is the bee farms in Phú Quốc, that's amazing. You cannot believe, bee farms, making 100% natural honey… it is not in the program. We cannot do everything there. OUTRO 13:52 Thank you for listening. Check out the episode notes for more information. What About Vietnam. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review, and stay tuned for more fun adventures in Vietnam. What About Vietnam.

d59e28f5-0a3c-4568-9a04-64cd21ec51a6 A sun kissed paradise with amazing experiences. What About Vietnam - Series 3 -17 Mui Ne - Beach bliss, kitesurfing and sand dunes Kerry Newsome: 00:01 Xin Chào and welcome to What about Vietnam! 00:04 Ho! Ho! Ho! 00:06 Guess what? We are nearly there once again. I wanted to take this opportunity as we wrap up for 2021, to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I'm truly grateful to everyone that subscribes to the program, writes reviews, that pops in and send me messages that is really supportive of the program as it's a labor of love, I love doing it, and I get to meet some wonderful people as a result. 00:44 I am hoping that I'm going to see you in Vietnam in 2022. Things are looking very positive for that to happen, at least in the second quarter as a tourist with all the freedoms that we were accustomed to prior to the pandemic. 01:03 We're going to wrap up this year with a destination episode. 01:09 Our destination for today is "Mui Ne ". 01:15 If you Google "Mui Ne ", you'll see all these pictures of crazy sand dunes, dune buggies, kite surfing and beautiful beaches. It's just a little place of contrasts but more known for its beautiful beaches and an opportunity to really chill out and relax. 01:38 I'm joined today by the lovely Nikki Cornish. 01:41 Nikki Cornish was the General Manager of Sailing Club in Mui Ne. I caught up with her as she was taking up a new role with the Sailing Club Leisure Group in Halong Bay, but she was great to come on the program to talk about Mui Ne. She originally came there in 2018. She had an extensive background in the hospitality industry and was thrilled to take up that role as General Manager of Mui Ne. So, she's been there since then. she comes with, two sets of eyes, one as a tourist and one as a local and an expat. She shares with us some great insights about the location, which I think you'll all find really handy to know about because it is a destination that's 4 hours out of Ho Chi Minh City, but very popular with long haul travelers who are looking for just a bit of respite before that long journey home. 02:44 I hope you will have a fantastic 2022. Please continue to follow the program as I do really appreciate it and I've got some great guests lined up for next year to talk about some really cool stuff to do, and some great places to talk about. Vietnam is just one of those places that just keeps opening up to so many different things you wouldn't even believe and that makes it exciting and revealing all at the same time. 03:21 So, Nikki, welcome to What about Vietnam! Nikki Cornish: 03:25 Great. Morning, Kerry. Thank you! And thank you very much for having me. Kerry Newsome: 03:28 Tell us a little bit about Mui Ne and what we're seeing there? And is it all true? Nikki Cornish: 03:35 Absolutely! Mui Ne is a beautiful little and beach resort town, on the southeast coast of Vietnam. It's about two hundred kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City and it's idyllic. We can get away for guests that are coming from Ho Chi Minh or from around the southern areas or wherever else they may be coming through from in Vietnam. It is also a beautiful beach destination for international travelers as well. 04:05 The pictures that you see of the beaches on the sand dunes, it's all there and it's just so beautiful beach destination, somewhere you can really just get away from everything. Very simple life, but beautiful surroundings, especially if you like the outdoors or being on the coast, then Mui Ne is a perfect destination. Kerry Newsome: 04:34 What challenged me was when I first saw pictures was, "How does a beach resort sit alongside sand dunes? " It looks like the deserts of Arabia in some of those images. So maybe explain to us a little bit about how one part of that location relates to the other? Nikki Cornish: 05:00 Mui Ne is known as actually one of the sandiest areas in Vietnam or urban area with the prolific amount of sand. Mui Ne is mainly made up of a strip of resorts and restaurants that sort of tourists section. Then you do have the sand dunes, but they are short drive away. So as an example, the white sand dunes are about forty kilometers away from our resort and the red dunes are about twenty kilometers, but you will see them even as you drive down the coastal roads and driving in and around Mui Ne, you can see just off the coast a lot of sand, a lot of the sand dunes. It's almost like a little mini desert set up, but you don't really feel that because you're obviously on the coast and then it's very tropical as well. Kerry Newsome: 05:52 I think you and I spoke about the fact that you can go and visit these sand dunes. So, what would be a typical kind of outing to visit the sand dunes? Nikki Cornish: 06:03 The sand dunes, the red and white sand dunes are one of the most popular tours and attractions to go and see in Mui Ne. There's also the fishing village which is very popular because Mui Ne is based on local fishermen, that's how majority of the locals actually make their livelihood, support, and feed their families. So, you have the fishing village and then there's another small and tourist attraction called the "Fairy Stream". The Fairy Stream is basically a beautiful little stream, ankle deep water that you walk through and as you're walking through it, you go through like a mini canyon and you can see the different red and white sands on the walls of the canyon. You keep walking through and eventually at the end you do get to a little waterfall. 06:55 So, we have them at Sailing Club, we offer a really great tour, it's about four hours, we take you out with one of our trusted tour guides who is obviously fluent in English and in Vietnamese. And you go off to the sand dunes in the morning either for sunrise or sunset, you go and visit the fishing village and obviously the fishing villages is best to go first thing in the morning. So, you can actually watch the fishermen come off the water, see their catch. We take you through to the red dunes after that and then around to the Fairy Stream to end off. So, it's a great morning or afternoon tour where you can actually experience all those attractions within one tall. The sand dunes there, they always recommend doing either a sunrise or sunset tour because of scene, it always makes things a lot more picturesque and a lot more beautiful. And the tour is open to go to any time of the day. 07:53 When you get to the white sand dunes, you have an option to either go up on a four-wheeler or an open-air jeep. So, they drive you up on the dunes, you can see all the views from there. And obviously from there because of all the different sands and the different colors, it makes it really beautiful to see, as I said, it's like the colors of Mui Ne. Then if you want to do some sort of sand sledging down the dunes, you can, once you've had your photo opportunity moments you've taken in the view that then take it down on the four-wheelers, you do a little bit of a Dune Buggy experience. There is a beautiful little dam at the bottom, you stop off there, and then they take you back and then we continue with the tour to the Fairy Stream and to the red dunes from there. Kerry Newsome: 08:48 As you said it is a sand location, how does that affect the weather in the region? Like is it particularly mostly dry or how does it effect? Nikki Cornish: 08:59 We have such an ideal climates in Mui Ne, it's a microclimate and we're very protected from sort of all the weather elements as well. So pretty much throughout the year, you're going to sit on an average temperature of about 27 degrees Celsius, we do experience a summer and a winter season but the only thing that really changes with that is rain and humidity, in saying that Mui Ne is probably one of the driest regions in Vietnam and when I say dry, for those who know Vietnam, when it rains, there's a lot of rain in Vietnam [inaudible 09:40] to be very wet but the rainfall is very moderate. we don't get a huge amount of rainfall where it affects your stay or affects your travel too much. So, the weather's is beautiful, it's consistent and constant throughout the year and just very pleasant. Kerry Newsome: 10:06 So, in other words, where normally we might recommend different months of the year for other regions of Vietnam, just to adjust, I guess for certain people's likes and dislikes as far it is, in the middle of the year, typically it's extremely hot. So, you're saying that really any time of the year would be a good time to go to? Nikki Cornish: 10:30 It would be and depending on what are your preferences. So, our high season typically runs from end of October to end of April and a few reasons for that. 10:42 One is the weather, it becomes our winter season, which again, you're sitting on sort of 27 degrees so it's not cold at all but during those months, there's no rain, the humidity completely drops or almost completely dissipates and then that is also the season that we get very good wind and I bring that in as a factor because Mui Ne is known as one of the top kite surfing destinations in Southeast Asia. So, it makes it a high season as well because of people who want to come for the kite thing, for windsurfing and other sort of water or wind sports. 11:22 If you had to come from low season, which is now going to be May till mid to end October, you will experience rain and there will be days where the rain will sit in for a day. Usually, after the storm, it all clears, you're back to beautiful blue skies, you will feel the humidity and I would say again, for people that are coming from a weather point of view, then most ideal would be the October to April the high season time and obviously if you are kite surfer, that is definitely the best time to come through. 11:58 For people who don't enjoy such big crowds and actually prefer traveling on offseason then July/August is also ideal. We sort of go through some of the rains or some of the heavy rains which come around sort of May/June, we get very heavy rain and then in September very heavy rain. But that July/August period, which fits in with Australian summer holidays, British summer holidays and the Germans also have them, a long summer break over there. So that has also become quite a popular time offseason to travel to Mui Ne. Kerry Newsome: 12:32 Okay, so I don't know which question to ask you first, should I ask you a bit more about the kite surfing, I'm intrigued because I have a few friends who are into that and they've never kind of really thought about Vietnam as a destination for this and I said, "Well, hang about, I'm going to be talking to this lady who is right I believe in a location that it is a very top priority spot there ”. Nikki Cornish: 12:59 Correct! and things you don't ever see pre COVID, in high season if you look out onto the sea, there's just hundreds of kite surfers out and enjoying the wind, it's very big at Mui Ne and it has a lot of different kite schools. We have our own kite school at Sailing Club as well as "Sailing Club Kite School ", so we offer kite surfing lessons that is from complete beginners to professionals. At any level we have our guides and instructors there to be able to teach you we've got all the equipment. We also offer other watersports, surfing lessons, paddleboarding, kayaking, but it's definitely all about the wind. So, a lot of people will travel to Mui Ne for that six-month period and pertaining to the kite surfing in the windy season. And they will either be coming through as foreign kite surfing instructors, or people that are able to [inaudible 14:03]. It's their passion and they'll come for a whole high season, and they come just to kite surf. There's also been a couple of big kite brands, that come up when they developed their new range and they're ready to launch for the next year, they come through and they do all their photography, and they do their launch in Mui Ne. Kerry Newsome: 14:30 Okay, that's interesting! But traditionally, we said that it's the kind of destination to come to for ultimate relaxation. Like we talked a little bit, about the fact that it's not a place with a heap of attractions. It's ideally a place to relax and chill out. Maybe talk to us about who are your most common visitors? Nikki Cornish: 15:03 I think everyone can agree obviously things have changed quite significantly during the pandemic. 15:10 So, we've got two major sectors, 1. Pre COVID 2. During COVID. So speaking on behalf of our resort and Sailing Club Mui Ne, during and pre COVID, we were very lucky that we had such a broad demographic of guests and visitors come through, a lot of Southeast Asian trade, a lot of European from all over the world we had people come through, and a lot for us, and in our resort were holidaymakers who had a bit of a busy tour or busy trip, and they did just want a couple of days or a week to just relax by the beach, sip on some cocktails, and enjoy really good food by the pool, be looked after pampered, that would be our main stream of guests. 16:04 Now, obviously, during COVID, the domestic market is what we've had to rely on, and we've been very fortunate enough that we have got a very strong and loyal following from people in Vietnam, and particularly in Ho Chi Minh City. So, we have a lot of our regular guests that come through regular return guests that come every sort of two, three weeks, they stay with us for sometimes 2-3-4 weeks, and again, varying very much on people that just want to get away from the city and come and relax. And those who want to kite surf. So, it is a little bit of a mix and it's very dependent on what you do, if you enjoy your kite surfing and those activities, it's all there for you. If you're wanting to just get away, switch off, turn off all your media, your phones, and then sit with a book by the pool and just rejuvenate and recharge. Kerry Newsome: 17:10 Yeah, and I really like that idea of finishing off a trip before you go home, in a place like that because sometimes it can be all rush and you're trying to cover a lot of places. People by the time they end up at the airport to depart for their long-haul flight back to Europe or US or Australia. They're absolutely exhausted, it's probably a good idea to finish off in a place like that because it kind of leaves you with that nice, beautiful feeling rather than that, "Gosh! I wish we'd had more time " kind of feeling. Nikki Cornish: 17:52 Absolutely! We had we had a lot of our guests, especially European and British guests that were booked through certain travel agents in the UK or Europe or wherever they were coming through, their tour was pretty much tailored that they would start up in the north and they would work their way down. Vietnam is such a such a diverse country, for anyone that is or has been to Vietnam, there is so much to see, there's so much to do and as you say literally from when you touch down, it's just go! go! go! because you want to see and absorb as much of what this beautiful country can offer you. As I just mentioned, a lot of our clients in the trip of five day or seven day stay, they're just relaxing. And I said, it was absolutely the best way that they could have done Vietnam because although they enjoyed seeing everything in Vietnam, they did say it was quite intense and I think a lot of people experience that when you come in from another country and you're not familiar with Vietnam, it can come across as a bit of intense and bit busy. And I said, for them it was absolutely the most ideal way of how to structure their holiday and should they return to Vietnam, it's definitely how they would do it again. Kerry Newsome: 19:12 In fact, it's going to be the title of an episode I'm doing in a couple of weeks’ time just about trying to fit everything in a 12 or 14, what we call "a top to bottom tour " versus maybe chunking it down into smaller regions because there is just so much to do, you're up at eight and you're on the bus or you've got a car waiting for you when it is go! go! And I think people do underestimate that movement factor, the heat. Taking that into consideration and you just wanting to be able to really enjoy the place rather than just go there, see it, get back on the bus. so, time becomes a luxury, if you can afford it and we were going to do an episode just on that, and I have a really great guest to do that. Nikki Cornish: 20:12 Brilliant! looking forward to tuning in and listening to that one. Kerry Newsome: 20:19 That also came about when we were talking about the amount of time to give to a stay like this, like, we talked about having a few days, but it sounds like you could easily stay there a week, or that just to take in the environment and to relax and I think you mentioned that you do have some guests that actually stay longer than that. Nikki Cornish: 20:45 Absolutely! We obviously have short stay guests come in sort of one to three nights, those are people that are on a little bit of a tight schedule, they're trying to see as much of Vietnam as they can, and they stay a week or two. 20:59 We have guests that will spend sort of a week with us, and we've had guests that will stay sometimes up to a month with us. So, it's such a great thing for us as well because we obviously get to meet people and travelers from all over the world. People who have different likes and dislikes and so it's always quite fascinating to meet people who come from such different backgrounds and want and needs. You do have the people that just could sit there for a month and just relax, and you have other people that do get a little, but they are the more active peoples they do tend to get a little bit antsy at times that, "What else can we do? And we want to go and see this ." So, it is all a matter of preference and I think the easiest way to put it is that for those who want to travel to Mui Ne, they don't come with the expectation that it is going to be a full-on busy holiday or trip for you. There are some beautiful sights and attractions to see but it's not going to be as busy as a lot of other destinations that you will visit in Vietnam. Kerry Newsome: 22:14 Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the major things that I take away from this is, yes, there are some wonderful photo opportunities, for avid travel photographer, that would be a great destination, as you were saying with the sand dunes. Lots of lovely sunsets and sunrises to take etc. So, all those beautiful pictures, that's how they come about. So, I think for the travel photographer, that's very keen. 22:41 I think, in especially post COVID, I think people are going to really think very carefully about this stay, and what they want to get out of it and so if they are looking for slow travel, or they are looking for maybe just one or two destinations in Vietnam, to take in a trip so that they can have that slow travel and really soak it up and enjoy it. I think also for maybe the more mature traveler, or the solo traveler or people just might want to go away for a bit of a sabbatical away from, as you say, the media, the phones, the whole kind of thing. 23:24 Then you've got your kind of your budget traveler, you've got your sporting traveler, so that if they want to do some water sports or they want an environment to learn some of those watersports. So that's got to be appealing, I guess, as well for maybe young adult families, you've got teenagers, they're always wanting things to do but if they could learn something like a water sport that you suggested, kite surfing, surfing, all of that kind of stuff. It sounds like a great environment for them as well. 23:59 So, maybe just talk to us a little bit about the kind of budget that is good to allow for a stay, maybe a three- or four-night stay from where you are to kind of the other end. Nikki Cornish: 24:15 One of the beauties of Mui Ne is it actually caters to anyone on all budgets, you can find accommodation options in Mui Ne, anyway from sort of $20 a night up to $300/$400/$500 a night. What going into the sort of meeting four- and five-star resorts. Same goes for your sort of food and beverage costs. Vietnam in general, if compared to first of all countries and to the rest of the world, it's is generally very affordable. So especially for people coming from Europe and that when they compare the prices to what they pay in Europe, it is extremely cheap compared to what they're paying over there. 25:07 Again, for the food and beverage, whatever your budget whether you want to enjoy there's a lot of local seafood restaurants and those become very popular and not just because of a price factor but just because it is very much something that is prevalent in Mui Ne with it being a fishing village that has grown into this tourist town, there is actually a section on the strip of Mui Ne, that has all, they're called "Bo Ke Restaurants" , and it's all the seafood restaurants. So, you walk along the strip, and it's just seafood restaurant after seafood restaurant, all the fish and the life tanks, and you go through and you pick and choose what you want, obviously very local, so a lot of the Vietnamese flavors than all the local way. Prices are pretty crazy for beautiful fresh seafood as well as an ultimate local dining experience that you wouldn't be able to experience in many other places of the world. So that is definitely something I would recommend when you're on Mui Ne, definitely go and give one of those seafood restaurants a try. 26:26 For those who do prefer sort of more fine dining, there are some beautiful restaurants, in some of the resorts. Our sandals restaurant, which is the restaurant within our resort is very well known, not just in Mui Ne, but actually in Vietnam, we've got a very good reputation for great food, and beautiful location, great wine list. The only thing I would say that maybe there in terms of pricing, it might be a little bit sort of off kilter when you compare pricing within the rest of Vietnam is maybe sort on your alcoholic drinks, your wines, and cocktails, that's just because they are all alcohols and that are obviously imported into the country. So, you would probably expect to pay maybe not the same as what you would in Europe, but it would be a little bit less, but it's definitely not as cheap as sort of the food side. 27:19 In terms of activities and getting around its very affordable. So, you can tailor make your holiday in Mui Ne to whatever budget you have, I would suggest work with what or decide on what your budget is and then you can work back and find the right accommodation option, the right tool option for you. Kerry Newsome: 27:43 Yeah, I agree. And as you say, I think managing the budget from an alcohol perspective, I'm sure not that I'm a big drinker but it is always the most expensive part of a restaurant bill because the seafood is just so cheap and that they will cook it any way you want it and you're eating that in a restaurant, in a very local environment and it's a very local field. So, you're not paying for white tablecloths and things like that. So, if you do ask for a wine or you do ask, I mean beer is usually pretty cheap. It's more in the wines and things like that. Nikki Cornish: 28:31 Absolutely! so all these sort of local seafood places you will only get beer and is cheap, beer is very cheap. And again, with these restaurants it's a very rustic setting. Kerry Newsome: 28:38 There's nothing flash. Nikki Cornish: 28:47 There's nothing flash about it you are just there for seafood and for the beers. if you're there and you're a beer drinker, it will be very affordable but yes, if you do enjoy your good wines and your sort of high-quality spirits for cocktails then you will expect to pay a little bit more at the resorts and the restaurants that do offer that. Kerry Newsome: 29:07 So, Nikki, before we close up any final tips that you'd like to share with us about the region just so that we come fully prepared? Nikki Cornish: 29:20 I would say, something to definitely take note of is that there is no international airport in Mui Ne at the moment. So, the most popular airport to fly into would be Ho Chi Minh City. And the next closest airport would be Cam Ranh which is just out of Nha Trang. From both airports, it's about three and a half hours, three and a half hours from Cam Ranh and about a four-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City. So, I think that is just definitely something to take into account is the travel time and there's no direct route in there, unless you have come through from another city. 30:05 There is talks that possibly at a later stage an airport might be built, and they are talking about extending this raceway, which will make the travel time from Ho Chi Minh City into Mui Ne a little bit quicker. There is also the train option, the train option is a four-hour train ride from Ho Chi Minh City. A lot of people actually recommend it. They said, it's very comfortable, especially if you hire yourself a private sort of forbid compartment or cabin, especially if you're traveling with children. I know people like to do that because the kids can entertained and have a rest. Kerry Newsome: 30:45 And you can move around. Nikki Cornish: 30:47 Absolutely! So definitely factor in the travel time. Kerry Newsome: 30:52 Yeah, and I've had, a lot of people say they prefer the train because they can get up and move around and they can have some snacks and a cold drink and they don't have to stop the car, the car or a private car definitely is the other way, I think. And the train is much cheaper to get there. 31:15 Look, it's been great to have you on the program and for sharing with us. Your knowledge and your insights, etc. just before I finish, how long has Mui Ne, like being this popular, I've been going back and forth for about 14 years, and it really didn't come up on my radar until about the last four or five years maybe. Nikki Cornish: 31:41 Correct! So, I can't give you a date of sort of when that was and so our resort Sailing Club Mui Ne was built in 2002 and we were the third resort on that strip. So, there was not a lot going on there obviously wasn't a better tourism. And in speaking with the principal of Sailing Club Leisure Group, he said when he first got there, there wasn't even tarred roads, it was very much a dirt road slip with a lot of palm trees and basically Sailing Club was the third resort. And I would say it would have been some sort of probably about mid 2000s that I think, I stand to be corrected on this, but I would say from about the mid-2000s, things sort of started picking up and a lot more development and talks now is that there's going to be huge developments in that area they are talking about building a lot of other big hotels, we are starting to see some of the construction and some of the areas sort of in and around the area. So, I do expect that sort of post COVID There's going to be a lot more hotel options, a lot more resorts and that it is going to expand and grow. Kerry Newsome: 33:04 Do you see any significant changes due to COVID? Nikki Cornish: 33:12 In a positive way like moving forward or negative? Kerry Newsome: 33:16 Positive or negative, do you think they're going to actually change anything specific? Nikki Cornish: 33:23 So, definitely. Obviously from negative side we have seen that Mui Ne which once was such a bustling tourist start, any time of day there would be people walking on the streets and people on bicycles and all the shops and stands on the side of the road and just always so much going on lots of people everywhere. And just a great little resort town bustle going on. Obviously with COVID as a lot of people would have seen an experience that things have obviously got a lot quieter unfortunately, some of the shops and the businesses have had to close temporarily, I do believe that once international travel and that starts coming back, those businesses will be revived. 34:15 I think from a positive notes, I think for the companies or business owners that have a vision for hospitality and for building large scale resorts. This has been a fantastic time for them to be able to come in and to be able to achieve that and prepare ready for when international travel recovers and it's also for those who have wanted to do renovations and get things back on track. it has provided a little bit of downtime to be able to do the necessary, TLC jobs, maintenance, and renovations that people have possibly been planning. Kerry Newsome: 34:59 Yes, and I've heard that for quite a few people, it's been a chance to revive, regenerate and some of the forests and that have had a chance to breathe. We were getting to a stage of over tourism in some areas in Vietnam, just pre COVID. So, maybe tourism, when it does come back on, it's going to come back on a little bit more responsibly and thoughtfully for the environment moving forward. So, that is a positive. I do feel for a lot of the small business owners that have suffered out of this but hopefully they can regenerate also with tourism coming back on. 35:37 Anyway, Nikki, thank you very much for being on the show. It's been great to chat, and I've certainly learned a lot more about it. And I hope everyone listening has as well. Nikki Cornish: 35:47 Brilliant! Thank you, Kerry, thank you for your time and it's been lovely getting to know you through this, and I hope that you have a great rest of your day. Kerry Newsome: 35:56 Thanks very much. Take care. Nikki Cornish: 35:58 Thanks.

