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

e6acd571-d597-42f0-a46f-3c845c437070Health and wellness retreats - what to look for. What About Vietnam - 2-12 Health and Wellness Retreats - What to look for, Part 1 Kerry Newsome: Hi, and welcome to What About Vietnam. Look, with so much going on in the world right now, challenging us on so many levels, I thought it was perfect timing to release a series of episodes, focusing on the opportunities in Vietnam for healing, relaxation, wellbeing, and health. Now, I know travel remains for most of us something that we're restricted to our own countries and our local areas. But I think for the future, I wanted to let people know that when the doors open, Vietnam has a lot to offer in this area, like not only is there the beautiful scenery, but there are some very special retreats specifically designed to help us, you know, reboot our energy levels, heal our minds, and connect with like-minded people. Okay, so, let's welcome Emma Sothern Sothern, a yoga and mindfulness instructor and local to Hoi An, who offers yoga and mindfulness retreats. As a traveler herself, Emma talks to us about what to expect from a retreat in Vietnam. I mean, specializing in the area of yoga and mindfulness, she's got some great advice on what to look for when researching the best retreat for you and the best retreat that's going to serve your expectations. You know, like what do you want to get out of a retreat? Emma Sothern herself arrived in Vietnam from Ireland about two to three years ago. And she was immediately smitten by the people and the locality of Hoi An. After traveling extensively through Southeast Asia and Vietnam, she decided to come back and finally settled down with her partner in Vietnam and offer retreats for people wanting the experience of rejuvenation. As she knows it's possible. When you decide to say to yourself, I deserve this. It's not a self-indulgence, it's something that's good for me. And it is going to offer me the healing and general escape or reboot that I need. Emma has been driven in her studies of yoga and teaching due to her own stresses as a young girl, coping with a condition called Alopecia, which is an auto-immune condition she's had most of her life, you can access more information about the great work she does in this area to support people, as I will put a link in the episode notes. As a delightful Irish girl now living and very happy in Hoi An. She's got some smart advice for all of us when we think about choosing to do something for ourselves, especially when that opportunity comes in another country and possibly a country that is foreign to you. So, learning a little bit about Vietnam, let's get straight into it as I ask Emma Sothern with my vision board for what to expect from a retreat in Vietnam matches what can be achieved, let's say hello to Emma. Talk to us a little bit about what someone can expect from a retreat in Vietnam. Just make sure that my vision is matching out my expectations kind of thing. Emma Sothern: Sure, well it's a really exciting time I think, to come on a retreat in Vietnam because it hasn't quite reached, maybe saturation point like some other countries like say Bali as it is wonderful for yoga; but there's just so much. It can be a little overwhelming. Vietnam for me anyway, it still feels like retreats here are very genuine and very authentic. So, they're not just kind of only focused on marketing, maybe they're here to give you just a beautiful setting. People who are really, really passionate about yoga and they practice what they preach as well,plus... it's affordable, which is really important. And you have all the other aspects of Vietnam, like just amazing food, really healthy foods, your beautiful settings. So, in Hoi An, we're lucky to have the beach; the rice fields and then the river running through. So, you have all these bamboo trees and yeah, it’s your ideal setting. I suppose, if what you envisage is just somewhere, you can just totally relax in a lovely setting with really good teachers and really good food, then it does live up to that. Kerry Newsome: Oh, brilliant. Okay, fantastic. Now I decided when we began chatting that I would actually devote a couple of episodes, actually I think I'm doing three or four different episodes about retreats, health retreats in Vietnam. And obviously I'm delighted to talk to you about yoga and meditation, but also mindfullness in this session. So, tell us a little bit, like how do you separate out one from the other, as in what's the difference between a mindfulness retreat and a yoga retreat or do they sometimes get combined? Emma Sothern: Yeah, so they're often combined. But I suppose before you maybe book your retreat, it's important to maybe see what you want to get out of it. So, if you're looking for something that you really want to get exercise, or you want to find out more about yoga and you want to know about the kind of different varieties available and more of, I suppose, the theoretical side of yoga than a purely yoga retreat is really good. Especially that's what I did before in Bali and other retreats, but it was mainly focused on the physical exercise and I did have things like breath work and some meditation in it, but it was quite a physical experience, like it's more like a workshop and extended workshops. So, we were doing three classes a day, quite intense, quite tiring. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, that can be rigorous. Emma Sothern: And you usually, your schedule can be quite busy, so you might not actually have that much relaxation time that can be maybe a big class in the morning, you have breakfast and it's all kind of planned out for you. But I suppose on some yoga retreats, we'll have aspects of more the spiritual chanting and some other activities like that. So, you can really kind of get back to the roots of yoga I suppose. I'm finding back to connection with the ancient practice of yoga, whereas mindful retreats. Some mindful retreats won't even have yoga in them like you might be just doing different activities, like mindful writing or mindful eating. You could be doing different forms of meditation, so you're doing shisha meditations, walking meditations, even things like tea ceremonies and there's so many different aspects. And I suppose I see mindfulness as this kind of toolkit that you can bring with you for everyday life. So, for me, it's really about coping with things like stress and just to enjoy life more and it's like a mental training course. So, that doesn't always involve exercise, but I do think it's an important part of it to help mindful movement as well. And yoga just fits in really well with it because it's focused on the breath. So, if you can practice yoga in a mindful way, that's really getting all the benefits out of it. So, I suppose my ideal retreat that I'd like to go on and the ones I hope to teach are ones that involve both. So, they'll have maybe two yoga classes, but they'll have like a morning more active one and then a very relaxed evening one. So, you're not pushing yourself too much and throughout the day they'll have those mindful activities like meditation and doing things that are accessible for everyone. So, it's not overwhelming for people who've never practiced yoga before they can still get a lot out of it without feeling stressed. Because you had lots of anticipation, I can't pronounce that word, that's the opposite of what you want for the yoga retreat is to come out feeling stressed or, you know overwhelmed. So, yeah, mindfulness retreats I suppose are just about feeling good and coming out of a feeling better than when you went in, hopefully. Kerry Newsome: Yes, and I think sometimes you know, some of the retreats that I've been on. They've kind of been a little bit rigorous in the sense that the routines are quite strict and have to do this, and you have to do that. So, maybe I didn't make the right choices. So, it's good to learn about different types of retreats so, that people, when they're listening to programs like this, that they can make a wise choice because you're off often spending a reasonable amount of money and sometimes, I think people don't get everything they want out of it because the one they've chosen didn't kind of match up or fit their expectations. Emma Sothern: Yeah, so, I really agree with that because and that's where I go back to, like when you're researching a retreat, just write down what you need at that point in your life, what are you looking for and not what other people think you should be doing maybe and going on a really challenging thing. If what you need is to relax and if you're feeling exhausted, then these retreats that involve getting up at four in the morning or three in the morning for like a two-hour meditation might not be what you need. So, it's just important to kind of reflect on what you're looking for and not base it all around price as well, because you know, often the cheapest as well will be these very, no-frills saying that you might just feel exhausted after, and you might want to leave after two days. And sometimes like I've been on these sorts of retreats and I love them. I've got a lot out of them, but you just have to maybe assess where you are in your life and what might make you feel better at that point. Kerry Newsome: Yes, so if we were talking about a retreat in Vietnam and let's talk about typically ones that that you facilitate as in maybe a slight combination of mindfulness and yoga. So, what's a good amount of time to consider a retreat two days like what's a good amount of time to do one? Emma Sothern: I would say, so it's interesting because I actually did before our lockdown here. So, one night retreat the purpose of that was to kind of cater for people living here, maybe who had families and mightn't be able to take longer time away and to try to make it affordable. And some of the feedback from the participants was that they couldn't believe how much they could maybe change in 24 hours or how much they could get out of 24 hours. If you can offer them those tools, they can take with them afterwards. But they did say, you know, I would have loved an extra night because it does take a little bit of a while to switch off from whatever's going on. So, I would say minimum two nights, really. Especially if you've been traveling, you might even feel jet lagged when you come to a place still, and it takes you a little bit of time just to get used to it. You're bound to feel nervous maybe by meeting new people, especially if you've never been on a yoga retreat before, it can all feel a bit overwhelming. And like you say, if there's a routine, it takes some time to get used to that, maybe a different time of eating or getting up. And not only it might take you 24 hours, you can get used to that and then you don't want to be leaving straightaway and stressing about what you have to do next. So, I'd say very minimum, two days, even better if it's in your budget, maybe four days, if you can, to get really into it. Kerry Newsome: Now, I mean, where in the midst of COVID and we're all about social distancing and we're all about zoom and we're all about doing everything online. And I think it's great that you do offer classes and a guided meditation online. So, I'm going to put that link in the episode notes, but what I'm keen to talk to you about is, you know, coming through COVID, we're going to have retreats where people are coming together again. So, be it that there'll be the distancing, etc. and everyone will follow that rule. But talk to us a little bit about the coming together aspect; what is gained from being together as a group in a retreat rather than doing a zoom thing online or something like that? Talk to us about that togetherness. Emma Sothern: Sure, so a couple of aspects, I think first of all, I think there's something just really special about meditation together as a group. Like that's the one aspect of a yoga retreat that I just think you can't really mirror like meditation by yourself can be really difficult and really challenging. And it's a hard one to explain if you're not into things like energy and stuff. It's a very special energy that can happen when you're in a group just being silent together, not even feeling the need to talk, it can be quite transformative. And I know I find in my own retreats that even though we have amazing chats over the meals together, or swimming in the pool and you connect with people in a new way. Kind of the most powerful moments are when we're sitting together; just meditating in silence. Or when we had a silent breakfast one day and just that feeling of, okay, you can be around people and supporting each other, but you don't need to speak. It's something we're never used to in our usual lives. We're used to like filling in with small talk. So, there's something special about being quiet in a group setting together. And also, I suppose in the wake of COVID when we've been so isolated, I know we can connect online. It's just a really nice feeling to be able to come together in person and learning something like this, but especially if you're like an introvert like me, I suppose when you get released from lockdown, it can be a bit scary to go into the outside world straight away and suddenly by surrounded by people and noise, that's why going on a retreat and meeting people who are maybe equally a little bit shy by that sort of thing and making real connections with them can be very powerful. Like any retreats I've ever been on, even if it is one day and if it was five or six years ago across the world, I still connect with those people and we could still message each other. It's quite a special bond you can form very quickly. Which I think it's unlike any other bond I've ever made with someone, that just from, I suppose it's the stuff a form of healing, the transformative aspect. People are very open when they go on yoga retreats. They're very mindful of each other's kind of feelings and emotions and it's that special kind of environment. Kerry Newsome: It is, and I think you're right. I think that energy exchange between people in that open space, in that allowing space, in that space that is free, it's non-judgmental and I think just in a beautiful environment kind of takes all that armor off. I think everyone kind of relaxes a little bit more and is a bit more willing and open to share or, or not share as you say, in a silent environment. Talk to us a little bit about the kinds of people that are coming to Vietnam and enjoying these kinds of retreats. Emma Sothern: Yeah, so they'd be all different types. Like on my last retreat, I had a few people already living here. Kerry Newsome: They are ex-pats. Emma Sothern: Yeah, and there was one person who was a mom with three kids and traveling around. And I think she, so my post about the day before it started or something like that, she'd never been on a retreat before and decided it was perfect timing that she thought. She was stressed traveling with her kids and family, and she thought, oh, it's only one night I can give myself that gift. So, it was really lovely to see people who'd kind of practice yoga a little bit, who were used to maybe just doing drop-in classes and hadn't done a retreat before. So, that's the expats and then this lady who'd never done any sort of retreats, they decide they could kind of benefit from it. So, I suppose in retreats normally you might not get young backpacker types maybe because maybe it's not in the budget depending on the retreat. It's often people who have families who are just very busy, they feel they need this couple of days just to themselves to be able to recess and to offer more to their families or to their communities when they leave. But really all sorts of people are welcome and good retreats will foster all levels whether you're very experienced or whether you're totally new. Kerry Newsome: Because you know, coming from the commercial world. I often talk to people about a holiday obviously in Vietnam and when there's so much to do and see and experience in Vietnam, that can be quite tiring, you know. It can be kind of jumping on and off planes and getting around, etc. So, I've often suggested to people that they may consider a retreat, on the last couple of days, just to wind themselves down, get them geared to come home, you know, come home with some skills and some tools to use back in their work life and try and I guess help them manage stress moving forward and long-term. Because you don't want to kind of do all that, and then not come home with something, a gift, I guess from a retreat to you. You want to be able to use it in your day-to-day life, Emma Sothern: Yeah, that's such a good point and actually that's probably the people you'd see most and these retreats they maybe solo travelers. Because I know that's what I did myself the first time I went traveling myself, I knew I'd feel quite overwhelmed maybe coming to a new country and not knowing what was going on. So, I started it with a retreat just to ease into “ to shake off the kind of tiredness of traveling and to mentally prepare myself”. And I went back to that same retreat, like three months later, right before I went home just to, again, set myself up to feel calm and grounded going home. So, it's really good for people who maybe aren't used to traveling so much or feeling a bit nervous, or like you say, people who have a jam-packed schedule and they don't need to be going home still exhausted after all the activities, even if it's for those two nights, just to unwind a little bit before they go home. Kerry Newsome: And you know, it's a good point, you raise about the solo traveler too, because sometimes it's an opportunity to form friendships. I mean, you've talked about that yourself, that the bonds that you can make on those retreats are quite deep bonds I think, and I know myself I've done similar things. So, I think that's a really good point that for a solo traveler, if they want to look at a retreat to also meet people and to share with people, you know, a common passion in yoga and mindfulness. I want to talk to you a little bit more about Vietnam as the destination for these retreats. Tell us how important is the location or venue of a retreat. Emma Sothern: I would say very, very important because you could have an incredible teacher and all you hear is honking horns and it's I don't know a room that's totally sweltering. It's very hard to relax like, they can make it possible that the teacher is very good, but usually a bit of beautiful surroundings will go a long way. So, Vietnam has a lovely kind of luxurious aspect. I know it has a lot of beeping scooters as well. Kerry Newsome: Certainly, in the main cities. Emma Sothern: We have an awful lot of them, which is why many of these retreats are kind of built specifically that they are a little bit away from that, there'll be in kind of a right scene site or by a river by the beach, or I know there's a beautiful one of site in Hoi An and the Cham islands. And even for people living here that can feel like another universe because it's just this lovely little Island setting. So, I would say yeah, really important because you want to feel like you're going on holidays anyway, seeing somewhere you wouldn't be used to in your home life. Just making it easier for you to switch off. And because the good retreats we'll have a little bit of maybe a lot of relaxation, as well as the kind of activities you want it to be somewhere that you can really just relax enough, just going to bed. Maybe somewhere you can sit out and look at nature and do some writing and just give yourself some time you wouldn't have normally. Kerry Newsome: Yes, and you're right. Like you do need to be in some kind of idyllic location to do that, I think after a meal or after you finished a meditation, etc. Just to take it down and chill and all of that sort of stuff, you know. Emma Sothern: If you are getting up at three in the morning, you know, it helps to have a nice sunrise after your meditation. Kerry Newsome: You're absolutely right. Okay, so any words of advice or guidance you'd like to share with the listeners today just on selecting the right retreat and that kind of thing? Emma Sothern: Sure, I'd say like I said before, like focus on your reasons for doing it, what you need in the moment. And I know a lot of people might think maybe going on a retreat or booking a retreat for themselves might be maybe an overindulgence or a self-indulgence, whereas it's really one of the best ways you can spend your money rather than ticking off boxes of all the different sites you want to go see, you know, this is something that could really benefit your physical and mental health not just on your holiday but going home. So, it might seem like a bit of an investment, but you're doing just so much good for yourself just by taking this time away. And the fact that it's guided as well, so you could take yourself to a lovely Island yourself, or, you know, spend some time writing in your book and drinking cocktails, and that's lovely as well. But to have this kind of retreat escape where you don't have to think about anything, the activities are there for you to take or leave, and you have this ready community of people who are like-minded as well to support you through it. It's really, really a special thing to do for yourself. So, my main piece of advice I suppose is just go for it, don't think you don't deserve it because you really do, especially after this stressful time. Kerry Newsome: I'm going to finish on that. That's perfect advice, thanks again, Emma Sothern. Thank you, Emma Sothern, for being part of this series with me on what about Vietnam? I'm sure this is going to help a lot of us navigate the world of wellness and yoga retreats in Vietnam as there are certainly a lot of them. And I totally agree with you, we should just do it as we deserve some self-nurturing after the year it's been. Please check out the episode notes, but links to Emma Sothern's pages, where she announces her retreats and she also offers online yoga sessions, and you can join in those, no matter where you are. Stay tuned over the next few episodes as I bring you more in keeping with wellness and retreats in general in Vietnam. Please if you are on Apple, iTunes person, please rate and review the show as it really helps me reach more people. And of course, you can reach me through my Facebook page and website What about Vietnam. Please share, stay safe till next time. This show is still keeping it's main story line, but I am including the link to Emma's new retreat you might be interested in, details here - https://omwithemyoga.com/hoi-an-yoga-retreat/?mc_cid=d30c20d90f&mc_eid=5c941365ba

2def5fca-e85f-4847-9058-061f2bc4b1b7Experience the quintessential favourite, Pho. What About Vietnam - Series 3 - 13 Everything you didn’t know about Vietnamese noodles! Kerry Newsome: 00:35 Xin Chào! and welcome to What about Vietnam, one of the main aims of the podcast programme that I put together for you is to try and choose subjects and get to you information that is going to make your experience of Vietnam so much more meaningful. 00:58 I do not know about you, but when I am travelling, there is just so much to take in and especially with a new country, with an exotic country, with a country that is very foreign to you. You can be experiencing things but not really understanding or get a full context of that experience. So, one of the things that I wanted to include in my programme is an episode about noodles. 01:26 Now you may ask, gosh! a whole episode just talking about Vietnamese noodles. Yes! and it's really warranted, because most of the tastiest dishes that you're going to try in Vietnam are going to include one or other type of Vietnamese noodle, you will see the noodles in various places, in various markets, in various cities and I've asked Neal Bermas to come on the show today because he's got a stack of knowledge about noodles and for lots of reasons why. 02:02 Neal is the founder and board chairperson of STREETS International (https://www.streetsinternational.org/). It is a social enterprise that offers programmes for street kids, orphans, and disadvantaged youth, and they train them in the hospitality industry. Connected to the programme is a restaurant that he coined Oodles of Noodles . So now, you know why he is on this programme and why he knows a lot about noodles. Which you are absolutely going to find out in this programme. 02:36 A bit more about Neal. Neal has received lots of honors and distinguished awards in the ensuing years of his career, in particular, or to just to name a few. He was awarded a membership to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2014. He was also honored to be selected CNN's Hero of the Year in 2018. He is a fun new yorker with a heap of experience and knowledge about the making of noodles, there some of the history, some of the different flavors you are going to experience. You are just going to have a bowl with this episode, because if you do not, then I am doing something dreadfully wrong because I had a bowl. 03:32 Neal, Welcome to the What About Vietnam Podcast. How are you doing today? Neal Bermas: 03:37 Thank you. I am delighted to be here! Kerry Newsome: 03:40 Look, I am delighted to have you on the show because we are going to be talking about a favorite subject of mine, which is noodles. Now I want to just preface this for my listeners by saying that Neal and I talked about this before that we have all grown up with noodles, kids love noodles, we have had them in our lives for most of our lives, and probably originating mostly from Italy. 04:07 However, in the course of my going back and forth to Vietnam, I have experienced a totally new kind of noodle and as Neal has set up an organization called STREETS International and is the founder. He actually developed this really cute programme called "Oodles of Noodles". And if you would like to check his website out, they actually had tasting tours and training sessions around noodles in training people how to make them and then how to use them with various dishes. So, I am going to dig into the trenches with Neal and I am going to get him to explain to me some of the aspects of noodles that we do not know about Vietnamese style. So, Neal, kicking things off, tell us what is the basis of Vietnamese noodles and why are they so different or so unique? Neal Bermas: 05:11 As somebody who also grew up on boxed, perfect sized and shaped noodles, that I think my mom probably stored for years at a time. Kerry Newsome: 05:24 Absolutely. Neal Bermas: 05:25 The noodles of Vietnam are quite different. As you will know, having been a frequent visitor and part time resident, I guess we could say. The noodles in Vietnam are a form- that in addition to rice, of course, the noodles of Vietnam first of all, are not wheat-based noodles, like we are used to, they are all made of rice. It is a rice growing country. So, noodles here, first of all, are made from rice, which makes them quite different. But they also form the fabric of so many of the great Vietnamese foods that travelers love to experience here. Whether it is street food, or in the restaurants, noodles are really key to the fabric. We could say Vietnamese food income, as I hope will talk about in many different- related but many different forms, and almost always fresh. Something we also, in the West and most parts of the world are not used to. Fresh means you use them in a few days, or as we do in our restaurants, they go to the pig farm, we do not throw them out, but they go to the pig farmers and the pigs enjoy them, but they are only good for a few days because they are legitimately fresh noodles. And that is true pretty much throughout the country. Kerry Newsome: 06:42 Yeah, and I think that was one of the most fascinating aspects of them. When I first visually saw the noodles, I was in a market, and I want you to explain that a bit more. But I know in 2019, I took my grandson, and we went to a market in Hội An and I said I want to show you noodle making and noodles, and a typical 16-year-old, he went "Oh gosh! What are you going to tell me about noodles? They come in a packet blah blah blah". I said, "Well not exactly". This is a whole new spin, and you could just see his eyes roll when he saw these fresh noodles in rattan baskets etc. and you know a girl actually making them on the spot, right in the middle of the markets alongside everything else. So, talk to us a little bit about that making process and how it all comes together and selling in the markets? Neal Bermas: 07:48 Okay. I would be delighted. By the way we call those, typically women, "Noodle Ladies" in the market. Kerry Newsome: 07:56 Okay, I did not know that. Noodle Ladies. Neal Bermas: 08:00 And that is with a lot of respect and reverence. And Hội An, which is where we are based, is I think some of the most beautiful authentic markets in the country, because it is not such an urban area. The noodle ladies are the ones that make and then sell a variety of different homemade noodles and in Hội An, and the center where we are particularly famous for a few noodles, which we will talk about, I am sure. 08:37 Some families specialized for generations in making a particular type of noodle. For example, we will talk about later. For example, Cao lầu is perhaps the most famous noodle dish special to Hội An in the central regions of Vietnam. Cao lầu made by the same family- really the best Cao lầu, there are imitations, for sure. But the best Cao lầu that most places serve are made by the third generation of the same family in Hội An and the noodle ladies, back to our noodle ladies, they do not make Cao lầu, they buy it from the Cao lầu families. For example, because Cao lầu making is a different type of noodle than all the other noodles. 