S4-01 Art in Vietnam What About Vietnam S4-1 Art in Vietnam – storytelling at its best Kerry Newsome: 00:01 Xin Chào and welcome to "What About Vietnam ! ". One of the topics that doesn't get covered very much about Vietnam is art, and it really should, because it is one of the experiences you're going to get to have when you come to visit Vietnam. Art in Vietnam is everywhere. And as you're going to hear in this program, there are a lot of expressions of art, and it has evolved over time. And we're going to really take it back 100 years and talk about just how Vietnam has developed in the art world. 00:39 I'm joined today with Bridget March. She is a Prolific artist herself. She, originally, trained as a freelance product designer. She became a senior lecturer at Leeds University of Art and moved to Saigon in 2012. And that was really to fulfill a lifelong ambition to be a full-time artist. She was inspired to stay, and she went on to then produce three books about Hội An, Sapa and Saigon. And those books include some of her art and sketches. She has had seven solo exhibitions of paintings and drawings in Vietnam galleries, international hotels. She's also gone on to curate the fabulous art space at Anantara Hội An Resort in Hội An. 01:36 She has her own gallery. And she's very much about supporting local artists in their endeavors and their journey. She gives up the best galleries that you have to see and go to in Vietnam. So that's going to be in your show notes on our website "whataboutvietnam.com ", you can make arrangements to go to her gallery when you visit Hội An. And those details will also be included in the show notes and the transcript. See below. So, make sure you check that out. 02:12 We're in for a great show. And I think we're going to learn a lot about art. And certainly, I hope it's going to give you a greater appreciation of it in Vietnam. Let's welcome Bridget March to the program. Good morning, Bridget March. Welcome to "What About Vietnam". Bridget March: 02:32 Good morning, Kerry. It's very nice to be here. Kerry Newsome: 02:36 It's been a while in the baking, hasn't it? I'm so delighted to have you on the show. But two years into COVID, here we are. And I've finally got you on the show. So, I'm very excited. We're going to be talking art today. And I think for people who are coming to Vietnam and get the chance to see some art in Vietnam, I think it'd be really handy for them to know what they're looking at, what they're seeing and maybe some background. So, I'm going to ask you, Bridget, if we can start just talking about a little bit of history of art in Vietnam, and just what people can expect to see when they come. Bridget March: 03:23 Sure. I remember when I first came to Vietnam, 13 years ago, I was lucky enough to go to the Hanoi Museum of Art. And in fact, that's where I fell in love with Vietnam, because it's chronologically organized. And I felt I was seeing the whole story of Vietnam in pictures. And some of it wasn't easy to understand, because it's so different from western art. So, some of the landscapes are a bit strange. But in fact, they are representational mountains, are about reaching to heaven. Rivers are about pathways in your life. And you will always see that the people within these landscapes are tiny, really tiny. And that's because it represents men's very small place in the universe. So, they're very different to like quite magical, and the Vietnamese and Asian person can stare at one of these paintings for a long time for an hour and actually meditate about these things, very different from Western art. Kerry Newsome: 04:40 And I think, that is really worth mentioning because there are aspects of religion in that philosophy of hope, aspirational aspects, and sometimes as a Westerner, we come in, we blow into the country, we get off the bus or whatever, and we're thrown on a tour. And then somebody says, "We're going to this gallery. “We walk in, and we see these pictures. It would have been really handy for someone to just give me some context. And I think those words that you've just shared with us now helps a lot. Can we go into the actual art forms, I guess, as in lacquer art or silk paintings, things like that. Can you talk to us about that? Bridget March: 05:38 Sure. So, the traditional art forms, in this part of Asia starts with black ink, which is used in representational landscape paintings, and calligraphy. And the calligraphy here is very much the same as it is in the Arab nations, where the calligraphy is also a meditation. It's not necessarily that you think it's beautiful, but you meditate on the words or the meanings. And they're like meditations in your day, remind us to be good and thoughtful and all that sort of stuff. 06:24 Then there is lacquer art. And the lacquer comes from spindly little trees, it's collected in very much the same way as rubber. So, the trees are scored and the lacquer drips out. The lacquer in each nation depends on its climate, just like wine. And in Japan or Korea, the trees are a bit fatter, and the lacquer flows more freely. The trees in Vietnam are really skinny. And they actually collect the lacquer in seashells strapped to the stems, the trunks of the trees, and so little comes off. And it's said by the practitioners that the Vietnamese lacquer is the most difficult to work with. And it's highly prized. 07:21 Most lacquer painters in Vietnam, using Japanese, Korean or Chinese lacquer, and finding practitioners using Vietnamese lacquer is rare. There are some masters in Hanoi. And we actually have a world specialist in that art form living in central Vietnam. Things like watercolor and oil painting did not come until the French arrived. These were imported from Europe. 07:58 And, in my very limited experience in this, as you well know. I've been gone on a world discovery tour with art in Vietnam. I discovered lacquer art and the basic artwork skill very late. And to the end that I actually bought some during COVID in Australia at a gallery that unfortunately had to close. But what I got to see just before COVID actually, in Saigon, was them crushing the eggshells, the pearl, etc., to raise a different surface to the lacquer art. So, you can buy urns and you can buy beautiful bowls, etc. But the actual paintings or pictures I bought were abstract. But they have these beautiful insets of pearl and different shells, etc. Can you give some explanation of that artwork skill and how long it takes to create one of these because I've been told that many layers upon layers, it can take a while? 09:31 No matter where you are in the world. Artists, hundreds of years ago had to use the materials that were available to them. And the lacquer was the medium which carried the color. So, they would take some yellow clay, mix it with the lacquer to make a nice sort of yellow ochre color. They would crush beetles to get the red cochineal, the red blood from them, mix it with the lacquer to create a red color. And other stones or powders, herbs would be crushed and mixed with the lacquer. 10:19 Now, one of the colors that they were not able to produce was white. So, they took chickens eggs, or ducks’ eggs, I should say. They took ducks eggs, because they're so white and crushed them. And depending on how finely you powder them, you can either create something that looks a bit like crazy paving, so it's textured, or you can crush it very finely to get a kind of powdered finish. But of course, it's calcium. It doesn't make a very smooth white. So, the white is always slightly textured and some artists like it to be more textured, larger lumps of shell than others. 11:11 And they also used mother of pearl because it glitters, and it's been used in many different ways. Sometimes paper is actually coated with the mother of pearl shell to make it glittery. In lacquer paintings, it tends to be used in quite large chunks. To decorate precious items in the painting like a lady's fan, or an emperor's hat would be highlighted with mother of pearl, or mussel shells, different shells, oyster shells, mussel shells, all give different types of mother of pearl. So, this is just using local materials to create the colors you need. 11:59 The base of the painting is clay. These days, the layer of clay is laid down onto plywood. Years ago, it would have been on to a stable dry hardwood. And you take about a three-millimeter layer of clay to get a smooth surface onto which you can apply your color. Whether you're using eggshell or mother of pearl, which is quite lumpy, you actually have to carve a small hole in the clay to inlay the eggshell of the mother of pearl. So, the surface of the painting is smoother. It is really labor intensive. And when you have put all your colors down, you then grind the surface. And depending on how much you grind it, you can reveal colors underneath, or leave colors on the surface. And the finer the abrasive that you use to polish the lacquer, the shinier it will be. 13:15 It can take days to dry the lacquer in between every coat. And it only works in semi tropical and tropical climates because it dries in humidity amazingly. So, this does not work in a climate like the UK, Northern Europe, it just doesn't work. You have to have humidity to "dry" or "cure" the lacquer. Kerry Newsome: 13:52 And as I got to speak to one of the craftsmen in a factory in Saigon, as I said back in 2019. And he went to great efforts to explain the layers and how many layers it may require to get the right finish that they want to achieve. And sometimes for us, when we're buying lacquer art, we can get the cheaper versions which have only got maybe, one or two layers so it comes off very easily versus the craftsman who has gone to the extra time and effort and labor to increase the layers to increase the life, I guess, of the said item. Is there any truth to that? Bridget March: 14:53 Totally. Kerry Newsome: 14:54 Oh, thank God for that. [laughter] Bridget March: 14:57 The cheapest lacquer Arts, which are just a few dollars are not even using lacquer. They're using commercial paint like domestic gloss paint. It has nothing to do with lacquer at all. And then there's the mid-range lacquers, where they're using traditional materials, but maybe using the cheaper Korean and Japanese lacquers. And only, as you say, using 1, 2 or 3 layers. The quality of a piece of lacquer work is always reflected in the price. So, if you're looking at a work of art, which is over $6,000, you're looking at the real thing. And if it's costing less than that, then you're looking at something that is made from less expensive materials, a quicker process. And at the very lowest level where you're paying $10 for something, these are just mass produced for the tourist market, they call them lacquers. But they're not even lacquers. Kerry Newsome: 16:18 I bring that up, because I've often got thrown that line with a group where we've talked about lacquer art, and they've said, "Gosh, I saw these ones in this gallery, and they wanted, I don't know, it was hundreds of US dollars. And I think I saw the same thing in the markets for about $25." And, you know, I'm hesitant to reply because I need to be careful what I say there. But yes, one is closer to the real thing than the other, can we talk a little bit more? I really want to delve into your history also in Vietnam, and where you're sitting now in Hội An and I want to expand a little bit more to the other art forms to ceramics, and pottery and maybe even to the lanterns, and some of the other art that people can just keep their eyes peeled for because there are some beautiful aspects to those. And I would love people to know about that. Can we throw that into the mix? Bridget March: 17:33 Yeah, you can. I think it's important to define the difference between art and craft. So, craft is where something is reproduced again and again, it's handmade. It takes a great deal of skill. But it's reproduced again and again. And you'll see that in the beautiful embroideries that you'll find in the ethnic villages done by the older women. They're really painstaking. And a jacket, a skirt, a good quality object will take two years to make because they grow the plants that make the fibers that make the weaving that make the dye. 18:32 And it's a very long process. But they're reproducing the same designs generation on generation. And you can identify exactly the village from which somebody comes by the patterns they reproduce. And this is craft. It's a traditional craft. Art, however, is when an artist is producing something original, something conceptual, a new idea, a new design, not just a variation on something that's been done for a long time, like lotus blossoms, all of ours, but actually something original. So, I would like really to talk about the artists that produce these things rather than the craft sort of produced. 19:35 And at the moment, there are actually very few artists working in ceramics. But those who do have their work exhibited all over the world. And at the end of this, I would like your listeners to have access to a list of 10 or 15 artists, the kind of work they produce and where they might see their work. In Hội An, there's a lot of traditional crafts, the ceramics. We have a ceramic village, there's woodworking. And amongst the woodworkers, there are artists, and there are craftsmen. And some of the artists who are carving things like jackfruit wood produce the most amazing work and they can be commissioned; you can actually ask them to do something unique for you. And they offer for sale, some unique works of art. 20:44 Alongside that they're producing highly skilled craft work, which is reproduced and available for sale. The lanterns. This is a craft. Lanterns are produced all over Asia. And there's a kind of a story that goes with them, that it was the fishermen who were creating fish traps using bamboo, combined with the tailors who had the silk, they put them together. And they were covering fish traps with silk to create lanterns inside which there would be some oil or candle perhaps. And the lanterns in central Vietnam, I can't speak for what's going on in Hanoi and Saigon. But in central Vietnam, the trend is moving to much more patterned lanterns. They're becoming much prettier. And there is some hand painting going on. And again, you can commission somebody to hand paint something for you. But it's a craft rather than art. Kerry Newsome: 22:05 That's a great story about the lanterns. My God! I didn't know that. That is terrific too. And I can see that that's feasible, there's some logic to that. Absolutely. Bridget, I want to take you back now to your arrival into Vietnam, in 2012, into Saigon. We've talked about the fact that you had this as a big wish on your list to come to Saigon to further your own artistic journey. Can you talk to us about that? What was some of the significance of you coming to Vietnam and reasons, I guess? And also, where was Vietnam at in the art sphere or the art world at that time? We're talking Saigon, 2012. Bridget March: 23:05 No, really not that long ago. Although quite a lot has changed in the art world. Kerry Newsome: 23:09 Yes. Just a bit. Bridget March: 23:11 Yeah. Anyway, I suffered from the same as many aspiring artists when I was young. It's a bit like, "Don't let your daughter go on the stage, Mrs. Brown. Don't let your daughter become an artist. Don't let your son become a dancer. Don't let them join a rock band. It's going to end in failure." Kerry Newsome: 23:42 It's not a real job. Bridget March: 23:42 You're going to starve, you know. Anyway, so I went to university, I did design, and I was a successful product designer for 20 years. And then I ended up as a senior lecturer in an independent art school in northern England. And at the same time, I'm painting, I'm etching, drawing. I'm getting my work into galleries. And I really want to give up the day job and be a full-time artist. But the truth is that in the Western world, unless you are independently wealthy or have a wealthy patron, it's really almost impossible to give up the day job because the cost of living is so high. And a new artist needs to build up a portfolio of work. And even if you're brilliant and amazing and you have a famous patron and you've got a million dollars, it's still going to take you three or four years to become established. I didn't have that privilege. 24:54 I came to visit a friend in Vietnam, and she suggested that I come here and spend a bit of time, I thought, well, I could take a year out. And I could do that. But 10 years later, I'm still here, and I could afford to do it in Vietnam, the cost of living is much lower. And because the art scene was still emerging, after years of oppression. Western artist arriving and doing watercolors and publishing books of sketches and so on, was quite a novelty. And I, very quickly had a little bit of success, enough to establish me, and I was interviewed by TV stations and all kinds of publicity. 25:47 At that time, Vietnamese artists were still being censored by the culture police. And if they weren't doing kind of portraits and flowers and landscapes, if they were trying to say something a bit more conceptual, then the culture police would land on them and insist that the work was destroyed. I worked in a gallery in Saigon for a short time and was familiar with the activities of other galleries in the city. And it was very regular for exhibitions to be visited by the culture police on the opening night. And they would come in and they would take pieces of work off the wall, or insist that they be covered with brown paper, because they felt that they were not fit for public consumption. Or they offended the government's view of the way Vietnam should be represented. 26:55 For example, there was an exhibition of a young photographer, Vietnamese photographer, who was doing fabulous photography among some of the older buildings in Saigon, really great color, contrast light. But they covered the whole of his exhibition with brown paper, because they thought that it represented poverty. And that was not how Saigon wanted the world to perceive it. They didn't know that westerners coming into the country knew exactly where "Saigon was at that it was at a turning point in its life, it was turning from a third world city into a modern superstar. And this transformation and the remnants of the old city are considered very beautiful by westerners, who are interested in buying photography. A lot of that kind of thing was going on. My work was considered to be very safe, because I was doing nice little watercolors of lovely urban and countryside landscapes. And I became very popular because of that, and the authorities love me, because I've made Vietnam look very beautiful. 27:48 Kerry Newsome And I think, it's worth mentioning that because people, when they do get to look at a piece of art, are going to draw certain perceptions about what the story is behind it, let's face it. Good art, to me speaks to you. It has a story and there's something in that. And you're right, Vietnam is very big on making sure that they are seen by the world in a particular way, depending on, as you say, the culture police's perception at the time. I think, there has been an evolution that we are witnessing that Vietnam is becoming a little bit more open about sharing some of their not so good views of their countryside, or their history or their whatever. Because, it's about keeping it real also, for the rest of the world. Kerry Newsome: 29:28 History is not always going to look beautiful, it's going to have aspects of horror and pain and shame and destruction, but that would be every country possibly in the world. So, why would Vietnam be any different? However, moving on, you and I spoke earlier about the artists and the differences in three main cities being Saigon, Huế and Hanoi. Can you speak to that a little bit more, I found that really interesting? Bridget March: 30:01 Sure. So, prior to the French arriving, artists weren't just artisans or crafts people. And they would be reproducing beautiful works of art, for temples, for the homes of the wealthy, for government buildings, and so on. They were not really permitted or encouraged, or able to express themselves. It wasn't appropriate for people who created art, to have to produce conceptual art, or something that even identified the artist up until 100 years ago. And artists would sign their work with the name of the emperor, not with their own name. And there are still some beautiful works in Hội An, which assigned to this way. 31:14 For example, in the Cantonese assembly hall , in the old town, there is the most beautiful, vigorous dragon, which is constructed out of concrete and Broken China, a bit like the work that Gaudi does in Barcelona, exactly the same craft. And there's a signature on it, that the signature is the name of the emperor at the time. And we will never ever know the artist who developed the idea for this particular dragon. 31:56 So, when the French arrived, they wanted to bring with them some of the western art, music, dance architecture. And gradually, they established different schools where people could study this, the teachers initially were French. They also took some Vietnamese artists and crafts people back to France, to learn how to use some of the Western materials and to learn from European artists, music, art, fashion, and all the different arts, literature, poetry, and so on. And then these Vietnamese came back to Vietnam and were established in schools about the very first was in Saigon in 1903, something around that date. 32:56 The next one was in Hanoi. And the third was the most modern, which was I think, 1957 was in Huế. And each one of these schools developed its own way of interpreting the arts, because of the teachers who were working there, and Hanoi featured very much on technique. And Hanoi is still very well known for copy artists, they are brilliant, they can copy the Mona Lisa, almost perfectly. Because they're so skilled at manipulating the colors and the materials. They're fluent in that language. But they're not, there weren't anyway, so skilled at developing new concepts in art, or messages, or styles. In Saigon, they focus more on the technical arts, like graphic design, architecture, the kind of things that build a modern city. And of course, alongside that, came artists and a much more modern Western, and ultimately Americanized approach to producing art, fashion, design, literature. 34:26 Huế, is kind of somewhere in the middle, and out of the Huế School of Art have come some amazing colorists. The art has a very European feel about it, but it's fresh, it's uniquely Vietnamese and the use of color, the landscapes, the buildings, the interpretation of the environment. And, if you go in and out of enough galleries and you see the names and origins of enough artists, you can begin to see where they came from, which school they studied in, becomes clearer. Kerry Newsome: 35:05 Okay, so if I'm coming to Vietnam, and I really want to seek out some art that you've talked about, the kinds of work that we've discussed on the show today, where do my guests go? Where do they hit? Bridget March: 35:23 Alright, I've got a list. Kerry Newsome: 35:25 Excellent. I knew you would, Bridget. I was counting on that. I'll add that, just before you say anything. I want everyone to know that list will feature on the website, it'll have a link to the list on the show notes. So, whether you listen on iTunes, or Spotify or any of those, it'll always direct you back to where you can get that list. So, all yours now, Bridget, just so you know that list going to be there. Bridget March: 35:57 Okay, I think everybody knows, Asia can be really tricky, because you can't recognize what's authentic, and what is fake, what's a copy, and what's the real thing. So, it's important to know where to go. And I have a list which will direct your listeners to the three major public museums of art in Hanoi, Huế, and Saigon. And there's quite an interesting young contemporary art museum in Da Nang, that's worth a visit. But in addition to those, in each center, I'm offering what I know to be the best art galleries, if you're looking for the real thing. 36:54 Now, look, when you're visiting, when you're traveling, I've done the same. You're not necessarily looking for authentic works of art, you're just looking for something which is going to be a lovely souvenir of your visit. It might be something abstract, it might be a landscape, might be a portrait, and you'll find those. You can't help everywhere you go; you'll trip over those. And local artists usually have their work hanging out on the street outside their studios. It's not hard to find. But even when you go into an artist studio, you don't really know if the artist is producing original work, or whether he or she is actually reproducing the work that his grandfather did. All that some famous artists in Hanoi or Saigon produced 100 years ago, you have no idea. 37:43 So, you really need to go to some of the better art galleries, and they are in that list. My little gallery in central Vietnam is just about the only place in central Vietnam, which properly represents, offers a full service for local artists and visitors. My aim in the gallery is to support local artists, with the website, videos, interviews, you can come and talk to me about the art. I can arrange visits for you to meet the artists or even spend time with artists if you want to have an experience with them. A full-service gallery like mine, gives you the trust you need to spend a bit more than average on art. And I've listed similar places in "Hanoi and Saigon. And it's not easy. You need to know you're in the right gallery. If you're a collector, at least. Kerry Newsome: 38:57 Yes, and I think that is just such a great point because I don't know how many times, I've been kind of double checking myself to go, "Is this the real McCoy or is this just a really good copy shop or whatever." And I hate the fact that Vietnam gets called copy-copy. I think that really- that brand, that everything is copy-copy. I really want to do everything I can on this show to stamp that out. I'm not saying that there isn’t copy-copy stuff out there. 39:39 Of course, that's a reality. But to brand it totally that there aren't true artisans out there in Vietnam that are doing the most exquisite art and guess what, you're not going to get it for a nickel. People have said to me before, "I think Vietnam could get expensive." And I said, "Compared to what?" It's interesting, for a lot of people there is a, I guess a perception that they're always going to get something for a nickel or dime in Vietnam that they wouldn't pay that extra money for that beautifully designed dress, that's just a one-off piece of art that if you walk into a room, you are going to be a showstopper. 40:36 There's leather work, there is beautiful ceramics that. Yes, they're not nickel and dime stuff. And I've been to your gallery, I've always loved the work that you do, and more so probably the work that you do for artists, and to give them that platform because as you say, it's hard to find. And it's hard to find that authenticism. And it's that authenticism that you sell, mostly, I think, is the gift to us all. Bridget March: 41:12 So, I'll tell you now, my favorite places to visit. 1. Number one has to be the "Hanoi Museum of Art . It is large, it's well organized. It's amazing. The breadth, the variety of work is amazing. And you really learned something about Vietnam without having to read a book or a guidebook. It's all laid out before you in pictures. It's a story book. And all the different art forms are there, lacquer, oil, watercolor, silk, painting, ceramics, sculpture, and the collection there covers a period of about 1500 years. It's really great. It's great. And it's right in the heart of the most interesting part of the city very close to the famous temple of literature. And it's really easy to find it's very accessible. 42:23 2. My second most favorite place is the Museum of Art in Saigon . It's in the most gorgeous building in the middle of town near the central market. And again, it's arranged slightly differently, and it has a more contemporary feel than the Hanoi one. It's more colorful, there is more abstract stuff. There is some of that Russian brutalist stuff. There are bronzes and much more ceramics. It's a really lovely place to go. And it's not as big as the Hanoi Museum, you can do it in about an hour. 43:04 3. And my third is, absolutely, don't miss this one. This is just outside Huế. And it is the Lebadang Memory Space , and it is new. It has been architect designed, it's in the most beautiful hillside setting. The building itself will take your breath away. And inside is the story of the life of one Vietnamese artist who came originally from a village near Huế. And the work is fabulous. There are videos to sit and watch. It's an amazing place and it's got a great cafe and a gorgeous garden setting. So, those would be for me, the three, don't miss these. If you're interested in art, don't miss these three. And then if you've got a bit more time, have a look at the list that accompanies this and go exploring. Kerry Newsome: 44:15 Definitely. And I hope to see you Bridget in Hội An later this year, can't wait to catch up face to face. It's been a while. Thank you again for coming on the show and sharing your insights into art in Vietnam. Bridget March: 44:31 It has been totally my pleasure and it's really lovely to see you again, Kerry, after such a long time. Thanks. We speak about a list in the show of Bridgets favourite galleries, the blog listing those is here;- https://www.marchgallery-hoian.com/post/vietnam-s-contemporary-art-in-2022 The gallery details and all her social pages are here. Feel free to reach our directly. www.marchgallery-hoian.com FB: march harbour gallery Inst: March harbour gallery Pinterest: march gallery Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/march-gallery

5497c6da-0f62-4f67-8da4-fe3c637ff35dTravelling Vietnam for the first time? Vietnam Travel First Impressions Episode 9 S1-E09 Vietnam Travel First Impressions 00:00 / 53:49 Ever wondered what it’s like to set foot in Vietnam for the first time? In this episode of What About Vietnam, I’m joined by Meghann – one half of the travel blogging duo behind The Grahlife – as she shares her and her husband Zach’s first impressions of Vietnam during their adventure in March 2025. From landing in Hanoi to trekking the famous Son Doong Cave, Meghann walks us through the culture shock, the sensory overload, and the unexpected joys that came with their first few days in the country. We don’t just cover the obvious stuff, we talk about: • Navigating the infamous traffic (Zach famously declared: "I was made for this!" after only his second street-crossing), • Ordering local dishes with curiosity and courage as Meghann is a Celiac. • Experiencing the kindness and compassion of the Vietnamese people, unexpected! • And reflecting on the powerful legacy of Vietnam’s war history and its place in the modern-day cultural landscape. • Plus best take away souvenirs you’d never think of This is a candid, light hearted, and insightful conversation about the magic of those first encounters – the sights, the flavours, the energy – that make Vietnam such an unforgettable destination. Tune in and see Vietnam through the eyes of a first-timer. It might just inspire your next big adventure. 🎧 Listen now on your favourite podcast platform and don’t forget to check out the The Grah Life to follow Meghan and Zach’s journey’s and their adventure discovering Son Doong - https://www.thegrahlife.com/vietnam Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

S4-23 Take beautiful photos Part 1 What About Vietnam - S4-23 How to capture Beautiful Photos - in Vietnam or anywhere! - Part 1 [00:00:39] Kerry Newsome: Xin chao and welcome to, What About Vietnam today I'm talking with Thomas Levine, photographer. He lives in Vietnam and he has done a lot of photography in the country. [00:00:53] Kerry Newsome-1: A little bit about Thomas. He currently lives in Hoi An. And he's lived in a lot of places. Omaha, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Tampa. He has a bachelor degree in sociology minors in business and psychology. He's actually, well, he describes himself as a self-trained photographer, but he also trained under, Master photographers and developed some skills, obviously in portraiture. Architecture, national Geographic Photography and working for a New York advertising agency. He does a lot of commercial work, so that obviously gives him some I guess, status in the kind of quality of work that he produces. And he has an amazing portfolio of fantastic photography that you can plug into after the show. He's got extensive experience photographing people and that that's a skill in itself. But he also does other things, you know, for annual reports and advertising Stills,live, cars, food, jewelry, furniture, you. He enjoys photography for many reasons, both personal and professionally, and he's just a lovely guy that can, I think, help us. Will certainly help me in understanding some of the elements of photography when we are traveling because we, we want to get the best shots, don't we? We want to capture the moment. We may come back at another time, another date, another year or whatever, but you're never going to get that moment back again. And so I really impress upon you to, you know, have a good listen to this. Two part series that we've got together and I just want you to get a lot out of it for yourself in your trip planning for Vietnam. But for any trip that you do that you want to be able to produce photography, you know that you're going to be able to put on a wall or sit on a shelf or put in an album that you're really proud of and you can share with others. Let's face it, you don't want to get home or get back to your hotel, or you finish the tour and it's all over and you look at your photos and you go, I really wish I'd taken more time and a little bit more care and with a bit of insight and knowledge, I thought having someone on the program to actually talk through the use of colour and lines and focus when you've got beautiful scenery and people and activities, et cetera. To photograph that we try and get it right from the get-go, and Thomas has done a great job in this show and is such a learned person in this area. I thought this is what we need as part of the show's. I guess features, and I think you can come back to this any time for a bit of a refresher, OR for any trip you do. So please take the time to, to listen to him. He's got, a website and everything that I'm going to be able to share with you so you can go and get some pointers and maybe do some lessons with him or get some advice so you'll be able to reach out to him directly and. Yeah, I just think you're really going to enjoy this show. It's broken into two parts because we went through it and we went, oh my gosh, there's a lot in this. So I've put it into a part ONE and part TWO series, and I'll release these very close together so you can combine them. There is. Obviously transcription notes, so you're going to be able to refer to them and yeah, I just hope you really get out a lot out of it. You don't have to be a professional to use some of his skills and his advice. You can use it with your, mobile phone or you can use it with an actual camera as a dSLR and make those apertures shutter speed s that you need to get things right. Let's welcome Thomas to the program. [00:05:22] Kerry Newsome-1: Thomas, welcome to the What About Vietnam Podcast? [00:05:27] Thomas Levine: Thank you very much for inviting me to be on. Kerry what can I tell you? You're going to be telling me a lot about a subject I only know a very small bit about, and that's photography, but I'm going to. do it in a way, hopefully with your permission, that we hone in on how we can improve our photography skills relative to Vietnam. [00:05:59] Kerry Newsome: Okay. So it's going to be okay, sort of Vietnam specific, if that's okay? [00:06:04] Thomas Levine: Yeah. I mean, some of it's general because it applies to just a camera operation and the rest of it, I'll try to make it for Vietnam. [00:06:12] Kerry Newsome: Sure. Okay. Alright. Firstly, my first question to you would be, tell us a little bit about why Vietnam has captured you through the lens of your camera. [00:06:29] Thomas Levine: Because it's beautiful and, it's, it's a different culture. When I travel I've been quite a few places in Southeast Asia and they're all different, every country's different. You'd think it's, oh, it's not the same, but it's the cultures are very different. The terrain's different and Vietnam is just absolutely gorgeous. And some of the places I've gone to, I mean, I need to go to more places in the north, because that's supposed to be where it's actually really gorgeous. But it's interesting everywhere you go and people are very kind here, the Vietnamese and the tourists too. The tourists are having fun here. But it's the terrain. It's there's, I'm a nature photographer. That's how I start it. And the nature here is incredible. Everything is green. You get a lot of rain, which is another issue too, but it's not a really an issue because. You know when you come here, you're traveling and you have to take pictures, period. You don't have to, but a lot of people do. And if it's raining, you can still take pictures and they come out different. And that's good because the rain makes saturation. You get a lot of colored saturation. It just looks different than other people's pictures, and that's what you want in the first. Absolutely. Sure. Now I'm going to ping you in the sense of, I'm going to start with technique because I think for all of us, Getting our technique right. And as you say, you can take this technique wherever you go around the world, but if we start with technique as a basic, I think that's going to help us from the get-go. So you and I have had a few conversations and just those alone have given me a better sense of where to start. But maybe you could help us with it. Talking just a little bit about some basics I don't know how to hold a camera, how to hold a phone to take, the best image, the best pic. [00:08:40] Thomas Levine: The thing is that a lot of people they get home and they look at their pictures, or you look at your pictures on your phone. Sometimes it's hard to really see into it, but when you get home and you put them on your computer, You. It's not sharp. I guess I didn't do a good job of focusing it, but it's not always focus. It's a lot. That's when it comes down to technique, because when you're taking that picture, your camera needs to be stable and sometimes they have stabilizers in it, but they only works so much. So basically your technique of holding the camera should be the same every time and it takes a little practice. And once you get used to it, then you know your pictures will come out a lot better if that's the problem you're having. Because sometimes it's hard to tell whether it's a focus problem or it's a camera shake problem. But if you see everything in it that's not sharp, that's probably camera shake. If you see parts of it that are sharp, then it's probably focus. But the thing is, when you're holding a camera, what you really need to do is use your elbows and your arms, and you need to have, make it a tripod with your arms. You put your elbows into your stomach and squeeze, and you're holding the camera up. And that's, and then you're actually creating, cradling the camera. It's actually in your palm of your hands. And that's, and that. And then you bring it to your face and basically you're like a tripod. And you, when you press that shutter, this is critical. When you press, you have to be still. And what I do is I hold my breath. I practice it first too, but I hold my breath when I press the. And if you're hiking along and you're taking a picture after picture and you're starting to hold your breath, sometimes you need to take a break because you can't catch your breath. [00:10:34] Kerry Newsome: So I love it. So yeah, you, because you could be out of breath, but for the wrong reasons. Yeah. So you probably need every breath. Yeah. But I like that because when you breathe, you. You move. Yeah. Your chest and your abdomen, et cetera moves as you breathe. So if you hold your breath, that makes a lot of sense in being absolutely. Still. And I agree with you in the little bit of photography skills and lessons I've had, that was one of the first things that they highlighted, whether it was your phone. Or whether it's a camera is finding a way to. Become really still, and as you say, creating yourself as a tripod. [00:11:19] Thomas Levine: Right. And I, I'm, I it's putting it in your palm of your hands is the trick too, because you want it cushioned in your hand. And it's hard to, it's hard to tell you without showing you. [00:11:32] Kerry Newsome: Yes, I know this is where audio is a little bit tricky for people, right? In the sense you can't put your hand up and actually do a demonstration. But we will have some pics on the website with some examples of holding the camera. So we'll definitely put those in. Okay. Alright, so if we've, The camera now cradled in the palm of our hand, or if we've got the phone right. Cradled in a safe, secure, still position holding our breath or otherwise, what, should we be doing or looking for next? [00:12:12] Thomas Levine: First of all when you're pressing that shutter, you could squeeze, because if you hit it too hard, then you're going to vibrate everything. So whether it's a phone or the camera's going to have a shutter. You're going to have a kind of a fake button on the smartphone, and you just have to understand and try it out and see how much of a touch it takes for that shutter to release because you just don't want to touch it too much, because as soon as you start pressing in, you're going to vibrate the whole thing. So you just be able to touch it, but touch it firm enough that it'll take the picture. [00:12:47] Kerry Newsome: I like that. I like that. I think that's something we need to be more conscious of. [00:12:51] Thomas Levine: Yeah. And you just practice it. If you practice it when you're starting the trip you're like, and then you'll go somewhere else and then it's you'll take the picture wrong and then you'll kick yourself and it's okay, I did this wrong. Then you start doing it more and it gets to be a habit. Because that's really what you want. You want know how to hold your camera and pressing the shutter should be something that you don't even have to think about. Eventually, you just do it right? Okay, so it's just practice. But that's the whole thing. The other thing about sharp pictures is you have you have to be able to focus it, right? So if it's a camera, then a lot of times it's automatic focus, so there's a one. That you want to focus at, and that point is going to be the sharpest in your frame. Okay. But the thing is, you have something called depth of field and sometimes you can't tell the difference between the focal point and the depth of field, especially on a phone. And they have a one third, two third rule. And I really don't go by rules too much, but use this one when I. Sometimes I want to make sure I take the picture. So, I will do the focal point, take the picture, whatever the subject is, focal point on the subject. I'll take the picture and then I will do something with the depth of field. So if belongs in, in its part of the aperture the aperture is the, it's the round it closes and opens depending on the setting. And it's like your eye. If you look at something and if you close your eye and squint, you can see the front and the back is even more in focus than just as it was before. Squinting is what that aperture's doing. So when it closes down, which is a higher number, then you have more depth. So you can have a, the one third, two third rule if you have enough of your aperture closed enough, and then you don't always need to close it all the way, but if you close it, then you could set it so that the one third you focused like one third into the frame. So if you're like a landscape and one-third, that's where you focus. And then after that, the two-thirds all the way to infinity should be in, in depth of. Doesn't mean it's going to be as sharp as a focal point because that there's only one focal point, but you want enough aperture closed down so you get the whole thing in focus. [00:15:37] Kerry Newsome: Okay. And I think for lay people like myself who are listening to try and get their heads around that it, it is really about making. Whatever you want to focus on, whether it's a person or a particular flower or some item or whatever the subject. It is the focal point. Exactly. But the rest is quite blurred behind it exactly as you describe about squinting, et cetera. [00:16:09] Thomas Levine: And they, so maybe you don't want, and you can achieve this on your phone as well, can't you? Yeah. And actually there's an app I think that you can actually. Select your shutter speed and your aperture. It depends on the phone, but there, there are several apps that do that. Another thing too that people don't realize is light. If you have a strong light coming it's going to be it'll make your picture sharper because it raises the contrast as long as that light's not getting into your lens directly. So if you have a foggy day, you know it's not going to be sharp. Or if you have a day with a, like a lot of atmosphere where there's just a lot of moisture in the air, which happens in Vietnam, then if you take in an overall landscape, it's going to come out soft. It won't be as sharp. But that's not having anything to do with camera shake or your focal point or depth of field. It's just the atmosphere. So there's not a whole lot you can do other than photograph closer and that show as much area. Okay. But you get certain days, that's just, it's just like that here. And other days everything's sharp because there's good light. So light has a lot to do with it. [00:17:27] Kerry Newsome: I hate to add this point about lighting, but in my experience, and correct me if I'm wrong, with lighting, there's a little bit of an education. To take into consideration about lighting in the sense that doesn't mean in the middle of the day necessarily, because in my opinion it's not a kind light to people. No. And so you can be absolutely drop dead gorgeous, but in the wrong light. You can look a hundred years old. I think, can you speak a little bit more to just that lighting perspective? [00:18:11] Thomas Levine: Of course when you travel, a lot of times you don't have a choice on lighting. Okay. Because you're traveling all day. So the morning and the late afternoon are the best lights because it's coming from the side. If it's overhead, then you might have some problems because you're really lighting, like you're taking a picture of a person, you're lighting the top of the head. But most of the time it's not right overhead. And I found that if you don't have a choice and the person's facing the light, I prefer somebody wearing sunglasses for that particular picture. Because you're probably going to have other pictures whether or not they don't have to wear sunglasses. I used to take pictures. Of these people for commercial reasons, and they would be staring at the light. And they wouldn't they were not allowed to wear sunglasses for the ad I was making. So people are like, they would close their eyes and then I would go, 1, 2, 3 on three, open your eyes. And then they would open their eyes, because otherwise, if you stare at the sun, you're just going to squint. Okay. And it's not that much fun to be a subject. Where that sun's straight in your eye. So I prefer if it's possible, and it's possible when you're traveling, wear sunglasses for those kind of pictures. The other thing you can be under a tree or under an umbrella and take the picture and it's a lot more pleasing. Okay. Or if it's if it's two o'clock and the light is off to the side a little bit, but not as much as you'd like, then a lot of times you can turn that. So that the light's coming off of their side, off the side of their head and their side of their face. And there's another thing you could do with a lot of cameras is it's called fill light. It's fill flash. So if you're taking a picture of somebody and they're they're in the shadow, their face is in the shadow, but everything else is lit, you can turn your flash on and set it for fill and you can do this on your iphone. Or whatever phone you're using, and then it'll fill it in and you, and it's actually very pleasing light for your face. So I don't know if you're familiar with that. [00:20:24] Kerry Newsome: No, definitely not. And I have made the error of sometimes I'll stand in the shade and take a picture of them in the sun. And that doesn't work out. And then I swap places and then I'm in the sun and they're in the shade. And either way it doesn't come out well. Or a person has got shade on half of their face, and sun on the other. You can see how much trouble I have in getting it right. It takes me a few goes. [00:20:58] Thomas Levine: Well, I, Kerry, I it’s something that most people aren't going to carry. I carry, a disc that opens up and it's white. Okay. And it's on a kind of a spring thing, but I've also done it this way. If somebody is, too bright on one side and it's too dark on the other, and I see somebody wearing a white shirt sometimes if they're not going to be in the picture, if I could get them close enough that white, the sun will bounce off that person's white shirt and fill the other part of your face in. So you have them on the dark side of their face, or if you find something white. Sometimes I've even used a, menu. From a restaurant, just to fill in that, because I use that with food too. Because you really it it's too much of a distraction if you're really bright on one side and it's too dark on the other, it just doesn't look right. No, and if you want to print that, then that's not going to print right either. But you want that. Sometimes you want that. It's a, I think they call it Rembrandt. Where you have one side of the face that's lit and the other side's dark. And actually what that does is it makes your face thinner. It makes you look thinner because that's cause part "I'm all for that" yeah. So that's just the way it works okay. [00:22:21] Kerry Newsome: So is this kind of the part where we are talking about lines and curves kind of the psychology aspect of it? Or still in just general technique? [00:22:37] Thomas Levine: I'll talk about leading lines and, line is, is one of the elements in art. There's a leading line that, like a sidewalk and you want to take a picture of a mountain in the background and to get there, you're going down a trail or a sidewalk. [00:22:53] Kerry Newsome: That line will take somebody's eye all the way up into the mountain. So that's what you want. You want to lead the viewer to where you want them to see. Okay. So that's the leading line. And if you have a curve and it curves around this way and it curves around that way, it makes it more interesting. It's not as boring. And if you think about curves are nice because if you think about it, it's a design, like Apple design a lot of curves and earphones, that kind of stuff. It's a design, but also it's a lazy kind of thing. When you see a curve you just emits some sort of feeling and that's what you want to do. When you take a picture. You want to get some sort of emotion. So that's how you can use line and. Line will just if, even if it goes into a curve, your eye will follow that and it'll take you right into the picture, maybe right to the subject if possible. Okay. Because you really need to find out or figure out what is your subject, because that's where you're going to focus, that's where you want the line to lead. That kind of thing, if that makes it clear. I don't know. Yeah. In a way Vietnam is renowned for having lots of places, and we're going to talk a little bit about some of those places later. But where you've got steps up to a peak, you've got trails, you've got ravines through, limestone caves and things like that. I've found myself in inside caves or coming into caves, or I've found. Walking a path and thinking, gosh how could I kind. Get this path visually in a pic to be able to express to people just the length of it, the relativity to its background. I'm thinking about all these kinds of things so that it, I can display the picture in such a way that it gives. A really good representation and perspective so people can go, oh, wow. Kind of like I'm going Oh, wow. In the moment. Can you speak a little bit about how to line that up? I guess sometimes I get quite low on the ground and try and take it so that it's shooting up and I get a longer view. But I'm open to ideas. That's why we're talking to you, Thomas. [00:25:30] Thomas Levine: A lot of it depends on the lens you use too. If you use a really wide lens, then everything's smaller except in the foreground or on the sides. But basically everything's smaller. And so if you have leading line that you want to take people up, it doesn't always work it's so small that you could hardly see that line farther down the picture. And another thing too is if you have a foreground that's really boring, it's like open area, it's kind of flat. Then