09:33 Now to talk about how noodles are made. Almost all of the noodles that we talked about and that we eat, and we love in Vietnam, as I said, are made very simple. The noodles are not simple to get right but the recipe or the formula is pretty simple. It is ground rice and water, simple. And then an overnight soaking process. Now that is simple, and as you mentioned, our cooking programme that we are going to talk about later, in Hội An, we make some of this ourselves, the challenge is getting the proportions of water to rice correct! When you mix up, you are making, you are ending up with like a paste or gruel, some people would call it. And some noodle makers say, it is one to one. Some noodle makers say it is two to one, some say it is one and a half to two. And I have lived here in Vietnam over a decade, I have a Vietnamese family. So, I probably know noodles as well as a foreigner could ever know noodles. Kerry Newsome: 10:53 That is why you are here [laughing]. Neal Bermas: 10:56 I think that the difference is that if you could eat the same noodle, in different locations, it will have a slightly different consistency and also different rice comes apart when you grind it in different ways and a quintessential Vietnamese noodle maker will know that as soon as they look at the rice, and that affects how much water. This may be more than most people want to know but anyway, it is a simple formula and that is why the ratio varies when you ask, or you try to make it yourself a little bit differently because I think of the consistency in a particular rice. 11:40 So that when you have made this paste, some people call it a gruel, you could call it a batter. So that you have made that and that is the same for many different kinds of noodles that are eaten all over Vietnam, many kinds of different dishes, then you take that gruel or paste, and you have one form or another of how you cook it. But it all comes down to the same way. In the old days and still many families would do this and the noodle ladies, some of them must do this over a wood burning fire. There will be a large cauldron, a large pot of boiling water and over the top of that will be some sort of, we call it a skin, some form of a very light, maybe a cotton or other material that hopefully has less chemicals rather than more chemicals in that paper or the skin, and that's tight over this boiling water underneath it. 12:49 So, in a sense if you could picture it, it is a steamer. It is an open-air steamer, but the first step in cooking and making Vietnamese noodles is, you steam them. So then on that skin taking what we in the West would call a ladle. Although in Vietnam we use, and I think many of our guests like to buy these and take them home I am sure you have seen them. It is half a coconut shell, cleaned out with a branch or some other bark from another tree put through it and that forms your very authentic wood ladle, that you put into this rice paste. Remember the brown rice and water? And just like you make pancakes, you form typically some kind of circle spilling that out gently onto this skin. Depending on the size of skin, you can do one very large one, you could do two or three different sizes, etc. 13:50 In our restaurant we do it over a simple cooker, a pot cooker. We are very careful about the cotton we use, that is an organic cotton with no or with virtually as far as we know no chemicals in it that is stretched through the rim over this pot of boiling water. We do use the coconut ladles because I love them. They just look good, they feel good, and it just reminds us, I am not sure- Kerry Newsome: 14:18 Where you are. Neal Bermas: 14:19 Where we are! And it is good to be here and then- just like a pancake, but of course like pancakes, you can also mess it up. If it is too thin, you start to get- it bubbles through. That is not good. If it is too thick, when you go to take it off, which is the next step, you cannot get it off in a clean sheet. And then you take it off again, there is a flat stick, you can use any tools like you might have pancake spatula, and you very slowly pick that up. Now you must remember that it is thin, and not easy to pick up. The pancake is much easier, the pancake is thicker, it is really thin skin. 15:12 And you then take that without falling apart, or what it wants to do is curl up on you. It is just dying to curl up on you, and you just do not want it to curl up. And I can tell you when we do this, and many guests doing this, it looks so simple and then of course the people that work in our programme and a lot of them are teenagers, they are very good at doing this and our guests even we have chefs start to pick up these skins, that they are falling apart and there is a lot of laughter. 15:52 Okay, so now you have the skin, and you are trying to get it to wherever you are going to do your cutting. Now, this is also one of the most important fascinating parts of the Vietnamese noodles, because they still are largely hand cut. They're either just like I've said their hand cut meaning, you lay them down on a cutting platform and you cut them the way you want. I'll talk in a minute about the different types of noodles and what they go through, what some of us who are lucky to have, maybe grandmothers had a hand driven noodle cutting machine and you take this thin rice, let's say it used over pancake and you put it through this machine, a hand machine there's no electricity, no battery, and then your noodles come out the other end. Kerry Newsome: 16:47 And then they roll even- Neal Bermas: 16:49 And then they are kind of even- different, even as hand cutting, not machine, not really fancy, geared up machines. And there you have your noodles, and you can eat those. And we in our classes, we taste them, and they taste really quite good. And that is your fresh noodle, that forms the basis of almost all noodles in Vietnam. Kerry Newsome: 17:19 I have seen, as you say, many times, a person thinks very positively that they can just grab that stick and just slide that under that [inaudible 17:33] and they are looking very confident and then all of a sudden, that does not go where they wanted to, because as you said, it does curl up, and everyone is watching them, because they're going to do the demonstration on behalf of their family or group members or whatever and it's been hilarious to say that those noodle ladies are doing that all day effortlessly. Neal Bermas: 18:08 They never drop or mess or one up. So, that is the basic, so that is pretty amazing in itself, no chemicals, no fat, very healthy fresh noodles. That is the basis, then depending on what kind of noodle for what kind of dish, you can do more, more things happen then, and I will tell you about three or four of them. Kerry Newsome: 18:39 Let us go, let us talk about three or four of the main noodles. Neal Bermas: 18:42 Most noodles that our friends and travelers will experience, they have not already yet. Okay, so the quintessential dish of Vietnam, Hội An too. Of course, most people know it is Pho, and this is just an amazingly delicious noodle base soup, takes many hours to make really well. It is all fresh and we eat it throughout the country as you all know. We eat it on the street with many excellent and clean street vendors, of course we do not eat it from the street vendors who are not like that and almost I think it is fair to say if not all majority of Vietnamese restaurants regardless of their approach have Pho on the menu. 19:33 Vietnamese eat it early in the morning for breakfast or before and for lunch and for dinner and for a late-night snack. Pho can be made- basically there are two types, beef, or chicken. Pho Bo which is beef, or Pho Ga which is chicken, and they taste different because of the stock it is made of. But let us get back, noodle is the same. Now the Pho noodle, you can do it two different ways. You can take the noodle we just talked about if you have cut them long and thin and that is a Pho noodle. More commonly because Pho is such a popular dish all over the country. So now you start to think about shipping and moving the noodles around the country without going bad, because remember, these are fresh noodles and get very perishable and there are no preservatives. 20:35 So, the next step for most Pho noodles and a few others is you bake them or dry them. And the way, I say, bake a little bit tongue and cheek. You bake them in the sun, not in ovens and there are almost no ovens except commercial kitchens in Vietnam and even then, we try not to use it because it is so darn hot here all the time, that who wants to make more heat. But those noodles and one of the-- especially in Hội An, as you know Kerry for people that want to stroll in Hội An as you will know the UNESCO World Heritage Site. And the scent, the old historic center is a walking area, you can walk in very safely. You can still walk down these alleys today. Not right now during the pandemic, unfortunately, but soon we will be back I am sure stronger than ever. And you can see in front of families and noodle ladies’ houses, reams and reams on what we would think of as screens for Pho and other- but let's stick with Pho noodles, stretched out drying in the sun and that's how they get baked. 21:58 So that dries them. And there will be tons of them and beautiful photographs that people love to take of noodles, drying in the sun outside of the yellow wash and orange wash local homes. And that preserves them. So now that noodle, once it is sun dried, is good for a long time. I do not know what the shelf life is, they do not stamp it here, but they are good for a very long time. Families keep them for months and months at least. So that is your Pho noodle then is sun dried. It is almost we could say crispy or the same- it is like the noodles we are used to coming out of a box. Kerry Newsome: 22:36 Now I know that the baking process actually was a form of preserving it. I did not realize that, because in some places I have visited, they have had the noodles, almost like on a clothesline, they have been draped over the string line and then some will be flat, and they will be just kind of lying out in the street. I did not realize that the baking process actually preserved them for a longer time. But it makes sense as you say, if they are going to move the noodles around the country, of which, like, there's just 1000s of places and, we are going to talk about some dishes, that it is quintessential that they have the noodle because it is part, it is intrinsic to the dish. Now, It is kind of gelling in my brain, now that is how they get it, fresh and baked, it is not artificial. It is not coming out of a box ever. Neal Bermas: 23:50 That is right. It is not coming out of a box ever. So that is the Pho noodle, one of the quintessential- because that is the quintessential dish. Kerry Newsome: 24:00 It is. Neal Bermas: 24:00 As you know, of Vietnam. Kerry Newsome: 24:03 I know what you mean, like I live in Australia, and I have travelled all over the world. If I go to a Vietnamese restaurant, they are really hard pressed, to deliver up to me the Pho that I know, in Vietnam, and I think as you say, it is because of that long cooking process of the broth. The magic is in the broth. And I think as much as- I have had a go at it, and I know other people would probably do far better than me but in Australia, it is very hard to get that, because to spend the time required and to find the freshness of the ingredients. Without preservatives and organic, all of that is hard to do, where in Vietnam, the aromas that come from its steaming will draw people in and as you say, it starts early in the morning, because they consider a more savory thing- they don't necessarily have something sweet for breakfast, they have something more savory and Pho is the optimum, sometimes you can go to try and get Pho, and it's only nine or 10 o'clock and it's gone. Neal Bermas: 25:29 They are sold out. Kerry Newsome: 25:30 Yes, it has gone because everyone has come early and had first, so, I totally agree with you, it is always my go-to, and I make sure I get as much of it into me as I can while I am there. So, I remember, yes. Neal Bermas: 25:47 So that's Pho and yes, there are not many people getting up, unless it's their career, many families getting up to start broth at 04:30 in the morning anymore and are a little bit busier and more hectic world. And that is what it takes, and just to agree with you, and I think also is the herbs. I mean when the herbs that we use, the family use, that we use in our places here. I mean, those herbs came from a farm within a close distance by bicycle, or motorbike, and probably were harvested that day or within two or three days before I buy an urban Melbourne or in New York or I am from London, that herb has not seen ground in weeks. Kerry Newsome: 26:47 It is so true. [crosstalk] Neal Bermas: 26:52 It has probably seen the back of a truck for the last two weeks and so we use a lot- Kerry Newsome: 26:59 Can I just interject with that? With that comes some shock systems for our tummies. Now, it is fair to say that we are not or the average Western person that would be visiting Vietnam would not be experiencing this level of freshness and the soil is very different in Vietnam as well. So, when those herbs hit your tummy, and those broths and things like that, sometimes you can have a reaction and not a necessarily favorable one. But I tried to warn people about that, because I want people to have a good experience of the food and not automatically just painted, as if there is something wrong or the food is not fresh, that is most likely not the case. It is more the case that you are experiencing some different levels of tastes and flavors, herbs, spices, and all sorts of things that your tummy is just not used to. So sometimes a probiotic is a very good idea. Kerry Newsome: 28:23 I've mentioned that in my trip planning episode, back when I first started this, so, you can take that a couple of days before you arrive into Vietnam and that kind of gets your tummy a little bit used to things and, you may have to take some anti-diarrhea or etc., that kind of thing down the track, but it usually settles down in two or three days and then you can kind of march on and really enjoy it but I think, I just wanted to interject with that. Neal Bermas: 28:54 I am glad you did. Your experience and your advices are terrific. It is spot on. It is not a big worry in Vietnam, as it might be in some of the surrounding Southeast Asian countries. I have had food poisoning all over the world, including one of the best restaurants in Paris and a pretty notable friend's but still notable restaurant in New York. I mean, you get food poisoning, we do not really love, it is just part of life from all kinds of things. But by and large in Vietnam, because it is so fresh, and not preserved, that when they are bad, they show it and smell quickly. And I think also some of the things you said, it's mostly not always- mostly a question of just getting used to it and just to add to that point, for Pho, when Pho is served, it's a large bowl, this amazing broth, and depending on whether it's chicken or beef, parts of that protein in it and then it's topped with an assortment of herbs, and often bean sprouts and lettuce, but correctly and almost everyone will do this even the most local places, it's served on the side and you decide how much you want to take or not take. 30:24 What I encourage people to- just like you have said Kerry, is to start out with just a little bit the first day or two and let your stomach get used to these different herbs, different grounds, etc. And the beansprouts which are really delicious. If a little tip on that is, the more modern way is to serve them steamed. The old way was to serve them raw completely. Most places and even I and I'm pretty well adjusted here, to my stomach is anyway, you can ask any restaurant including a local noodle stall, if they give you your bean sprouts fresh and raw to please steam up and even if you don't speak Vietnamese, you can show them and they'll understand quickly and that's a good way to also sure that you don't get sick and you can still enjoy the local food. 31:24 So that is fun. Let us move on then to probably the next most popular and well-known noodle called Bun, spelled B U N, a noodle that in recent years, the former president of the United States, Obama made very famous because he had a Bun dish in Hanoi. so, Bun is another noodle, but it has a little twist to it. And it is made with many different dishes. It starts out exactly the same as Pho, except there is an extra step in the Bun noodle. 32:03 In the Bun noodle, after you can go back to the noodles, you have this rice and water paste that you make it sat overnight, the rice has to sit overnight. And then you could use the paste in the morning to make your noodles. The Bun noodle has a second overnight when it has been made really the artisanal local way, a second night of soaking. If you will, after it has been made, it is soaked in salt water, because if you have ever noticed, Bun noodle has a slight smell to it. It is just slightly fermented. Once in a while a very foreigner will pick up and at first, they question "What's that smell?" because they are not used to it. It is a very light hint of a fermentation. And in fact, it is a white fermentation, which makes it a little bit stickier. And it does have a slight flavor to it of this fermentation from salt that is all, a little salt water, a second night of soaking. And then Bun as you know is served, typically at room temperature. You must also serve that Bun noodle- if it is past its expiration date, which isn't stamped on it, is about three or four days it really starts to smell because the fermentation gets going, and so you'll know that if it's really strong. Kerry Newsome: 33:32 It might bake that as well? Neal Bermas: 33:34 No, bun never can be baked, Bun always has to be fresh noodle. Kerry Newsome: 33:40 I am loving this, Neal; I didn't know this. This is great! Neal Bermas: 33:44 My favorite, and you will see Bun, it is spelt like we were spelled Bun like we spell Bun for people when they get here. It is served in many different ways, room temperature, a big bowl of Bun with different types of things on top. My favorite is called and if you are in Hội An, this is one of the dishes not to miss called Bún thịt nướng. And you know this very well. It is just an amazing dish and basically what we would think of as barbecued pork. It is a particular cut of the pork that is, marinated very thin and herbs served on this Bun, Bún thịt nướng, nướng means barbecue, thịt is a type of pig or pork. It is very good. It is not fatty, pork in Vietnam sometimes can be fatty, we use pork belly a lot. So, it does have the fatty quality, but this is a very lean and really if there is one bun dish to try after you finish your first bowl of Bún thịt nướng and it is really good. Kerry Newsome: 34:48 Definitely going in the list and on the show notes for sure Neal, absolutely. It has some spicy bits to it too, a bit of a crunch. Neal Bermas: 34:57 Yes, they are often and that is important to say throughout Vietnam, and particularly for Bún thịt nướng, it traditionally will have peanuts. So, for people that are sensitive or have allergies, Vietnam is a place to be careful of. People who have those allergies, know how to be careful. But it certainly is indigenous to the food here is peanuts. They are grown here. They are sprinkled on a lot of things. Kerry Newsome: 35:27 You can also have that on the side. I get a lot of people asking me about those things, it is gluten free and all that stuff. Neal Bermas: 35:37 Yes, and then that is a use of the condiment in this case that they are on the side as well. 35:49 So, that's Bun. Now- and those are throughout the country. And they are a little bit different. I always encourage people that are taking some great journey north or south or south or north, have Pho in Hanoi in the north, right the capital and have Pho in the south and Saigon, (it is) very different, both delicious, but they are very different. And then Bun is everywhere because it has been made in all kinds of different ways. And we do not have enough time for me to go through all the different ways, but it is great. Kerry Newsome: 36:22 Yes! part of the adventure, Neal. Neal Bermas: 36:25 It is part of the adventure, just if you get a little bit of smell, it is correct. It is fermented. Kerry Newsome: 36:29 Yes, that is good. That is a great tip! Neal Bermas: 36:39 There are two other noodles I want to talk about. There are two of the most famous noodles for people who have travelled Vietnam and people I think, have really enjoyed Vietnam and they come from Hội An, which is where we have our eateries and where I have lived for many years. And they are both amazing noodles. So let me talk about them, and they both have particular stories to them. 37:05 So, the first one is called Mì Quảng. Two words Mì and Quảng. What that means I will translate because I think it is interesting. Mì In Vietnamese, it means noodle and Quảng is Vietnam province, which is the major province of the central region where Hội An sets, so Mì Quảng literally translates into noodle of the province. Few people know this. Kerry Newsome: 37:35 No, I do not know that either. Neal Bermas: 37:36 Mì Quảng is probably from [inaudible 37:39] Mì particularly for me is the most interesting, most delicious noodle that you can have. It is not the most famous, but it is most delicious. Kerry Newsome: 37:49 I do not think I have tried it. Neal Bermas: 37:52 So Mì Quảng, the way that I first learned about Mì Quảng, I was wandering the streets early in the morning because Vietnam, certainly in the countryside as well, comes to life at 5:30 in the morning. Now that was a pretty bitter pill for a late night New Yorker to swallow on the first [inaudible 38:12]. I have adjusted. 38:18 So, Mì Quảng, Vietnamese most typically will eat, like you said, they like something savory in the morning. And they will have Mì Quảng, although you can have it all day, it is typically an early morning food. I walk around and see this noodle dish that people are eating all over in the streets of Hội An and Penang a bit and I did not know what it was, it has different colours in it and it would just look, and I finally braved that. I have followed the same rule for many years travelling. I am sure you have similar rules like you just said but hot food to be hot cold food to be cold and if a vendor's hands are dirty go to the next vendor. Kerry Newsome: 38:20 That is just common sense. Neal Bermas: 39:04 Yes, that is no matter how good the food may look. So, I found the place and I had this Mì Quảng dish and wow, it was amazing. It was again, a similar noodle to Pho but thicker and in many different very uneven cuts and it is not necessarily a dish for vegetarians, although we make a vegetarian. It has shrimp and egg and pork all mixed into this and herbs. Again, I am not a full time vegetarian, but I appreciate it, but this is not a vegetarian dish at all. Kerry Newsome: 39:46 Into the noodle? Neal Bermas: 39:48 Yes, and as I have learned and just delicious as it could be. Kerry Newsome: 39:56 Nothing like Bún tào? Neal Bermas: 39:58 No, this is, Mì Quảng and I just kept eating it and it was not in any of the restaurants, it was with the street vendors. Kerry Newsome: 40:11 The street vendors, wow! Neal Bermas: 40:12 I could not find it in any of the 15 or 20 years ago. None of the restaurants had it and I started to ask around, what about this dish and why did not anybody have it in the restaurant. It was so delicious, not spicy at all and full of flavor. I learned that it takes easily four or five hours to cook the stock again. The stock is made from all these ingredients but then the ingredients are put back on top, so you have a fresh egg, typically quail eggs here right small really delicious eggs and fresh shrimp, not the shrimp necessarily that was used to make the stock and that sauce. It is really good. Kerry Newsome: 40:52 Oh gosh, it is going on my list. Neal Bermas: 40:53 Even my mouth is even watering. So, I asked Vietnamese friends that in restaurants that owners and operators of good local restaurants, "Why didn't you serve this Mì Quảng ?" This dish is freaking amazing. People love this, we can get our hands around this. There is no snake in this. Kerry Newsome: 41:17 Wait, we are going to talk about this. Do not jump to it. Neal Bermas: 41:22 Okay, so here was the reason, now this is- when I was first really poking around 15 or 20 years ago things had changed a lot and the reason was the following: it gets back to what we said in the very beginning of the noodles we were used to. These are really hand cut noodles. Hand cut means lovely but imperfect. So, you did not go to culinary school. You are trying to finish your noodles so you cut them with a big Noodle cutting knife on, this is flat as we talked about before this flat round typically laid out maybe we could call it a pancake again. So, it turns out, some pieces are thicker, with the width, some are wider, some are less wide, some capture the end of the arc in a different place. So, the end of the noodle is different and the responses to me were pretty damn good responses. Are you kidding? You foreigners think all noodles come out of the box and if they are not perfect, you should not eat them. Kerry Newsome: 42:28 There is some truth in that, absolutely. Neal Bermas: 42:32 There is truth to that, especially and I have learned a lot about that. Through the years now, when my foreigner friends, not foreign to me, foreign to Vietnam, come to the restaurant, about what gives them pause, because they are being careful about eating like everybody should be. We talked about it, and you see noodles, that are kind of misshapen and you are used to your pasta coming out of a box, you say “Whoa! did they cut the mold off in the end?” Kerry Newsome: 43:09 Like, cut the mold off the end. Neal Bermas: 43:11 I am saying that maybe one would imagine an American or an Aussie first time seeing that. Anyway, I just got that the flavor was so delicious, and it was so great. We were the first restaurant in Hội An to have Mì Quảng in our menu, in our first restaurant and we tell the story of it of course as well. And as you know, we have opened a separate restaurant that always serves Mì Quảng. it is “Oodles of Noodles”, and we see 10,000s of guests every year, now all the restaurants have it so that's Mì Quảng. Kerry Newsome: 43:53 See this, if I can just interject, see there is the gold in education and knowledge, so you are giving that background story you know explaining fermentation and explaining not perfectly cut noodles, have not had the mold cut off, they were cut imperfectly but still perfect. There's gold in that. That is fantastic, Neal. I am so glad you shared that. I am learning heaps here and I have been 1000s of times and I go, because I try lots of things when I go, but I have not had that in Hội An. Gosh! It is on my list. Neal Bermas: 44:36 I will make a special bowl for you and although it is in classic form, it is completely as I have said the ingredients not a vegetarian dish at all. We also figured out a way to make a vegetarian sauce using some fresh tomatoes and Tofu, and I would say we make a very I do not know if anyone else's doing it. Usually when they get it, we are doing it and they figure out how to do it also, but we make a really delicious effect. I prefer it, as I am becoming more vegetarian myself. 45:15 This is a good one to end up, because it is the quintessential, most famous guidebook any tour person will talk about Cao lầu and that you must eat Cao lầu in Hội An. It is a dish that has been made famous and made principally only in Hội An. Kerry Newsome: 45:36 I cannot get it anywhere else. Neal Bermas: 45:38 No, and by the way I do not work for the Chamber of Commerce I just had an early and ongoing job with Hội An. Kerry Newsome: 45:46 Same. Neal Bermas: 45:49 Cao lầu, you should not eat in some restaurants, and they will try to serve it in Hon Gai or sometime in Saigon which is Ho Chi Minh City but do not have it there. Again, it is a fresh noodle, and it has been made only by two of the same families that made it by the same somewhat secretive and folkloric recipe for generations and now if you have ever seen Cao lầu, it is a little bit brown. And it is a little bit thick, like some thick Japanese noodles that we are a little bit familiar with. It has the dimensions of that and even the consistency of that, but as I said it is a little bit brown rice a little bit brown colour. 46:34 Now I will tell you how Cao lầu noodle was made. I do not know the secret, but I have a general sense of how Cao lầu is made again, it is made similarly to how all the other noodles are made. However, in the noodle, again going back to that paste or that gruel right before we steam it. Cao lầu uses- you put some ash from a wood burning fire and a wood that has to come from Chàm Island. For those of you that do not know off the coast of Vietnam, Chàm Island, a Vietnamese island that you can go to visit a great snorkeling fishing village Island. From certain trees, like an ash type tree, you burn those to ash and some of that ash goes into making the noodle and if you think to make it a little bit more westernized, it is similar to adding a little bit of lye a little bit of an acidic to a recipe, and we are familiar with that. We do use that. We think of lye as poisonous and for drains, but a certain type of lye can be used. For example, it can be used in western dishes as some acidic component, and that's how Cao lầu is made. And then you need some ash from a wood burning fire. 48:08 Now, I have never seen those trees being brought in or the ash from Chàm island in 20 years but there is ash in it. Let us say that maybe I am just not there at the right time. The second part of the folklore is that the water that is used to make the Cao lầu noodle has to come from a particular well below, the Ba Le well, which is down one of the streets in Hội An not far from our restaurant. I have to tell you again, I know that well. There is definitely an old well there. There is no doubt about that. One, I am not sure I would want to eat anything that had anything to do with what was in that well, but I have been around the streets of Hội An, morning, noon and night. I have never seen anybody take any water that well. But the folklore is, and it could happen when I am not there but that you must use the water from that. What I do know well, is that there are really only two families that make Cao lầu the really good Cao lầu that they then sell to the noodle ladies, of the noodle ladies, and this is the most famous, but it really just comes from Hội An. So, it is a bit heavier noodle and again, it is typically served in a bowl and on top of it will be a slice for Westerners, usually lined with pork. A little bit of a grilled line of pork, thinly sliced, what we would call a crouton, kind of a crispy crouton. Kerry Newsome: 49:39 It is very crispy, lovely. Neal Bermas: 49:41 Some herbs and a brown sauce that comes from making the pork, poured all over it and that is delicious. Kerry Newsome: 49:49 Absolutely delicious. Neal Bermas: 49:51 So, I think we have talked about a lot of great noodles. Kerry Newsome: 49:54 Neal, I have truly learned a lot today, and I am sure my listeners have as well. I am going to make sure that we put the names correctly in the Episode notes and that and of course, for everyone listening, when we finish the episode and it is published, and you can listen to it, we also produce a transcript from the episode. So, if you wanted to, you could go to the website, www.whataboutvietnam.com , and you can print off the transcript. 50:14 Where if you see fresh meat, and sometimes that can appear in the markets in the mornings, etc., When you see it, for some people, they find that confronting, that meat is usually sold in a couple of hours, and they might only do one or two kills a day and so the restaurant does get there early and get that meat and that is fresh. 50:22 So you can highlight the dishes that Neal has mentioned, and some of the particular elements of those dishes that may be helpful to yourself when you decide to eventually come to Vietnam and enjoy them, because definitely, Vietnam is about the food, the food is distinctly fresh, and it's well known for that. I just want to finish off on that freshness, because in our urban lifestyles, we don't actually get to physically see a lot of fresh anymore, in particular, things like meat, fish, and things like that, you'll see them in our supermarkets and things like that but as Neal said, they've probably been on a truck for two weeks before they got there. 51:52 So that is the one of the big differences that I try to mention to people, when they are asking about food is that fresh, or freshness that they talk about extends to things like that but also now you are hearing from Neal, that it extends to noodles and we have learned a lot about the baking process to preserve it. 52:08 Neal, I just want to say thank you so much for your time today. It has been a really entertaining episode. I have really loved it and I think for everyone they have really learned a lot about noodles, and we hope to come and enjoy them at STREETS International when the doors are open. Neal Bermas: 52:34 Great, thank you. Kerry Newsome: 52:36 Thank you for listening. Check out the episode's notes for more information. What about Vietnam, do not forget to subscribe rate and review and stay tuned for more fun adventures in Vietnam. What About Vietnam.