if you get up higher, that area is actually going to be larger in the picture. If you get low then it flattens that part out and you notice more in the background, which is what you want. Yes. So you have to, yes. Experiment, but people don't talk about that for some reason. At least I haven't seen it. But it really depends. That's what happens when you get lower or higher. And sometimes you want it boring in the beginning. It just depends on what you want. But you should be aware of what it does so that way you can make a choice. If I want to get low, I want to get high. And also when you get low, you are showing more detail in the foreground. And maybe that's what you want because if there's a lot of I've taken pictures of rice fields and I get low a lot of times because I wanna show the rice coming up out of the ground and then you can see on the top of the rice the land, the rest of the landscape. And if it's a sunset or just a mountain or whatever vegetation. So it really depends. But that's how I handle that. It's just being aware of your choices. Okay. And again, you're traveling. Some people wanna take a picture and not worry about it. But if you think about it for a second, you can usually improve that picture. And another thing is when you're taking pictures of people, the easiest thing to do is put that person right smack in the middle of the frame. But that's not always the best thing. So correct if and I like a lot of times the person will go on the front of the. And you take a picture and then you go somewhere else to do the same thing over and over, and it gets boring. So I always like to have the model like you were talking about, where sometimes they turn and they you see their back and you're taking a picture over their shoulder. And what that does is it gives you more depth because we're missing that the camera is one eye. And we have two, but we're missing depth when you only have two dimensions. So if you put something farther in, in your foreground, and then you're taking a picture of a landscape of something farther away your subject is not the person. It's whatever is in that frame farther down. But that person gives you that feeling of depth. And you also get that with lighting because if it's coming from the sun, the side, you have a lighting that it will give you more contrast and you'll have a dark area and a light area, and that gives you depth as well. So that helps compensate for only having one eye, because that's all the cameras got. [00:28:52] Kerry Newsome: I have this theory about travel photography. In the sense that you never are going to go back to that place and have that moment again. So as far as getting it right or getting the best possible picture that you can it's quite a meaningful thing, don't you think? It is. But believe it or not, some people do go back. So it's but you're never going to go back. That could be the same, get that exact time. No, because you are not going to be the same. No. The environment's not going be the same. That moment is the moment. To go back a year later or whatever. And I've done the same and sometimes I've gone back because I didn't get it right the first time. So I want to go back and spend more time to, to really. Do it justice, I think is the purpose, my main purpose anyway, because I feel like I've walked away and then I've looked at the photos back on my computer and gone, damn I really should have taken different angles, right? Different lighting, et cetera, et cetera. But most people now are traveling with their phones. And I think probably we. need to kind of balance that out in this conversation. As everybody's being very clever with their phones and they're, and the phone has definitely come up, definitely in its skill level. And now people are saying if you do a photography tour in Vietnam, that you can do it with your mobile phone device. So maybe if we can include both because I know if you've got real camera, you can work with aperture and all that kind of stuff. A lot easier than trying to switch that theory onto a phone. [00:30:41] Thomas Levine: And, but when you get that control, you can also make mistakes too, unless you're used to using that part of your phone. [00:30:48] Kerry Newsome: Yeah. And that's why they have auto on them. Take it from me. [00:30:52] Thomas Levine: I don't know how many times I've taken my phone and I'll just. And it automatically focuses on something. You can pick what it's going to, when it's you touch it and that's where it's supposed to focus. But if you don't do that, it chooses itself. And some people just do that. They just point the phone and click, they take the picture. And I don't know if this is true or not, but I think there's probably more people with phones traveling than they are with cameras. Correct. That's my guess. Absolutely. That's why I said it's about an eight out of 10 people, are traveling and taking photography with their phones. Two out of 10 are taking. Good cameras with good lenses and taking a very artful approach to it. A good segue into talking about the art element of photography. . Can you talk to us a little bit about that? And I know it's something close to your heart, so talk to us a little bit about the artfulness and the emotion and the psychology side of taking photos. When I learned photography originally, which was years and years ago, nobody explained any of this art stuff to me. I just started taking pictures and they were I get a good one every once in a while. But then I just learned by looking and critiquing and having other people look at why do you have this in there? Why do you have that in there? And you learn that way. But learning the art, sure, learning later on, I learned the art side of it. And it makes it where you understand a lot more and a lot of it's psychology. Like especially with colours. Colours have meaning. Okay? And they also work together or they work against each other. And if you find red a lot. I use the red a lot, but I don't use it in the way of everything's red or most of it's red or anything like that. Like I have a picture of someone in Dalat. In Dalat they have farms and I went into this guy's farm and they had they were growing flowers and they were all yellow, I guess daisies, I'm not sure they were all yellow, but inside there, there was somebody working there and they had a red top on. With one of the conical hats. So she had a conical hat, which is a great thing to have in a lot of your pictures because that immediately shows you're in Southeast Asia and they really use that. I'm getting off track here, but they usually, a lot of people wear that more in Vietnam than I've seen them in a lot of other southeast Asian countries. But anyways, this lady was wearing red and she was surrounded by yellow. Your eye immediately went to her because it's even though it wasn't much red, it really popped out and the yellow was in competition only. There was so much yellow and just that little red, you had no choice but to look at the red. So that's you get an emotion outta that. Red. Red means a lot of things, but There's, like I said, there's a psychology behind it. Sometimes a color would offend somebody. Okay. And they, might get moody, they might not like it. They might feel bad. Who knows? Maybe they were in a car accident years ago and that person that hit them was in a red car subconsciously red is negative to them, that kind of thing. [00:34:20] Kerry Newsome: Thomas we're going to take a short break here and, we are going to keep going, but we're going to do that in a second segment as we've still got a lot of great stuff to cover. And I wanted to just give people a chance to digest everything we've gone through and, we'll continue in part two of this, show coming up. So stay tuned everyone, because there's more really great photography skills with Thomas to come. Thank you. You can contact Thomas Levine here:- https://www.levinephotography.com/ https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/levine-travel-stock Skype: thomas.levine888

f159fcd5-c71b-4e09-8abf-9ef6f07a15f0Language tips in Vietnamese Learn "special dietary needs" What About Vietnam – S3-20 Learn “special dietary requirements” in Vietnamese language Kerry Newsome: 00:35 Xin Chào and welcome to “What About Vietnam!”. Today, we're talking to Hà again, as part two of the mini-series talking about language and some tips for you as, you're getting around Vietnam. The first episode, we covered some greetings, that's definitely going to help you engage and interact with locals. 00:59 In this episode, I've decided with Hà, that we would bring some of the tougher questions, that you need to ask, and it would be really helpful to know the words in Vietnamese. And that's when you want to make some special food requests. I often see people who are trying to find something on the menu, that is gluten free, or they don't want peanuts or something like that. And trying to express that or point to that right picture or just explain it generally, can often come hard. So, we cover these in this episode, and I hope you find them helpful. Please welcome Hà back to the program. 01:48 So, a lot of people, when they travel, obviously are concerned about food and the food that they eat. And some people have allergies. Peanuts is one of them. Some people are gluten-free. Some people don't like chili, and things like that. So, I thought with your help, we would get some good words to use for people to check that out. But I have to ask you a crazy question is, when I go to a restaurant and just say I want to attract the waiter to come to my table to take our order or whatever. I say the word, 'em ơi'. Hà: 02:31 Yeah. Kerry Newsome: 02:33 But I looked that up and the description for that in English is called 'My dear'. Hà: 02:42 Yeah, yeah. It's actually that, but you know, as you said before, for each person in our relationship or in our circle, like everybody around us, we give them nouns to say them, for example, if they are younger than you, you call them 'em' or older than you can call them this, like that, same age, with your father, you call them this. So, in the restaurant, you are absolutely right to call the waiters or the waitress, 'em ơi', even though it basically means 'my dear'. Kerry Newsome: 03:17 Right? Okay, because I have been using that term for a long, long time. So, I'm glad I got that right. But just for everyone listening, it is a way of being able to, in English standards, summon the waiter to your table. So, it kind of covers everything from like: • 'Excuse me', • ‘Waiter', to get your attention. It kind of covers all that, because they always turn their heads and then they will look at you and they can see you and then they will try to come to your table to serve you food. So 'em ơi' is a really good one for that. Hà: 03:57 A very good one. Kerry Newsome: 03:57 And most of the staff are younger than me. Hà: 03:59 So that's good. Kerry Newsome: 04:01 That's good, yeah. 04:08 What about- and I don't know I haven't tried this myself. But if I was to say, 'No chili', so, 'We don't want anything with chili.' Sometimes they will point it on the actual menu to point that out. But how would I say that in Vietnamese? Hà: 04:29 I think it would be easier for you to say, 'No spicy.' Kerry Newsome: 04:35 'No spicy', and how do you say that? Hà: 04:38 No is 'không'. Spicy is 'cay'. Kerry Newsome: 04:46 Cay. So how do I say them together? Hà: 04:50 You just connect them together. You say, 'không cay'. Kerry Newsome: 04:53 'Không cay'. Hà: 04:55 'Không cay'. Kerry Newsome: 04:57 'Không cay' is 'no chili' or 'no spicy'. Hà: 05:00 No spicy. Yeah, because the word chili is- I guess it could be hard for you to pronounce. Chili is- [laughter]. Kerry Newsome: 05:09 Yeah, you're getting a really good understanding of how bad my pronunciation is. Hà: 05:13 No, not for you, don't think like that, yeah. Because I am living with my husband. Obviously, he's not Vietnamese. And so, I know what is hard for him and what is not hard for him. So, I'm teaching him- and I'm also teaching him some basic Vietnamese like I did to you now, so I didn't mean that your pronunciation is bad, I just mean like- Kerry Newsome: 05:23 No, I get it. That's fine. 05:46 So, if we say, 'No peanuts', would it be không- How do you say peanuts? Hà: 05:54 Well, that's the hard one. Peanut is 'đậu phộng'. Kerry Newsome: 05:58 Đậu phộng. Hà: 06:01 Yes. 'Không đậu phộng'. Kerry Newsome: 06:01 'Không đậu phộng'. Hà: 06:03 Yes, but remember, if you go to Hanoi or any province in the North, they have another word for peanuts. They don't usually use đậu phộng'. They use 'lạc'. Kerry Newsome: 06:07 Lạc. Hà: 06:21 Yes. So, in the South, and Center, you can use 'Không đậu phộng'. Kerry Newsome: 06:26 'Không đậu phộng'. Hà: 06:28 Yes. And in the North, 'Không lạc'. Kerry Newsome: 06:34 'Không lạc'. Không lạc? Hà: 06:36 Không lạc. Lạc is very down. Không lạc Kerry Newsome: 06:39 Lạc is down. Okay. 06:48 I bet this one is going to be a hard one, too. "Do you have gluten-free?"` Hà: 06:54 Oh, gluten-free. Gluten-free is-- oh, that's going to be hard. It's mean- Kerry Newsome: 07:01 I knew, it would be. Hà: 07:03 Because you-- Kerry Newsome: 07:03 It comes up for a lot of people. They want to know if there are things on the menu that are gluten-free? Hà: 07:09 Gluten-free is like no rice. No wheat. Kerry Newsome: 07:16 Yeah. No wheat. Yeah. Hà: 07:18 So 'không' as in 'No'. Yeah, like- Kerry Newsome: 07:24 Không. Hà: 07:23 Yeah, and gluten-free. You can say, 'Không tinh bột'. That is hard, is it? Kerry Newsome: 07:28 I am just looking at your face, going, "Oh my God. How am I going to say that?" Can you say one more time? Hà: 07:38 Không tinh bột. Kerry Newsome: 07:42 Không tinh bột. Hà: 07:48 Bột. Kerry Newsome: 07:48 As in boat. Hà: 07:50 Bột, it is B, O, T. Kerry Newsome: 07:55 So just one more time. Hà: 07:57 Không tinh bột. Kerry Newsome: 08:00 Không tinh bột. Hà: 08:02 Yeah, you got it right. How are you going to get gluten free in Vietnam? That's going to be hard. Kerry Newsome: 08:14 Well, the thing I've suggested to people is, that they can have the soup without the noodles. Hà: 08:21 They can have a soup without the noodle, yes. Kerry Newsome: 08:23 Yes, and they can have the herbs, and they will still get all the lovely flavors. And they can also eat other things like maybe duck or chicken on its own and things like that. So yeah, there's plenty, and seafood. Hà: 08:40 Yeah. Kerry Newsome: 08:41 Yeah, so that is your best option for gluten free. But the noodles, unfortunately, you can't have. So, if I say, 'how much?'. Đúng-- How do you say, 'how much?' Hà: 08:58 You say, 'how much?' like 'bao nhiêu'. Kerry Newsome: 09:02 Bao nhiêu. Hà: 09:05 Tiền. Kerry Newsome: 09:07 Tiền. Hà: 09:08 Yes. Kerry Newsome: 09:09 Bao nhiêu tiền? Hà: 09:11 Yes. Kerry Newsome: 09:13 And then do you put the word Đong on the end? Hà: 09:16 No, we don't usually say- we just say- Kerry Newsome: 09:19 Just how much? Bao nhiêu tiền? Okay. Hà: 09:20 Bao nhiêu tiền? Yes, you got it right. Kerry Newsome: 09:25 Okay. And then one last one, for the restaurant, is, "Can I pay with credit card?" Hà: 09:33 "Can I pay with credit card?" You can say, 'tôi'. Kerry Newsome: 09:40 Tôi. Hà: 09:40 Which means 'I'. Tôi. And then you say, 'can use' which is, 'Tôi có thể'. Kerry Newsome: 09:49 Tôi có thể. Hà: 09:54 Mm hmm. Trả. Kerry Newsome: 09:59 Trả. Hà: 09:59 Yes. Trả. Kerry Newsome: 10:01 You're in France. Hà: 10:02 Yes, sorry. Yeah, 'bẳng'. Kerry Newsome: 10:09 Bẳng. Hà: 10:09 Which is 'by'. Kerry Newsome: 10:11 Right. So, credit card- Hà: 10:13 Credit card, you can say credit card, they would understand, or you can say 'thẻ'. Kerry Newsome: 10:19 Thẻ. So, you say it all together and I'll see if I can say it. Hà: 10:24 Mm hmm. You can say, "Tôi có thể trả bẳng thẻ không?" Kerry Newsome: 10:29 [laughter] Oh! my god. Yeah. So how can I make that simple? Hà: 10:37 Yeah. You just say- like showing the card and say, ’có thể?' Or you can say- có thể means- Kerry Newsome: 10:45 Or 'dạ?' Like, 'Yes?'. Hà: 10:48 Yeah. Or you say- you just show them the credit card, because this is the hard one. Kerry Newsome: 10:56 Làm ơn? Hà: 10:57 Làm ơn. Làm ơn, card, yes. Kerry Newsome: 11:01 Yeah, so that's: "Please, can I use?" They will see the card and put everything together. Hà: 11:06 Yes, 'Please'. You can say 'làm ơn', which is very polite. That's helpful. All of us [inaudible 11:11] long sentence. Yeah, I [crosstalk]. English Vietnamese Phonetic Please Làm ơn Lam urn No Không Khung Yes (1) Đá. Ya Yes (2) Đúng Du’n My dear em ơi Em-oy Not spicy Không cay Khung kay Peanuts [for northern regions] Đậu phộng Dao phung Peanuts [for southern/central regions] Lạc Lac No peanuts Không đậu phộng Khung dao phung Spicy Cay Kay Gluten-free/ No gluten Không tinh bột Khung tin bot How much? Bao nhiêu tiền? Bao new ti-en Can I pay with credit card Tôi có thể trả bẳng thẻ không? Toi co thay tha bang thay khung? I Tôi Toi Can use Có thể Co thay By Bẳng Bang Credit card Thẻ Thay Kerry Newsome: 11:16 Yeah. Okay

971b2c29-b5dc-4a86-ac7b-6ac56695c545When it is about the food it is because it is fantastic What About Vietnam - 2-19 Discover the culture and history of Vietnam through its food Kerry Newsome: [00:00:35] Xin Chau, and welcome to What About Vietnam? Kerry Newsome: [00:00:38] Look, when someone tells you they think Vietnam has put a string around their heart and brings them coming back for more. Year after year, you know, you have to have them on the show. That's just it. Have you ever heard that saying “you can feel the love” or “you should listen to your heart?” Both those sayings speak. directly to my guest today when she talks about her love and her genuine knowledge of Vietnamese cuisine and the Vietnamese people. Monika Czerveniak is my guest today. And as an enthusiastic traveller of South East Asia, she has worked in the hospitality industry for many years as a consultant. She's a food blogger and she runs Chow Down Vietnam Food Tours. And in her spare time, she is the face and creator behind fearless cooking classes and workshops in Hoi An and Vietnam. Vancouver, B.C., Canada, where we're talking to her today. And, you know, she pretty much goes wherever her taste buds will let her. Being born and raised in Austria to a family of restaurateurs. Monika speaks of the importance of fresh food; ingredients that burst with simple flavours and yet delight the palate. The smells and excitement of growing up in a restaurant inspired her further education and training in Austria and to her broader travels throughout Europe and Asia. She tells me a few years ago she felt completely in love with Vietnam's magical culture and people while crisscrossing the country several times and indulging in their amazingly fresh and healthy cuisine. Finally settling in Hoi An for eight years, her beloved tours and experiences of food in Vietnam will not only open your ears, hearts and imagination to Vietnamese food you can experience during your stay, but I'm betting it may be the subject that you talk most about when you get home. So let's jump in and hear what this fun loving, fearless chef has to tell us about Vietnamese food and what you can expect on your visit. Kerry Newsome: [00:02:55] Monika, it's great to have you on the show. Welcome. Monika Czerveniak: [00:02:59] Welcome. Thank you for having me. Kerry Newsome: [00:03:02] It's absolutely delightful to have you on. We've got a lot to get through. So I'm going to start by asking something I've been meaning to ask you when we began chatting. What inspired you to visit Vietnam that very first time? Monika Czerveniak: [00:03:22] Well, that's very simple. In 1980, and 19992 a movie came out in the U.S. and in that movie was Catherine Deneuve. And I was crazy, crazy about this woman. She was beautiful. I mean, she still is today. Anyway, the movie has really touched me not only for herself as an actress, but the whole thing about the story of Vietnam or in the scene and the French and so on, so forth. So it really inspired me all these years. That's what I want to do one day. So and that's what happened. So I was working in Beijing and Singapore and all of a had to leave for about 30 for 30 days of working to leave and go somewhere and come back after a week with a visa requirement. And so I went everywhere except Vietnam and it never happened. So after I retired, I finally did go to Vietnam for five weeks and I travelled the entire country and I totally fell in love with the country and thus came “chowdownVietnam”. Well a little later. But yes, through my travels and through my interest and my passion, which is food, people said, well why don't you do a full tour. Kerry Newsome: [00:04:56] Ok, and I think we said you'd been there about eight years. So that's quite a long time to get around Vietnam. Monika Czerveniak: [00:05:05] Yes. And I still don't know everything. Kerry Newsome: [00:05:09] Now, it's an ever-changing landscape, that is for sure. So before we get tangled up in in too much of that, I mean, we've got some stories to cover. I don't want to get caught up in noodles and sticky rice just yet. But look, try it if you can, to just give us a little bit of history about the influences that make Vietnamese cuisine quite unique, amongst other Asian cuisines. You know, sometimes it gets kind of put in the Asian food general bucket. And you and I both agree that's not the case. But talk to us, if you can, just a little bit about what the influences are that make, Vietnamese food so special, so unique. Monika Czerveniak: [00:06:05] Well, I think I need to start with a little bit of history of the occupation of Vietnam. They have been occupied for over thousands of years by the Chinese, the Japanese, the French and the British were there for about a year. So they had a lot of influences coming to them. And after the war, all I would say more, less 20th century, 20th century, their cuisine has sort of come about and changed completely because of the French influence, the French when they occupied. They were almost 70 years in Vietnam when they occupied Vietnam. In that time they created beautiful buildings, streets and sidewalks and beautiful houses. And they brought their cuisine. They brought their Pho, which is a chicken soup with vegetables in France. They brought their pate, they brought the breads & baguettes and all these things they brought into the food. And what happened was the Vietnamese sort of adapted it to their style and they created something out of it. So this is why they have a fabulous spread. This is why. They have amazing coffee, amazing noodles and rice, because, you know, they had nothing, especially after the war. There was not much rice in the. north. So in the south, there was a lot of rice, rice paddies coming up in order to feed the country. So as it is of the day, it has really been influenced by all these different cultures, But, especially the north, the north has very much been influenced by the Chinese over these years, so the cuisine in the north is over; taste is a little bit different than from the south. So there's quite a difference in that because of agricultural ways in the north. So it's colder there, so theres more noodles, whereas the South is doing the rice because there's plenty of food and lots of fruits and vegetables and herbs and they've grown all that in the south. So to do that, whether because of the weather as well, the South is always heart and soul is rice. Monika Czerveniak: [00:08:43] And so things are going different. So everything tastes a little bit different. And it's almost like two cultures, both doing the same thing. Kerry Newsome: [00:08:54] Yeah. And, you know, it's something that I learnt very early on in my trips back and forth was that, you know, I tried to get one dish in Saigon, and then try to order the same dish in Hanoi and either ,I couldn't get it, or be it just tasted totally different. And I was like, what have I missed here? Like, yeah. Can you explain? Monika Czerveniak: [00:09:24] Well, it is because of the Chinese influence in the north. So they are more into. And it's the fish sauce in the south, the focus is on fish. Kerry Newsome: [00:09:33] So, the Chinese influence is very strong in the north. Monika Czerveniak: [00:09:38] Even you don't mention that word of it, but you know, it is their cuisine. Monika Czerveniak: [00:09:45] So they're very proud of that. But I think and I know that this is the main concern or the main difference that the weather and what they're growing, that's what it is all about. So in the north, they have more pork and chicken and more proteins basically, and not as many vegetables and not as many fresh foods as the South has. It's because of that also the way that basically their own cuisine that's what happens. If you have a buncha, for instance, which is a national decision in Hanoi, which you must have if you have it in Hanoi, it will taste completely different. It’s the same as spring rolls or just noodles or whatever it is, it's all a little bit different. And also in the in the north, they don't serve their food spicy. You will get spicy condiments that you use yourself. But they don't add them in. You put it yourself into the soups or into the things, but they're not making the dishes spicy, is they do in the south. You get a little bit more "Umph" Kerry Newsome: [00:11:05] Yeah. Monika Czerveniak: [00:11:05] Well what is happening with the food is incredible harmony about flavours. It's very important. It's like, you know, the four or five senses of cooking. It's sweet, sour, spicy, pungent and salty. So and they also have the little marny flavor because of the fish sauce. Kerry Newsome: [00:11:28] So I know it does. Kerry Newsome: [00:11:33] And it makes sense to me when I did some street food tours and certainly also when I did some cooking classes to just say the additives of when you mentioned, I think you said sweet, sour and punchy, which is chili and things like that, but the amount of sugar that goes in some and the amount of salt and the amount of chili does vary quite dramatically in each area. And I mean, to me, that kind of adds some of the excitement about it. If you let your taste buds take you to various locations, it's never the same. I want to talk a little bit about street food, and I want to do that because it comes up a lot. And some people, I think, have a little bit of a reservation about eating street food. I mean, I I've been a fairly game traveller, I suppose so I will eat it. No matter what country, if they're serving something that's cooked. If that smell and that aroma is drawing me in, I'm there and I'm buying that shish kebab or that stick of pork, you know, something to try. Much to the amazement of who I'm traveling with. You don't know what's in that. And that could be this and that could be that. So talk to us a little bit about street food and Vietnam to me. Monika Czerveniak: [00:13:21] The first thing I would like to suggest to anyone who visits Vietnam, take a food tour, don't be cheap, good food to eat because you learn a tremendous amount and your eyes will be open. Monika Czerveniak: [00:13:38] And the guys, which is all speaking really well, English, and they see they know everything and they know where to go. I highly suggest that, you know, if you walk around the first few days and see what's going on, but your curiosity will get the better of you, because you see food everywhere and you just ache to try it. You’ll be watching the food being cooked and then three minutes later, there's some fabulous things in there and there's all this. So, add in salads and, you know, with one second you have this amazing noodle dish that you have no idea. A minute ago it was there and I was there and now you're eating it and the flavors and the taste of it and the freshness of it. So that's what needs to be seen in the midst of the experience. But the most important thing is, yes, there's a bit of a problem. I mean, food safety, we're not in North America. When I was in Australia, when you go to Asia, you have a certain bit of resistance in your stomach to what you eat. Mind you, you can get a food safety program, even in the best hotels. Kerry Newsome: [00:15:00] It can happen. Absolutely. Monika Czerveniak: [00:15:02] So when you see what was one of my philosophy, I always go where there are people. So the more people, more are on the street in that place. So, you know, lounges. And I'm going to say this fast. Well, I know the pork’s been out all day, but it's unheard of in our country that that is what you have this out on the council. So, yeah, you need to go, to know where to go and what to do. The thing is about three, four days. And when you watch this and I've watched so many, many times and I love watching it is when you go to the markets and you see all these little shops and these little LB's and there is not much food around, the food comes constantly fresh. There's fresh chicken coming. It just killed is around the corner that is coming. Monika Czerveniak: [00:15:54] And, you know, it's just everything it's fresh and it's coming to you live with these guys on the motorbike vespa’s and got all the chicken hanging up a little bit and just five minutes ago. Monika Czerveniak: [00:16:05] And you get the freshest of the freshest and you get the first chance and maybe to drive once. So, you know, there's a lot to watch. But I think you just have to let go and try everything. If you don't go to Vietnam to experience the food, I would say don't waste your time to go there. Kerry Newsome: [00:16:25] I fully agree, I think it is. [00:16:29] And I think there's always some lovely characters that come with that. and some experiences like the people or the vendors that are selling it. You know, you can kind of strike up some kind of communication with them. You know, the stories told sitting on little red chairs. They absolutely fascinated me when I first came to Vietnam. I thought, my God, this country has just had a bulk sale in red chairs, what's the story behind the red chairs. Monika Czerveniak: [00:17:03] I don't know where they came from. Monika Czerveniak: [00:17:06] Well, I always make up the stories as the French left a little chair from the kids playground. Or something and like that. Monika Czerveniak: [00:17:12] And they wanted to open up the shop. Monika Czerveniak: [00:17:15] There's not much room and they want to get as many people into their little shop. So, you know, they are perfect for that. Monika Czerveniak: [00:17:24] And then I always feel like I'm playing house like a ten year old again, that, you know, it's like I remember the first time I was in taking a hike up in Sapa in the northern parts, and we had this fabulous tour guide. This woman with a baby on the back. And the walk was for, you know, six, seven hours a day. And at the end of the tour, she said, I would like to invite you to my house. It wasn't really a house, it was a little contraption, a shed kind of thing where you could look through the walls and it was like two by fours kind of put together. And she said, sit down and I'm making you some dinner. Monika Czerveniak: [00:18:09] And there she is on the floor chopping up cabbage and putting boards there. And she's kneeling on the floor. And as they do and then chopping up the leaf. Monika Czerveniak: [00:18:22] And in a half an hour later, it's amazing you know. I will never forget that. And then how much they put in to show you how much they love their country is unbelievable. And they will do anything for you. Food to love it. Kerry Newsome: [00:18:38] Yes. Well, yes. Yes, I agree. Kerry Newsome: [00:18:42] I think I mean, I purposely did cooking classes and took food tours because I think the best way to get to know a country is definitely through their food. And as you say, they are very proud of their food and their cuisine, the spices, everything that they put into it. They do it with such love that, you know, you feel like you’re a part of their family almost when they are serving a dish, which is absolutely just delightful. But tell us, like you run ChowDownTours, which is a fabulous concept and I know very successful. Talk to us a little bit about some of the experiences along those tours with people, because obviously, people listening to us are saying, oh, gee, you know, is that me or not? You know, people have expectations or some preconceived ideas. Talk to us a little bit about some of the experiences that you've enjoyed with people on your tours. Monika Czerveniak: [00:19:57] Well, first, I want to say no to tours are ever the same. Everything I do is a little bit different. So different areas, different food, different things that we do, mainly because I have to say I'm very selfish. Monika Czerveniak: [00:20:12] I like to be excited about things that I do. So I don't like doing the same thing all over again. So during my tours, I mean, I will take people and always start in Hanoi because that's where you need to start, in my opinion, in order to get to know Vietnam, to see the difference and everything else and see how people are. But we usually start in Hanoi. We went up to Sapa before this year. Monika Czerveniak: [00:20:40] Now we're adding in Phong Nha is where we go. My last tour in Vietnam was two years ago. Monika Czerveniak: [00:20:54] And I've taken 16 people on the Ho Chi Minh Trail for five days. So we did that on a motorbike. So everybody was sitting on the back of a motorbike. And some of us were driving our own little bikes. But it was an amazing tour. And to this day, and this has been two years now, people are still in touch with me. And they say it was the best trip they have ever had in their whole life. Monika Czerveniak: [00:21:21] So seeing Vietnam in a different way, different areas, it's just amazing. So and then we're going down to Hoi An, which is why I decided it's the most beautiful part of all of Vietnam. And my idea of beautiful beaches. So there we are. We do bike rides. We find how rice is cultivated. What they're doing with it in April, then in April, October, we'll be watching a rice harvest and how they're processing the rice and what's involved and actually showing them the real hard work that's involved. And they have earned five cents on a bowl of rice to feed the family. We also go to cooking classes and I do two, three, day cooking classes sometimes where it's not only Vietnamese, but it's also very, very much into fresh food and also not wasting food. So this is where fearless cooking comes out of ChowdownVienam. So, that's what I'm continuing at the moment here in Canada, because, you know, we're kind of stuck. Kerry Newsome: [00:22:41] Yes, I’m right with you on that one. When we talk about fresh, speak to us a little bit about the freshness side. And they don't waste anything. That was the thing. I think we started cooking something with the pumpkin plant, and I couldn't believe that they used absolutely every part of the pumpkin, the flower, fruit, the vegetable. So talk to us a little bit about the freshness side and, and just about theire need to not want to waste anything. Monika Czerveniak: [00:23:20] Well, that's I think that's the number one thing about Vietnam is the Vietnamese food is the freshness and one of the reasons everybody has their own voice. They have a community, community gardens, community-wise is that they share in the villages. The government has given them all of so much land that they can harvest. It's theirs. And then the community goes together. So everything is fresh. They don't go to the supermarket, you know, I mean, the bigger cities they have, but they don't have supermarkets, so they don't have processed food, even though I have to say that's coming in and the children are young people is getting into that, unfortunately. But the freshness is there because they live right there, and they put it right there in their own house. They got the rice outside and they harvest the spinach and herbs and they're selling it goes to the market and making the news in the morning or the rice gets cooked in the morning off they go to the market and it so that's a very natural thing. They don't understand that. And nothing gets leftover. Everything gets eaten and then they start all over again. And, you know, when they have dinner, they're about six or eight dishes or whatever, you can just have fun like we do spring rolls. And that's our dinner. No, no. There's a whole lot of vegetables and herbs. The whole is incredibly important to Vietnamese cuisine. Monika Czerveniak: [00:24:52] And, you know, I mean food. So you have amazing flavors in there. This is unbelievable. So it's always for them. Kerry Newsome: [00:24:59] It's awesome. It's always if I can just interject that it's always amazed me because they have in some ways a high vegetarian but high carb diet, which, you know, because of the noodles and because of the rice etc. But they're so tiny as people. Kerry Newsome: [00:25:19] What is in their rice and their noodles that isn't in ours? Monika Czerveniak: [00:25:29] I think it's the combination of there's never just rice, it's all this rice goes with vegetables. And you must have this. I mean, the amount of vegetables that the amount of greens that they are eating, that's what makes them really healthy. We don't eat that amount of wheat. When you look at, you know, the spinach and the herbs and there's a plate of green on the table. This is enormous. It's huge. And they're not eating like us. A whole big bowl of rice, even though they are. But it's mixed and slowly and enjoying it. We are rushing our. - Breakfast, lunch and dinner. For them its an art form. You don't just throw all of that away and not care. Monika Czerveniak: [00:26:14] You know, you're enjoying it and you are meeting your friends. You're talking to your family. Monika Czerveniak: [00:26:20] Food is the most important thing for Vietnamese kids. I mean, there's nothing else but food, you know, money. We want to make money and make a living. But food is the priority. And when they need you, they will give you food. Monika Czerveniak: [00:26:36] You must have food. You must take food, food for them. This is an extension of who they are. And I think they're sharing it with us. And it's fabulous. It's really is an amazing thing. Kerry Newsome: [00:26:51] And it took me a while to grab that concept because, you know, I have very dear friend, she's Vietnamese. And I actually met her when she delivered a cooking class. And we just got on so well and have been friends for years. But it's kind of almost ritualistic, isn't it? It's celebrating. Yes. It's being respectful of the food, grateful for the food and their appreciation of your company to enjoy it. And they slow down. As you say, they're not like us that are just gobbling food and shoving it down our throat. They do it meticulously. They do it very artfully, almost how they will set it up and they will bless the food and then eat it. And it really forced me to take a real look at just, you know, what I do when I come home. When I am back home cooking food, as we do with a family or whatever, and, you know, I've sat at the table and I've said to people, just slow the heck down. You know, we can enjoy this food and we should be more grateful for that. We have it. So I'm glad you brought that up. But where should a traveller start and finish and what locations and maybe dishes they should try? Geez, there are a lot questions. Monika Czerveniak: [00:28:48] I'll make it firm, you know me! Monika Czerveniak: [00:28:50] I mean, first of all, I know, You need to start in Hanoi, and I know it has amazing food. Monika Czerveniak: [00:29:02] And as I mentioned, you need to first of all, have Pho, you need to have the food, the soup for the food, whatever you want to call it is an important start. It used to be in the old days. It used to be for Vietnamese that it would only be available in the morning if that was a breakfast and so forth because of the influx of the tourists of wanting more and more and more. Now it's getting served 24 hours. Monika Czerveniak: [00:29:33] I mean, you can have Pho anywhere and that's where you need to have that in order to try to sit down in the south. Right. In order to see the difference. The other thing is Buncha, it is Bún chả it is ground PORK it comes with noodles and it comes with special sauces. And it's just an experience. So you just you might look at it and say, oh, that looks like burger patties, but it is so much love and taste and flavor in these things and how they ARE making. And it comes with very special spring rolls. So that's another dish that you need to try and over the other one IS CHA CA LA VONG, which is a fish DISH. And there's a whole street dedicated. It's actually called CHA CA LA VONG in the old QUARTER dedicated to that. And some restaurants, there are some of them over a hundred years old and you don't have to order anything. Monika Czerveniak: [00:30:30] It's just sit down and they'll bring these COOKERS and they bring you a big frying pan. And the thing is sizzling on it and you start cooking it yourself and turning everything and dipping it here and adding the noodles. And it's fish. And the sauce is a very special dish. It's a white fish. It's very tasty. It's not a FATTY FISH. It's very, very, very, very good fish, very tasty. And it comes in a DILL sauce. And that's that's an amazing, amazing dish that a lot of people don't know about. And it's very, very important that they TRY that. And of course, you want to have your first introduction to a BANH MI, which is A BAQUETTE with various things. And you can have is one of the first words I learned was Op LA and Op LA means eggs and so is you in the morning, walk around, you see these people with these BAQUETTE'S selling you stuff. You just go Op LA and they give you some eggs and amazing herbs and special sauces that they make. Everybody makes a little sauce and it's something to die for. So you start off with that and then you make your way down to the to the middle part of the southern part and things start to change a little bit there. But again, go for the BANH MI -one of the best BANH MI in the whole world is IN HOI AN. And there's nothing better than that. Kerry Newsome: [00:32:03] Yeah. Yeah, you do. And once again, as you say, the baguettes, as in the bread that they make is, is just as you say....to die for.. Monika Czerveniak: [00:32:14] It is to die for myself. And one of the ways it's made with white flour, there's a little bit of wheat flour. Monika Czerveniak: [00:32:21] I had the pleasure of working in a bakery for the night and it was quite interesting. None of them spoke in English. And my Vietnamese is yes, no, not the non existing, but it was amazing. Monika Czerveniak: [00:32:36] I thought it was just flour, but yeah, no, it's rice mixed with a little bit of wheat flour, and it's unbelievable. Monika Czerveniak: [00:32:45] One more thing. I like to add is that people need to try in Hanoi, and that is an egg coffee. Vietnamese is very famous for their coffee. And you need to try any kind of coffee, its like a coffee that is black, with AN egg THAT IS WHIPPED on top, which is like you know, when you whip up some eggs , with some wine, which is not in there, it's called SABAYON. So that is put on top ONTO THE COFFEE.. And so the affect to the coffee is unbelievable. Forget the 5000 calories, but it's fabulous. Kerry Newsome: [00:33:25] Yes, I know, I'm one of these people that even when I order a juice, I say no sugar because I can get a bit sugared-up over there if I didn't love the sugar or sugars or something. Monika Czerveniak: [00:33:41] Yes. Kerry Newsome: [00:33:42] So we finish up. We finish up, we stop and we go to Hanoi. And I think another thing that I've enjoyed, I'm sure you have to in Hoi An and Danang is seafood and being able to eat just beautifully freshly caught seafood when you're selecting it out of a bucket. Pretty much, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. Monika Czerveniak: [00:34:13] No, they're great with the mussels. With the clams in this fabulous thing with clams. They just throw them on the barbecue. But they have a different system that we have on barbecue deal, making it steamy hot and they're waving something around. So in order to put the heat to go right into it, I mean, you will see a lot of men on the street that are actually barbecuing in front of the house and selling it. And they're taking great pride in that. And that's a whole system of holiday barbecue and how they're fattening it and how which way to do it. But the seafood, yes, it's it's fabulous. Kerry Newsome: [00:34:51] It's really fresh. Monika Czerveniak: [00:34:54] So with everything so we do Banh Mi and we definitely do seafood in Hoi An and then we head down further down south and we end up I mean, Monika Czerveniak: [00:35:10] If I may interrupt for a second, there's Cau Lau in Hoi An. Monika Czerveniak: [00:35:14] Oh, How did we forget Cau Lau it's a very, very special dish that's is only going to get in Hoi An. And so this is your chance. If you get it somewhere else, I can tell you it's not going to be the same. So that is there is a very special well in Hoi An, that they are taking the water in order to cook from the water from the well. Monika Czerveniak: [00:35:40] And that's right. Ba Le Well. Well, and it's very important. Kerry Newsome: [00:35:45] So is that true? Kerry Newsome: [00:35:48] I thought that was a myth! Monika Czerveniak: [00:35:55] Some of them are not. But the myth is this is the water and that's the only way of getting the right flavors. So they are cooking the dinner. So it's a broth and it has some herbs in it. And, you know, it's basil and all kinds of things. And it's just a very aromatic soup that with noodles and meat and very thin slices of pork. Kerry Newsome: [00:36:21] And it's just so delicious too. It’s all about the broth, isn't it? It's the most important thing. And the crunchy pieces of pork. Kerry Newsome: [00:36:33] Oh, yes. I can't say enough about what to do with pork bellies, that's for sure. Kerry Newsome: [00:36:41] I sure do, but absolutely do. So if we leave Hoi Am, where would we go to next, do you think? Monika Czerveniak: [00:36:49] Well, you can go straight to Saigon but if you want to have some really experience, that is completely different. I'd like everybody to go into every part of the country but you should go to Dalat, as it is completely different which is in the mountains, which is of oh my goodness. French friends used to go and build mansions in the mountains for the summer and just enjoying themselves and the nice cool temperature and the last. And it's beautiful, beautiful agriculture is they have a lot of silkworms where they make silk out of it. So you can watch them. You can eat silkworms there. You can eat silkworms anywhere. But if you were to eat silkworms, I would say you have to do it in Dalat with a little bit of garlic and white wine sauce is absolutely delicious. Monika Czerveniak: [00:37:45] I know a lot of people go big in the in the in the U.S., but it is a delicacy Monika Czerveniak: [00:37:53] They also believe in love and have crackers and all kinds of animals up there, because let's remember the war, there was nothing to eat. So after the war, there was nothing there .No rice. So they were starving. So they went with insects and all kinds of things. Yes. Have been using in the past cats and yes. Is still using dogs in some special areas, unfortunately. But we have to also understand the culture and that out of neccesity they come from them. And a lot of these old timers, especially men like that kind, can’t change. Monika Czerveniak: [00:38:35] But anyway, it's an interesting, very beautiful monastery up in the last beautiful coffee country. It's lovely. Strawberries, flowers, all the flowers from Vietnam have come from the lot. Kerry Newsome: [00:38:51] So it's very good. It's a beautiful place. And they have everlasting flowers and strawberries the size of eggs. I've never seen such big strawberries. Yes, you can actually taste them. Exactly. Yeah. Kerry Newsome: [00:39:10] So then would we go to I want to grab you before we finish up, because I know you've got a little bit to tell about Phu Quoc, but I want to just grab from you in Saigon. What dish would you pick to make sure that you try. Monika Czerveniak: [00:39:30] Well, there you go again. You have to have seafood's in Saigon. You get the best fox and the best the best seafood anywhere. I mean, I would highly suggest you go on on a food tour with a motorbike, you know, several tour companies and I mentioned my favorites to accompany there. Monika Czerveniak: [00:39:55] If I go on Vespas, which I go in Saigon. This visit is an adventure that you can have in every town. But if you don't have time up north, I highly suggest Saigon to do it. It's an experience you will never forget on the back of a motorbike at six o'clock is rush hour. You have about nine million motorbikes out there and going all in one direction. And then people go and they stop in various places in order to have frog and crab and very delicate things, and the stuffed squid and things like that. Then you go to to drive around and you see the town, the city lit up. Monika Czerveniak: [00:40:45] And it's just beautiful seeing it like this and everything. Monika Czerveniak: [00:40:48] And then you go into a nightclub but don't actually go into a bar. They take you to a place where you go down some back alley and it goes to show, some people's houses and you go upstairs, and you up on some top floor and you find a great jazz band playing. And it's just the most intimate, beautiful kind of music. There's no microphones. It's organically done, and it's an experience of it's own. And afterwards you go to a nightclub and there is something else. Vietnamese like to dance. They all like to dance and they love music. They're great musicians, and they're just having a good time enjoying life so much, so much more than we do in reality every day. Monika Czerveniak: [00:41:38] Absolutely. I'm out with my friends. Monika Czerveniak: [00:41:41] Yeah. There's no weekend. I'm going with my friends. So it's always every day, they are out and about. So highly recommended is the highlight of my summer and it's an experience they will never forget and you will be able to do the things that you've never used before. Kerry Newsome: [00:42:00] All right. Well, knowing how you and I can get we could be here for hours, but I'm trying to be aware of time. Can you just talk very quickly? I just want to finish up with a little bit about Phu Quoc, because not many know much about it. But I know we talked about Pepper and we also talked about fish sauce. And I just thought very quickly, you could tell the importance of that and just how it relates to Phu Quoc, the island in the South China Sea. Monika Czerveniak: [00:42:44] So what it’s really famous for, is for the fish sauce. And it's in all the other parts of Vietnam, fish sauce is made with squid. This one is made with anchovies. And it really sets it apart from any other fish sauce that I've ever tasted. Firstly, I like Red Bull fish sauce, which is amazing. And I realized it is now in a lot of different countries and I was finally able to export it. And it's really made a name of itself. But also, it is a pristine beautiful island with fabulous beaches. There are some parts where, you know, the Sheridan and all those big conglomerates have appeared. But there's also a jungle there that you can get lost in a very easy. But if you're looking for food, seafood, it is. I've never in my life seeing prawns like this. They were like some of them were like, you know, 10, 12 inches long. I've not ever seen one. So huge, they're like little crayfish, almost little lobsters. That's how big. Monika Czerveniak: [00:44:17] Wow. So are you. And tasty. Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. And you know, in Vietnam they have this very special dipping sauce. Everything goes into it. Monika Czerveniak: [00:44:27] And it's it's basically made from water, sugar, lime juice and of course, fish sauce and chili. And so this is unbelievable. But in Phu Quoc, because it has such fantastic pepper, it's one very, very aromatic pepper. And unfortunately, I just ran out the other day, so I need to go back. Kerry Newsome: [00:44:52] We definitely have to go back. Monika Czerveniak: [00:44:54] Yeah, absolutely. But what they are doing is taking the beautiful pepper. ….they grind it up with a little bit of salt and then they're mixing it in a little bit with lime juice. And that's what you dip, your giant prawns and shrimps in. Oh, my God, I'm salivating right now as I speak. But it's unforgettable, an unforgettable taste. Its just Vietnam. Kerry Newsome: [00:45:27] Monika, look, this is definitely going to be an unforgettable episode because we've covered so much and I'm so thrilled to have done it with you. Maybe might kind of grab you for another episode down the track. We might even get you to talk about a recipe maybe that people can try at home. Maybe we do something like that. Kerry Newsome: [00:45:51] What do you think? Monika Czerveniak : Id love to love to do that. Yes. Fantastic. OK, Monika, I'm going to have to say farewell. Thank you for your time. And I hope to be in Vietnam with you very soon. . Thank you for listening. Kerry Newsome: [00:46:16] Check out the episode notes for more information. What about Vietnam? Don't forget to subscribe, write and review and stay tuned for more on adventures in Vietnam.