6be74599-4c80-4018-9b47-90e4003ef720Know the best time to as a travel manager and “its important”. Best time to travel in Vietnam Episode 2 S1-02 Best Time to Travel in Vietnam 00:00 / 14:17 This is probably one of the most common questions I get asked as a travel manager. The reason being is….. “its important”. It's where you move into that commitment phase and by plotting dates you feel like "this is really going to happen. While we are in Covid 19 times, it is hard to plot actual dates, however, you can at least find out the best seasons to travel and where to in Vietnam as it does vary. Let's stay focused on the prize and get you sorted for a great holiday in Vietnam when the borders open. Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

563d5888-0c4a-4aa2-bc33-874a4fa3d98eHow Danang offers up a new kind of experience What About Vietnam - Series 2 - 16 Chill out in Vietnam's most liveable city, Danang. Kerry : Xin Chao, and welcome to What About Vietnam It's 2021 people. Hooray, we're here, we've made it. I'm so delighted to be in this New Year. It gives me such a great feeling to be entering a new year with lots of new possibilities, because let's face it, folks, 2020 was not one of the best ones. Look, I have a real passion about this series, getting to talk to some wonderful travellers learning some information about experiences that you can have in places in Vietnam that sometimes are a little bit off the beaten track. Sometimes they are giving you insights to just things you're not going to get in your average guidebook, you're going to meet some great people and learn some great things about things to do in Vietnam. Today, we're talking to Jonathan Kiely, and we're going to learn a little bit more about Danang. Now, Danang traditionally has been a bit of I don't know, an in and out kind of place. But in more recent times, it's certainly become a bit of a hotspot and Jonathan's going to enlighten us to just a little bit about the, I guess community aspect about it, some great things to do. And you know, just a wake up to what's available into Danang. Let's say hello to Jonathan, tell us a little bit about the community aspect, that's kind of warmed your heart. Jonathan : Yeah, of course, the community is probably being I would say hands down one of the reasons I'm still here. And you know, the reasons I'm so happy to be here and to like live here for God knows how long, but what was really attractive to me about this place is this, this health and wellness community, if you type events in Danang today, for example, you have at least 10 to 15 different events, like whether it's a vegan event, whether it's yoga, whether it's like animal flow, just whatever random, just health and well-being events, and this, it's a very Yin kind of place. So, in terms of like, the western world where I was living, you know, to lots of doing, doing, doing, but when you come to Danang of course it has the city, but with the beach and all these place, it's a kind of relaxed place, it's a place to kind of like, carry yourself find out who you are, you know, be creative, try new things and share it with other people. And I think when you're around a community like that it's really special. So, I guess, for me, one of the best communities that I've found here was last year, it was just before the New Year, and there was this program called the “Happiness program”. So, I was like okay, interesting. I was like, and I'm doing coaching and I love to help people remain happy, especially during these tough times. So, I said, let's try it out and I go to this course. And it is absolutely breath-taking, we ended up doing like breath-work learning, just knowledge about life and connecting again to people. It was the same experience as I experienced in Thailand when I left my country and just people who want to like to connect deeper and head like general just on a surface level, you want to go deep and connect with your heart with other people. And during a time in the world, we are right now, I think this is what people need, is what people want. And this happiness program has changed my life and many of my friends who have joined it and the community that we have here, you know, once a week we'll meet & we do some breath-work. Then on Thursdays we meet we have like this jam session, meditation and sharing of Indian food, which is magnificent. Thank you to the volunteers who hosted it and who gave up their lives to come here and help us and basically, I think a lot of people will get here like I did, and I can't say enough about this place and how it's been so beneficial in making a beautiful community here in Danang. Kerry : I think I might know one of the volunteers that work at that happiness program. So, yes, I have heard amazing things about it. And like people would not normally think of going to Vietnam, going to a place like Danang and even contemplate thinking about a wellness or a happiness program to go and do. But as you say, as a different experience to keep your mind open to explore your own creativity, to chill out, to relax, it's probably an ideal thing to do. I mean, I maybe should do it myself, next time I go there. Jonathan : Yes. Kerry : Okay, moving on. I want to talk just a little bit now that you've been living there and getting out and about, like is it expensive to live, or drink, get around that sort of thing? Talk to us about that. Jonathan : Yeah, honestly, is it expensive to live really, I would say NO, because it depends what you want, you know, and I've experienced like I've eaten in some of the really nice restaurants, upscale restaurants to like some of the most local restaurants. And, again, for me, it's about, you the atmosphere, the friendliness of the people who work there, and the taste and quality of the food. And everywhere I eaten in these places, it's always been a beautiful experience. Because, it's just being with the Vietnamese, you know they're so friendly, they're so open, they want to learn about you, they're interested in your ways, you know, I have been to other countries. And maybe, sometimes you don't get that kind of safety, kind of friendly environment. So, in terms of eating in Danang, like most people would eat out often because like you can have a simple Cau Lau dish, for in my country it be like maybe one to $2 you know, and you get your nice salad and things like that. And again, then we have like, if you're looking for more like a western kind of restaurant, there's a beautiful restaurant here in Danang called Roots. And it's a lot of people when they come to the name they stop here and it's all like, fresh quality food like you can get your coke drink, smoothie bowl, and your coffee, and then you have your like, cashew butter toast on charcoal bread. And that works out at about four euros. So, like, when you compare that to back home, you know where I live anyway, you definitely spending more for that. Yeah, it's very affordable to live in Vietnam to live well and to, you know, keep on exploring your passions and get what you need to get done while having fun in a stress-free environment, you know. Kerry : Do you have a favorite coffee shop? Jonathan : A favorite coffee shop, well that's a good question. My favorite coffee shop is actually one that I recently found, and it's directly across, if I'm being honest, from probably my favorite restaurant. So, my favorite restaurant here, so the thing with Vietnam and its beautiful benefit has been predominantly plant based now. So, what that is like vegetarian, vegan food for those of you that don't know it and there's a post called Loving Vegan, and over there, they have just all the local dishes. But they've kind of westernized in a small bit and it's in English and the staffs speak really good English. And there are just some of the most amazing Vietnamese food I've had there. So, then across from that, there's this beautiful coffee shop. And the guy there he also holds Vietnamese lessons for English foreigners, and they have like a group thing going on there and it's called Hosting Cafe. And it's just really simple Vietnamese Americano, or Vietnamese coffee, Cafe Den that's what they call it here. And they have, like lots of different ones. You know, if you're someone who has a sweet tea, you can get the cappuccino or things like that, but they really have everything you need. And they go beyond to serve you and give you a good experience while you enjoy your coffee looking out into the street. Kerry : And so, have you ventured kind of around Danang, maybe up Hai Van pass, Son Tra, can you tell us any of your experiences around those areas? Jonathan : Yes, so the first day I came to the Danang we went up to this place called Son Tra, which is basically a jungle road, once you leave the beach, you go up the hill, maybe 10, 15 minutes and you're in the jungle. So, imagine that like you're in the city beside the beach, but then a 10-minute drive and you're just in the jungle in nature completely away from the city and just completely immersed with the animals and the flowers and everything, whatever is there. Kerry : And the monkeys. Jonathan: The monkeys yes, the monkeys everywhere and the fresh air is amazing. So, once you get up there, you know, there's so many different places you can just leave your bike and first of all you have like Lady Buddha, which is this huge statue that's there with all these temples and Pagodas. And many people go, you can go praying, you can meditate or even just look, the energy that's there is just so peaceful and calming. You know, sometimes even for myself, I would just go there on a Sunday morning just to chill out before the week ahead and it's really beautiful. And then if you continue to go up there is just some of the most spectacular scenery, you get up to the, side of the mountain, and then you can look down onto Danang from, you know, up in this sunshine, this forest jungle. And again, you've all these little random cosy, nice coffee shops where you meet real local people there, again, just out there to help you and offer you food or if you want to go to a nice secret location, they will help you out. And it's just so authentic and beautiful. Kerry : Yeah, and some of those places, not a lot of people know about certainly Son Tra as is only really just kind of snuck out and snuck into the guidebooks etc. But I was fascinated, because it's also, I think, an ex-military base, as well. And I think, because there's lots of closed gates and you know, like serious looking military people that don't let you in in some of those places. But great food, as you say, restaurants with little red chairs, but food like the seafood is just to die for I've had some amazing meals on the on the beaches around those places. There's a few lovely hotels, I know the Intercontinental is there. Not that I could afford that any time soon, but it is spectacular. And then there's a couple of kind of smaller ones, etc. And I can put some links to those in the Episode Notes. Look, tell us you know, like you've obviously done some traveling your time and you obviously have you favorite chill out places. I mean, how would you rate Danang? Is it one to note, what your favorite chill out place or is Danang, you chill out place now. I mean, Thailand's got a lot, you know, Philippines, Bali, like where does Danang fit into that realm? Jonathan : Yeah, so like, since I've been a teen, I would have always been intrigued by travel. So, I have been to a lot of places in Europe, and most recently around Southeast Asia. And honestly, I can say yes, like, if I'm to ask myself that question right now, I would say, the best place that I have been to, and the best place that I have talk... because I like to ask this question to many people as well to come here. And some of the people who have travelled even more than I would agree that like Danang is like one of the most special places. Honestly, I would give it a 10 there's nothing like I can't knock it for any reason. Like between fun and community and traveling you know, hopping on your bike and just going for a journey and finding something beautiful every day. And the way they handle COVID like the safety of this place, you know like never once ever felt, you know, uncomfortable or something might happen, it's just a real safe, friendly place. And of course, the people, as I've mentioned already, the people smiling all the time, you can't help it. Kerry : All the time I know, and I tried to say to people when I go to Vietnam, always when I come home, I just noticed that big shift in energy. As soon as I get off the plane, and I land in my country, and I love my country, don't get me wrong, but the shift in energy is just. In Vietnam, everything seems easier, doesn't it? Like people, you know, it's easier to smile, it's easier to help somebody, it's easy to welcome you. They are so giving, it's just an energy, if I could put it in a jar and bring it home I would for every person I love but it's just hard to explain and you sound sometimes like a bit of a tossed when you talk about it like that, because they will think oh, you know, she's just talking it up and I go, oh, look, you got to go experience it yourself, am I right? Jonathan : Oh, 100% like again and when I was even in Hoi An and I always hear people go and say yeah, it's really cool place, you got to check it out. And, again, I would hear people talk about it, but it's until you go to these things and experience it yourself, that's when you find out the magic of this place. Kerry : Okay, so give me three things, just limit it to three, three things that you love to do in Danang? Just let's kind of finish on that so that I can walk away and go, okay they are his favourite three. Jonathan : Well, that is a tough question, because limiting to three things is hard. But okay, let me be as honest as I can and try to put this to three. The first thing I would say that I really, really enjoy here and most of the people enjoy is being able to SURF. So, I had no idea that when you go to Asia, back when I arrived in Danang I see waves, and I see big waves. Right now, there's some good swells here. And just being able to rent abroad and go for a surf in Asia and the beautiful weather like this, it's one of my favourite things to do. And I like to do it anytime, you know, the big swells with all my friends. Yeah, that would be my number one thing. Number two - would be like going to, for example, like meeting up with your group of friends, getting on your bike, and just traveling up to the lakes of Son Tra, Hai Van pass, bringing a camping tent, some gear, some food, some whatever you want, and lighting a big fire and just hanging out with your mates in the middle of nowhere looking out to the sea, in the middle of nature. Yeah, it's one of the best things that I've done here, for sure. And the third on - , or the last one, I would say possibly, yeah, I've been very lucky for the first time in Danang, I met these amazing people here. And we set up a men’s circle here, and we meet on a weekly basis, and we meet in different locations around Danang. So, we'll go up into Son Tra and meet beside the river and look down unto Danang, we'll meet in some nice restaurants and meet up there. And that's been one of the best things I've done in my life so far. Because yeah, just being able to connect and being vulnerable with other guys, it's something that I needed big time coming from Ireland. And it has really, really changed my life. So, yeah that's been beautiful as well. Kerry : So, Jonathan, just to clarify, so that's like a men's only group. Jonathan : Yes, basically it's a men's circuit where we meet up once a week. And we’ve been doing this every week for a year and a half. And yeah, throughout all the ups and downs of the last 2020 has been very, very special. And yeah, we're also like helping create more of those groups in Danang for other guys that want to. Kerry : To join. Jonathan : Yeah, to join. Kerry : That's exceptional, well; I'm going to make sure that I put your Facebook page and your Instagram page, because I know you do your coaching thing. I'll put that in the Episode Notes for everybody. Look, it's been great to talk to you, I've learned more about Danang, I certainly knew the community side of it, but not to the level that you talk about and it's great to know that it's great to know that Danang has got that depth to it, that it's not just a city with mad bicycles and people running around crazy. It's got a heart and a soul and that that's really important. Thank you for coming on the program, Jonathan. And I look forward to talking to you again soon. Jonathan : Kerry, thank you so much. And I really appreciate you having me on and have a wonderful day. Kerry : Thank you so much, Jonathan, for being on the program. Boy, you've certainly opened my eyes to Danang. I mean, whilst I have visited, you know, quite a few times. Just to find out a little bit more about that community aspect, I found that really interesting and, you know, let's be reminded that you can surf there like that's probably something we don't say loud enough. I mean, surfing in the Southeast Asia is not that common, as you say. Lovely to have you on the program. Folks, I've put all of the links from Jonathan and that he's mentioned in today's program. Please rate the program anytime you can it's so much appreciated and pop in a review, I'd love to know your thoughts. You can find me at what about vietnam.com and you can also find me on my Facebook page what about Vietnam. Look forward to talking to you again with some great stories from our travellers in Vietnam.

S5-E14 - Phong Nha. Family fun for everyone S5 - E14 - Phong Nha – The family fun destination with something for everyone Kerry Newsome : Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. Today I'm going to be broaching a subject that seems to be coming up more and more for me as I'm working with travellers, new travellers in particular to Vietnam. And that's a growing trend around families travelling to Vietnam for their holidays. It's probably only come to the fore mostly in the last 12 to 18 months, but I do see a growing trend of Westerners really looking for a holiday destination where their kids can come and experience a different culture. They can discover and learn a little bit of history. And, you know, they can get distracted from their tablets and their devices and get their heads out of that. In particular, I've had some very encouraging feedback from some clients. you know, saying their kids, whilst they were a bit ambivalent about coming, they got here, they had a great time. And, you know, words like epic holiday and just the best time. We got to do things, you know, we never get to do at home. Even mum and dad did things that we just never thought that they would do. And one of the places that seems to grab that kind of experience and really highlight it is Phong Nha. And today I'm lucky to be joined by Ben Mitchell, who not only is a family man, but also runs the Phong Nha Farmstay, and on a daily basis is meeting and greeting families and helping them get a better understanding of the region and, you know, doing what he can and sharing his knowledge to help make their trip really worthwhile and really extra special. So I'd like to welcome Ben to the show. Ben Mitchell: Thanks Kerry Kerry Newsome: Okay, so for everybody, let's start with the basics, like when we talk about Vietnam and we talk about the main stops on a tourist map, where does Phong Nha sit in relation to that and what's the best way to get there? Ben Mitchell : Well, Phong Nha is located in northern central Vietnam. Pretty well halfway between Hoi An, another family favourite, and Hanoi, which is the hub of visiting all the different areas in the north. Kerry Newsome: Like for me, this trip, I decided to go to and then I came across by train. And that was a cinch. That was into Dong Hoi, then got picked up by car, and I'm here in like 35 minutes. So we know that we can get to Dong Hoi, which is the main city by air, it's a proper airport, so you can fly from Hanoi or you can fly from Saigon into Dong Hoi. train, the reunification train runs top to bottom, so you can pick that up in various places to come to Dong Hoi, once again, very easy and a comfortable train. Number three is private car, so that's an option. And I have done that for some of my travellers so that, you know, maybe they're a big family group or their family you know, is coming with a second family. So there's two families traveling together. So it might be more economic and more, you know, palatable to them to come by, you know, a small mini bus and that to get to here. But it's, while it's not on the tourist map, it's not that far off the tourist map. Would you agree? Ben Mitchell : Yeah, it is. Dong Hoi is our gateway, so we've got the airport there connecting us with Saigon and Hanoi. The train station, as you say, it's a good place to break the journey between the north and the central of Da Nang. It's 35 minutes with a private car from Dong Hoi station or airport out to us at Phong Nha. As far as those public transport ways of getting in and out, I would say the train and the plane are good. The buses, I'm not sure I'd put my family on the local buses or the overnight buses. They call them sleeper buses. It's a bit of an oxymoron. You don't get much sleep, but they are very cheap. And they are very convenient because, you know, getting from Ninh Binh or Hanoi to Phong Nha, they bring you straight in and out of here. The same with heading south. So cheap and convenient, but probably not the best way to do it. As far as getting south from here, a lot of the best things to see are in between these destinations of Phong Nha, Hue, Hue, Da Nang or Hoi Hoi An. So by getting a private car, you can actually visit some of these really cool places in between, which is not possible if you're on the train or the bus or obviously flying over the top. Kerry Newsome : I want to set up everybody. So when you're thinking about coming to Vietnam and you're wanting to know, plan out your trip, how many days you've got to spend. I just want to make sure that you consider this as a destination that you probably need to allow a few days to really take it in, to enjoy it at a pace. So I'm going to get Ben to talk a bit more about that. But ahead of that, I also want to talk to you about the safety angle. Now, a lot of people think about caving and they think about trekking and jungles and, you know, all of that kind of aspect of a place. They consider that, oh, they might have to have a level of fitness or health or, you know, all of that side of thing. I really don't want you to consider that or see that as a hindrance to come here. Sure, you're going to have to think about age groups and whether you can withstand certain levels of heat or you've got some levels of endurance, but you don't have to be a health freak or you don't have to be super fit to come here. There's all different levels of experience, but you also have to check out things like your travel insurance and things like that. Can you speak a little bit more to that, Ben, because that safety bit does come up a fair bit. Ben Mitchell : Yeah, there's the safety aspect of it with caving. And a lot of people sort of go, oh, caves? Oh, hang on. No, we won't be going there. We're about holidaying in Vietnam. We're not cavers. A lot of people go, cave? I've heard about that. It's $3,000. And it takes, like, multiple days to do. So we won't be going there. But Phong Nha does have a lot more to offer for the tourist, traveller, visitor, family travel. It has a lot more to offer than just coming here for caves. As far as safety goes, all of the different activities in the area to do with the National Park and the caving are heavily monitored by the government. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, and I mean, like, you know, I'm going to take for granted that everybody that listens to my show has got really good level of common sense. So you're going to come equipped with, you know, hats, slip, slop and slap as far as sunscreens are concerned, maybe some bug spray, you know, like good walking shoes, you know, just making sure you've got comfortable gear to get around in to do these kind of things. But don't think you've got to do any pre-setup or pre-exercise or anything prep-wise to come and experience this because you're going to see all levels, all sizes, all age groups experiencing different aspects of the park, as Ben said, and also of the caves. And, you know, at my age, I certainly, you know, thought, you know, I better make sure I'm kind of at my best level of fitness, but I really found it very easy and we're going to talk more about that in a minute. What I do want to talk about and really pick Ben's brains about is the range of activities here. Because as he said before, it's not just about the caves. The caves is definitely its drawcard and it's certainly where Vietnam tourism painted and really put the focus on. But there's so much more. So Ben, let's kind of spread our wings here and talk about some of the broad range of activities that are available to families here. Ben Mitchell : Two things I'd say. One is that There's something here for everyone, no matter what your level of adventure is or your level of mobility. And the other thing is that Phong Nha really has what is the essence of the atmosphere of rural Vietnam. 15, 16 years ago, I used to love going to Hoi An and jumping on a bicycle and riding around through the delta behind Hoi An, through the rural countryside, all the farming and the little laneways and things. Over the years, that area has become very heavily developed nowadays and it's very different to what it was like back then, but coming here, it very much has that feeling of when you walk out the front of your homestay or your hotel or your farmstay or your accommodation, Yeah, you're in Vietnam, in rural Vietnam, and to walk out of the village even and around the village is quite a, or bicycling through the countryside to different locations like the Bong Lai Valley. You can soak up Vietnam. Everywhere you look, it's a photo opportunity of timeless Vietnam. As far as the caves and the National Park go, I wouldn't say to come here and just focus on getting to this cave and that cave, because often The best part of the whole day trip of getting out to these places is the actual trip itself. Getting around the area and looking at the scenery and learning about the history. It's got a lot more to offer than just we've got to get to this cave or that cave and then move on to the next part of Vietnam sort of thing. Kerry Newsome : And, you know, that, Ben, really was my experience as well. I mean, just getting on the back of a bike. Now, there might be a lot of people that say, oh, gee, you know, I wouldn't get on a motorbike. Well, Ben and I have had a bit of a laugh about this concept and around concerns around getting on the back of a motorbike here in Vietnam. Personally, I'm going to say I feel more confident on the back of an experienced rider, a Vietnamese rider who knows the lay of the land, who's a qualified rider and is employed by an established company. So, you know, you wouldn't want to put your fears ahead of that kind of experience. Because as Ben said, getting out and about on that bike, touring through all of those streets that lead through the paddy fields and, you know, you see those beautiful karst mountains and, you know, experience funny little boats that you take the bike on that floats you over to the other side. You ride across hanging bridges and You know, these are things, and this is where I think the kids get it, because they come back with, that was epic, because in their own countries, whether it's the US, whether it's the UK, whether it's Australia, that kind of opportunity is not going to happen in their everyday opportunity. They're not going to get that on the Gold Coast. They're not going to get that in New York City. They're not going to get that on those kinds of holidays. This is rural Vietnam and its rustic nature and its ability to facilitate these experiences for a family to do it together. And I'm talking mum, dad, grandparents, you know, right down to young children. I think collectively they all can get something out of it. So maybe Ben talked to us about, I don't know, the beginning of the duck stop, or I don't know, what's a duck stop? Ben Mitchell: There's an area called the Bong Lai Valley, and up that valley there's a series of community-based tourism places. One of them is called the Duck Stop, which in recent years has become very popular. It's a very unique attraction. People love it. Kids love it. Adults love it. Adolescents love it. Grandparents love it. Everyone loves it. It's huge. But what it basically is, is a local person who's by the name of Quinn, actually, and he's trained his ducks and he employs people to Training a duck, well there you go. Yeah, it's hard to explain. And everyone that goes there tells everyone to go there. But along that valley, that valley itself is a great day trip. You can buy farm-to-table lunches at local people's houses along the valley. You can ride around it by bicycle. You can go out there by a Phong Nha rider, by one of the local motorbike taxi riders. There's a place up the top of the valley where they've got what they call the Monkey Bridge and a big swing over a cliff. The Monkey Bridge is where you're challenged to ride a bicycle across a very narrow bridge over a pond. It's a fun day out, the Bong Lai Valley, full of community-based tourism. And with the community-based tourism, too, that relates back heavily to the way that you would see the National Park. I mean, you can book a National Park tour, or you can rent a car, or you can rent a scooter yourself and ride around the National Park if you're that way inclined. But probably one of the best ways to do it, and one of the things we're proudest of, is the hopping, as Kerry just said, hopping on the back of a local rider, Going to the Paradise Cave, the Botanical Gardens, which is a jungle tracking area and swimming area, going to historical sites like the Eight Lady Cave, going to the Moc Eco-Trail where the geysers come up from a cave system, geysers of cold water where you can swim in the jungle there. The Dark Cave, the Moc Nam, these different facilities around the park, different attractions, different places, can all be visited by, you know, renting a motorbike rider for the day. The motorbike riders that we deal with are local people from local households, so each motorbike that you rent is sort of a day's income for people. And it's quite inexpensive, really, from our side, from the Westerners' visitors' side. But for the local people, it's a great income. So it's a good support to the local community. And it also helps to justify your coming here, being able to support the local community. From a safety perspective with those community-based riders, community-based tourism workers, from a safety perspective of going with them, I personally wouldn't recommend it if I didn't believe in its safety, but that's my opinion. But to date, we've not really had any issues in the decade and a half we've been working with that. We do get some problems with tourists who rent bikes and ride themselves around the park. That's a fairly regular problem. People take a bit of skin off or they break a bone or something happens. I'm not a big fan of that but I am a very big promoter of going around the park with the local licensed riders who do it daily. These people used to be hunters, they used to be timber cutters, they are used to carrying loads on their motorbikes. But nowadays, rather than working in these unsustainable industries like timber cutting and hunting, they're working in tourism. Yeah, it's a great system. We work out with our guests based on what they're interested in, what they'll see for the day. We discuss that with the writers. We give the people a pod guide with some historical information on it. And away they go for the day. And they can visit the places that we suggested and worked out with them. And the riders take them around to all these places. And they go and wait in a hammock at most of the destinations. that the guests can take as long as they want. It's basically they're traveling at their own pace, doing their own thing. It's great for families. All the riders are well versed on and well aware that mothers like to be able to see all their kids for the whole way around. So yeah, it's a really good system. Kerry Newsome: I take your point on that because I think for me, when I'm talking to people and I'm recommending people to come to Phong Nha, I don't want them to come here being ignorant or clueless around, you know, how to get the best experience here. I mean, this is a bit of a plug for you, Ben, and certainly for Phong Nha Farmstay. I want to thank you for the support over the last few years in the What About Vietnam podcast and looking after, to me, this trip and sponsoring this show. It's been fantastic. But one of the things I love about what you and what Bic have created in the Farmstay is it's not just really great accommodation set in the middle of paddy fields with If you have a check on the website for this show, you're going to see some beautiful sunset photos that I grabbed the other night. But, you know, it's rural, but it's not rough. is the best way for me to say it. Because I think sometimes people think rule is definitely having to rough it and you don't have to do it that way. But one of the things I am really dead set about is about getting good advice, getting good information. And there is two ways to experience any destination for that matter, and that's going with a fixed tour. So that means you follow a group and you start at A and you finish at B and you have a set time and you literally have to, you know, follow the yellow brick road and the person with the flag. What Ben's talking about is being able to advise you around setting up your day the way you want it so that you can start when you want to, finish when you want to, and your drivers and your guides for the day, whatever that is, whether that is going to the caves as part of it, whether it's going out and mixing it up with maybe some kayaking, stopping at the duck stop on the way back, all of that can be kind of curated to your own needs, your own wants, your own party or your own group, your own family's desires for the day. If it's too hot, you can finish early. If you feel, you know, invigorated and you want to explore a bit more and you've got time, they can add it on. So you've got flexibility in that style. And that's probably something that Phong Nha Farmstay is definitely well known for. So if you come to Phong Nha and you want, you know, quality accommodation, but you also want really good advice around putting something together just for you, then it's the ideal place to do it. We talked a little bit before about how much time to allow that. And Ben and I were just discussing before coming on the show about slow travel. Maybe, Ben, you can speak to my listeners just a bit more about, you know, trying not to cram everything in. Ben Mitchell : Yeah, well, making the effort to come to Fongya, a little bit off the beaten path, I think it's worthwhile to try and give yourself at least three days. Now if you're traveling as a family and your kids are sort of eight years old and older, you can get a lot into two or three days. If you're traveling with smaller children, babies, toddlers, I think personally I'd be suggesting traveling Vietnam a bit slower, going to less destinations and spending more time at them. As far as visiting somewhere like Phong Nha with toddlers and a baby goes, I'd be aiming to do sort of one thing per day over four or five days. If you're staying with us at Phong NhaFarmstay, we've got some great common areas that are good for relaxing with the little ones. You've got The older ones can keep busy, you know, we've got bicycles, we've got village laneways and farmland all around us for exploring. Each morning at the farmstay we run a bit of a free tour at 7am where we go for a half hour walk around the village, learning about the village. Often I'll have family staying there and the mother and one child will do it one morning. and the father might do it another morning and there might be a child who never did it. Often two parents will come out and do the morning walk with me and leave the kids in bed. And other families, the whole family will go and that can be like for one morning. Then families can do what I suggest people do on their first day of sightseeing from the farmstay, is go to Phong NhaCave and they can either get a lift up there or they can get a bicycle and ride there. That's a great thing to do on their first day and it's a one thing, not a whole series of things. Going around the park, there's different places you can go to from Fongya Farmstay or from Fongya and you can visit just one thing each day with smaller children because to try and get too much in, as you know, they get tired and they get a bit… worn out and then everyone starts to have a bit of a miserable time. So you've got to get them back after they've done whatever they're doing for the day, have lunch somewhere different each day. There's a lot of different days you can do if you're traveling slower with smaller children. But I recommend families with children who are all sort of over eight and under 18, they can do three days in Phong Nha between the National Park, the Phong Nha Cave and the Bong Lai Valley. They would get three very full days in there. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, and probably a good segue into managing a day or your stay here is also the aspect of food. You know, like I've got kids, I've got grandkids and food always features a big part of any stay. And I've had some concerns from parents who have come to me and said, oh, you know, I don't think my kids are going to eat Vietnamese. And I've said, well, that's okay, because there's all types of food that is available to them in Vietnam. Do you want to speak to that, Ben, just on the, you know, availability of food types here? Ben Mitchell: Yeah, well my wife and I have got a restaurant in town and a restaurant at the farmstay and we've, over the years we've learnt to put a menu together that is very much a Vietnamese menu but also offer some Western foods. Like, you know, with a family, there's often one kid and they won't eat anything unless it's white. It's pasta, it's potato, it's chicken, it's okay. Chips. Chips. But then, you know, but, and I mean, then there's everyone in between that level and we'll eat anything. So we've got a menu, our menu is structured to sort of suit a wide range, but Around Phong Nha we've got everything from an Indian restaurant to pizza restaurants to Vietnamese restaurants to very local restaurants. Restaurants that only sell snails and duck eggs. We've got all levels. Kerry Newsome : Okay, and I think for everyone, we've got chips covered. Ben Mitchell: Well, one thing I would mention too, we've got a very good vegan restaurant in Phong Nha which gets incredible reviews. Good to know. The Phong NhaVegan. Kerry Newsome: Ben, just talk us through, you're also a travel family man yourself and traveled overseas recently. Where would you place Phong Nhaas far as cost to travel here and to enjoy a stay for a family? How would you put it? Ben Mitchell: Well, looking again, two things. One, I would say value for cost. I mean, there is products here in Phong Nhathat cost $3,000 for a tour. all the way down to most accommodations will give you a free bicycle. As far as families go, a lot of businesses have got small bicycles and bicycle seats. So you've got all sorts of levels there of everything in between. We've got trekking tours, we've got national parks, seeing the national park. I mean, if you go around the park, it's going to cost you sort of $25 per person, $500,000 per person. to go around on a motorbike. Most of the other transport in the area is by bicycle or, you know, there's a lot of walking things you can do. It just depends, I suppose, on how much of a hurry you're in. If you come to Phong Nha and you've only got one day here, you're going to try and cram as much as you can in and it is going to cost more. The longer that you sort of plan your trip out to stay, The cheaper it'll be. As far as accommodation goes, there's everything here from very cheap homestays to more upmarket villas with private pools. Yeah, I think as far as value and cost goes, even you'd find the most expensive accommodations in the area are less than $200 for a private two-bedroom swimming pool villa with breakfast. So, you know, that's at the top end. It is a very cheap destination. Restaurants in the area are very, very good value for money, very cheap. It's a very competitive and new tourism destination and with high value for money, I would say. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, and that's kind of the ticket that I sell it as well is, you know, the level of experiences that you're going to have, the quality of food, the accommodation level is widespread. But, you know, in my country, to find a family accommodation set up for, you know, parents and three kids, et cetera, you know, there's no way you would get that for $200 for a night. And, you know, we're talking private pool and overlooking the paddy fields and breakfast, you know, included, like, yeah, I don't know of very many places that are offering that kind of value. But I think Ben's quite right also in saying that the activities can be as much or as little as you want. And if you've planned your time and, you know, if I'm arranging a trip, I'm going to be pushing that barrel as to, to try and allow you enough time to enjoy it at a pace that suits. Because one of the things that I do get back from travellers who get a little bit disappointed with Vietnam, and it's because time has been their enemy. They haven't allowed enough time to do things, so they're rushed and, you know, they're trying to fit everything in to make sure that they get to the airport on time to go to the next place. So for sure with Phong Nha and with your family and this sort of time that you can have together to have those experiences and you know I've got testimonials from people who have just said that just the level of confidence that their kids have got since coming to Phong Nha and having the experiences they had. has just gone through the roof, that, you know, it's opened up their thoughts and their minds to travelling more overseas to experience new cultures like nothing else has. So I really, I hope we've answered jointly, you know, any questions that you do have about this region. You can always reach out to Ben through the Phong Nga Farmstay or me directly and I can pass on. Happy to answer any questions if you come to me directly. Is there anything I didn't ask you Ben or anything we didn't cover that we should before we wrap up? Ben Mitchell : I'd go a little bit deeper into getting here and getting away. I think it's good. If you're traveling as a family, as you've said, it can be economical to go by private car over the public transport. And that would allow you to then visit sites around the DMZ, like the Vin Moc Tunnel system and the Ben Hai River Bridge. Staying overnight in Hue, I think is a benefit in that there's a great day trip between Hue and Hoi An as well for families. Visiting, you know, Hai Van Pass, waterfalls, cemeteries, tombs, historical sites. beautiful scenery, coastal scenery. So, you know, heading south or coming from the south into Phong Nha is a, you can turn the actual transit into a big part of the trip as well. Getting to the north is a bit more difficult. You know, it's really a jump. You've got to jump as far as Ninh Binh. There's nothing attracting people between Ninh Binh Hoi An, Ninh Binh, Hanoi and Phong Nha. But to the south, it's pretty action-packed all the way down as far as Hoi An over one or two days. As far as going all the way to Hoi An in one day, yeah, I think the train is an effective travel method there because You can get on the train, you can relax, walk around, enjoy it. If you get a private car straight from here to Hoi An, it is a long day in the car with the family. The kids tend to put them through hell and then they'll get you back. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, I was going to say, who's gone through hell? The kids or the parents. Yeah. I'm game enough to say that, you're not Ben. But my kids are far enough away from me to do that at the moment. Okay, Ben, great to have you on the show. I'm thoroughly enjoying my time here and I think you will too, as I said. Come back to us with any questions that you have and we'll see you on the next show of What About Vietnam? Ben Mitchell: Thanks very much, Kerry.