0fb6c539-013e-4680-af6e-b74130a97da9Is Vietnam family-friendly? With guest Suzie Slingsby. What About Vietnam - Series 2 - 3 Is Vietnam a Family Friendly destination? Kerry Newsome: Xing Chau ,and Welcome to What about Vietnam? Today we tackle a question that comes up a lot. Is Vietnam a family friendly country, and does it cater to kids? I'm lucky today to be putting this question to my well traveled guest, Suzie Slingsby Slingsby. Suzie Slingsby's had the privilege of traveling over many years, working in the financial services and the travel industry. And while she's a busy girl, as she is a board member for a local credit union, I caught up with her in Lennox heads Australia. We had a good chat about her visits to Vietnam and how much she loves the country. Suzie Slingsby has a beautiful daughter, Bella, and as a family they've traveled to Vietnam several times, and she says, There's really good reasons for that. I'd love you to welcome Suzie Slingsby to the program. Hello, Suzie, Welcome. To What About Vietnam? Suzie Slingsby: Thanks, Kerry Kerry Newsome: Look great to have you on the show for many reasons. As I know, you're a very well travelled person and certainly done are few trips now to Vietnam. I know you also travel with your lovely daughter Bella, who I think has got a birthday very soon. She's coming up to eight. That is. Oh, God, That time went quick. You know, when people think about Vietnam, possibly their first thought is not to think about it as a family friendly or kid friendly destination, But I'm glad to hear you think otherwise. So tell us a bit about why you do think Vietnam is a family friendly destination and maybe give us some tips for our listeners. Suzie Slingsby : Sure thing. I think there's one of those things with Third World countries where sometimes people think they're a bit apprehensive about taking small Children there. And I suppose certainly some countries we wouldn't take hours to other. However, I mean, Vietnam, for us, has always been one of those places since the first time we did take Bella, was you know, what's not to love about it. You've got good weather, amazing food. The people are friendly. It really gives them a good introduction to different cultures in a really safe environment. And I think you know, my daughter is probably not dissimilar to a lot of others that sometimes they need a good dose of gratitude. I guess I'm thinking of how other people live in very different circumstances. It’s a good experience with some really fun stuff for them. It's a really good learning lesson, Kerry Newsome: I think you're right. I think opening Children's eyes to another culture and just seeing how the other half live is a big thing. I know I took my grandson last year and I thought, Gosh, even just getting him away from a device was going to be a challenge. But he just embraced it. I mean, how do you think Bella goes? Does she? Does she love it? Does she get really into Suzie Slingsby : She does. She actually tells everyone her best friend is in Hoi An now, which is quite humorous because she's only met this little girl a couple of times. However, and apparently it's her best friend, Um, but she enjoys every time they see each other, and while the girls doesn't really speak any English, thats pretty great. But those two can play for hours and have a really good time & somehow they speak a language that they both connect and have a great time together. Kerry Newsome: I think you've been there about three or four times. Do you think It's kind of grown up or adapted to the foreigner to bring Children and made it a little bit safer and a little bit more family friendly? I know they've got a lot more attractions that cater to Children these days. Do you think? Suzie Slingsby: Its changed? Yeah, I think the last couple of trips I've noticed that, you know, with some of the theme parks and you know, some of the facilities that are a bit better for Children, as well. I mean, the people have always been very friendly, and that's great. I suppose the only thing for me that hasn't really changed is probably the traffic, but your Children get used to it. I think that's probably the scariest thing about our trips is, you know, trying to cross the road. Particularly in Hanoi. But I think the more you go on, the more they're exposed to it and they get a bit of common sense about it. They understand it'll work. I think Vietnam is doing a good job of trying to have something for everyone. And Children are definitely getting catered for in that mix. Kerry Newsome: I definitely agree. So do you have any kid friendly advice for parents; things they need to just be aware of? I mean, sometimes the food is an issue sometimes. As you say, it's the getting around bit or getting a across the road bit. But you know, any advice for parents traveling with with families that would be useful? Suzie Slingsby : Well, I think you know, our daughter can be a picky eater at times, that's for sure. But we never found a meal where we thought, Hang on. There's nothing here she can eat, whether it was, you know, chicken fried rice, or whether it was something that they had catered for, um, you might. You will find a lot of places have Western food as well, if that's what you want. But there's not too many kids that wouldn't eat rice or a spring roll or chips or something like that. So we didn't have a problem with food. There was also, like some really fun treats as well, like in the night markets where they make hand rolled ice creams and things like that they love. That was the highlight having those things. And they're actually not as naughty as the treats that we have at home. So good to know someone. That's my excuse, because I was eating them as well. But they have this delicious food everywhere. Kerry Newsome: I know when you're talking about the night markets. I think there is, uh, there's one that kind of has this Effervescence that comes off. Did you see that one? I know my grandson tried it and, you know, like I think he had that brain freeze. He got brain freeze because it was so cold. But because it was so, you know, the evening was so hot. You know, it was like he said, “I'm still eating every drop of this because I want to cool down”. And I went OK, go for it. Suzie Slingsby : Yeah, it's a bit like that Liquid nitrogen you get in the nice hotels, But you're buying it on the side of the road with bits of fruit. So I did have a few pieces like, Oh, well, yeah, but that's all part of the fun, isn't it? Kerry Newsome: It is. It's all part of the experience. Exactly. TOP 5 THINGS for KIDS Kerry Newsome: So does Bella have a top five things to do? Suzie Slingsby: I did actually ask her to give me the top five off some of her trips and some of them surprised me and may be hard to get across the board for a lot of people. RIDING A BUFFALO Find this fun right at the top of her list was actually riding a water buffalo. Um and it was I would not have gone. I would not have guessed that at all. Well, let's just say the video of me on the water. One buffalo has been deleted, but I would say that is quite a good one for all ages. SIDE CAR RIDE TO TAM KY Um, but somehow Gary found this sidecar company where you can actually get the motorbike with the sidecar. Now, I was quite nervous about this because I'm a bit of one of those careful girls, when it comes to safety all the time. And I was like, it was just gonna be safe enough. However, we all had helmets. We had the three of us on the bike. So Gary was on the back behind the driver, and Bella and I were in the little sidecar. We had a motorbike that was like the guide who was in front of us for the traffic. So it was a really nice adventure, and they took us out through the rice paddies and we somehow ended up where these water buffalo were, and we all got out and they had a man on the water buffalo. And one by one, we all had a ride through the river. So it was remember a with buffalo was right up there. THEME PARK - VIN PEARL LAND There was a theme park called Vin Pearl Land and it was just out of Hoi An on the way to Tam Ky, and you turn up and it's like a Disneyland, but with very few people and for about 1/10 of the price, I can't remember exactly in my mind, I'm thinking about $30 or something. It was not expensive, not expensive. There was zero lines we thought. I think at the time we went there, she might have had have been six or five. I kind of remember maybe six on. We thought all a couple of hours, and we'll leave, but after 8.5 hours we had to go. The hotel was actually ringing us up to say, Do you want the driver to come yet? We had to drag her out of there. But they had everything. There was a water section. There was a zoo like the headline from Jurassic Park. Yeah, it was amazing. So we're feeding giraffes, then we had the roller coasters, then they had also I'm not a gaming huge gaming fan, but included was this indoor gaming center fully air conditioned? So if you need to escape the heat, the parents could sit in there, um, and have a drink, and then they can play on some stuff. So that was a huge day. WATER PUPPETS We believe it’s on in a number of places. But we did see that in Hanoi, and that was really spectacular, actually. And it's, I think they're beautiful. I highly rate them, and it is back to the olden days of it, isn't it? It's not the most over the top production, but it was really well done. And she said that was very high on her list. LANTERN MAKING Next one is very random. Um, she did some lantern making and really enjoyed that. They so Ah, lovely lady in the night markets. Well, actually, not in the night markets in the old town. I think she waas um and she had a beautiful stall, and so she would teach the Children how to make lanterns, and they could keep, um and I suppose, on the making theme. Another thing that Bella said in the same breath was there was a place where you could get little stamps made and you could get stamps made of yourself of your teacher of anything that you wanted, you could just take Wow. Thanks. So that gives, you know, some idea. Kerry Newsome: I think I know where the place, it's in Hoi An. BIKE RIDING Another thing to really enjoy was bike riding. We used to do as a family. As we've said, the traffic could be rather hectic. But bike riding is definitely the way to get around in a lot of places. So we'd get up early in the morning, get on our bikes in whatever shape and form they were. Um, and luckily, the hotel in, um, Hoi An had good bikes, Thank goodness. And all the brakes work, so we would go out cycling down the road. She thought It was quite hilarious watching me on a bike,ha! We woud go exploring out with the villages and go on to have coffees. And that was the highlight of the day, I must say, that was really nice. Kerry Newsome: And there's those little tracks. The only way you can get on those tracks and go into the paddy fields and, you know, really experience the local farmers at work like they've done for hundreds of years. The only way you can really do that is on the little bicycles. Some are motorized. Have you seen the motorized ones? Suzie Slingsby: I aay sucked into the good old fashioned pedals. That was really good, but I mean, it just seemed there's so many things that was actually quite hard to get her top five because there's so many impressive things like the That IMPRESSION SHOW OR MEMORIES SHOW HOI AN MEMORIES SHOW Suzie Slingsby: That's another point about the memory show. Yes, and there's thousands of people in that production. And you think it's spectacular. It's not expensive. It's such a show. And you think, Where else could you go and see all of this for this price? That was That was in there as well. But that's sort of around at her top list. Kerry Newsome: Okay, that's fantastic. Okay, so just to finish up our session, Susie, uh, you know, just on, I guess, if you are preparing for a trip. What would you say is a good length of time? So you can fit everything in and do everything you want to do in a good space of time. How much time should people allow, Do you think? HOW MUCH TIME SHOULD YOU ALLOW? Suzie Slingsby: Well, I'm one of those people that likes to withdraw on your holiday, and I know it's not a huge, long way to go, but I would think you probably need two weeks at least, because don't forget, depending on the time of the year, it can get really hot and your kids can get really exhausted. So we always made sure there was a part of the day where we were just swimming by the pool on, depending on the heat of the day, whether it was riding or whatever. But, um, I said, That's a top tip as well. Make sure you have a pool because you will definitely use it a lot. Um, and it's nice for parents. Have a cocktail by the pool while the kids having a good time. But I did find, um, one time we were there in July, when its very hot. Bella was exhausted. We'd go out and do something for a couple of hours, and then she was actually sleeping during the day. She was just so exhausted. So just make sure you give yourself time. But I wouldn't rush it because there's so many places to see. Kerry Newsome: Thanks very much, Suzie, it's been great to have you on the show. I look forward to talking to you again about maybe some other experiences and exploits that you've had in Vietnam.

0fb6c539-013e-4680-af6e-b74130a97da9Is Vietnam family-friendly? With guest Suzie Slingsby. Vietnam a family friendly destination Episode 3 Vietnam a family friendly destination 00:00 / 15:51 Is Vietnam Family /kid friendly? The answer is a strong yes from my guest today Suzie Slingsby. Suzie is a seasoned traveller and from a young baby, her daughter has joined her and her partner on many of their overseas trips. Vietnam is one of their favourite locations because it offers them and their daughter so many options. Suzie offers up some of the best things to do and a few tips for the newbie traveller with a family to get the best out of Vietnam. Some great tips Suzie, thanks! Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

d32f2f19-abc1-420d-9521-8b3cf274c91fHoliday and save money on dentistry What About Vietnam S2-10 - Vietnam dental holiday Save money on dental while on your holiday Intro: What About Vietnam, a podcast with Kerry Newsome. The series where Kerry talks with travelers about their experiences and adventures; find out more about Vietnam from the people who have actually been there. What about Vietnam? Whether it’s adventure, exploring the culture and cuisine, shopping, or just soaking up the sun; let Kerry and her travelers paved the way for a magical holiday in Vietnam. What About Vietnam? Kerry: Xin Chao and welcome to What About Vietnam. Today we're going to be talking about dentistry. Now, who would have thought you'd be talking about dentistry on a travel podcast talking about Vietnam. So, I've added the session in because it's still a very important experience that you may want to investigate when you do visit Vietnam. Kelly McCarthy is my guest, she's a good friend, and she has been traveling to Vietnam over the past 15 years, as it happens, in the past six years, those visits have included a visit to a dentistry surgery in Ho Chi Minh City. She has had extensive work done and her son and her husband likewise. When she compares quotes, she's going to be able to tell you about the massive savings that she's been able to make. And just speak to a little bit about the great experience that she's had with the people that look after her in these surgeries and just the whole end to end communications and everything. You're going to learn a lot about what you could save in dentistry in Vietnam. And I mean, who knows, you may want to use the savings to pave the way for a fabulous holiday in Vietnam. Please welcome Kelly to the program. Let's start with what made you choose Vietnam as an option for you and your family to have some dentistry work. Kelley: Well, for us, it wasn't a case of, we originally went out searching for dentistry in Vietnam. My husband and I were on holidays in Ho Chi Minh City in 2009, I was six months pregnant with my child. And suddenly, we're at dinner and the husband says "Ooh" I've hurt my tooth, something's gone wrong, only for us to discover he'd broken his tooth. And I'm thinking as men do with any form of pain, it's never just slightly sore, it's excruciating. So with that, I had to sort of rummage around and try and find somewhere that could attend to this. We're looking at two days out from Christmas, so I'm thinking, "Oh, here we go, everything shut down for Christmas. He's going to have to fly back to Australia with this, he's going to be in pain and I'm going to have to suffer all of the above." So, I ventured out and found actually a dentist that could attend to the problem for us and it was on Boxing Day they could attend to us because they were closed on Christmas Day but Open Boxing Day, funnily enough. So, we ventured to the dentist, thinking we were in for numerous amounts of dollars being overseas, being a tourist, they'd take advantage of it, and everything going through our minds, but we still had to attend. They fixed my husband's tooth in speed, the place was amazing and the cost, I think we walked out of there paying $200 or something to rebuild his tooth. Kerry: 200 Australian dollars? Wow! Kelley: 200 Australian dollars and the tooth was completely rebuild on Boxing Day. Kerry: Wow! Kelley: So, that was when we realized that dentistry was an option, so with that, then I delved further into it. Kerry: Okay, just let me stop there for a minute. So, we're in Ho Chi Minh City; when we think about being in a foreign country, we're thinking possibly there could be some language barriers. How did you find that? Your walking in there with your husband, I guess he's kind of holding his jaw, there's pain written all over his face, so that kind of gets through the language barrier fairly quickly. But, how did you go with managing the language barrier? Was there a lot of people there that spoke English? What was the environment that you we greeted with there? Kelley: When we arrived, they were absolutely amazing. I was totally astonished at the level of professionalism, the level of hygiene, and also how innovative they were. It was like I'd stepped into the future, to be totally honest with you. They were doing things far more advanced than what I'd seen here in Australia. So before they even look at you, it was straight to MRI, not x-ray, MRI and dollars are just ticking over in my head. Well, fortunately, that actually came out to be a 25 US dollar charge for an MRI on his jaw to see what was wrong. The language barrier, there was no problems with that, everyone spoke fluent English. They even actually had an Australian and a Canadian dental nurse in there who was studying and was doing some time in the surgery. So, there was literally no communication issues whatsoever. Kerry: Ah, fantastic. So, like paperwork obviously, financially, it's more than affordable. So, kind of did that start the journey for you because I know you've done a lot since then, tell us about that. Kelley: That sort of put me on the road of what I was wanting to do because I had throughout my pregnancy numerous problems with my teeth. And so, we returned back to Australia after that and then I had problems with my teeth after the pregnancy, which then I thought, "Well, I'll go and get a quote here to see what's going, you know, look for this." And the cost was through the roof; it was actually $46,000 Australian to have my teeth removed. Kerry: Sorry, just say that slowly again, were you getting a hole new mouth with that. Kelley: Because all of the enamel had cracked off my teeth, it was basically down to the resort of false teeth, which at 40 years old was not going to be an option. I didn't really want to be gummy, so I then went down path of crowns. So, in Australia it was a $46,000 cost for those crowns, which then just threw it right out of the ballpark. So with that, I said to my husband, "Well, we had such a great experience when we were in Vietnam maybe this is an option I can look at." So, we traveled to Vietnam usually once or twice a year, so I started researching dentists and then when we went over there, I actually then visited the dentist, just the one that I'd seen had good reviews. Kerry: And this one now different from the dentist that you saw with your husband back in 2009. So, you found another dentist. Kelley: It was, I found another dentist, not to say that this first dentist wasn't great, they were amazing. Kerry: No, understood. Kelley: It just opened up my eyes and then provided to me with what's out there, so that was why I looked into it further. And to be honest with you, I actually came across a lady in a day spa when I was over there one day and she'd given me the particular dentist that she had been to because I saw her teeth were amazing and I commented on them and she said, "I'll let you in a little secret. They're all crowns, I had them done here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," went on, gave me some details, and then that was when I started looking into the particular dentist that I now regularly visit. So, that was where that went to. And then I started communicating with them and trying to build up a bit of a rapport, a bit of an understanding, everything was done by email. Every email was professional, and then I decided on one of our visits to go and check the surgery and see what I thought of it and that was when I became basically sold on the whole idea. So, I sort of sat with them, they did quotes, did MRIs. Once again, another place that did MRIs, they did quotes, they gave me a fixed quote. And then that was when we made the arrangements for me to return to Vietnam on another occasion to go through the process. Kerry: Right, so, this kind of started a journey, I guess, didn't it? Kelley: It did, definitely. Kerry: Because obviously, it isn't a one hit wonder that kind of work. Can you tell us, like, what was roughly the saving? Now, if we were talking about $46,000, was it half, was it 75%...? Kelley: This one is going to shock you. Like I said, I'll reiterate $46,000 in Australia. And when I got the quote from Vietnam, it was 5,500 Australian dollars. Kerry: Oh, my God. Kelley: There really wasn't any second thoughts after that because that little bit of [inaudible 10:02], Scrooge McDuck in all of us where there's a savings... Kerry: I would have been smiling already. Kelly: Yeah, it was like I can get a great holiday, save all this money, as well as get my teeth done, so I... Kerry: But what comes with that, and I think sometimes the next question on everyone's lips is, but you've got to keep going back and forth to Vietnam. Now, you, and I wouldn't find that a tragedy, I mean, that would be great, what a terrific excuse. But I guess for some people, depending on where they are in the world so, you know, coming back and forth could be an additional cost they have to add to it. And so, just talk about maybe how long your visits and kind of walk us through that journey from yes, lets go start to kind of finish. Kelley: Okay. So, that definitely is something to consider, and that would be something you would need to consider depending on what you need to have done. For example, I know if you have to have implants done, you basically have to go to the dentist, you have the implant socket placed into the bone of your jaw, and then they won't actually put any teeth or anything into that socket for three months, so that is a definite consideration, if that's the path you're going down. If you're not going down that path and it was something like myself, from the quotation had we discussed it, they told me to allow 10 days. Now that was not 10 working, that was 10 days, so they work across the weekend if needed for you to come in and have that dentistry done. So, I then just thought, I would do it smartly and I booked an extra couple of days, purely for I was traveling by myself, so it was some peaceful mommy time. And also, it was just to put a little contingency in there just in case anything went wrong. So I booked my trip for 12 days, I had a full mouth of crowns all but three. And in that I also had three of those were bridging crowns. So, for anyone that doesn't know what a bridging crown is, that's where I actually had teeth missing in a couple of spots and they actually crown one tooth but have a false tooth attached to that, that sits in that socket where your original tooth would have been, so it gives you a full appearance of full teeth. So, I had basically every tooth but three crown, and from start to finish, it took seven days. So, the process was, when I landed, I let them know when I was landing, and they actually arranged and send someone to pick me up. That was part of the journey as well. So, if somebody is out there thinking about traveling by themselves, like I did, I was comfortable with catching taxis or transport, but some other people might not be. So the dentist that I go to, they will arrange to pick you up, they can also arrange accommodation for you if you're totally unfamiliar with the area and that goes on a budget level of what you can afford as well. So, they brought recommendations of that. So, it was kind of like a package for me, but after being a comfortable traveler and traveling to Vietnam quite a few times, I was totally okay with organizing my accommodation and everything. So yeah, I was met with them so that sort of ease you a little bit for somebody who is worried about it. They picked me up, they said, we'll see you this afternoon if you're okay with that. I said, yeah, that's fine., so I went in that first afternoon, they just took further MRIs just to check that nothing had moved from the six months previously. Then they talked about what they were going to do across each couple of days. And there is two days that are quite intense, and they are the days of you're having crown work, where they shave your teeth down and prepare all the bone and everything. So, it can be quite intense for two days of that, but with that, if you are having crowns, don't be afraid because they don't send you out with little shark's teeth. They actually made temporary molds of your original teeth to walk out the door with so you are totally comfortable. I'm the person that's not afraid of the dentist and all one of the days because it was a lot of work. I will admit for anybody, I was a little bit overwhelmed on that day. However, if you've got a traveling partner or whatever, it was probably just because I didn't know realistically what I was in for, but if anyone's interested, I can always be happy to chat to them afterwards and give them a little bit of what you're really in for. Pain-wise, I was pretty much pain-free. It was probably just more of an emotional thing for me, more than anything but pain wise, they also provide you with scripts to... Kerry: Manage the pain. Kelley: To get any pain medication and in fact, now, since my return prior to COVID in Vietnam, so it was actually 12 months ago, this time I would have been there. They actually now have got a pharmacist downstairs, so you don't even have to go to a pharmacy now to find your medication. They give you the script, go downstairs, it's filled within the building, so, it's really quite helpful. So, depending on your work, but they will give you a guide of how long you need to be there. Like I said, mine was roughly, they said 10 days, it was all completed within seven. So, quietly I had a couple of days up my sleeve, which was quite nice. Kerry: Yeah. Kelley: But it's a great experience, it really is for dentistry and the whole time you're sitting in the seat, you're thinking I've just saved $40,000. So, that keeps you quite motivated. Kerry: And I think we need to also speak to the concerns that some people may have is just around the safety side of it, the products that they use, like the quality of the products and just you know, long-term management like, do you go back to Australia and then get an Australian dentist to, I don't know, keep a check on them or something like that. Talk to us a little bit more about what you finished because you didn't finish with the crowns, did you? You went on to get... Kelley: No, I finished with all the crowns and they gave me the full cosmetic smile. So, however I have had other family members have other dentistry work. For example, my mum had dentures done, my husband's had laser whitening and had numerous fillings done over there. And I had even taken my ten-year-old son over there last year to have some dentistry work on that was quoted at three and a half thousand dollars here. And it arose from the fact that it was an error in dentistry here. The dentist, I go to didn't really want to touch on being a young child and not knowing the repercussions of it. However, I just asked my dentist here in Australia to provide me with the x-rays and the report of what was going on with his teeth. And I actually sent that through to my over there and they agreed to do my son. So, my son and I went over, and they fixed up his tooth. So, the tooth here was quoted at three and a half thousand dollars to save a truth, fall out in two years’ time. And so, I took the opportunity to go over to the dentist, have a little bit of a holiday one-on-one with my son. We went over for a week, our accommodation, and airfares because I live in Perth. So, chances of getting in and out of Asia are really easy, we did everything on a budget airline just to outweigh costs. And we traveled over there, had a great week together accommodation, airfare, spending money was about $2,000 and his tooth that was quoted here in Australia for three and a half thousand dollars, cost me $105 Australian. So, we had a holiday and everything for less than the tooth. Kerry: So, you know, everything is kind of pointing to me to some real level of confidence that you have, like confidence in their ability, workmanship, safety, communication. Because I know when I book a dentist here and as I've told you, like once every 10 years I go, like I hate the dentist at any time, but I think dentistry moving to this role that you're describing as being a little bit more than just your average walk in the door and they don't give a hoot thing. Like if they're picking you up from the airport and they've obviously got some serious care factor going there. So, I mean safety wise, do we give them a 10 out of 10? Kelley: I would definitely, give them a 10 out of 10. They will even like anywhere when you're traveling, you always have the risks of bags snatchers or anything. And that's in any travel, you always have your cautions but they even... if you're uncomfortable with traveling to and from the dentist yourself, if you explained that to them, they would arrange for you to have a driver or an Uber or something picked you up every day and drive you to the door. When you get to the door, they've got security at their door and that's just to stop hawkers coming in. It's not for any you know hold ups or anything like that, it's just for hawkers. But safety wise[inaudible20:29] for starters, so it is safe as anything. Hygiene is amazing. Everything I feel supersedes Australia. The products, so all my crowns from Switzerland, they're Swiss crowns, they do their training. He travels all over the world training staff and learning the most innovative products. I'll give you an example so, I've had my crowns now for, I think it's coming up six years. I returned to Vietnam last year when I took my son over and there was just one of my teeth that I wasn't really happy with at the top, I just noticed a few changes in the last 12 months from it. I showed it to them, they weren't really a hundred percent on what I was saying, I thought was wrong with it, but they did all the tests and everything. And to give me some form of satisfaction and knowing that I'm a returning customer all the time, which is an option they provide to everybody, you get a lifetime guarantee on your crowns. So, I wasn't a hundred percent, they realistically got to the point where they weren't a hundred percent. So, they said no problems, Kelley we'll replace it. So, in the time I was there with my son, they remove my crown, replaced it, and I've walked out the door with no charges for that because there's a lifetime guarantee. Now, I don't know any dentists in Australia that will give you a lifetime guarantee on crowns. So, it was just, yeah, the service is definitely their customer services there. I've referred a lot of friends; I have another lady in Queensland who is a friend of mine who is now a pensioner. She was quoted $19,000 in Queensland for her teeth, she flew and spent six weeks traveling through Asia, her dentistry, accommodation, airfares, everything spending money. And she came home, and she'd spent $10,000, so, she was at half and she could basically... Kerry: Including the teeth? Kelley: Including the teeth, she had amazing experience. Kerry: Wow! Kelley: I could go on and on with friends and family that I've actually referred. I've got friends that live in Singapore that fly to Vietnam now to have their teeth done because it outweighs the costs of Singapore and the hygiene. I've got other people in South Wales I referred and same similar thing, they wanted to do bone grafts here for their teeth because they were so poorly. And then when they went to the doctor, he did it in the chair over there and they've never looked back. So, all the experiences or referrals that I've provided to them have come back as positive. So, I guess for me that's just another tick in their favor and reassurance that it is safe, it is hygienic. Kerry: And good value. Kelley: And really good value, you get a holiday, and you get your teeth done for a fraction of the cost. Kerry: Yes, and I think that's kind of the message I want to get across here is that, sometimes people kind of poo poo the idea about, you know, traveling to an overseas destination to have this kind of work because there is the fee of factor that the quality of the workmanship can't be guaranteed. Well, we've just found that out, that there is a lifetime guarantee on things like crowns, the service level is there, languages isn't problem, you know, you're saving money, serious money and guess what, guys, you get a little bit of a holiday at the same time. I can't remember having a holiday attached to any teeth work I've had done, let me show you. Kelly, I want to just say, how great it is to get your insights because I know for yourself have had this work and family and friends, but if you were to give some tips to people thinking about this idea, what would you say? Kelley: I would say if you have already had the work quoted here in Australia or... Kerry: Somewhere else in the world. Kelley: Or anywhere else in the world and you are able to without making a trip there, because of course that's a cost as well. It's not something... it would be get your dentistry reports and your lab ask for these, wherever you go, because you've been in as a patient and you're allowed to say, I'd like a second opinion from another dentist. You don't need to say where that dentist is and email the dentist over there and ask them to quote it for you, or they will give you back the advice. And then, you start the communication with them that will probably then build your trust that you know, what they are doing. And then, you can make times to either what suits in your travel period. I usually tell them, I'll be there between such and such a date, I need to have this done, or I'd like to have this done. They'll give me a timeline or now at the stage where I'll be there for 48 hours. I need my teeth cleaned, I need to check out and they'll fit me. So, also if you're over in Vietnam, currently traveling and you decide after you've heard this podcast, oh, this is something I really like to do. Just give them a call, or if you're in Ho Chi Minh City, you could pop into the dentist and they will fit you in, it's amazing how much [inaudible25:56] Kerry: Is not like you have to do it in advance or anything? Kelley: No, definitely not and I've just found one dentist that I've been absolutely amazed by and follow through. There would be numerous ones out there, so this is not a plug for any particular dentist. Just do your research and there is presently it doesn't come to my mind, but there is actually a website out there where you can actually see where they rate in the world as dentist. The dentist I currently go to when I last checked, he was third best dentist in all of Asia. So, that was a little bit more reassuring as well, but like I said, I've been going to him now, this particular dentist; it would be 10 years, we've been going to him off and on, on our travels, whenever we go over. Now, it becomes part of our travel, were every year, my husband, son, and myself, we always go via Ho Chi Minh city now it might be just for three or four days that's to go in. Hubby is a diabetic, so he actually does get quite a few fillings. We go in, we have our dentistry done on the first day we land, we have it all knocked over either first or second day, depending on what usually what he needs, not what we need and that's it, it's done and then we continue on with our amazing holiday. So, it just becomes part of our routine and once you've got that trust with it, which I'm sure give it a go guy, just give it a go. Kerry: It was simply great, having Kelly on the program, really appreciate her insights into the experience of having dental work in Vietnam and in particular in Ho Chi Minh City; great to get some background to some costs involved and how much she was able to save. Let me assure you, Kelly is definitely the kind of person who does a lot of homework before she entertains anything like this. She's a gorgeous looking girl with a beautiful smile and fantastic teeth, let me assure you. Look, we don't have any affiliation with any particular dentist surgery in Vietnam. I have however, put the links in the episode notes just from Kelly so that if you do wish to make contact with those surgeries in Ho Chi Minh City, it's all there for you to do. So, it's been great to have you on the program as always. Look, we cover all and every kinds of subjects on this program. So, please share, please give me your feedback. We have a Facebook page called What About Vietnam. Please throw your comments on there, let us know what you'd like to hear about, I'm sure I can track it down for you. In the meantime till next time, stay well and we'll talk soon. Let me assure you, we will be traveling soon, so stick with us. Outro: Thank you for listening. Check out the episode notes for more information. What About Vietnam. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review and stay tuned for more fun adventures in Vietnam. Kelleys’ Dentist referred to in the podcast – See reference here - https://dentalcentervietnam.com/worldwide-beauty-dental-hospital-is-proud-to-be-ranked-in-the-top-5-cosmetic-hospitals/ Worldwide Beauty and Dental Hospital 244A Cong Quyinh Pham Ngu Lao, Quan 1 Phanh pho Email: dentalcentervietnam@gmail.com Phone: 1-800-823-058 (Australian Toll Free) (+61) 481 339 579 (Australia)

S6-E2 Is TET a good time to visit Vietnam < Back S6-E2 Is TET a good time to visit Vietnam S6-E2 Is TET a good time to visit Vietnam 00:00 / 22:41 Series 6 Episode 2 Is TET a Good Time to Visit Vietnam? What travellers should know before deciding to visit Vietnam during the TET holiday. Tết, Vietnam’s Lunar New Year, is the most important cultural period of the year — but is it actually a good time for foreigners to visit? Just to be clear from the outset - Tết dates relate to the Lunar New Year Calender and are usually between Late January and February. You should check the dates for the year you are travelling as each year is different. Tết New Year's eve usually marks the beginning of the holiday but it can be a day or two before and can last as long as 9 – 10 days. In this episode, I focus on what Tết means for travellers and how it affects transport, accommodation, tours, and daily life across Vietnam. Rather than diving into history or ritual, I share the real-world impact on your trip , along with practical travel tips to help manage expectations — especially if this is your first time visiting Vietnam. There isn’t a simple yes or no answer to this question. Whether Tết works for you depends on how you travel, what you expect, and how flexible you’re willing to be. I cover what really happens during Tết, when the slowdown starts, which places cope best, what commonly closes, and when travelling during the middle of Tết can work. I also explain why I usually recommend travelling well before Tết or about a week after for a smoother, more enjoyable experience. My honest take: Tết isn’t a bad time to visit Vietnam — but it’s not an easy one. Timing your trip matters just as much as choosing your destination. Tết is one of those moments where thoughtful planning makes all the difference — and it’s something I regularly help travellers get right in trip plans through my Travel services offering. Please reach out if I can be of assistance - https://www.whataboutvietnam.com/trip-plan-request-form Do you have a travel question or wish to give some feedback? You have 90 seconds. Click to read the voicemail recording policy Previous Next

892c01e9-aa45-4558-a940-95412b42bbb7What would it be like to live in a foreign country? What About Vietnam - Series 3 - 12 What it’s like to go from being a tourist to a resident [00:00:36] Kerry Newsome: Xin chào . Welcome to What About Vietnam . Who's ever been on a holiday and come home and thought, "I wonder what it would be like to live in that country?" You've had such a great time. You've come home. You've considered what it would be like for a real change-up in lifestyle. Meg Le is my guest today. Meg and her husband had been traveling for a couple of years around the globe. They had got a bit over the backpacker thing. So they decided to come back to their home in Seattle, unpack, rent out their home and go back to Vietnam and settle there for maybe one or two years. They did this just prior to the pandemic, unfortunately. They've been there for about a year and a half. Giving up corporate lives for a small community town like Hoi An, beautiful beaches, lovely community, the old world heritage site township, just a really divine, little town in Vietnam. Easy choice, I would think, if you wanted to a real lifestyle shift. Meg comes to the program with definitely a wellness bent. She is a wellness coach in Yoga and Pilates and did her study in India. Her corporate background includes being an FTE consultant and business consultant. She's worked in some really high-end startups in the US and including working in Geneva with the WHO organization. They both came to Hoi An with an open mind. In this program, we're really going to unpack the process that they went through to make the decision to go there. We really delve into some details. If you've ever had any aspirations about moving to Vietnam to maybe retire, semi-retire or maybe only just live for big chunks of time, this would definitely be the episode for you to listen to, to really get some detail because you actually have got to sometimes experience this kind of thing to find out the nuances that any guidebook just won't have. Because you have to live it, to know it. Certainly, Meg is a fabulous guest today as she really unravels some of the detail that you wouldn't even think about. They came across an amazing opportunity, which came through something really simple but absolutely, perfect. Meg's going to explain that story. It all starts with a bagel. I hope you will welcome Meg to the program. You're in for a real treat. Let's welcome her now. [music] [00:03:49] Kerry Newsome: Meg, welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. Lovely to have you on. [00:03:53] Meg Le: Yes, thanks for having me, Kerry. I'm really excited to speak with you today. [00:03:57] Kerry Newsome: If you'll let me, I want to start right back from the beginning and just say “Was Vietnam-- with your first visit, was it like love at first sight?” You went to Vietnam and just went, "Oh my God. Love this place." [00:04:13] Meg Le: Kind of. I do have the background of my husband as a Việt Kiều . We've been together for over 20 years. I've been exposed to the Vietnamese culture for a long time, so the language, the foods. I always, obviously, had an interest. Actually, my last name is Vietnamese. I used to be Irish. Now, I have the last name as Vietnamese, which is cool living here. The first time I visited was-- I think it was 2010, which is the first time that my husband David's parents returned to Vietnam after leaving the country. It was such a great opportunity. I came with them. It was just a vacation. That was a good first introduction into what the cities were, and the country was. It felt actually familiar. The little things that I experienced with David's family like idiosyncrasies or just traditions with culture felt like, "Oh, now. I get it." I visited here just as a tourist a while ago. Then, when my husband and I were traveling, we quit our jobs. We had corporate jobs in Seattle, quite established. We wanted to change. We quit those. We grabbed our dog. We did a little road trip around the US for a while. Then, when our dog passed away, we wanted to go traveling. We became 40 old backpackers. [00:05:43] Kerry Newsome: I love it. [00:05:44] Meg Le: -Because we missed that backpacking experience in our 20s and 30s. We traveled for a while. Traveling is great. Gosh. Because of this pandemic-- thank God, we did that before this all started because we did about two years of travel. Then, after a while of being like, "Okay, we're sick of living out of a backpack. We would like to sit down and be able to unpack, fry an egg, sleep in the same spot for a while." We were trying to figure out where to go. I led my husband through a very nerdy MBA Venn Diagram brainstorming session. We were trying to think of what are the criteria. It's helpful for decision-making. We were looking for a place that was affordable; that had delicious cuisine because we love foo; that had good business opportunities, and was friendly to Americans coming in and establishing residency and potentially starting businesses. [00:06:52] Kerry Newsome: Right. Okay. You did a pros and cons list, okay? [00:06:58] Meg Le: Yes. [00:06:59] Kerry Newsome: Then, did you have a list of pros and cons for this? In other words, what I'm trying to get to is what did you compare Vietnam to as alternatives? [00:07:15] Meg Le: Well, we were comparing to multiple places that met those criteria. We wanted a warm climate. Various things, like what lifestyle do we have and do we want to have. We actually made a list of various places. Hoi An was the first place that we visited when we were in our trek of trying places on for size. To answer your question "Was it love at first sight?" Yes, I had visited before, but never with the lens of "Could I actually live here?" That's very different coming as a tourist versus "Do I want to live here?" I can say that the first place we visited, we said, "Okay. This is where we're going to go." We actually never even tested out those other places. It was love at first sight. [00:08:10] Kerry Newsome: Okay. Hoi An, in particular, not Vietnam as a country, you actually singled out the location of Hoi An. I mention that only because, I hope you'll agree, it's not really fair to brand all cities the same in Vietnam. In particular, Hoi An is quite unique to other cities. Would you agree? [00:08:40] Meg Le: Yes, definitely. I would actually use the word "town." When you think of a city, you think of Hanoi or Saigon. We've lived in cities before. We just wanted something more quiet, a place that you we could bike across. Sounds funny, but is it so overwhelming? We even looked at Danang. We visited, and we're like, "This is too big." We need something quieter. I think it is unique because it has the ancient heritage side of things, the Old Town. It also has the beach. Everyone loves the beach, plus the rice fields. I feel like it's a great mix of culture and rural living. Outside our house every day, we watch the cows go by. Then, having that beach lifestyle. I think it is actually unique. I think a lot of people who live in the cities always vacation in Central Vietnam. Then, their dream is to always retire here if they're working in the city because it seems like this is where people come to retire. In some ways, that's absolutely true, no matter what age you are. [00:09:56] Kerry Newsome: Exactly. You're saying retiring. I think that leads to the description of Hoi An as being a little bit laid back. It's very community-focused. You get to know your neighbors. Everything's a bit cruisier. There's not that “hubba hubba Hubba” that there is in other places, there's still motorbikes. There are motorbikes everywhere. I think Hoi An just has that little bit of nice chill, but you can retire there as a digital nomad. You can retire there as somebody 50, 60, 70. You don't have to be of any age to choose that lifestyle. I think that was something that you and I talked about once before, that we both resonated with. I think that's what a lot of people find attractive when they go. Now, we're going to get a little bit deeper into what that process entails. Just from deciding, okay, Hoi An is where you want to move to. Talk to us a little bit about the process from Seattle to Hoi An and maybe give us a little detail on how long and what some of the steps are that you took to crystallize it. Yes, this is actually going to happen. We're going to be able to do this. [00:11:34] Meg Le: The process does involve okay getting your ducks in a row; like how are you going to make money? Do you need to make money? How much money actually do you need to make? That's like a big mind change, I think, coming from, okay, I had to make this much money to live in a place like Seattle. You actually spend a lot of money, but you have to make a lot of money. To move to a place like Hoi An we were just lucky to use our rental from Seattle, the proceeds from that fund our life in Hoi An, which is absolutely insane when you think about it. If you have a corporate life, you could be spending $10,000 a month on various things, mortgages, cars, all those things. Then, here, we actually aren't really making very much money. That's okay because the life is so affordable. Figuring out your money is key right. You don't want to just show up, whatever age you're at, and expect the country to take care of you. You have to show up with a certain amount of funding I think. Hoi An offers a very high quality of life based on your expenses. I've heard that from various people who have lived all over the world. That's what really makes it attractive for us and keeps us staying here. [00:13:05] Kerry Newsome: Did you know for sure that you would be accepted by Vietnam through immigration? Talk to us about that process because I get asked a lot should I use an immigration broker? There are consultants out there that offer services in this area, and of course, charge for that. Some of them are very legitimate. Some of them are not so legitimate. [00:13:36] Meg Le: Right. [00:13:38] Kerry Newsome: Otherwise, do you go directly? What is the process of acceptance in Vietnam for people considering to move there? [00:13:53] Meg Le: Right now. I can talk pre-COVID and the current situation. [00:13:58] Kerry Newsome: Excellent. [00:14:00] Meg Le: I came in November 2019, so before the pandemic started. It was super easy. As an American, you can get a one-year-- Okay. Let me rephrase. As an American, you used to be able to get a one-year tourist visa, no problem. We came in with those one years. Then, we thought, "Ah, that's plenty of time. We can figure out the business landscape, figure out what we want to do, and then, take it from there." Of course, things changed a lot. The current situation is no one's getting in on a tourist visa. I'm hoping that's changing very soon. The past two years have been about the people that came in on tourist visas have been chasing and trying to understand the various changing rules. It's been a struggle for even just the people living here trying to understand what the rules are. Right now, only experts are getting in. If you are an investor, if you have an investor visa, or you have some sort of special skill. [00:15:13] Kerry Newsome: Skill set. [00:15:15] Meg Le: Special skill set. Yes. The airports have been closed, so very limited flights. Now, it's the beginning of October 2021. Things are starting to open up again. I hope that's going to be changing soon as we get more vaccines. It's really hard to say what the current situation is. Just that right now, you cannot come in as a tourist to the country. The borders have been closed for almost two years. [00:15:46] Kerry Newsome: This ‘one-year visa’, this was still a tourist visa. It wasn't a residence visa- [00:15:52] Meg Le: Correct. [00:15:52] Kerry Newsome: -I ask because most countries are only allowed up to three months, so 90 days. If you leave the country, you can reapply and come back in. Many people chose to do that in the years prior to COVID. There is a great flurry of people out there that left and really want to come back once COVID is under control. Like you say, what are the rules going to be? This is an interesting landscape. We agreed, you and I, that we might do another podcast, say, in six months' time when the rules might be much clearer. We can talk about the changes that have gone on. I think that would be a great idea for my listeners, too. Really, you started with one year. That was your year to establish opportunities whether you like it and just see, as you say, just how well your spreadsheets worked on your financial management whether you could do it and whatever. It doesn't matter how small the detail is because I think people actually want the small detail. When we think about that move, people just say, "Oh, we just did this," but people want to go, "What did you actually have to do?" I think any detail that you can offer is really going to help people with this decision certainly for the future. [music] [00:17:43] Meg Le: Back to the agent thing. Because, hopefully, it will be very relevant, very soon, you can just-- I think I used-- It's like Vietnam e-visa or something like that online where there are all these sites. You're just like, "Wow, is this site from 1998? Is this legit? Okay. It turns out to be legit." It's just an easy way basically to get your letter to come in. Coming in initially as a tourist is not a problem. [00:18:14] Kerry Newsome: Just prior to COVID, you can do this by an e-visa. You were dealing directly through the immigration department of Vietnam. That's all the same-same thing. Yes, there were VIP agents and all those kinds of things. You don't need them. You didn't need a letter anymore. The ‘e-visa’ was to do away with the Introduction letter – (VOA) there was mass confusion with that letter. Let me assure you. People brought the wrong one and didn't have their name on it and all sorts of things. That's why technology finally came of age, and they produced the e-visa opportunity. You had to start from your country of origin, and then, find out what was applicable to you. I'm sure, absolutely 100% sure that that's going to get even more complex as people have to produce their evidence of vaccination to come into the country. [00:19:19] Meg Le: Absolutely. [00:19:20] Kerry Newsome: Proof of that and identification of that I think is going to be integral. Putting all that aside on the visa side of things because that's a work in progress, talk to us about how you planned what to bring, what to leave at home, did you let your house out. I think you said you did let your house [crosstalk]-- [00:19:43] Meg Le: Rented it. Yes. [00:19:44] Kerry Newsome: Rent it out. Yes. I know people that arrived with 50 kgs. That was it. They grew from there. I don't know. Was that what you or did you bring more? [00:19:58] Meg Le: Yes, we came with very little because we had been traveling in our backpacks for a while. [00:20:04] Kerry Newsome: Expert travelers. [00:20:04] Meg Le: Yes, [chuckles] yes. Coming in light is always a good idea because in general, you can always get everything. Hoi An is definitely a simpler life, which I think is one of the joys about living here. Depending on where you're from or what your life was like before, you probably had a household full of stuff. It's not really about that. [music] [00:20:36] Meg Le: Most of the houses here are 100% furnished. I remember asking this on forums when I was moving here. I'm like, "What do I need to bring?" One thing that people definitely bring in would be personal products like makeup or that type of thing or linens. Quality linens are quite a luxury here. Yes. Besides that, you're going to basically find everything, everything you need. Hoi An is the tailoring capital of the world. You don't need to bring in 1,000 kgs of clothes because clothes are definitely not a problem here. You can get nice stuff that's tailored to yourself. Yes. Coming in light is definitely key because you don't really need too much here. [00:21:32] Kerry Newsome: Can you talk to us a little bit about just the cooking side of things because you and I would have been brought up with kitchens that had every single electrical buzzing device from juicers to ovens to microwaves to whatever, whereas Vietnam kitchens tend to be fairly what I'd call ‘minimalistic’. [00:21:58] Meg Le: Yes, that's a good idea. [00:22:00] Kerry Newsome: I don't know whether it's your experience, but I think, attitudinally, people don't always feel the need to cook because they can go out so cheaply. Out of seven days a week where I traditionally have had to cook and maybe go out on a specialty night, people just think the normal thing is to just go out probably three or four nights a week and just get something from a street vendor. Because there's so much cheap and cheerful food, why would you bother slaving over a hot stove? You don't have the convection ovens or all of that sort of stuff. It's just too hot, way too hot. [00:22:44] Kerry Newsome: It is very hot. Yes. Talk to us about the culinary side of things, Meg. [chuckles] [00:22:51] Meg Le: Well, one of the reasons I picked Vietnam was the food. It's a rich culture of food. I would say central Vietnam is not my favorite cuisine, but Hoi An, if your listeners love bánh mì or bánh mì , some people say. [00:23:08] Kerry Newsome: Bánh mì. [00:23:09] Meg Le: Bánh mì. This is the home of the best bánh mì in the world. It's a certain type of water that they use for the bread. Then actually, they use for noodles as well. Even if you go to the city, you're not going to get as good as bánh mì as you get in Hoi An. That's going to cost you at Banh Mi Phuong which is the Anthony Bourdain place that used to have ridiculous lines out the door. Well now, you're the only one there. That's going to be 25,000-- [00:23:40] Kerry Newsome: 25,000 dong. [00:23:41] Meg Le: Yes, which is about 1 USD. Yes, street food is in abundance. People eat out… [00:23:50] Kerry Newsome: It’s Cheap. [00:23:51] Meg Le: -Some places have food stalls in the bottom of their house. Getting food is never a problem. Well, it depends. Sometimes we cook at home. We actually just got a microwave, which is very exciting that I just microwaved something for the first time in two years. I was like, "This is easy." [laughter] I've never been so happy to have a microwave. You appreciate things, small things when you live in Hoi An. The only thing with not cooking at home-- Since Hoi An is such a sleepy town, if you have not eaten by 9 PM, you're out of luck. You're really, really out of luck, more like 8 PM. Especially with typhoon season or times where there are no tourists like now, there are just not as many options. I would say people are trying to get a little bit more in their kitchen to be able to cook at home if you're stuck in there for a while. There's so much delicious stuff out there. [00:24:51] Kerry Newsome: Yes. It was interesting. Some people have said to me, "I've got my special baking dish. I've got my certain cooking utensils." I'll say, "You'll never use them. Once in a blue moon, you might use them. Once you get a taste for Vietnamese food [crosstalk] there are so many fresh fruits and vegetables that you can also buy in the markets very cheaply. [00:25:20] Meg Le: All year long. [chuckles] [00:25:21] Kerry Newsome: All year long. Absolutely. I think it's that eco change, isn't it? It's a real head shift for your typical urbanized commercial dweller in a big city. [00:25:40] Meg Le: Absolutely, yes. When people are looking for houses, I said how things are furnished here. The fridge is small. Lots of places don't have hot water in the kitchen. Your vent on your stove might actually not vent out to the outside. [laughter] They're just quirky things. You just get used to them. Yes, like I said, it's about "Does it have an address?" So I can get packages delivered. [00:26:17] Kerry Newsome: See. That's gold, having an actual address. [00:26:22] Meg Le: Yes, these are the things I didn't even know when I was looking for a house. Does it flood? That's a big thing. Is it on a main street where you can actually get a taxi, so they can they pull up in front of your door versus having to wind through these tiny little alleys? Being on a main street is a big thing. When you get things delivered, can you actually get them to your door? [00:26:50] Kerry Newsome: Yes, very important. [00:26:52] Meg Le: The all-important karaoke. What's the situation? Do you have a big coffee shop that's next to you, that likes to play techno music, or does your house get mold? Look for signs of mold. Now, we're just entering typhoon season. Maybe back where you're from, you're more concerned about aesthetics. Here, it's super practical. Do you have a good landlord? Because you can get really screwed over by some landlords who don't fix things or whatever. We got really lucky by finding all of those things, and our landlords live next door. When there's a problem, they come and fix it. I would say when you're coming in, and you're looking for a place, yes, cute is great but going for practicality is really, really important because I know so many people who constantly change houses. We've been here two years and haven't changed houses, which I think is actually rare. [00:27:54] Kerry Newsome: Wow, that is rare. That's really having your head-on straight when you were choosing the priority of those things. If I could just add to that two things, [00:28:09] Meg Le: Oh, yes. [00:28:10] Kerry Newsome: -Yes, WIFI has become quite a serious aspect of choice in-- because I can remember you couldn't get wi-fi in Hoi An until they put up all those crazy wires that you see twisted around trees and all the rest of it, which is the wonderful WIFI system that now works. It was a big deal because it affected so many things. Good WIFI into your building coming from the street-- [00:28:44] Meg Le: Very important. [00:28:44] Kerry Newsome: How far away is it coming from? Electricity is another-- [00:28:50] Meg Le: Yes, power cuts. [00:28:52] Kerry Newsome: Power. How old is the power system? Then, the other, can I just say, the absolute final, is ‘air conditioning.’ [00:29:04] Meg Le: Oh, yes, really, really important. Hoi An is really hot. Our first year in this house, we had-- which is pretty typical. If you're a westerner looking at a place, there'll be air conditioning units in the bedrooms. Pay attention to the star rating. The Vietnamese love to leave stickers on all their appliances. You can see the five-star energy. If it's like a one and a half two-star, you're going to be paying a lot for your electricity, and your room won't be cooled. In our first year, we were trying to figure out how do you cool the rest of your house through the bedroom with a fan system that doesn't work. This year, because it was so hot-- that first year, we stopped cooking, talking about heating in the kitchen. You lose weight because you stopped cooking. This year, we asked for air conditioning. Luckily, our landlords put a unit in the main area, which is really, really key if you want to be able to have a decent summer here. [00:30:07] Kerry Newsome: Yes. One aspect that has just crept in more of recent times from people I've spoken to is ‘security’. In years gone by, people used to say, "Oh, I left the door open. Nobody ever bothers us," or whatever, or they've got a pet. Pets have gone missing. People have broken into homes much more. I think it's indicative of just some of the struggles over the last 18 months. [00:30:42] Meg Le: Absolutely. [music] [00:30:49] Meg Le: Overall, Vietnam and Hoi An are very safe places to be. If you've traveled, for example, Latin America or Europe or the US where I'm from, comparatively, it's really, really nothing. If you're a dog or a cat here, you're going to have something more violent happening to you than a person. In the cities, you might get your phone stolen. Here, it's more at the beaches. People will leave their phones in their motorbike and park. That's not very smart because everyone has the same keys for their motorbikes. They're really easy to break into. It's basic stuff like not bringing important things with you around, making sure you lock your house, making sure you have security cameras, good lighting, all those different things. Then, in general, it really just seems to be the beach. An Bàng residents complain a lot more than people who live like us in the rice fields. We haven't actually heard of any issues. Knock on wood, we've been quite lucky, but that is an issue. [00:32:03] Kerry Newsome: Yes. As I said, I had people living near the rice fields as you say. I've got two friends there. One's left. The other is still there. It's a lovely home. It's very open. The kitchen is half outside and half inside. That's not a typical style for a western home. It's done really well. Just that openness of-- and door latches not there and things like that, it was the first thing I saw when I went there and thought, "Geepaz-- I'd have to do fix that." And my friend said "Oh, Kerry. If you come and live here, it’s normal; you'll be fine." But that would be a change in my headset to do that with just something as small as; latches on doors and things like that. [00:32:57] Meg Le: Yes, because, like I said, it's so safe here. Of course, you can become complacent and gives you a false sense of security. Definitely, the poverty thing you mentioned with the pandemic, but also around TET is a time where people start to need more money because they want to have their parties and give gifts to their family. That's a time where crime can go up, small petty crime, not violent. [00:33:21] Kerry Newsome: Yes, petty crime. Yes, exactly. [music] [00:33:30] Kerry Newsome: A lot of people say, "I'm worried that I can't speak the Vietnamese language." You are a little bit of a step ahead of that, I guess, with some familiarization with your husband and his family. Maybe he can step through that a little bit better than most. As a tourist myself, when I have a long stay. I think of myself as a part-time resident. I can get away with it, but I wonder if I lived there, whether or not having some better understanding of the language because it's a difficult language to master. I just wondered what your thoughts were on that and is that an obstacle? [00:34:15] Meg Le: Yes, definitely. Hoi An being a traditional tourist town, a decent amount of people will know some basic English like numbers and greetings and that type of thing. Like anywhere, locals always appreciate it if you make an effort even just the smallest amount. I think because my husband speaks some level. He's not even completely fluent. He grew up speaking it, but he's been learning to read and write here. I get lazy. I rely on him. I'm ashamed about it. [chuckles] I did sign up for two lessons. Then, I was like, "This is too hard." I quit. That's embarrassing. [00:34:59] Kerry Newsome: I'd be right there with you. I have to admit. I'm dreadful. I really make an idiot of myself. I feel embarrassed. [00:35:03] Meg Le: It's tough. Just asking questions and learning a word a day can really be helpful. I think starting with things like food can be very helpful. You want to be able to read the signs. This is such a food culture. I mentioned how there are restaurants everywhere. If you know the basic words for noodle and rice and the different types of meats and what vegan means, all those different things. Even if you start there and can say some numbers and ask how much, you'll be in a good spot. [00:35:40] Kerry Newsome: Yes. Always greetings even just to say thank you. Everybody remembers xin chào because it's the welcome. To remember just how to say thank you-- They get surprised at people even knowing how to say that. [00:35:55] Meg Le: Yes. Then, one note about Hoi An specifically is that they actually say that they don't speak Vietnamese. They speak Quang Nam. Quang Nam is, I'd say, like the Kentucky of the United States as [crosstalk] Quang Nam to Vietnam. Just like sometimes garbled words, you don't hear all the enunciation. It's not a different dialect. It's just a different way they literally pronounce words and vowels very differently. [00:36:36] Kerry Newsome: There's nothing you can figure out yourself logically. It's an illogical language including the way they put their names. They always put their last name first or their first name. How many times when I've been doing this podcast, and I'm talking to someone, or someone's going to come on the show, and I'm going, "Oh, which one of those is- [00:36:59] Meg Le: The name. [00:36:59] Kerry Newsome: -the first name. [crosstalk] [00:37:01] Meg Le: Use the last one. [00:37:02] Kerry Newsome: Yes, but sometimes they have two. It's like, "Oh, that's good." [00:37:07] Meg Le: It's confusing. [00:37:08] Kerry Newsome: It is confusing. [music] [00:37:15] Kerry Newsome: Being the devil of detail as I am, just getting down to tin tacks then describe your life as now, you're definitely a year on. You're over your year. You've started a business there. Talk to us just how that process came about and how that opportunity and-- You've got some work aspirational things coming up as well for you. I think it is fantastic. The oyster is starting to really open despite the pandemic because you're doing yoga teaching and Pilates and all that sort of stuff. [00:37:52] Meg Le: I came into Hoi An. I’d just done some Pilates and yoga teacher training. If you've ever been to Bali, especially the Ubud area. It's a big wellness area. When I visited Hoi An, I thought, "You know what? I feel like this could be similar but different, like a big spot for wellness in Southeast Asia." That was my original idea when coming here. That has changed [chuckles] because there are two markets here. There's the local market. Well, the local Vietnamese and then the local foreigners that live here and with such a low cost of living. The cost of services is quite low. A thing like a wellness center, which I was originally thinking of, I was like, "Well, especially with no tourists, it just doesn't make sense." I've had to pivot that a little bit. I've continued to teach. I have a little Pilates studio in my house. I made a little home studio. I have a reformer and all those different things. I do one-on-one. I teach group classes at the gym. I've put that on hold. I do think that Vietnam could be a good or Hoi An could be a great wellness area in the future for both domestic tourists and foreign tourists. Here is a place where there's a low barrier to entry for starting a business in some ways because it doesn't cost very much. It's really about the simple life. If you want something, you have to create it. We actually wound up starting a restaurant and bar here. It started from my husband saying, "I want a bagel." There are no bagels or good bagels I would say. We started making them at home. Then, from there, he was just doing a little home baking business, which is very easy to do here. There are no real regulations on that. There are tons of people who just start something and sell it through Facebook. Facebook community is very important here for good or bad. When he wanted to expand it, he was open to opportunities. Our neighbor across the pool that we share a house a little complex with have a restaurant that wasn't doing so great. She needed some fresh eyes and some fresh energy and some đồng . In speaking to her about how to expand the opportunity was there, he wound up partnering with-- her name is Lan. She's from Hanoi. Then, they have since launched Veranda, which is in An Bàng . That turned out to be quite the community spot. He wasn't really planning on working. He decided to start a little bagel business. Then, that turned into a restaurant. We actually just recently navigated the system of getting our investor paperwork finalized. We're no longer on tourist visas. We have a lot more security there because we're minor shareholders on paper of this Vietnamese corporation. That's where we spend a lot of our time. This is just such a place where you're just like if you want something, you just make it happen. There are lots of opportunities. If you've come from a place where you've traveled a lot, and you can easily see gaps in the market, you can throw something out there, market test it, quick fail fast. If it doesn't work, you just move on. That's really the way you have to go versus if you're planning on coming here to find a job. A big thing is that people think. "I want to move to Hoi An. I'm going to get a job." Not going to happen. Not going to happen. [laughs] [00:41:44] Kerry Newsome: I would have said that was difficult to do even pre-COVID. I think post-COVID, it'll be even worse. I think that Vietnam will want to get their own population re-employed over a foreigner. If there's you or I and a foreigner and a local that can do the same job, he or she is going to get it over us, no matter what. [00:42:13] Meg Le: Absolutely. [00:42:15] Kerry Newsome: They need their own people to be employed. [00:42:17] Meg Le: Definitely. [00:42:18] Kerry Newsome: Just coming out of lockdown in Saigon. I was talking to Michael Tatarski last week. His show went up today. He was saying how the city is going to experience a labor shortage because so many of the workers left the city. Now, it's opened up. Everybody's gone, "Ooh." It's open, but there aren't enough people now to work in the hotels and to work in these businesses. There's going to be quite a clambering of the labor force to see where they flow to, from a wellness perspective, just how they flow based on their health and well-being. In other words, are they fully vaccinated or not vaccinated and their age group, can they bring their whole family, where are they going to live, how they can afford to live. All of those things are going to have to start up again for all those people. They reckon there could be like 30,000 or 40,000 in that boat that are wandering Vietnam after the COVID lockdown in Saigon. I was talking to someone in Hoi An. They were saying that they think that there'll be a lot coming to Hoi An. There was a little bit of nervousness around them coming into the Quang Nam province given that you're COVID-free. [00:43:46] Meg Le: Yes. We've been in, I don't know, this magical bubble. [00:43:52] Kerry Newsome: I hope you stay that way. [00:43:54] Meg Le: Yes. I do know that people are going back to their provinces because they might have had a job in the city, but that job has gone away or [crosstalk]-- [00:44:04] Kerry Newsome: Not great. [00:44:05] Meg Le: Yes. They're coming back here. I think last weekend, there were a bunch of buses that came in. That's definitely happening in the Hoi An area, too. Yes. We'll see what happens. They are starting to vaccinate here this week, which is really, really great news because we know they're vaccinating in the country and the cities. There was radio silence on Hoi An getting vaccines. There's a little sign of hope for all of us. That's really exciting. [music] [00:44:42] Kerry Newsome: Was there considerations given, Meg, to how you would manage your health insurance, or did you give those things serious consideration in this process? [00:44:57] Meg Le: Yes, absolutely. Coming from a country where your health insurance is tied to your job, if you leave your job, and you leave your country, there goes your insurance. [00:45:10] Kerry Newsome: Exactly. [00:45:11] Kerry Newsome: We did have travel insurance for a while. I can't remember who the provider was. It wasn't that cheap. Maybe it was $1,000 or something. Here locally, I use Bao Viet. There are of course different plans. You can get it for inpatient, outpatient. We just renewed. We got, which is crazy, a 15% decrease in our premium this year because we had no claims. [crosstalk] [00:45:43] Kerry Newsome: Incidents. [00:45:44] Meg Le: Yes. We got incentivized for that. That cost about 5,000,000 for two of us. We are healthy, with no pre-existing conditions, young 40s. Really not that much, but something like that is more for you if you have to stay overnight in the hospital. My husband got in a wreck, a motorbike wreck, not his fault last year. He had a quick visit to the local hospital here, got an X-ray, got a little soft cast, that type of thing. I think it cost him about 1 million. That was just paid out of pocket. It's always a good idea to have at least some insurance for inpatient stuff if something happens, and you have to have surgery and stay in the hospital. It's not that expensive. Definitely, something to consider if you live here. I think it depends on your country. Like I said, from the US, you're out of luck. I have no other insurance. Maybe if you're from a different country, you could always fly back and get supported by some universal socialist health care, but yes, not really here. [00:47:00] Kerry Newsome: As you say, it's more of a consideration for people with pre-existing conditions of any kind. I've had friends of mine that have ended up having quite serious back injuries. Because they likewise changed their lifestyle, they would never have ridden a motorbike where they came from. [crosstalk] All of a sudden,-something happens unexpected. [00:47:22] Meg Le: You have to. [laughter] [00:47:24] Kerry Newsome: -you're getting around on a motorbike. You probably are being a little bit. I won't say reckless. I'll just say maybe a little bit carefree. These little things happen. They get stuck. I've certainly known a lot of young people, too. They're having just such a great time. Their consciousness around being careful on motorbikes has led to some atrocious accidents with lots of damage. Yes. I think health will be something in the future because people coming to Vietnam to live are going to have to weigh all those things up more seriously than they have had prior to COVID. That's mainly due to the fact also that the hospital system in Vietnam at the moment is totally overrun. It's cactus. It's going to take a long time to recover. I think there's going to be some new initiatives that come out of that, or I hope so at least. For the short term, and I'm saying 2022, 2023, if I was wanting to come to Vietnam to take up some opportunity, or I just wanted to come back or whatever, these are some of the things that we're talking about now that I think you would need to consider. [00:48:56] Meg Le: Right because when I came here, you always think, "Okay, well, if I need something--" because the healthcare in Vietnam, in general, is not great. Hoi An, especially, is notoriously not good. Then, we were like, "Oh, I'll just go to Danang if I need to." Well, maybe not because they cut off all roads, or you're not actually allowed to go to the hospital, or you'd be like, "Oh, I'd just fly to Bangkok if I need something." Oh, that's not happening either. It is much more of consideration especially if you have existing issues. That's something really to weigh up about whether or not this would be the time and place to come to, a place like Hoi An if you need something. [00:49:46] Kerry Newsome: Yes, exactly. [music] [00:49:53] Kerry Newsome: Did you find dealing with the authority and agencies around your business set up and all of that, did all that come together easily or was it difficult? [00:50:08] Meg Le: It's been very confusing. I think it was confusing to begin with but then add in a pandemic and a change in government. Things always change with rules when there's a change in government every five years. Then, the way that communication flows down from the federal level. Then, the province levels have their own rules. Navigating that has been a really big challenge. That is with my husband having decent Vietnamese skills and his business partner being Vietnamese. Yes. It's a challenge. You have to be patient. [chuckles] We actually wound up finding a good agent here in the Hoi An area. Like I said, we did successfully get our investor visas. That's really good. Yes, just having patience and having someone, especially if you don't speak Vietnamese, to help you with the language is really, really key. Yes. Everything just takes a lot longer. On the flip side, you always say in Vietnam, “there’s always a way” in Vietnam. Just based on how everything is set up, you have to just find the right person. [chuckles] That's definitely part of it. [00:51:32] Kerry Newsome: Absolutely. [music] [00:51:38] Meg Le: This is a beach lifestyle. I don't know if that’s all of Vietnam. If you go to the cities, I'm sure it's different. I've never lived in any other place except Hoi An. It's just one of those things that's like you just have to relax. [crosstalk] [00:51:56] Kerry Newsome: Yes, true. [00:51:57] Meg Le: That's quite a good life lesson, I think, depending on where you've come from. If you're expecting efficiency and things to be really clear, well, you better just toss it out the window and [chuckles] go with the flow. [00:52:14] Kerry Newsome: What out of 10 would you give it as a good place to move to, as you say, for a change in lifestyle and semi-retirement [crosstalk]. [00:52:22] Meg Le: I think it always depends on your age, what kind of life you want, what speed you're looking for. One thing I can say-- I've been in a committed partnership for 20 years, and being here is great. The single people who are younger struggle here because if you're trying to find someone, and there are no tourists coming through, or you're trying to find not even just like someone to marry, just someone to date for long term. That's a real struggle. As a partner or someone who's not looking for someone maybe-- very different experience. If you're, like I said, trying to find a job, that's definitely not a place for here to move to. I have heard if you've had children, it can be a struggle in some ways. In some ways, great because there are some really good international schools here. On the other hand, you might have trouble finding kids the same age and parents you vibe with that you can put them all together. For me at this point in my life where I am semi-retired, and I'm trying to learn to chill out, it's great. For me, I would say, for now, it's a 9. I can never give it a 10 because I don't like how I always feel like I'm going to die when I get on a motorbike or the culture of dog and cat pet theft and violence is personally difficult for me. I don't know. Nine out of ten, that's pretty good. [00:54:06] Kerry Newsome: That's pretty good. Look, I could talk all afternoon with you, Meg, about what I need to know and what everyone should know about moving to Vietnam and changing from a tourist to a resident. I think your points across the board have been really great. I hope my listeners have got a lot out. I'm sure they have. Any last pointers that we want to close out with that you'd like to add? [00:54:34] Meg Le: Yes. I think whether you're moving to Hoi An or a different city or wherever you're headed, it’s important to come in with an open mind and be open to opportunities because a place may look a certain way to you on You Tube, or you might get a certain perspective from a friend who's lived in Hoi An, but really until you get here, you don't know what it's going to be like. I would just say be open to opportunities, meet lots of people, don't pack a big bag. [chuckles] [00:55:14] Kerry Newsome: Don't pack a big bag. Yes. Think minimalistic. [00:55:17] Meg Le: Yes, absolutely. [00:55:18] Kerry Newsome: Thanks very much, Meg, for being on the show. I really appreciated your time. Hope to talk to you again soon. [00:55:24] Meg Le: Yes. See you soon. Bye-bye. [music] [00:55:27] Outro: Thank you for listening. Check out the episode notes for more information. What About Vietnam. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Stay tuned for more fun adventures in Vietnam.

58347fb1-267b-410e-b060-cf56464b1621After months of being closed, the doors are opening Travel to Vietnam opening up - The inside story Episode 14 S3-14 Travel Opening up P1 00:00 / 15:14 As the doors to Vietnam begin to open to travel after months of being closed, our eyes and ears are keenly focused on what the entry conditions will be. Most importantly for international travellers, as the doors to us have been closed since March 2020. In this Episode which is Part 1 - of a 3 part series, I am fortunate to have Miquel Angel on the program as Head of the Human Resources & Quality working group inside the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board, a private entity advising the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Vietnam. Miquel joins the podcast as my guest shortly after meeting with the Ministry which announced that they would open 5 provinces being:- Phu Quoc Island, Danang, Khanh Hoa Province the home to Nha Trang city, Ha Long Bay in Quang Ninh Province, and Hoi An in Quang Nam province; under very strict conditions. What these conditions of entry are, and how they roll is what this Episode is focused on. Miquel, a Catalan citizen, originally from 100 km north of Barcelona resides in Ho Chi Minh City. He is highly regarded in the circle of government and it is a great pleasure to have him on the show. Disclaimer: Please note this podcast is not to be taken in any way as a formal news release or announcement from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Vietnam. The information shared in this Podcast by the Guest and Host, are related to publicly released documents and are the private opinions of both people. Download Transcript PDF Read transcript

S5-E19-Facelift and Dental surgery Vietnam – A good news story S5-E19-Facelift and Dental surgery Vietnam – A good news story Episode 19 S5-E19-Facelift and Dental surgery Vietnam – A good news story 00:00 / 46:22 In this episode of What About Vietnam, we uncover a hidden gem: Vietnam’s rising reputation as a hotspot for affordable, high-quality dental and cosmetic procedures. My co-host Kelley shares her transformative facelift journey with a trusted hospital in Saigon, which combines expert dental and cosmetic care in one “one-stop shop.” So to speak! Kelley’s uplifting experience goes beyond surgery - it’s a unique way to pair self-care with a holiday! With her personal tips and stories (and a few giggles )we got to share along the you’ll learn some of the do’s and don’ts of medical tourism and why Vietnam is fast becoming a destination for consideration. 

With Kelley’s personal story, along with another major dental patient’s experience during the same visit, we aim to share why, in our opinion, the Worldwide Dental and Beauty Hospital in Saigon stands out for its exceptional standards of care - and why we’re excited to serve as their introduction agency. To be frank, we can only speak with full confidence to our experience with this one hospital. It's a "no holds barred" episode packed with insights that will make you see Vietnam in a whole new light. Plus, join our exclusive Facelifts and Dental Vietnam Facebook Group for more real-life stories and support. Listen now and discover why Vietnam could be the perfect place to get the procedure you’ve always wanted - at a price you can afford - while turning the whole experience into a memorable holiday! Check out our previous dental episode here. https://www.whataboutvietnam.com/series-2/episode-10/vietnam-dental-holiday---save-money-on-dental-while-on-your-holiday Go to our website page here talking dental and our enquiry page for more info – (Facelift surgery page coming soon) https://www.whataboutvietnam.com/dental-travel-services Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here