S5-E15 - Yen Bai- Discover luxury in the heart of nature S5- E15 – Yen Bai Discover luxury in the heart of nature Kerry Newsome: Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. Okay, so this is going to be a little bit of a curly one for everyone because I'm going to start to talk about in this episode a place in Vietnam that looks a lot like the hills of SaPa, but it doesn't have all that development going on. Now, if I can take your mind and your imagination to those beautiful cascading mountains, paddy fields, that very, very rural feeling, that totally unspoiled beauty. Let me introduce you to Yen Bai and the general manager of a property called Le Champ, Hylton Lipkin. Hello Hylton Hylton Lipkin : Xin chao, Kerry great to be here and great to see you again Yeah, it's it it's an amazing place to be and I think everything that you just explained I'm like wow I'd like to go there and I actually do live there. So yeah, you you're not far off in your in your description. Kerry Newsome : So I guess I want to preface it because why am I doing this show and you know what is it about Yen Bai that's kind of caught my attention? Well really for some of the reasons I first said, I have actually been to Sapa So I know quite a bit about the location. But this is an area which has kind of been quietly humming away and attracting the pretty well researched, you know, bike riders, local Vietnamese. And those looking for those spectacular views that we talked about, but they're not wanting particularly, you know, the draw cards like Fanispan and, you know, the cable cars and the hubba hubba that kind of goes with all that. So I want to ask Hylton a little bit more about this actual location so we get a feel for the locals that that live here and you know just a little bit about what's so special about Yen Bai and in particular Tu Le. Hylton Lipkin : So do we have two, three hours? Kerry Newsome: Yeah, sometimes we do. Hylton Lipkin : So maybe to be very honest, the way you brought that in and the way you explained it to everybody and the listeners here, it just made me think about when I initially arrived in this area. Like I explained to you earlier, I had absolutely no idea where I was going. Yes, I love the mountains. Yes, it's beautiful and I've lived in Vietnam a long time, but Actually, we landed up in this paradisiac, very open nature, in the mountains type of place. I had no idea what it was about. I came here and I remember my family and all we could say was, are we in Nepal? Are we in Nepal? Where's Everest Base Camp? So it really has that beautiful, natural, undeveloped, like you mentioned, type of feeling. Yes, I'll be 100% honest, we are off the beaten track. We're not in one of these major hub cities with, like you mentioned, all the fancy glimmer and glitz of some of the cities in Vietnam, but that is what attracts people to this place. That is the attraction, should I say, rather. It's a lot about nature. It's a lot about a beautiful place to be and a place to, you know, if we look from a wellness or a well-being perspective, find yourself, detox yourself, enjoy the fresh air, eat fresh food, and get away from the city. So, it didn't take me three hours, but kind of… Oh, we've got a bit to go, so hang in there. Kerry Newsome : We're going to dig a little bit deeper. Hylton Lipkin: Okay, all right. Moving on then. Kerry Newsome : Moving on. All right. So, I've just arrived and I've done a quick scout. We've been talking. The breathtaking views just getting here from Hanoi by road took roughly four and a half, five hours to get here. And that was done very easy-peasy, done with a driver that is actually belonging to this resort. So it picked me up from my hotel and I had a very, very comfortable ride here. Thank you very much for that. Hylton Lipkin: No problem. Kerry Newsome : Now, so that gives you a position of where it is, but maybe, Hylton, you can tell us a little bit about some other close vicinities, so people could possibly wrap up two locations in the one trip, and I'm talking about bringing in Mu Cang Chai. Hylton Lipkin : So maybe I can just explain. Normally when leaving Hanoi and moving in this direction in the north of Vietnam, the destination is generally Sapa. Going out, traveling on the highway, getting to Lao Cai and then going up to Sapa, which is very famous. In the middle, somewhere along the way, you turn left and you come along these beautiful winding mountains, mountain roads, which takes you up to where we are now, which is Tu Le. Tu Le is a very beautiful, simple village town in the mountains. It's actually very, very famous for its rice. They have this green sticky rice that most of the Vietnamese people actually know about and it's quite famous. People buy it and import it around the country. So that is a major attraction to Tu Le, where we are today. There's also Mau Cang Chai, which is just over the mountain, which is very well known in Vietnam for the beautiful terraced grass fields that go on forever from the top of the mountains to the bottom of the mountains throughout the year. You have the different seasons, you have the mirror season where they're full of water, then you have the green season when they're growing, and then you have the yellow season, or golden season as they call it, when they're harvesting it. So those are some of the major natural attractions that we have in this area, besides everything else that we've mentioned, just the beauty and the serenity of the area. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, I actually I had a bit of a joke with Hylton earlier. I said, look, I really want to come here and write my memoir, because it's just got that eerily like, beauty. And I can see that. I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow morning just to see how the morning breaks with the fog and just it coming up over the mountains because it is truly spectacular and you'll see some photos of my view from my hotel room and what my first view was when I stepped into reception. I just took that shot, that first shot because it was just so staggeringly beauty. And remarkably so to me is the untouched aspect of it because let's face it people like there's not many places that aren't fully developed. Everybody's heading in the let's develop all this beauty and let's you know kind of do that. So to find a hotel with such beautiful rooms and aspects to it is remarkable and to find it in such an isolated place. But I want to talk and Hylton's going to be the best person to talk about this. is to talk about the different kinds of rooms available at the hotel, because I'm only staying in one of them. Hylton Lipkin : Before I go on to explain the hotels, what the listeners need to understand is that Kerry is just staring out of the window. We're actually sitting in the main restaurant on the property, but we have this panoramic view of as far as we can see, green valley mountains and trees covered. And as we speak, I'm staring at her, but she's staring out of the window. So a lot of this inspiration comes from actually the natural beauty that's surrounding us. So she's not just saying that to sell the product. It is a beautiful place. And one other thing before I mention the different room types and what we have on properties, you also didn't mention the cultural history within this area. you know we are quite far away from Vietnam and from Hanoi City and throughout Vietnam there's actually a very rich culture of ancestral people who have very strong traditions and the government really doesn't get involved at all they actually respect it and even you know help them in certain circumstances and out here in Thule we have the Hmong people the Thai people and the Kien people and actually you know they don't speak the same language they don't speak Vietnamese they speak another language and they have their own dress and attire and you know it's almost as if when you're walking around in the street you think there's a school here that's wearing a very colored uniform but actually that's just how they dress so it's fantastic to see they're not wearing you know sports shirts I won't give out brands because then we should get money if we give out the Yes, we should. Or you know, or jeans or something like that. So it's actually beautiful to see. So it really just blends into the nature of the place and the simplicity of the area. With regards to our property, Le Champ , we have a hundred rooms. And they are diversified. We have an entry category, which is almost like a #glamping with a thatched roof. We will show that to you. Yes, I've got a picture of it. They're a bit small. I mean, everything's available on our web page. They're a bit small, but they really, everything has a beautiful view of the vista beyond, the green vista and the clouds and things like that. So we have different room categories, #bungalows, we have, that's called the Glenwood or the Glamour. Then we have the room that you are in and we have the president's bungalow or the VIP bungalows So we have a range of different accommodation, but very luxurious and again for this area. There's nothing else we are off the beaten track as I mentioned earlier and when you're driving through the mountains and coming here and you're suddenly and come bang, you know, face-to-face with Le Chum, it's like, where am I? Because up to now it's just been many homestays and very simple villages, and here we have this beautiful property that, you know, boasts a certain level of luxury. I think I'll be safe to say that. Absolutely. So, you know, it's really something special in a very quiet, hidden, like we could say it's a hidden gem, basically. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, and like, you know, I guess as a traveler, you know, I go to places and I automatically think it's going to have this and this and this and this. So when I arrived here, my expectations were of, oh, this is, you know, this is a four and a half star property. I knew a little bit about Hylton, so I knew it was going to be luxurious. But then what I didn't expect and what came from it, and he's right, I'm sitting here, I'm kind of blinded by the light to be honest, I'm blinded by these mountains and this beautiful quietness, where the hotel is offering something really quite unique and a bit standalone, like there's no other hotel in this region of this standard. Sure, you're going to find your homestays and you know, that's another map, that's another story, that's another podcast. But for this one, this is about coming in and getting that lovely luxury but without all the glamour glitz and all the rest of it that sometimes comes with properties of this standard. I want to talk maybe Hylton about you know, the kind of people that you attract to the hotel. We started just before coming on talking about, you know, who loves this place? Who comes, who are they? You know, where are they coming from? Talk to us a little bit about that. Hylton Lipkin : We need to be honest that we are predominantly a Vietnamese property. The property's been running for about four and a half years, run by the owners, local owners, so most of the marketing and most of the efforts have been placed on Hanoi. Like you mentioned earlier, we're pretty close to Hanoi, five hour drive, so for many Hanoians to come out and enjoy this, they do, as a weekend getaway, a public holiday getaway. So I would say that 85% of our clientele are from Hanoi, or the north of Vietnam. In that group of people we definitely have families, a lot of families. On the weekends we have lots of young children running around with their parents. We do have different activities here for children, so they tend to enjoy that as well. But it's also a very romantic type of isolated place that you mentioned. So, you know, we get the honeymooners, we get the romantic couples, we get the families. We do get elderly people, but you very rightly mentioned that There is a bit of walking to be done around. We are in the mountains and it is quite steep in certain areas. Myself being a fitness fanatic, I'm very happy with that. But yes, sure, when your knee is sore or you're getting older or you just can't do it, that definitely is a hindrance. But we do have that group of demographics of people. But over and above that now, that we've changed our marketing strategy and we've been looking in different places to market. We're starting to see Western guests, non-Vietnamese guests. Of course, there's the expat community within Vietnam that we also do attract, but it's outside of Vietnam. We have a lot of tour groups coming through. And like I mentioned to you this week, we had French guests and German guests. We had a gentleman from Saudi Arabia, the first in the year and a half that I've been here. So that was great to see him. So 80% Vietnamese or 85% Vietnamese and maybe 10% Western European, American, Canadian guests, and then maybe some Asian other guests that come in through there. So that's pretty much the mix or the demographics of what we have. Kerry Newsome : And I am going to support the, you know, I don't think it would, I'd put it in the class of elderly friendly. I mean, you know, I'm elderly. And, you know, I'm thinking of how many times am I going to do those steps in the next couple of days. So my knees aren't what they used to be. But, you know, I've seen other levels here as well. So I'm sure if you had some issues, and you mentioned that, So, I think great for the family, you know, they've got this amazing infinity pool that they would absolutely go nuts over. If you're an Instagram fanatic, oh man, you're going to get some amazing pics. And I'm pretty sure we talked also, Hylton, about some actual photography groups that come to photograph because there are certain times of year that these paddy fields actually come alive with green and yellow colors that are just, you know, they queue up literally side by side to get the best shot. Hylton Lipkin: But actually, like you mentioned earlier, sunset and sunrise are pretty spectacular. With or without the clouds, it's absolutely beautiful, you know. coming up behind the mountains, going down behind the mountains. Some days we have pink-red skies, other days we have grey-blue skies with the clouds. So it is actually very, very picturesque. Yeah, no doubt about that. Kerry Newsome : And I think it's funny, I've just finished doing a VTV4 show. I think it's called Culture and Connection. And they were asking me to talk about how I feel when I'm in Vietnam or what does Vietnam make me feel. And I said, beautiful. But I've got a good explanation for the word beautiful in the sense that when I am surrounded by beauty, I can't help but feel beautiful. It has that real rub-on effect that nature in its raw and its pure sense, it really does. And then even the air, you know, I've just come from Hanoi and just breathing, I feel like I'm taking extra gulps just every hour just to really get a full sense of it. So, you know, I'm not crazy coming out to Yen Bai and people are looking at it on the show list and saying, oh, Kerry's done a show on Yen Bai. God, what's that? You know, what could that be about? Because you're not going to see it on the classic tourist map. It's not there. And it's the reason I'm here, because it's not there. Hylton Lipkin : It is a new and upcoming destination, but I think I'm very safe to say that it's not going to become as busy as Hanoi. I can definitely say it's not going to become as busy as Hanoi. Thank God for that. That is one of the attractions to the area, the fact of the simplicity, the beauty, and the fact that there is no traffic. My biggest traffic problem are the buffalo on the pass going over the mountain. And the chickens. Yeah, I mean, a bad traffic run for me in the morning is children in the road, buffaloes, goats and sometimes baby pigs. So, I mean… It's a tough life. Different priorities. And, you know, you were mentioning as well, people are looking for healthier destinations, more open destinations, places where they can breathe and, you know, get away and detox and enjoy themselves. Yes, my forte is definitely in well-being and wellness and Even though directly this is not as intense as the last property where we were together in central Vietnam the elements of Relaxation and and fresh air and the hot springs that we have as well and the mountain food and fresh food is definitely there So whether you're a wellness fundi or not, you still automatically get that that infusion of being away being in a natural relaxing healthy environment whether you like it or not. That's a given once you get off the highway. Kerry Newsome: And I think certainly I can understand why the Vietnamese love it and it's a five-hour escape from Hanoi. So, you know, it fits perfectly in that long weekend or short break opportunity for Hanoians to come and enjoy. And, you know, that's kind of where I came from to visit here. I want to jump into food because there was a fascinating conversation I had about a particular specialty to the area. Over to you Hylton to talk about it. Hylton Lipkin : What's famous in terms of food in this area and for me very naturally just jumped out and went black chicken for me. We talk about all the time. She just did it again. Big eyes and a strange face. Actually, it's true. I'd never heard of it before and maybe we become very adapted to the areas and the things that are around us. But here in the mountains they have this black chicken. It's literally black bones, black meat, black skin. And it actually tastes exactly like any other chicken. But it's a speciality of this area. And I was also explaining to Kerry that we have different levels. So you have like the light black chicken, which is not really the black bones. It has normal bones like the chicken we know. Don't tell me there's a brown chicken. No, no, no. But then you get the ones that actually have black bones. There's no preservatives. There's no coloring. It's just a black chicken. Kerry Newsome : Am I going to see one here? Hylton Lipkin : Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Going over the mountain, you'll probably see it. So for the locals, it's also an element which I didn't mention to you, Kerry. It's an element of wealth. Because the bigger they are and the more black they are and the further into the mountains you go, they're actually worth more money. So at a hotel level, we kind of get commercial black chicken. But you can go deep into the mountains with the Hmong people and they actually grow their own Black chickens that are a little bit more expensive a bit like, you know, like a more refined beef or something to that effect So that's one one element that apparently a well-fed black chicken on organic food That's what we want is a well. Kerry Newsome : I'm gonna I'm gonna go in search in the next few days for sure Hylton Lipkin : We're going to send her on a trip to find one and then prepare it herself. Kerry Newsome : I've got to get a photo for sure. Hylton Lipkin : The other element as well is the fish. So because we're up in the mountains and we have many fresh water rivers and fountains, they make these trout farms or salmon farms or sturgeon farms. So sturgeon is apparently an endangered species in some countries but definitely up here in the mountains it's in abundance. So not only are the fish healthy because they're living off natural food and natural mountain water with no pollution. But they actually are very popular here and not excessively expensive. So salmon, sturgeon and black chicken and then obviously like I think I mentioned before the rice in Thule is very famous. It's like a sticky rice. They harvest it and then they crush it on the side of the road. Actually guests can do it as an attraction and it becomes almost gooey. And then when they cook it, you have to try some. It's sticky. It's very similar to Thai sticky rice and it's everywhere. Every time you have a meal, you get this two-layer rice. So those are the main attraction towards food. There are many others. There's also bugs. Okay, let's not go into the bugs. Kerry Newsome : That could sway things the other way. Hylton, I want to talk a little bit just to make people feel comfortable and not feel like it's out of their reach. We talked roughly about cost-wise, when people think resorts are a way in. districts like this that's going to cost me the earth to do that. We kind of went on a range somewhere between $80 starting through to about $250 US per night. But what I want to mention more so is that you're a bit of a two-for-one man in the sense that you control two properties So not only by reaching out to the Yen Bai property of Lesham, you can also combine that with the Garriard property in Mukhang Chai. Now I'm going to make sure I put the links in the show notes so that you can do that. I guess what I'm asking you to do is to not think of it just as one place because one from the other is only an hour away. Yeah, an hour by car. So you could get in Mu Cang Chai as well as Tu Le in the same trip is what I'm saying. Hylton Lipkin : Many people who come out this way actually… Combine. Correct. So they would come to Tu Le, stay with us, go over to Mu Cang Chai for the day, visit and then come back and stay here and then ultimately head back to Hanoi or wherever it was. Mu Cang Chai is the big attraction area and it's really close and beautiful to get there. So, yes, I am actually the area general manager of two properties. Le Champ, the one that we've spoken a lot about, is open and been running for about five years now. Over in Mu Cang Chai, we are opening a new property called Garrya. And that will be opening in the next 60 days. Something very exciting under the Banyan Group. And a beautiful high-end luxury hotel. The prices are a little bit higher than over here. Or in Lechon. But very, very beautiful. So the idea is that people could then ultimately come to Thule, stay one night in Thule, move over to Mu Cang Chai stay one night in Mu Cang Chai Discover both areas and then head on back instead of staying in the shop for two nights and doing one day in Mu Cang Chai So we kind of combine them together Kerry Newsome: Hylton, if you were to do that kind of combination, could you kind of wrap it up with the car to take you to one place and then kind of get you back to Hanoi? Because that's really, I don't want that to be a barrier for people to get here. Hylton Lipkin: Correct. So we do have our bus for each property and we link them together. So as you did today, we can pick you up at the airport or we can pick you up in Hanoi itself. and then bring you out either to Tu Le or take you over to Garrya and Mu Cang Chai or vice versa between the two of them. So yes, there is transport between the two of them. Yes, we're in an area where there's not Ubers or Go or… No, there's nobody here, there's no Grab. I get it. There are local buses that continuously travel between all the cities here. But as it develops and as the new property comes online, we will definitely have more transport options for our guests. Because one thing as well is that here in Tu Le, we have natural hot springs. But in Mu Cang Chai and Garrya, we don't have that. So we could still offer that to our guests from Garrya in Mu Cang Chai. They could come over and use the hot springs for the day and then go back. Like you said, it's only one hour or one and a half hours by car. If you wanted, you could run it. It's only 40 kilometers. Yeah, I'll get my husband on that for sure. 20 up and 20 down. He'll be into that. Or you could cycle it. I've seen a couple of people actually mountain biking over the pass. So there are some adventurous people around here. So those are other options as well. Kerry Newsome : Thanks so much for coming on the show. I couldn't have done this area justice without you. Hylton Lipkin : It's my pleasure and you know it's always great to see you and thank you for everything you're doing for promoting Vietnam and you know especially for us here in Yen Bai or Tu Le and Mu Cang Chai. It's great for people to discover us and get to come out and enjoy this beautiful area, this beautiful region which is not really that popular but well worth the visit. Kerry Newsome : Absolutely, I concur.

S5-E9 - Out and about in Saigon S5-E9 - Out & About in Saigon – with What About Vietnam host Kerry Newsome Kerry Newsome : Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. Today I'm inviting you to join me in what I'm calling a mini-series and that mini-series is actually going to be an invitation to you to join me while I'm out and about in Vietnam on my holiday. Now the reason I wanted to do this series was to I guess chronicle the experiences, the destinations and some of the people I get to meet in Vietnam and over the next about 60 days I'll be trying to record as I go different places, experiences and just activities and things that I want to share with you that I hope will help you with your planning and give you some guidance around coming to Vietnam and what to expect. So, let me give you some context to the Out and About series. Firstly, every time you see Out and About as a title on my show, on the website, you'll know that that's what the basis of these are. So, we're going to kick off today with Out and About in Ho Chi Minh City. as this is the first city that I have arrived into and it actually kind of begins the show and the series. So we kick off with Ho Chi Minh City. Now I wanted to just give a little bit more context to this series in the sense that it's not going to be a series where I give you kind of a whole list of things to do and you know kind of send you off into various places. It's more about me trying to give you a sense of what to expect, what I have experienced personally and in each situation it's obviously going to be different but I'm hoping that you can take this information and then apply it to everything that you're doing as far as preparing for your trip because for me Vietnam is just not one of those countries that you to get the best out of it anyway, is that you can just kind of lob here and just hope it all goes merry well. It is a country that deserves some research. And one of the things that's come up over the nearly last four years of me doing this podcast has been the sense that you all are starting to go down that path of research to, you know, possibly plan a trip. And some of you reach out to me individually, which I love. But like, I think it's quite overwhelming. And I think what I'm hearing is that that overwhelm almost puts you off coming. So I'm trying to for one of a better description, kind of break through the chatter and clatter and all the rest of it because there's a thousand websites out there. There's a thousand YouTube videos. I don't want to and nor am I trying to compete in that space. I'm trying to just, I don't know, help you decipher, help you have some insights so that when you look at things you can look at them with informed eyes and you can make some decisions. So without further ado, let's kick off out and about in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City as it's known. Now firstly I want to share with you my experience getting here. as it has a little bit of a good story to it and a not so good story. So firstly, the good story. So I'm on the plane and I'm traveling from Australia and Just as we're about to arrive, two lovely ladies sitting across the aisle from me, one of them reaches out and says, are you Kerry Newsome? And of course I say yes, and they say, look, we are on our trip to Vietnam because of your podcast called What About Vietnam? We're planning four weeks, we listened to this episode and that episode, and it kind of inspired us to do this trip. So, I just want to reach out to those ladies who I didn't get a chance to get their names, but I just want to say hello and I hope you're having a great time. And for me, that was just such a personally rich experience to have that, you know, my podcast is reaching your ears and you are being able to use it to help you put your trip together and make decisions to come. Then the other not so good news. So the gentleman sitting next to me on the plane for the whole trip kind of arrived into his seat and I could kind of tell he was agitated and I thought, gee, we've only just begun, I wonder what this is about. He'd actually been to Vietnam before and had a great experience and was coming back a second time with some friends. But as he went to check in at the check-in counter at Vietnam Airlines, he presented his visa. But unfortunately, the visa was one day out in matching up with his dates of arrival into the country. So, that was actually a barrier to entry and they were not going to permit him to check in and to take the flight. So, the advice he was given was to, the only advice really they had to offer, was to go to a flight centre shop at the airport and that they had a VIP emergency kind of service, e-visa service, that they could put together, but the cost of that service was $500, $500 Australian dollars. Now, if you know what the cost of a visa doing it normally through the immigration site for a 30-day visa, it's $25 US, and for a 90-day visa, multiple entry, it's I think $90 or $100. So of course he was quite upset, he was quite irate. He couldn't believe that that small element of just the date not matching up exactly was going to be a problem and thus would mean that he couldn't join the flight with his wife and take this trip unless he did do that service. So, I know I go on and on about getting a visa and from the very first, I guess, thing that you put together as far as your planning is concerned, please spend the time necessary to get that e-visa and to get it right. It's something, even as many times as I've done it, I go through it religiously. The questions on the website have actually increased, so you do need to spend a bit of time in answering them. But as you can see, the impact that it has if it doesn't match up exactly to your passport and to your airline ticket can mean that you don't even get to come to Vietnam. So I just wanted to throw those in just to make sure that when you are thinking of getting out and about in Vietnam, you're not even going to get the chance to get here unless you get some of these pieces correct in the first instance. Now, a little bit more about the episode. When I'm out and about and I'm doing this series, I'm going to be doing it with obviously a sense that I want to continue with the quality, but there's going to be times where you're going to hear roosters and taxi hooting. You're going to hear some noises that I really can't control, but Guess what folks? These are definitely the sounds of Vietnam. So please forgive me if at times you do experience that. I'm hoping to keep that to a minimum. And of course I want to keep the program in such a way that I can be mobile with it and as I'm going to each place I can record. So over the next you know six to eight weeks we're going to be doing lots of recordings and they're going to be a bit shorter and a little bit sharper about the experiences that I'm having. Now, when you enter into Ho Chi Minh City, you know, depending on where you've come from, so for myself, a flight from Australia is roughly about eight hours. Vietnam has three international airports, so you're going to come into either Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi or Da Nang, depending what country you're coming from. So you've already been in transit to get here from Australia, about eight hours plus three hours at the airport. If you're coming from the US, it's probably a minimum of 14 hours coming from San Francisco. But if you're coming more from Southeast Asia or Singapore or Bangkok, it's only about five hours. But for me, when I arrive into Ho Chi Minh City, I'm tired so I've had a good night's sleep. I always make sure I try and get into a flight that will enable me to you know unpack, get a good night's sleep and get up on the next day. Now depending on what sort of flyer you are also you know I tend to on that first day if you have time Now time is a commodity we all know and for you, you may not have the chance to add in this day but if you do have the opportunity to make your first day a little bit of a free day so that you don't have something booked, you don't have something set or organized, I would really urge you to take that first day to just use it as a day of orientation. And I say that because when you're jet lagged, when you are a bit tired, when your body is readjusting to, you know, new temperatures, new smells, new environments, your hotel, your air conditioning, all of that kind of stuff, you can kind of experience things, but not really experience them. For me, I'm a bit of a space cadet that first day and certainly as I've got older, I'm more so. So I'm just saying that on that first day and possibly even the last day of your trip, if you have the chance to keep it free, do so. Take it up because there's some things you can still do to orientate yourself that I think give you a greater sense of where you are and is going to help you take in what you see. Now let me share with you Ho Chi Minh and what it means to me. Years and years ago, when I used to travel to Ho Chi Minh City, I kind of used it as a stepping stone. I came in and then I just went somewhere else. But over time, Ho Chi Minh City has really evolved. It's a very high energy city. It's a very busy city. And I speak of the busyness side of it in respect to not only the amount of motorbikes and traffic on the streets, but even on the sidewalks. The sidewalks of Vietnam streets, and in particular big cities, are not like controlled by councils or governments etc like they are in my country where you are not permitted to do anything on those or you have to get permissions to do that. On the sidewalks you've got people that are sitting on little red chairs and eating food. You've got street sellers selling their wares for everything from peanuts to fruit to, you know, small meals. You've got barmy vendors. So, whichever way you go, it's happening. So, getting back to what I'm saying about orientating yourself to the city, it's really good to get a handle on that just to begin with. If you're traveling in a group, if you're traveling with your partner or with a young family or whatever, everybody's kind of got to get their footing. And I speak of the footing side of it as well, as not all the streets are paved with gold. Most of the streets are in kind of poor condition. You're going to be stepping around people. You're going to be stepping over broken streets and cement. There's a lot of construction going on. There's a lot of noise. There's a lot of tooting of horns. So when you are in that state of just trying to get to grips with everything as a newbie to the country, that first day can be quite confronting, can be quite in your face. and so it's good to ease yourself into it so that it can come alive for you in its various ways and give you the experience that I think you can have here. So for me there's three or four approaches to Ho Chi Minh City. Now the first one is you can decide to hit all the top attractions. So, the city itself has, you know, various, I guess, top must visit tourist destinations. So, in that first day, I wouldn't be doing that. I choose not to do that. What I choose to do is try to find just my bearings of where my hotel is, where it is in proximity to lots of things and you know from the get-go I start to assimilate or become attached to the country in getting to know it. And I start by putting on my phone certain things. We've talked about over the years about putting some certain apps on your phones. So firstly I would suggest setting up the Grab app. Now there's other forms of Grab. Grab is kind of relative to what is in my country an Uber. So this is a car, share car opportunity where they can pick you up and take you wherever you want and it's so easy to use. I use it with cash only and I make sure I give a small tip to the drivers. I like Grab because it gives me a way to communicate with the app, with the driver, even if the driver can't speak English. I can tell from their phone and mine matching that they have Kerry Newsome on their phone and they have the same destination. So I put the Grab app. I then have the Exe app. Why do I have that? Because that gives me a very quick way to work out money. So this is another part of your orientation to the country. you know you've got to get used to lots of zeros. You know a million zeros in any language sounds a lot, a million dong, wow is that a lot of money. In my country that's around about 60 something dollars. depending on your currency, the currency that you're bringing into the country, that Exe app is going to be able to tell you when you look to buy something, whether it's a cup of coffee or a meal or something that you want to purchase, whether or not you're getting a good price for it. You're happy to pay that price for it. Or you can kind of be comfortable with the price that you're paying and not feel like you're getting ripped off. Really, really important. I've seen people get quite upset about having to pay another $10,000 for something when they find out later it was like $0.60. As far as apps are concerned, I definitely think those two are the kind of the essentials. Obviously, Google Maps is another one and it's also part of this orientation. So again, I'm sitting in a coffee shop And I'm having a look at Google Maps and going, I really want to go and have one of my favorite coffees, which is a iced coconut coffee. And I'll work out where the nearest coffee shop to get that is from my hotel. And even before I'm going to use the Grab app, I'll use the Google Maps to find out roughly how long it's going to take me to get from A to B. So if it's 17 minutes or it's 20 minutes or whatever, I know then how much time to allow to do that. So, once again, Google is your friend in Vietnam, for sure. Google Translate is also another one. I mean, the joy of Ho Chi Minh City is it's a very modern city, so in most of your tourist destinations and your hotels, and things like that. You know, the receptionist staff, et cetera, are really good at being able to speak good English in most cases. And certainly, as you're getting about in hospitality and in retail, et cetera, they'll have some basics. But on the street and street vendors, no, you're not going to be able to do that. So Google Translate is very handy there. The other thing is to decide how you're going to use Wi-Fi. You can buy a SIM card. You will need your passport for that. So you'll need to go to a Mobi phone or a phone shop, etc. to get the SIM card, replace it into your phone, etc. And that will give you mobile data. And that will mean that on the go, while you're getting out and about, you can access that. However, I found it just as easy to go to a particular coffee shop or set myself down in a restaurant or whatever and I will use the free Wi-Fi that comes with literally 99% of places that you can get that on your phone and use these apps if you need to do them. So options up to you however you want to do that. So getting back to our approaches, you can take yourself off onto the path of seeing all of these wonderful tourist destinations in Ho Chi Minh City. And that can be everything from the Notre Dame Cathedral through to Walking Street, and I want to get back to Walking Street in a minute, Bui Vien , the Temple of the Jade Emperor, The City Post Office , always great for photos. Turtle Lake. Starlight Bridge is a little bit further out. And of course, places like the Pink Church . See link here to main attraction: https://www.visithcmc.vn/en/news/10-diem-du-lich-mien-phi-o-tphcm-khong-the-bo-qua Now, the second approach you can take is actually moving a little bit out of Ho Chi Minh City. In this sense, you're going to be experiencing some of what the South of Vietnam has to offer in history and in nature and in the Mekong, I guess. So there's plenty of tourist desks around. Even your hotel can help you organize this. Or for many of you, if you've been asking me to put this together for you, I'm going to suggest a tour to the Cu chi Tunnels, or out to Ben Tre, or Cantho, or a visit to the Mekong Delta to experience. that local region and that's going to help you immerse into what I would call is the essential Vietnam. The Vietnam you've probably read about and seen the images where you're getting through all of these sort of areas where there's jungle and there is that feeling of local, you know, very, very poor areas in some cases, but you're going to get the essential Vietnam and you're going to get that with a mixture of some history and especially in places like Cu Chi Tunnels . And then the third approach that you have in your first 24, 48 hours, whatever time you decide to spend in Ho Chi Minh City, is what I choose to do now because I've seen all these things and I've experienced them all. I tend to want to go out and just wander the streets, kind of get a bit lost. And I do that very easilt I have to tell you. And I like getting lost in Ho Chi Minh City because I find different eateries, I find different vendors selling different types of goods. And every single time, depending on where I position myself as far as a hotel, even though it's in District 1 or it's in District 3 or District 5 or for that matter even District 2, there's going to be something new. And getting back to me kind of saying about the research, before I come here, I will have done some research and said, yeah, I want to check that out. Now, this time I stayed in a little hotel. It was a three-star hotel called La Opera . And I love this little hotel as it's in a beaut little area and I find it very easy to maneuver myself around wherever I want to go. So it's easy walking distance to most things. But also what comes with that is the experiences of that local area and your hotel reception staff is also going to be very good at being able to tell you what you can find close to the hotel. So really my first day just got taken up with experiencing different cafes, different shops. I still manage to get myself to the big shopping centers, so that's your Vincom and your Saigon Centre . And they're the ones that typically that you would acknowledge as being kind of the shopping mall. These are very modern, so they've got your H&M's and all of that. Or you can experience Ben Thanh Markets. And Ben Thanh Markets is prolific. It is iconic. It is one of the must-do's on that shopping experience. And you know, some people love it, some people hate it. It's an experience in itself and that That whole shopping experience is something that you may talk about for years to come. And as I said, you either love it or you hate it. but it all happens in Ben Thanh Market and it's probably where you're going to get, you know, your copy products, you're going to be able to barter and you're going to be able to get some good deals. But be aware that you need to have your wits about yourself in there because you may enter in one door but then come out another and, you know, be quite disorientated with that. So, take that into consideration. I have another market that I like called Saigon Square, and it's opposite one of the major shopping centers. And it's a smaller version of Ben Thanh Markets . And I think it's got a little bit of, I don't know, feeling that you can move around it a little bit easier. and a lot of the same stuff, but just a little bit more under control. You might pay a little bit more there than you would in Benton markets, but certainly it's got all the stuff that you need. As I said first approach is to go and visit all the major destinations in and around the city. Second is to you know just get lost in the city and then the third is to just relax. Just take in your hotel, take in just chilling out and as I said familiarizing yourself with the hotel experience. If it's got a nice pool, if it's got a nice bar and maybe save yourself up for the night time. Now for me, I love Ho Chi Minh City at night. While I've mentioned all these things about going out to the tunnels and and going shopping that's probably kind of stuff I would do during the day but once again it'll depend on the heat. But at night the city is just neon fizz, it is just It's electric, it really is. It's just got an energy about it that you will just be blown away from. And in particular, you can start seeing the city in this viewpoint from what they call Walking street. And walking street is really easy to spend time in because you don't have to kind of dodge traffic and and things like that like you do in some of the other areas. Plus what it has very close to it is some very eclectic, very kind of eccentric little cafes and it's just really lovely. You've got rooftop bars, You've got the Cafe Building which I really urge you to go and check out. You'll go up stairs and stairs and then you'll just discover all these different cafes and it's just really easy to get around and you can spend hours just getting yourself lost in that region and at night there's lots of entertainment going on. Another favourite place of mine is the Acoustic Bar and you can go there any night of the week and they're going to have a different artist on to entertain you with some really great music. and there's also a small bar next door to that which is getting local artists coming on every night of the week as well. So you're not going to be short of entertainment. You've also got Bui Vien Street which definitely comes alive at night. You've got all your big craft brewers in those streets. So you've got plenty of entertainment and that's just all in the first 24-48 hours. So you've got some culture if you've gone out of Ho Chi Minh City and you've got into the Mekong Delta and you've explored some of the countryside, or you've decided to stay in the city, get a little bit lost, have some beautiful cakes and explore the cafe culture, which is very, very rich, and do it that way. Or you've decided to relax or you've just gone shopping crazy. I hope you're going to enjoy this series. I've certainly enjoyed Ho Chi Minh again this time. I got to experience some great music at Acoustic Bar . I had a fab night that night. I found a couple of new restaurants and the food was just sensational. Don't think that you are going to be limited to just Vietnamese food. You'll just think about a cuisine and it will be here. So you've got your Korean, you've got your pizzas, you've got good Italian, you've got Thai, you've got fabulous Vietnamese food. And just go wild. Just try all the different kinds of new foods and foods that are particular to the South. And in particular, when you're looking at fur, there's a different flavour to fur in Ho Chi Minh City that you will be able to taste the difference here to how it is in the north. It's made totally differently. And of course, there are particular dishes that are exclusive to this area. I hope you're going to enjoy my next Out and About which is to be in Hoi An. That's my next stop. So stay tuned for the Out and About series. These are all going to feature on your normal podcast channels and of course on the website whataboutvietnam.com. Thank you for joining and see you in Hoi An. 00:00:02 - Introduction to "What About Vietnam?" Podcast 00:00:38 - Mini-Series Announcement 00:01:02 - Purpose of the Mini-Series 00:01:44 - "Out and About" Series Context 00:02:06 - Starting with Ho Chi Minh City 00:02:27 - Series Format and Expectations 00:03:19 - Importance of Research for Vietnam Travel 00:03:52 - Overcoming Travel Planning Overwhelm 00:04:34 - Arrival in Ho Chi Minh City and Visa Issues 00:05:09 - Podcast Impact on Listeners' Travel Plans 00:06:03 - A Cautionary Tale About Visa Dates 00:08:03 - Emphasizing the Importance of Correct Visa Application 00:09:09 - Series Recording and Sound Authenticity 00:10:15 - Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City and Jet Lag 00:11:10 - First Day Orientation Advice 00:12:57 - Ho Chi Minh City's Evolution and Energy 00:15:28 - Approaches to Exploring Ho Chi Minh City 00:17:04 - Essential Apps for Vietnam Travel 00:18:39 - Exploring Ho Chi Minh City's Attractions 00:21:12 - Day Trips Outside Ho Chi Minh City 00:23:37 - Personal Approach to Experiencing the City 00:25:17 - Hotel and Local Area Experience 00:27:26 - Nightlife in Ho Chi Minh City 00:30:56 - Recap and Next Destination Teaser 00:32:27 - Closing and Podcast Information

S5-E7-- The Rise of Unique Dining Experiences in Vietnam What About Vietnam – S5- E7 - The Rise of Unique Dining Experiences in Vietnam Kerry Newsome: Xin chào and welcome to What About Vietnam. So here we are folks, we're in the silly season. We're in December, Christmas not far away and as per usual we're all going a little bit crazy as we're trying to figure out we're going to have a holiday? How are we going to get together with friends and family? And we're thinking about Christmas dinner and food. So, I wanted to finish up the year with a show that would be speaking to, you know, some of the fun things that we can do with food. And in particular, I want to talk to you about where food culture, trends, where the vision of food is kind of heading in Vietnam. Because if you were to think about Vietnam in just the sense of street food, you would be seriously doing it a disservice because it has exploded in the last few years with new kinds of experiences and the flavors, the new chefs, the variety of mixing and matching with food and beverages. And I wanted a guest on the show that could really speak to that with authority. And I'm delighted to have Jovel Chan on the show. I want to tell you a bit about. Jovel comes with a very strong background in this area. In the last three years, She has been in Singapore as a food writer and blogger, consultant, culinary event organiser. But now she's really got her eyes set on Vietnam as she's based in Ho Chi Minh City. And certainly in the area of developing different cuisines and expanding the horizons, I guess, of experiences in restaurants with different chefs. That focus is primarily in Saigon and in Hanoi. In the last three years, she's actually been tracking the ins and outs of the industry, covering trends, you know, like new openings and happenings, and sharing them through her blog, chevellecharm.com. She became the first Vietnam food and beverage consultant for the Singapore tourism board, adding to an already stellar F&B client suite. She recently founded Saigon Social. Now that comes with some really clever and unique experiences. She's got the Saigon Supper Club, things like cocktail cinemas. And she's really into a very creative sense of connecting with people, sharing great food, sharing great beverages as well, you know, with different gins and craft beers and wine, etc. You're really in for a treat in this show. That's all I can say. It's just something that I think is going to really just put that extra spice of insight into the food scene and hopefully get you even more excited about your trip to Vietnam. Before we jump in, I wanted to just say a quick Merry Christmas and Happy New Year . This is actually the last show for the year. I'm taking a short break and I'll be back on your podcast channel early February . It's a break I really need to have. I've got, you know, lots of things I need to do. I've got a family that I want to have some downtime with and just all of those things are going to make it so that when I come back in 24, I'm refreshed and ready to go. And I have a really exciting plan for the shows next year. So I hope you'll stick with the podcast because there's lots of wonderful stuff happening. I hope you are going to have a wonderful Christmas yourselves. I really thank you for your support over the year. I hope you're enjoying the program. Please sing out if there is a subject matter or something in particular that you'd like to talk about. I'm always I'm always ears and I love to get your feedback. Anyway, I'm talking too much, taking up too much time on this. I want to introduce you to Chevelle. Let's welcome her to the program. Jovel Chan : Great to be here. Great to be here. Kerry Newsome : We've got a lot to talk about. So maybe if we can dive in really early and just get your take on where you think Vietnamese cuisine is heading? What can we expect to experience with cuisine in Vietnam in the future? And yeah, just give us a little look through that peephole to see what's ahead. What can we expect to find when we visit Vietnam? I know my travellers are going to want to know where to go, where to eat. Jovel Chan: I definitely believe that we are at just the start of seeing where Vietnam's dining scene can go. In the past few years post-pandemic, we did see a lot of chefs, both from Vietnam and also from overseas, come into Vietnam, notably Saigon and Hanoi, to set up shop and start catering to hungry tourists and also curious locals who are interested to experience differently and both of them are looking for something beyond just street food itself. I foresee with more five-star hotels also entering Vietnam. and a lot more malls that are also opening up in Vietnam, what you start to see is a very diverse dining scene of different kinds of cuisines, but also at the same time a lot more, a lot better quality. I think it's just a lot more refined and it's a lot more, for the lack of a better word, it's a lot better quality, better dining in terms of interiors, in terms of, you know, even the food itself and also down to service and yeah, the entire experience of dining out. Kerry Newsome : Now, I've heard you say, and I'm cheating here, I've heard you describe the food scene in three words. And I'll give you those three words back and you can maybe expand on them for our guests. So, the first one you mentioned was the dining scene is very hungry. So, describe for us what you mean by hungry. Jovel Chan: So I've been writing a monthly new openings guide in Saigon where I cover new restaurants for the past almost two years. And it's very safe to say that there has been no shortage of new restaurants entering the market even during the pandemic. And it's almost double or triple the rate that it was for obvious reasons during the pandemic versus now since. And this month, I just rallied up not just new restaurant openings, but I also started doing pop-ups, chef residencies and chef pop-ups. So what I mean by when they are hungry, it's really, first and foremost, everybody wants to open up a restaurant. There's so much talent that is happening, there's so many things that are happening. And it's not just opening a restaurant, it's just everybody also wants to come here and try to do something, you know, they're popping up, they're collaborating with each other. You've got chefs from abroad that are doing things here, there's always just something happening. And it's always new. So everybody wants a piece of the pie right now. Kerry Newsome: And that's what I mean by that's really interesting. And I can kind of see that myself, even between visits. I only, you know, like I visit three times a year at least. And even in that three, four months away, I come back and there's something new. There's that place that's just opened up around the corner where it wasn't there when I was there last trip. It's quite amazing. And as you say, it's in the decor, you know, it's in the actual you know, layout and design, the way the tables are set. I love the creativity that is also coming about, which is absolutely fabulous. And then, as you say, the chefs, the new chefs, homegrown chefs, too, that are coming through. So, it's really exciting. You've got another word that you use to describe, and I'd like you to expand on that one, and that's defiant. I love that word, defiant. Jovel Chan: That's your favourite word, isn't it? Kerry Newsome : Maybe I kind of align myself to that. Jovel Chan: So, yeah, so rightfully so, like what I mentioned, the industries also, the chefs themselves are very defiant. So, you know, what we see as creativity to them is kind of like, you know, they're trying to take back something, right? So, I think a lot of them, they don't want to be defined by Vietnamese cuisine. Ironically, but they don't want whatever people think about them to just be limited to banh mi and pho. Because to so many of these homegrown chefs, Vietnamese cuisine and ingredients are able to compete with the likes of cuisine in Japan, of ingredients in Japan, where people treat Japanese cuisine as a premium cuisine. So to many of them, you can hear them say, you know, the number of hours that we take to make pho and what goes behind making a simple bowl of pho like this is the same as making a bowl of ramen, yet nobody is giving us the same credit or willing to pay what people pay for ramen in Japan. So there is this defiance and this is fueling a lot of chefs behind these finer dining kitchens to showcase and storytell about Vietnamese cuisine. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, and I think it's we do need to be careful about stereotyping Vietnamese food. I mean, I even get asked, you know, like, what happens if when I go to Vietnam, I don't like Vietnamese food? And it's like, well, there's, it's a multicultural city that you're visiting. So, you can get any cuisine in the world from pizza to you know, to Greek, to Italian, to whatever. So, you know, don't think of Vietnamese, as you say, just limited to what you know at this point. You know, keep an open mind, coming to the country and, you know, be open to try these new restaurants with these different fusions of flavors and just experiment with the new dining scene. I think that's what's key for people is to experiment. Because you talk about, you know, in your third word, which is nascent, you know, I mean, that deserves definite explanation. Jovel Chan: So Vietnam's dining scene really, really I would say picked up in the last number of years. This isn't to say that there weren't restaurants before, of course there were restaurants before, but dining as a culture in Vietnam with more than just maybe a burger joint or you know the Park Hyatt Saigon and and the ubiquity of it now, and the price that it's now accessible at. I was just writing an article yesterday where 10 to 15 restaurants on it were in the range of 300 to 500k. That's less than $20. So you now have these chefs who are coming in and doing such great things and serving up food where people can enjoy at 300, 500k. It's still a lot higher, but it's a lot less. Before you had dining where it was 2 million. Now it's becoming a lot more affordable and it's a lot more accessible, right? And that's what I mean by the dining scene is it has just really started in the past number of years where people are actually dining out and there is a dining out culture. where people are able to start going out maybe even twice a month and that's something that's within their means. But this only really started in the past two years or three years or so after the pandemic fueled by the likes of the Michelin. So that's what I mean by it's really, really nice and everything is so new and yeah, so much room for opportunity. It's a really exciting time to see where everything goes. Kerry Newsome: Yes. And so, you know, if you are a foodie and you're looking at, you know, your time in Vietnam and best places to go. Now we're talking about dining scenes that are primarily focused in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, aren't we? Which would you say would be the one, if you were a real foodie, to focus on? It's a tough one. Oh my gosh. Jovel Chan: I can't say this in public. Kerry Newsome: I can't say this in public. It's a hard one, I know. I really know it. But people say, oh, if we're into food, should we go, should we spend more time in Ho Chi Minh City or should we spend more time in Hanoi? And I find it hard to answer that question myself. You know, and while I can say to them that, you know, the cuisine in the North traditionally is very different to the South. You know, those, even those flavors have started to, you know, meld a little bit because, you know, people that are opening up restaurants in the North are opening the same ones in the South and, you know, vice versa. So, there isn't quite that division in the new and upcoming, certainly in traditional, there probably is more definition. But yeah, like, what do I say? Help me out! Jovel Chan: I definitely enjoy, you know, food from all the cities, but Hanoi, eating on the streets, but in Saigon, dining out. And if it were up to me and I had five days, I would spend perhaps a day or two in Hanoi and then come down to Saigon and contrast it, yet see those similarities between what you see from, you know, the traditional street food freight, street food favorites up in the north and then come back down with the understanding and the grasp of what it is to Saigon and check out some of the bars and restaurants and what people are doing here. A lot of what I see in Saigon, even on the street food, is that there's a lot of them that are also adjusting to cater to the younger people here, to the experts here. So some of the banh mi here, you see a lot more banh mi kebab here, you see a lot more innovation even on the street food. So I think heading to the north, get your fix, come down here and see how that's kind of evolving and moving a little bit. For a foodie, I think that's definitely like, you know, you can run the gamut from everything that's traditional and see how that moves and changes with Vietnam's growth. Kerry Newsome: That's a really good answer. I'm going to use that one . No, it's a really good way to explain it because I think there's some novelty factors still very present with the new traveler to Vietnam and sometimes, you know, the new traveler to Southeast Asia to experience street food, to sit on the little red chairs, to sit where, you know, the average local person is having, you know, a meal. with their family and, you know, doing some beers, celebrating with family, that sort of thing. So there's a really nice feeling about that and I think people are very keen to do that. But then, like you, I can go from that, and then I'm really keen to explore the wider circle of other restaurants and other cuisines. And as I said, their decor, they're really wonderful ways that they can use color and art and, you know, their designing is just fantastic. And I really, I like that ambience, you know, that way that a restaurant can make you feel like I really want to hang about here. I want to stay here. You know, I want to have another glass of wine and I want to have, I want to try that other thing on the menu that we didn't start with, you know, that kind of thing. You really want to invest your time and stay. So, in that vein, talk to us about some of the latest trends coming through that you're seeing now, you know, especially since the Michelin guides come out, that sort of thing. So, what are the really big trends coming through? Jovel Chan : Modern Vietnamese cuisine is very, very, very popular. Around Southeast Asia, there's a boom of Southeast Asian cuisine and chefs at the helm. And there's a much larger spotlight that's being placed on Southeast Asian cuisine and chefs themselves. So that's something that's also being reflected here in Vietnam. And when the Michelin came in, we saw three out of four of those one-star restaurants being awarded to modern Vietnamese and Vietnamese restaurants. So the narrative became one of going global by going home. Kerry Newsome: That's interesting. Going global. Yes. Jovel Chan: We saw a lot by going home. We saw that people, there was almost like, there was almost a, it's not favoritism, but a curiosity amongst people in the region as well as overseas who naturally want to come to a country and try what the modern version of that local cuisine was. And when they saw that awards were being awarded for such cuisine over perhaps some of the other cuisines, naturally, right? A lot of the restaurants had that signal to become, OK, I need to be more Vietnamese or I need to be modern Vietnamese. So even a lot of these perhaps traditionally French or modern French restaurants And the likes started playing around with, hey, we now use Vietnamese ingredients. Hey, we start, you know, a little bit, you know, playing on that Vietnamese card a little bit more. So because of that, we did see this year more than, you know, almost 10 new modern Vietnamese restaurants open. And we saw a little move even from those quintessentially Western restaurants into using Vietnamese ingredients. So that's a trend that I did see particularly this year. And I know that we will continue to see this trend for the next number of years because of these global movements. But also at the same time, like I said, Vietnamese people are very prideful in their cuisine. I don't see many Vietnamese chefs coming out and trying to do something else. Kerry Newsome: Perhaps not by choice. That's interesting. Very interesting. So, if we were to start looking at making suggestions to people about special experiences with food, And this is kind of going to be a little segue into what you do as a main theme. But like food, as you say, is becoming an experience to experience that restaurant, to experience that food. I'm seeing a lot more of the combination with you know, fine dining and then alcohol or, you know, different kind of combinations of that pairing where that was never kind of an option before, even just before COVID really. So, you know, can you talk to us about some of the experiences that are now coming through that people are getting excited about? Jovel Chan: So like I said, there are a lot more pop-ups and a lot more events that are happening this year. In the alcohol industry in Vietnam, we also had a gin festival for the first time a couple of years ago. We had a whiskey festival for the first time last year. So we're getting a lot more of this food and drink driven events and pop-ups that people can discover. A lot more restaurants are also going in the way of more fun dining than fine dining. So that's another trend that we see happening a lot more as well, fun dining. Kerry Newsome : And that's what I'm keen to talk about. Jovel Chan: Yeah. Fun dining is injecting an element of social and also it's just injecting elements of, yeah, mostly social and fun into the traditionally more stuffy, you know, concept of dining out. right? And the reason why that's taking off here in Vietnam, I mean, first and foremost, it's very much a global trend. I think the new generation of, you know, travelers, you know, with millennials or even Gen Z, they're going to high-end restaurants and going to your traditional like Ritz Carlton and stuff, it's not something that is really appealing to them anymore, right? Which is why hotels are also changing. Now you have younger and cooler brands, like the edition and the like, right? So the hotel industry moved towards something like that because they could see that these big name brands did not appeal to the next generation anymore. Exactly. But in the same way, fine dining and sitting down on the white cloth and having that table side service just isn't what that same generation is looking for anymore. They want to be at the chef's counter, seeing the fire, interacting with people and having these exclusive experiences that meant a lot more for them. It wasn't about going to these really stuffy brands anymore and saying that they were there. They wanted to be one of the only few people to have this really cool thing that was happening and experiencing that with their friends, perhaps in a private setting. So that's what we're seeing, and that's the fun dining aspect. And that's what also inspired me to create these experiences. Because personally, as somebody who writes about the industry and get invited to many of these events, a lot of these events were very stuffy for me. It was always a steak and wine dinner, and I would have to sit down for four hours and drink wine next to people I didn't know. And I didn't want to do that, right? And I saw that those were the only things that were kind of happening in Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam. So I said, hey, you know what? There are just better ways to experience food that are more fun. but still achieve the objective of trying and experiencing this new wine and dining out with people. And so I created these experiences just to almost show the industry that there are just other ways to do things. And consumers would much prefer to attend such things. So we started doing that under this brand name called Saigon Supper Club. and bringing people together. And six months later, we've done about 10 dinners and dined at least 200 people. Kerry Newsome: And I think that that's clever. I think that you doing this in a social sense is really key because I think some of the the experience is like, I'll use the restaurant called, I think it's called Noir, the one that you go to in Ho Chi Minh City, where you actually dine in the dark. Like, you're totally in the dark. And funnily enough, a friend of mine went, and I wasn't able to go on the night, but she came back and she said, you know, out of the 10 courses that I ate in the dark, I couldn't even pick the whole 10 correctly. I only picked two out of the 10 dishes. correctly for the experience. And she absolutely loved about it. So, it wasn't just the food that was a great experience and fun. It was the fact that, you know, every other sense in her body was being tested to figure out the texture and the taste and, you know, what the smells were and things like that to try and figure out what that dish was. So, you know, I think that was one of the first examples I had of moving away from traditional stuffy type environments where, you know, you are just having one experience, which is just that set meal, to adding on another layer of the experience to have fun and guessing and things like that. And I see what you're doing with the supper club is where you're getting a mix of, you know, expats, some locals, some tourists, you know, curious people, you know, of all areas, regions who are coming in, who can get to meet other people. Because, you know, travel is about meeting people as well. And I think this is another lovely way to do it. So I'm really keen to hear more about that. Before we just jump into that, I'd like to, because my my listening audience, and I'm talking to you guys out there now, when you do come to Vietnam and you're going to be coming into the two major cities we're talking about, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. And people do, I know you ask, how long should I allow to stay in these places? Now, that's another interesting question to answer because if you do want to start enjoying the food culture and the food experiences, you'd need a few days to do it because you can't kind of gobble it all down in one day or probably even two days. So, you might need to allow, you know, some extra time in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to take advantage of these other aspects of enjoying Vietnamese food and the dining scene as we're seeing and talking about it now. So, if you were to look at… Let's do Hanoi first. If you were to pick a… Say, okay, Jovel, I'm coming into Hanoi, you know, I'm bringing my family, you know, we're really looking for a really nice restaurant, you know, we eat everything. So just, you know, where should we head to? Just give us a few and we'll check and see, you know, if we can get a booking and that sort of thing. So maybe, I went through your website, I found it very hard to pick which street. Jovel Chan : So, I think one of my definitely favorite restaurants is a restaurant called Gia. Kerry Newsome : Yes, I've seen that. That's Hanoi. Yeah. Jovel Chan: Yeah, so Gia is it truly is one like so this year it got one star but I visited them back in 2021 when it first opened and I knew that it was already something that was very very special because it does modern Vietnamese But the way they do it is really by… So in a lot of modern Vietnamese restaurants, a lot of the techniques are very much still very Western techniques. Kerry Newsome : But with a Vietnamese spin. Jovel Chan : A lot of the techniques are recognizably and distinctively Western, but perhaps the flavor, right? They've used Vietnamese herbs and spices. So in some of the modern Vietnamese restaurants, you can still see a beef tartare, which is very much from a French dish, right? But they'll use a Vietnamese quail egg. But in Zia, it is very distinctly Vietnamese. It's almost like imperial Vietnamese cuisine. It feels like that. Nothing really feels like it's from the West. It's just a pure elevation of everything that you've had in Vietnam, done in a way that is very noticeable in Asian and Vietnamese. And I think that's why it's so, so special. Kerry Newsome : Okay, so that's Gia in Hanoi. So what's the second one? Jovel Chan: Yeah, so Los Fuegos is a restaurant and it is a Brazilian steakhouse. I know it's very ironic, but it's from a guy and he is from South America and he spent quite a bit of time in Australia herding cattle. So he really knows his meat. And it's this really quaint little outdoor steakhouse space. And we have a very private area at the back where he has handcrafted this entire barbecue from scratch. So he's made it out of pure love. And it's such a nice little quaint space. And you go in there, and it's gorgeous, gorgeous meat and very, very well done. And more importantly, it has certain ingredients that are not particularly legal in Vietnam. And I don't mean anything, you know, like, too, too, too off the record, but they have like, you know, brain and certain, you know, innards, certain ingredients, you know, for some reason is banned. It's not allowed in Vietnam that he has it, which is a very traditional part of the cuisine. So I really appreciate going there and having that. And number three? Number three has to be, I think the cafes there are really, really, really good. I definitely enjoy the cafes there a lot. So if I had to pick number three, I would choose a cafe. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, but there's so many of them. I mean, I like some of the very well-known, even the Runam. I love the Runam. They are so quaint. Jovel Chan: Oh. Okay, so it has to be a restaurant. Oh, this is tricky then. Okay, I think one of my favourite restaurants in Hanoi then has to be, I think Labrie. Labrie is really good. L-A-B-R-I. Bistro. Kerry Newsome: So it's cafe, bistro, that kind, is it? Jovel Chan : Labri is dining. I've heard really good things about Chapter and Dung, but I've not been yet to be very honest. But I've been to Labri and I thought it was really good. Kerry Newsome: Let's move on to Ho Chi Minh City. Number one for Ho Chi Minh. Jovel Chan : Ho Chi Minh City. Kerry Newsome: This is very, very hot question to ask. When I get asked that question, I actually picked one of the Michelin star restaurants and that's Anan. Anan is, has never let me down, like seriously, anyone I send there just comes away with that many photos about food, even people that never take photos of food before, all of a sudden they're sending me photos of food from Anan, it's outstanding. Jovel Chan: Yeah. And then he just opened up a smaller, not a smaller, but a sister concept in the same building on the third floor. Oh, really? Kerry Newsome : Okay. I must check that out when I'm there. Jovel Chan : Yeah. So it's in the same building. It's got one by far, molecular far. So, you know, another place to stand. Excellent. All right. As for me, If ever the day Anan becomes really full and you need an alternative to send your guests to, my go-to modern Vietnamese restaurant is An's, a place called An's, A-N apostrophe S. N apostrophe S, that's conveniently. I know. So interestingly, An's is helmed by the ex-right hand of Peter, Kerry Newsome : Right, so a breakaway. Jovel Chan: Yeah, it's a breakaway, but the food is very different, I would say. Okay. Very different, but it's still very much modern Vietnamese. Yeah, with a chef counter and everything, it's a lot more quaint and less, I would say, creative and playful with the molecular and the one bite, but in the same vein as Zia Hanoi, it really elevates it from the core of Vietnamese cuisine. So it retains the sanctity of it a lot stronger. Kerry Newsome : The only other restaurant I have been in this sort of league, if for want of a better word, was A by Tung. That 20 degustation, oh my God, that was just outstanding. Jovel Chan : That's a really good one. Kerry Newsome : Oh my God, I was just in awe. I was totally in awe by that restaurant, but it's very expensive, but it's absolutely outstanding. So if you had a third, what would you pick for your third? Jovel Chan : A third restaurant in Saigon. I would say, oof, wish I had more time. I think for some, I always think, the place I always bring a lot of people to is Moi. I bring a lot of people to Moi, Moi Craft Sake, which opened up a year ago. Sorry, is that M-O-R-E? And M-U-A. Kerry Newsome : M-U-A, mm-hmm. Jovel Chan: Yeah, mùa is the word for seasons in Vietnamese. And the chef is a very, very talented chef that opened up the restaurant first in Hội An by the rice fields and everything. It's a very gorgeous restaurant. And then opened up mùa kraft sake, which is a lot more of like You know, it's very casual. It's like a hundred seat space in District 3 and you'll see a lot of people there drinking beer and craft sake. And this craft sake is made from Vietnamese rice and it's Vietnam's first sake. And it's actually really well done. So this chef, he loves Japanese cuisine and spent some time there. And he came back and created a menu that really nicely married Vietnamese and Japanese cuisine together. You've got that izakaya and you've got that street niao culture of eating and drinking in Vietnam. put put them together and pet it with beer, local beers and local craft sake together. So any point of time you go there, it's really busy. Energy and everything is really affordable. It's like, you know, that's in the 300 400 Raj telling you about So I bring everybody there just for like a good dinner so that they can still see what like Vietnamese cuisine can be beyond just street food, but at the same time, try things like they've got the tasting flights for Vietnamese sake. And yeah, it's always a good time. Kerry Newsome : Jovel, is there any particular sort of cuisines influencing other cuisines? Like we've talked about Vietnamese cuisine influencing some Western cultures, but is there some other cultures that are influencing Vietnamese? Like, is there some Japanese influence into Vietnamese? Is there, you know, some Korean influence into Vietnamese food? Is that coming the other way, working the other way back? Jovel Chan: I think Vietnamese cuisine in particular is very influenced from First and foremost, it was a country that was colonized its entire life, right? Vietnam was just continuously colonized by the French, obviously, you can see in the food, by the Chinese. And then you had a lot of people migrate out of Vietnam. They left to Europe and they left all over the world, the US and Australia. So when we come back and see Vietnamese cuisine, which is why I love looking at the dining scene, it's because when you see a lot of these restaurants, and depending on where the chef is from, most of the chefs, at least a year ago, don't spend time in Europe. So his food is Nordic. He calls it Nordic Vietnamese cuisine, right? Peter came from the States, Anan Saigon. You have a lot of these chefs, and depending on where they're coming from, it's influencing Vietnamese cuisine. And it's so interesting to tell people when you look at the cuisine itself, it's almost like a history story. Like you can tell exactly why. If you go to Ngo's restaurant in District 3, he spent time in Indonesia and Australia. So his modern Vietnamese cuisine and what he does is very different to what a lot of other chefs do. But everything, I went to a Vietnamese, a modern Vietnamese restaurant back in Singapore, and the chef went to the US and spent a lot of time working in Mexican restaurants. The food that came out was also very different, but still very uniquely Vietnamese. So when we look at Vietnamese cuisine, especially modern Vietnamese cuisine, those that are helmed by the second generation, like overseas chefs, right? grew up abroad and had to create and adapt to Vietnamese cuisine in that country, that also tastes different to whatever is from Vietnam. So there's a lot of these things. And that's why seeing the dining scene here, as compared to other countries in Southeast Asia or any other country, is very, very much reflective of that massive diaspora and in the 80s when everybody just left. Kerry Newsome: Our show is actually going to be the last show for 2023. So really, really… Oh my goodness. You are a Christmas gift, Jovel, all wrapped up in tasty food ideas. See, that's why I thought this was perfect, absolutely perfect. So, and I have so many travelers coming over for Christmas and New Year and then coming for TET and things like that. So, if we are to talk about, and I want us to explain, help me out here, I want us to explain just how Vietnam celebrates these Western culture events like Christmas because obviously Vietnam is not necessarily, it's a Buddhist predominant country. So, whilst it goes nuts in Saigon with Christmas decorations and Christmas fair, it's kind of still hard to isolate. What does Vietnam do for Christmas? You know, where do I, where do I book, you know, a Christmas dinner or a Christmas lunch or, yeah, can you help me out there? I really need some suggestions for Christmas fair and then New Year's Eve. What, where do people go for that? And then we're going to finish off and talk everything about that Saigon Supper Club because I think that sounds fabulous. I want to join. Jovel Chan: That's all right. Thank you. So let's start talking about Christmas. So Christmas in Vietnam, if you're traveling to Vietnam for Christmas, you've definitely got no shortage of options, especially in the hotels. All the hotels will do some set menu. A lot of them will also do your Christmas brunch. and a number of restaurants here and there, but in terms of a Christmas market or Christmas festival, there isn't something that exists here on a grand scale. You have the neighbourhood Christmas markets, which are a showcase of local artisans and brands that come to the fore, that are usually hosted by individual restaurants, like let's say Luzin, and stuff like that. There are small little pockets of Christmas markets, and I believe if you go along Nguyen Hue Street, you can see a couple of lights and a few baskets doing here and there. But if you're looking for a full-on Christmas outfit like in Europe, then you're definitely not going to see that here. Kerry Newsome: It's more the neon lights. Jovel Chan : But that's not just anywhere. Yeah, it's more the neon lights and, you know, the wiener house, Christmas music that comes on. And of course, it's always a party that follows after. So we saw that with more of the Western holidays here in Vietnam, like, you know, Halloween, let's say, or the like, are big reasons to throw a party. So, you know, head for dinner at perhaps, you know, one of the restaurants or a Christmas brunch to get that festive spirit. And then thereafter, you know, definitely I'm sure the bar scene will take that over a lot stronger than let's say the dining room. Kerry Newsome : And then New Year's Eve, is there any good spots for New Year's Eve? Jovel Chan : So New Year's Eve, similarly with Christmas, you'll see a lot of hotels during New Year's Eve. Mainly hotels, especially for brunch. A lot of restaurants don't necessarily do a New Year's Eve brunch, they'll do a set menu. Yeah, because, you know, wastage and costs and if you want people to work on these public holidays, you would pay them three times as much. At that point of time, I think a lot of the restaurants are like, hey, you know what, we probably won't get that many people because, you know, we've got our own festivities or perhaps they're not in Vietnam celebrating. So why do we want to do a brunch? So it's usually for the hotels to take over. Kerry Newsome : I have a prediction. I reckon in the next few years they'll be doing more around Christmas and Christmas lunches because the Westerners are coming and they've got to have Christmas lunch or dinner somewhere. And obviously places that cater to that are going to be in high demand. Jovel, let's finish up and I'd really like to throw it to you now to talk about what you're doing with the Saigon Supper Club, you know, just your passion behind it. I'm really keen to, because it's new and it sounds fabulous. So, over to you. Jovel Chan: Oh, thank you. So Saigon Supper Club are basically dinner experiences where people come. It's very much a food but also social experience where we host groups of 10 to 15 people in very unique spaces. So we've done ones on rooftops, we've done ones in farmhouses, we've done ones in wine cellars. And in the same vein as fun dining, it's to make dining fun. And we also bring people such as the bartenders and the chefs and they also all get involved to interact with the people and the diners and also showcase at the same time modern Vietnamese cuisine and also other products such as craft gin. We've done rum before, we've done chocolate pairing. So in this one little dinner, you get to really interact with a lot of things that allow you to also indulge in the food culture that is super new in Vietnam, right? The dining scene here. So that's what we've been doing with Saigon Supper Club. And we're in the midst of launching new experiences. We're doing Cocktail Cinema Club, where it's basically outdoor cinema experiences where we bring in our food and beverage partners. And what we're trying to do here in Vietnam is to create occasions for people to enjoy food and drink. Right now, you can only experience it within the four walls of a restaurant. But that's not how you should be enjoying or learning how to dine. or how to enjoy food just within the four walls of the restaurant. So we need to create these events and festivals and make it fun and attract people by coming out to do something new and novel, like an outdoor cinema on the rooftop in the middle of District 1. And through there, be like, hey, you know what? Here's a glass of wine. And get them to try new things in this manner. Otherwise, it will just always be stuffy. Otherwise, for the first time, people are trying wine and it's in a restaurant in perhaps a way that they can't afford it. So that's what we want to do. We want to make dining and drinking and going out and experiencing food very fun. That's why it was also the inspiration to create a lot of these events and experiences to just encourage people to come out, meet other like-minded people and build habits that encourage them to take the second step and make dining in Vietnam a lot more sustainable beyond just something stuffy like steak and wine. We're launching our first cocktail cinema In Christmas time, we're showing Love Actually. We managed to get it with subtitles, fully licensed. And we have an audio solution provider that allows people to just watch the movie with their own AirPods or earphones, you know, no crazy sound systems and stuff. So it's going to be a really, really… Do you have a date for that? We are finalizing the date with the venue at the moment, but once I do, I'll let you know. We will invite our craft beer and cider and wine friends to come in here to do You know, that's the place where people can actually try it in a very casual, fun and local way. Kerry Newsome : And I think that social interaction, you know, where you can, you know, you can stand around with people and say, what do you think? And you know, that tastes a bit like this. Did you try this one? And it's just all that sharing is so much fun and makes it just, I think that much more enjoyable. In just closing up, Jovel, is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't ask you when we're talking about dining and the dining scene in Vietnam? Should I have asked you something and I didn't get around to it? Jovel Chan: No, but you should be asking me, you know, when the next time you're going to be in Vietnam and go out for coffee, very offended about that. Asking me when you can take me out for lunch, perhaps? Kerry Newsome : Yes, I will. Definitely. I'm writing that down as we speak. I'm going to make sure that I put your links so that people can go to your website because your website's fantastic, by the way. It's got some great information and your blog. Thank you so much. You've really got some great information. So, people, get onto that website and check out. all her information on the restaurants. If you want some great ideas to share with your family, friends, or when you're over there, don't miss out on that link and it'll be in the show notes. Jovel, I just want to say thank you again for being on the show. You've been a wonderful guest and I'm just grateful for your time. Jovel Chan : Thank you so much for having me. Happy dining.

0996e913-3e85-43d0-94f7-b082c48fd09aInsights into Vietnam travel beyond 2021 What About Vietnam – 3-1 Travel Industry experts share their insights into Vietnam beyond 2021 [00:00:36] Kerry Newsome: Xin chào, and welcome to What About Vietnam. What a week! Can you believe the news that has been coming through about Vietnam? It's staggering. I’m so concerned for Vietnam. I really feel for everyone at the moment. While the numbers in Vietnam have been focused largely on the North and they still are, I think the rising numbers in Ho Chi Minh City is where the most recent concern is coming through. Yes, it's very hard to know. It's a watch and wait and see, just how they can get on top of this as quickly as possible, but I have every confidence that Vietnam can do it as they did in the very early stages of the pandemic back in 2020. Look, just to give some context, I've got the guests on this show, which are going to really give you some industry perspectives, Gary Bowerman and Hannah Pearson from The South East Asia Travel Show. They have their own podcast, and I was on their show a couple of weeks ago. In that show, I was reminded of just how important it is to get really good advice and to get it from experts. If you're like me, I’m getting a lot of information through news feeds and Facebook pages and Instagram groups and all that chatter that is out there. It's very hard to try and feel like you're getting the right advice or the best advice. I’m really delighted to have Hannah and Gary on. In no way in my show am I trying to give you COVID updated advice as in a minute. It's just impossible to do, and it's not really the aim of my show. The aim of my show is to give you the best possible advice I can get you to help you make informed decisions about traveling to Vietnam in the future, so that you can hear from travelers from their own perspectives. Today is just going to give you that extra industry information. We're going to talk about vaccination rollouts in Vietnam. We're going to talk about Visas. We're going to talk about domestic versus international. We're going to talk about just how Vietnam gives priority to their own residents, similarly to all of us, but with a population of nearly 100 million, it's a big deal for them. It's going to be a big deal to get the vaccination rollout there. A lot to be revealed in this program today. I know you're going to love it, and I’m sure Gary and Hannah are really going to give you some insights you may not have thought about. Stay tuned and please welcome Gary and Hannah to the program. [music] Welcome Hannah and Gary to the What About Vietnam Podcast. [00:03:48] Gary Bowerman: Hi, Kerry. [00:03:48] Hannah Pearson: Thanks for having us. [00:03:50] Kerry: I’m thrilled to have you on the show to get a travel industry perspective. Our news feeds fill up hourly with advice on COVID, travel restrictions and latest outbreaks. It's hard to keep up and to know what source to trust. The media is driving much of the information we consume. As hosts of the Southeast Asia Travel Show Podcast, I know you both are heavily involved within the Asia Pacific travel and tourism industry. Gary, I know, is closely monitoring the situation in roles working with the Mekong Tourism Advisory Group, leading hotel groups, tourism boards and online travel agents. Hannah, you provide a very influential weekly report tracking the impact of COVID-19 on the Southeast Asian tourism industry and working hard within the industry tracking trends developing within the Southeast Asian and Muslim travel sectors. I’m sure my listeners are going to be very keen to hear your take on how this region is shaping up as a whole and what's in store for travel in the second half of 21 and beyond. Without further ado, and I’m not sure who to throw this question to, so guys feel free to jump in as you see fit. When you think of Vietnam, what springs to mind first, given the current state of affairs, re-travel, and also there's still a record thus far? [00:05:19] Hannah: Maybe I'll go first then. I think the thing that really stands out for me about Vietnam is just how efficiently they have handled everything so far. To date and I checked out the case numbers this morning, they've had less than 6,000 new cases since the beginning of this thing. That is, for me, super impressive, especially when you look at countries like Indonesia, Philippines who have crossed the million mark. They're countries with a similar population size. They've also got a lot of people, but Vietnam has somehow managed to really control this. I think a lot of that comes down to how fast they react. They react very fast with pretty strict measures, but those seem to be working. What we really saw last year, I think, was they were one of the few bright spots in terms of domestic tourism in the region. Their domestic tourism was really going somewhere. I think when it comes to 2021 things, I’m not saying that they're falling apart. [chuckles] They're not at Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines levels, but we have started to see more increases, more frequency of surges, right? Right now, Vietnam is in this fourth wave. I think it is. Each time they're getting a bit more complicated, so this time I think they couldn't really track necessarily where they come from. There's lots of different origins. There's lots of different variants as well. Things are getting increasingly difficult to manage, but things still seem to be fairly under control right now. [00:06:50] Gary: I would agree with everything that Hannah said. I think it's certainly last year-- as you say, it's a little bit more difficult now because the variance of this virus and its transmissibility across Southeast Asia is proving very, very difficult. Vietnam is just one of the countries that's really struggling right now. Certainly last year and early part of this year, I’d say that Vietnam was the closest to China in terms of the speed that it actually responded and the way it closed down local outbreaks, tracking and tracing, very, very strong focus on that, which is something we haven't had here in Malaysia. I’d say that Vietnam's success was the way that it just responded incredibly quickly to each outbreak. You mentioned there the economy, which is a very, very important part. That's one of the reasons we've discussed on the podcast about "Will Vietnam reopen? When will it reopen?" There's a school of thought that says it doesn't really need to reopen yet because it does need to protect that economy, and it also needs to make sure that it keeps everybody safe and secure, keeps the economy moving because of investment. I don't think there's any doubt that when COVID is done and gone. The two big investment destinations in our region will be Vietnam and Indonesia. That's already happening anyway. [00:08:07] Kerry: Correct. [00:08:06] Gary: That's where international investors are looking for the future. A lot of the investment you already have in the North of Vietnam is companies that were operating in China and have actually diversified some of their operations out of China into Vietnam for a number of reasons. That will continue in future. The economic prospects for Vietnam should be pretty strong in future. The fundamentals are there, but I 100% agree with you, Kerry. It's a really difficult balancing act right now. I would say that international tourism probably isn't the highest priority. It's protecting people and protecting the economy. [00:08:41] Kerry: Getting on to a bigger picture thinking, what do you think are going to be, just from your observations, the biggest changes in the way we travel? Do you think there's going to be some things in the way we travel that are going to be temporary or short-lived or will there be some that are going to be permanent fixtures? [00:09:03] Gary: That is the million dollar question . We get asked it all the time. We ask ourselves it all the time. I think a lot of the work that I do, particularly over the last year when travel has been paused essentially, is that I work a lot in consumer economies, so Vietnam and Indonesia, the two economies that we look at mostly. We've looked a great deal at the way consumers have behaved over the past year. It's been great change. We read these media stories about everybody's moving online. People are buying certain products online that they didn't buy before they're buying more of other products. There are a lot of other behavioral changes as well, particularly in terms of the way consumers respond to media campaigns, the way they respond to video campaigns. Lots of things have changed over the past year. You notice I mentioned before that I think Vietnam and Indonesia are going to be the two strongest economic sectors going forward. There's a lot of projections are starting to happen. This is what happened in travel. When things start to go well, people start projecting 10 years down the road or five years down the road. I think with consumers as with travelers, there's a great deal of uncertainty right now. There could be a lot of the things that we're seeing happening now. I just experienced during the pandemic because there's a lot of things we can't do. We are socially distanced. We have movement restrictions "Which come and go" We have the fear of the virus, which is a huge, huge fear. I think in terms of what travel will be like in the future and the way consumers will respond in future is a great unknown. I think the travel industry itself is looking for all these ways to try and model what could happen in future. They are great unknowns, and I think anybody who actually puts the neck on the line and predicts this is making a big risk. [00:10:42] Hannah: This is something that Gary and I always say that we've never seen so much tourism industry featured in the media in Southeast Asia and worldwide. It's almost the-- I guess this is going to be the last thing that gets back to normal, so perhaps it's what everybody is focusing on, right? "Oh, flights have opened up." People get excited about that because it's like that step towards normality. I think one big change that Vietnam has perhaps seen over the last year is this expansion of domestic flight networks, so we've seen airlines like Vietjet, like Vietnam Airlines and like Bamboo Airways add secondary tertiary routes, linking different destinations that were perhaps never linked before to open those up and a lot more cooperation between provinces as well in terms of promoting one another and creating interesting different routings. I do think that that is going to continue. I don't think that that will be temporary. I think once those routes are there and people see that the markets are there, that's going to continue. [00:11:45] Kerry: Typically Vietnam, they are brilliant at reinventing themselves. They have such an ability to make an opportunity out of adversity. There'll be people that were selling one thing one day and will now realize that they need to go into something else because guess what? The market's changed. Their adaptability is something to be admired, and we're seeing this everywhere in all the major tourist hubs in Vietnam, where people were running restaurants one minute. Now, they've got an amazing takeaway business that will be their new business moving forward. They just adapt and move on. [00:12:31] Gary: I think there's an element of that. I think the adaptability is absolutely true, but I think that it's often underplayed just how much creativity there is in Vietnam, particularly in the major hubs. If you look at Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, particularly amongst young people, young creatives, young media, young fashion, young lifestyle, young music, they're really vibrant hubs right now. I said this before on the podcast that those two cities really remind me of what I lived in China in the early 2000s. Shanghai and Beijing were going through a very similar competitive scenario where there was a lot of creativity in Beijing, there was a lot of creativity in Shanghai. They often played off each other. The nation was benefiting from that because young people were really at the forefront of creating a new lifestyle in many ways. I see that a lot of parallels with that in Vietnam right now. [00:13:19] Kerry: Yes, and I was talking to a girl. We were talking about Saigon during 2020, and she was talking about how entrepreneurs literally who were found themselves stuck in Vietnam during 2020. We were all locked down, but these people were on the spot, putting together small events. DJs also found themselves, and musicians found themselves in Saigon. They were doing secret weekends away with these great fantastic events. People decided to expand their businesses. There's been further development in craft beers and rooftop bars. People just made the best of it in the best possible way and just turned their entrepreneurial heads. I just really admire them, the way they can do it. [music] What did the industry miss as far as developments were concerned in their forecasting and feeding the media, etc.? What was the most overlooked development do you think so far? [00:14:38] Hannah: I think a lot of it is down to that cooperation internationally. I think we've really seen a lack of nations not working together with one another. We've certainly seen that, haven't we? With the vaccination rollout, and countries very much keeping vaccines to themselves. But just in terms of, you know, you said everyone thought vaccines were going to be the be all and end all. Nobody seemed to think beyond that. "What happens when you are vaccinated? With vaccine certificates, are they going to be issued? Are they not? What format should they be? Should they be digital?" But does it matter what vaccine you had? Does it matter the length of time between these vaccines being administered, the different doses. There's so many different variables. This is one of my big bug bears that I’m always saying, "I just don't know why people didn't think about this sooner." We should be thinking about that this time last year, at the same time as developing these vaccines, so that once the vaccines were ready, everything "Boom" could be rolled out as-- well, never, things are never going to go smoothly, but as fast and as efficiently as possible. That's not been the case. [00:15:47] Gary: Yes, I would agree. I think the major developments in terms of how we respond to COVID-19 worldwide, but in Asia as well, have been scientific. Hannah's a big advocate of testing new testing protocols. There's been a lot of innovations in testing. We've seen saliva test, breath tests, all these different kinds of testing protocols are available now. The problem we don't really understand is the travel industry wants to get back to the way things were before, and that scale, that’s big numbers. That isn't going to happen anytime soon even with vaccines. There is going to have to be some interim period where we allow people to travel again in a phased and staggered manner. That will inevitably involve removing quarantines. We have to get rid of quantities if you're going to have people travel. This simply is a massive disincentive. To do that you need really good testing, and you need to make sure that it's robust, that it works, that it's accurate and is verifiable across countries. As Hannah said, this lack of integration and almost trust between different governments is just palpable and getting worse, I think. The issue we have is the science, the technology, much of it is there, but the bureaucratic side of things is stymieing everything right now. [00:17:05] Kerry: Yes, and I’m really glad you brought that up because that's what I’m saying, too, that cohesion, that transparency between countries, that sharing of knowledge. We thought that scientists getting to be able to create a vaccine in such a short amount of time. That was sheer genius, and that was great cooperation within countries and sharing their expertise. You're right that they got to there, but then, okay, well, how were we going to verify that? Where was the credibility factor going to come in that you or me, we are vaccinated with the level of vaccination that a country will accept us? [00:17:48] Gary: Yes, I agree. I think it's a two-way thing as well. It's not just vaccinations for travelers is vaccinations for residents at the other end. You've got to have people feeling confident and safe and not wary of foreigners coming into the destination for the first time in 18 months or two years or whatever that is. There is going to be a changing mindset as well. I think the other thing that this region is really struggling with at the moment is empathy towards people who don't want to have a vaccine. There are many reasons why people don't want to get a vaccine. Governments are really having this hard view of "Well, you take it, or you don't take it." There's got to be a better understanding of reasons why people don't want to take it and trying to control people rather than trying to use a stick approach. You've got to look at some opportunities, I think. Because I think one of the things we're seeing here in Malaysia is the vaccine roll is incredibly slow. A lot of that is also because people are not turning up for appointments, and in in some cases, simply just not registering. But there is a bit of a slow role. You're starting to see that more people are encouraged when they see their friends or their relatives posting on social media they're getting vaccinated. It's slow, but it does happen. I think there is just this, like you said, this idea that vaccines are a panacea, and that will happen within a few months. We're finding out that that just isn't going to be possible. [00:19:10] Hannah: It's not only this year, but it's what's going to happen next year and boosters. I think a lot of countries see this finite end to it. It's not, is it? It's not going to end once you've got to 70%. It's just going to have to keep going at least for another few years. I think there's still not that realization in governments yet that that's the plan. It's very easy for Laos to say, "Oh, we're going to reach herd immunity in 2022." But by that point, many countries would have already been on the-- they'll be on the booster doses by then. They're not going to be just on the first round of herd immunity. [00:19:47] Kerry: That's how the narrative I can see going. It'll be like, "Oh, well, you had the shot back in 21. You haven't had the booster in 22, so does that make you, then, less of a good traveler or less of the ideal traveler?" When I’m filling out my Visa application to enter a country, are they going to ask me when was your COVID vaccination? When was your last? And is there going to be some algorithm, we'll say. "Oh, no. Cut her off because it's been 12 months since she's had it. She hasn't had the booster." All of this validation kind of stuff, I just see maybe my crystal ball is going a bit crazy at the moment. [00:20:33] Gary: I think that's a really good point. That often doesn't come up. I’ve not heard in discussions. I’ve heard about vaccines that "When did you have your vaccine? Does that actually impact your ability to apply for a Visa?" Not heard much about that. I think it's absolutely true. [00:20:49] Kerry: All right, so I’m going to throw the real curly at you now because I’m going to talk about travel bubbles. Because there's been a few that have burst recently, and I've been watching very closely those travel bubbles that were on the table for Vietnam. Do you see travel bubbles still to be relevant, and can you maybe share what you're hearing that could be the country match-ups there in the Southeast Asian region? [00:21:23] Gary: “ Travel bubble” is the word that we have been asked about and used the most in on our podcast, on interviews, everything. It's a moving feast. I think "Let's go back. Let's look at the origin of travel bubbles." That was Australian, New Zealand back in April last year. It took a year for it to actually happen, but it was proposed by New Zealand, and agreed with by Australia. There were very specific circumstances about that if you look at the two countries, very isolated geographically, strong travel flows between the two countries, manage the virus very well. There is trust between the two populations. There's a lot of people live in each other's countries. They work in each other's countries. They are very complementary in that sense. There's no borders as well. There's no land borders to get in the way. In Southeast Asia, we have very poorest land borders. That was almost the template for travel bubbles, but also I think it was the limit of travel bubbles. I just don't think they work in Southeast Asia. I don't really see how you can have travel bubbles across borders. They're not going to work. I think the idea that it has actually got up and running in Australia and New Zealand in recent months. You've had these slight pauses during that time, but generally it's working quite well. Even Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand prime minister said last week that they are really only a short-term expedient that going forward, it will be about vaccinated travel. I think that's the way that the Southeast Asia will be moving forward. The terminology of travel bubbles will probably continue to get used, but I think we're looking more-- the reopenings that are being proposed are generally about vaccinated travel. Will they be with specific markets? Well, possibly yes, possibly no, but I’m not sure that's actually a travel bubble. As you say that's because both destinations are looking at absolute numbers, and they are worried about extrapolation of numbers. The problem with that is that doesn't really give anybody any confidence to travel because if you know that you're going to be traveling to a destination where you could get trapped and you wouldn't be able to get back or you're going to have to stay longer than you hoped for. I was listening to a podcast with Tourism Australia quite recently. They said one of the problems that the bubble with Australia, New Zealand is encountering at the moment isn't a fear of COVID. It's a fear of COVID outbreaks occurring in your home destination or where you're traveling to. You're going to have to spend a lot longer, and it's going to cost you a lot more money. That's the problem with bubbles when they're not vaccine related, I think. In terms of Southeast Asia, I think that the trust between countries is so low right now. Whether we're going to have bubbles between countries is difficult. In Southeast Asia, we're so reliant on the Chinese market as well. We're so reliant on Japan and South Korea as well that those markets are so vital in revitalizing travel in this region. Without them, even if you have a bubble between Southeast Asian countries, the way the economies are at the moment, the way the case numbers are, the way that the fear of the virus is right now, the actual travel flows will be pretty low. If you're going to open a bubble right now in the region, you've been looking at long-haul travels. You can look probably Americans or Europeans. We don't really know how long-haul travel is going to-- it's going to pan out right now. It's a very difficult situation. It's very difficult for governments. Governments do get a lot of criticism for the way they're managing this, but the other argument is that most Asian countries are being cautious. They are putting safety first. [00:24:50] Kerry: What do you envisage then for Vietnam for the second half and first quarter of 22? [00:24:55] Gary: I think in terms of domestic tourism, what we will probably see because of the-- I wouldn't say the fear factor, but I think the uncertainty that's been created by this new role as I think we'll start to see more shorter trips, probably day trips, driving trips. I think we'll see a lot more of that. Perhaps in the last quarter of the year, confidence will return, and you might start to see people flying a little bit further domestically. I think for the foreseeable future, there is going to be a bit of caution. I think the industry will have to build that in. [00:25:27] Kerry: Even for the domestic traveler within Vietnam, the possibility that they could end up in 21 days quarantine. That would have to be a serious consideration for them as well because they wouldn't get that time off from their jobs, or they just wouldn't have the luxury of time or money to do that. I think they would have to make a very educated guesses to where they would go for those trips. It would have to be 100% guaranteed, I think, for them to feel that they're not going to get trapped in that. Because as you said, Hannah, Vietnam took very decisive action very early on. If they even suspected for a moment that you could be a carrier or whatever, you were taken to the side of the road, and you were tested, or you were put in quarantine because I was there in March 2020. It was decisive action, and they're still doing it. They will do on-the-spot fines in Saigon if you are not wearing a mask. They deem it if they decide that that could be hazardous to people around them. Yes, it is going to be watching the clock. I am concerned about the roll out of their vaccination. You're right, the population of 100 million, and in certain regions, how they would even get the vaccination to certain regions of Vietnam? Where some people-- I was talking to a guy yesterday said, "Some people work on one side of the border and live on the other." There is cross-pollination happening there. We could sit here and talk, couldn't we? It's a full-time job. Let's face it. [00:27:27] Gary: It really is. When you came onto our podcast a couple of weeks ago, Kerry, we threw a curve ball at you. We said, "What about international travel? When's that going to happen?" You answered it very, very carefully and very, very well. Since you've been on podcast, have you heard anything more-- what are people saying from your contacts about the likelihood of an international reboot? [00:27:49] Kerry: From Australia? [00:27:50] Gary: No, in terms of Vietnam. [00:27:56] Kerry: Look. As I intimated at the beginning of the show, the indications are to me that Vietnam will, and doesn't at the moment, have as a priority travel, international travel. For their GDP, international travel, I think, ranges somewhere between, I don't know, 10-11%. Their manufacturing is going through the roof. Their financial investment is going through the roof. As a country, they're doing really well. I just don't think they want to muddy the waters with international travel as dubious as it is at the moment. So it's not a problem. It is a problem for the future for us who want to go back and travel, I think. What I’m also seeing is Vietnam working very hard at sustaining travel operators and travel businesses by incentivizing their domestic market. If you've got 96 million people being able to move around, you've got a very decent domestic travel market that hasn't really been nurtured in the past. I know Hội An was absolutely in jubilation with domestic travelers during Tết because they had the old town to themselves. It was back to being theirs 100%. We weren't there. There are very few expats still in Vietnam, and not being encouraged to stay, I might add. I’m hearing lots of noise around people with Tourist Visas that are not being encouraged to stay or not being allowed to renew their Tourist Visa. As you say, it's a movable feast, that's for sure, and certainly, keeps me in a full-time role as I know it does you guys, too- [00:29:59] Gary: ( laugh) [00:29:59] Kerry: -just to work out what next and try and to give people the insights that you hear and you find with some level of credibility, knowing that it could change in a heartbeat. [00:30:12] Gary: I think you really nailed it there. One of the most difficult aspects of predicting or even looking at the way international travel will go in future is just this stop-start nature of domestic travel, until domestic travel is on a more even keel. It certainly isn't possible to consider international travel for a number of reasons, not just governmental, but just the comfort and safety and the confidence of local people. I think that is going to be absolutely vital in most countries, in Asia, how they deal with this going forward. [00:30:43] Kerry: Absolutely, look, Gary and Hannah, thank you so much for being on the show. It's been a privilege to have you on, given your busy schedules. Let's hope our next chat will be about travel destinations opening up in the region and maybe thriving under some new sustainable travel models. I just want to say thank you again. [00:31:04] Gary: Thanks very much, Kerry. It's great to be on the show. [music] [00:31:07] 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.

1af68691-5373-4368-b065-0bf15aeb9b4cWorld's largest cave at Phong Nha National Park. What About Vietnam - Series 2 - 9 Discover Phong Nha and the largest cave on the planet Kerry Newsome : So to kick it off. Maybe we just tell everyone. Where is Phong Nha, You know, Where is it located? Ben Mitchell : Okay, Phong Nha is located 300 kilometers north of Danang. Ah, 200 kilometers north of Hue. Um, if you were to get an overnight train from Hanoi or from Phong Nha to Hanoi, Hanoi down, you could have a break here on your way from Hanoi to get to Hoi An.. Um, There's flights to Dong Hoi City, which is 50 kilometers from Phong Nha from both Saigon and Hanoi On board, most people come usually on their way to or from Hoi An between Hue and Hanoi. Kerry Newsome: Right, Okay, because I probably wouldn't have thought about it that way. I probably would have thought I'd fly to Hanoi, do my Halong Bay stay and do my Hanoi stuff. And then I would pick up a flight to Dong Hoi. Ben Mitchell: Yeah, you could do that., But to get to Hoi An on from here, you really have to go overland because we don't have flights into Phong Nha, so that would be a good way to do it. You could fly down from Hanoi to Don Hoi and then go from from us, overland. One of the best sort of cross sections I believe that you could do in Vietnam would be to go from Phong Nha, down the HCM Trail as a day trip; stay overnight, and then go from bike on over to Vin Moc tunnels and around the DM zone, the older militarized zone from during the war, and then stay overnight in a way and then do another one day transit trip, if you like stopping a different places between Hue and Hoi An. It would be sort of three days from Hoi An to Phong Nha. Seeing a great cross section of both culture, historical jungle, minority people, beaches, different types of architecture. The whole cross section over three days, Central Vietnam. Kerry Newsome: Now we're going to get into a little bit more about things that people should look out for when planning this kind of trip. Uh, maybe give us some background a little bit. How you found yourself in in Phong Nha as a foreigner, like you've you've established a life there. So you know how did Phong Nha now come up on your radar? Ben Mitchell: Well, I met my wife, BEC, when I first came out working in Vietnam, and she brought me up to Phong Nha nearly 15 years ago. To meet the family and Phong Nha was very, very undeveloped back then. Um, there wasn't really any tourism to speak off. They got some busy domestic tourism on the long weekends in summer coming out from Dong Hai on day trips. Um, but it was very, very low key. And the national park wasn't open to tourism at that time. It was only the Phong Nha cave on the edge of the National Park, which was a boat trip. The ferry crossing in Sun Track Village, which is now sort of all purpose, is called Phong Nha. Um and I came here then and fell in love with the area. Um, a few years later, my wife and I decided to have a try at opening a tourism business for foreigners to come to the area to try and encourage foreigners to come to the area. And that is what is called Phong Nha Farmstay. We opened that in 2010 after having people sort of staying at a house for the year or two before that, at a parent's house in hammocks. After that we decided we opened up our farm stay. And that did encourage foreign tourists to come to Phong Nha very quickly and from our farm stay and then it hit the ground running throughout 2011. Um, yeah, and sort of it's growing quickly since then. Kerry Newsome: It has kind of been an evolution, hasn't it? Because I remember when I started coming to Vietnam, you know, like, this is only about 14 years ago, but, uh, it really wasn't hitting any headlines. It wasn't hitting any tourist list. But then all of a sudden, as you say, six or seven years ago, it started to get meaty media attention. And just a little I had to do with Vietnam tourism, the VNAT. All of a sudden, there was this cave system, and very quickly people were setting up businesses like yourself and and others to meet that demand, which was fantastic. And I think there's also been some further discoveries of caves in recent times, that has broadened that openness and an eagerness of people to say, “Hey, we need to include this on our map”. Traditionally, Vietnam had featured the hot spots of you know, Hanoi, HCMC. and Hoi An, Hue. Where Now Vietnam is opening up to these outer regions because, as you said, there's just so much more to greet you in these places, including minority groups, including culture, crafts and, local cuisine, etc So, uh, just when we're talking about the caves themselves, I mean, you've been there and seen a lot. They've been opening up and developing, tell us about the caves that you'd suggest would be kind of meeting the average person's ability to explore, to spend time in and and really enjoy their stay there. What caves would you suggest? ABOUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CAVES Ben Mitchell : Well, the caves could sort of be divided into three categories. If you like. One would be the show caves, the Paradise cave, the dark cave, the Fungal cave, the TSien Cave, um. These caves are set up to accept mass tourism. So busses can pull up in car parks and they are set up with infrastructure that can move people either by boat or zip line or up and down staircases and walkways, um, into and out of the caves. That would be one category. Another category would be the more Adventure Caves that are for doing day trips to and maybe overnight trips to. And they would be what I would consider great for tourists to go and have a really adventurous experience of trekking in the jungle and visiting a cave. Maybe, as I say, maybe for a day trip and then coming back and having a swim in the pool and a gin and tonic watching the sunset from there, Or, from a bar somewhere around Phong Nha. Or maybe they do an overnight trip where they camp in the cave and they have the right cook dinner by the local jungle man. And yeah, thats fun. So the third category that I would suggest would be the, uh, multi night caves so they could go into the two lung system for many, many nights of camping and trekking and adventure of course this includes the Son Doong cave, which is Ah, a four day trip usually. The moment you are in Son Doong you're actually tracking to a different location every night. In either solely the Han Son Doong cave or in some of caves and do the other trips. You could be going to different caves and different campsites every day. And they would be the more\, adventurous ones. That would be, I would consider, would be not probably for everyone, but definitely for people who want to do something that's going to be outside the box. Kerry Newsome: And I think they are the ones, that multi night cave trips that are featured in those,trekking tour brochures. They're the ones that always seemed to sit on all the websites and feature all the amazing pictures. Because I know when I did a VNAT tour a couple of years ago and I went... God, these caves are amazing. But then when I drilled down to it, I found out that, you know, it was a 7 kilometer cave and, you know, you could spend four or five nights and maybe not get through, plus when you've got a book; Sometimes two years in advance. I mean, we're sitting here in the middle of September and the middle of Covid 2020 so I'm not sure how that's affecting future plans. But prior it was about a two year in advance kind of booking, set up, that you would have to make to even get on one of those as an experienced trekker. And secondly, they were quite expensive. Those multi night ones, Um, all right, CAVING SEASON FEBRUARY - SEPTEMBER Ben Mitchell: Yeah, its September, and currently looking like the caving season for, say, Hang Son Dong,( which they refer to as its full name) the world's biggest tour finished here about a week ago now, due to the chance off Typhoon or Big Storm coming in from the Pacific at this time of year. Uh, Oxalis, the company that runs the tours, stops tours between now and the end of January to the world's biggest cave. Kerry Newsome: And that's nothing to do with Covid, is it? That's just seasonal. HOW THE CAVES ARE RUNNING DURING COVID Ben Mitchell: Well, it was quite funny. Strange things happen like when when Covid came. Obviously, a lot of people canceled the holidays with Oxalis and a lot of people postponed till next year, Um, or to even the year after, We were lucky enough, as a lot of Vietnamese people and expats who live in Vietnam, then took the tour. So the tour has been running as busy as it normally would do, right throughout Covid, with domestic and expatriate tourism. Uh, yeah, so looking at next year at the moment, they're running 15 tours per month, so it runs on a 15 out of 30 days and looking at numbers at the moment, they've got some openings. WHAT IS 2021 LOOKING LIKE? The caves will be opened up on around the 27th of, January. They've still got some places open on the 29th. February is quite busy. They do have a few places left, March is booked out. But April is, um, April still open. Like if you want to go next year, there's still a lot of places open for that. So it's not like when they say, booking a year out? Well, yeah, there's There's 15 trips per month and 10 people can go per trip. So you're looking at about 150 people a month going through from January till September, excluding TET holiday, which they’ll be closed down for for a little while over TeT in February. Kerry Newsome: I really appreciate you breaking up the caves in categories, as in that, you know, one category being the show caves, as in they're the ones where I see all the as you say, bulk tourists, um, you know, cramming themselves into busses and other kinds of vehicles, etc and flooding those caves. And then you've got the “adventurers” caves. Then you're going to get people that are going to spend, you know, two or three days, um, exploring. And then you've got the really experienced, uh, trekker Who's going to take on that quite strenuous caving through Son Doong, because, you know, that's not just for your average bear. Let's face it like I don't know about you, but I certainly know about me, and Im not sure I would be up for it. WHAT FITNESS LEVEL DO YOU NEED TO TREK SON DOONG? Ben Mitchell: It is mainly is for walking, like if you can walk a few kilometers a day, you'd be right to do the world's biggest cave. It's not, for people that can't walk and balance is helpful. Yeah! Kerry Newsome : Balance.!!! And, you know, having the right gear, the right footwear HELPS. You know, not being worried about squeezing your body through, small crevices. Yeah. Darkness. Yeah. Actually, I read something that the stalagmites in size can be related to the Big Ben in London. Is that kind of a little bit of an overstep in creative license description? I mean, is that true, that they are that big? Ben Mitchell: Makes a big day. Yeah. Yeah, that's how big they are. Yeah. So Kerry Newsome: When you walk…. Ben Mitchell: through it, it feels like you're in Notre Dame Cathedral. But you're a Lego man. Hahahah! Yes. Wow. God. My mother's done it. Um, my, I've done it. Um, I have a lot of different people come from, and so long as you can, you keep yourself physically moving for a few days. You can do it. There's a little bit of rope work in that, but where people don't have the experience to do it. The company Oxalis has it. Their staff are very experienced, and they're not just experienced in what they do. But they're also experienced in getting people who are not experienced in what they do through the cave. So, you know, they've got some good runs on the board at this point after being doing it since 2013. CAVES ONLY OPEN SINCE 2013 Kerry Newsome: Yeah, and you know we're still talking about It's only 2013. We are only sitting in 2020. So less than 10 years. Quite a revelation. These caves. That's why you know, having you on to talk about it rather than just me read about it in a Vietnam Tour guide or, you know, Lonely Planet guide. You’ve done it. You know your mother's done it. You live there. It kind of makes it a little bit more real to me. Ben Mitchell: It's a very interesting part of the world. Like when I first came here, I was asking my then girlfriend, now wife Bec and her family and other people in the area. Like what? What about these mountains? What's in these mountains? And no one would answer me. No one would tell me anything, and it was just fascinating. And then I found out about a group of British cavers who'd been coming here since 1990 um, every year or two or three whenever they could come and exploring the area. Now those guys, some of those guys now work here permanently for the Oxalis company, working around safety. And, uh, you know, they are the caretakers off the cave, and other caves that Oxalis are involved in. They also tend to help other companies that want to set up on that a bit on the side just to try and keep everything, um, safe and environmentally sound as well. Like sort of advisers, consultants, they become the safety monitors on the bigger tours as well, but they have explored the area, and still do every year. They do expeditions where they go and explore new caves. it's just amazing that there's all these caves. I mean Paradise Cave, for instance, which sells a lot of tickets on a weekend public holiday. Um, and during the summer, it's very busy with people from all over the world. CAVES DISCOVERY The first humans completely went through the whole passage in 2005. It went open to tourism in 2010. Like it's just hard to imagine, and I do often have a lot of guests, who say...they must have known about it. Someone would have known about it. Somebody would have used it during the war or something. And it's like, No, they just didn't. There are some of the caves have got very interesting histories. Like Phong Nha. Our cave was used by the champ, the Champ Monks. They broke down stalagmites and stalactites and made altars in there, and they wrote graffiti all over the walls. Um, that cave also was used by the NVA, the North Vietnamese army as a major, sort of, uh, logistical part of the logistics for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Um, other caves, like Von Cave, had a whole town underground during the war, Um, in order to avoid the bombing. But most of the caves, to be honest, just weren't used by people. The people didn't have lights up until a less than 10 years ago. They had torches and things here in this area. Um, they just didn't go into the caves. They went in as far as they needed to get out of the rain.,Even the world's biggest cave, wasn’t discovered till 2009. When the first people went and explored it. The local bushman who took the British explorers to the entrance to show them where,the entrance to what he believed would be a big cave. He found that in 1990, during a thunderstorm, when he was only about 16 years old, and, uh and he took them back there in 2009, and they went in and to explore it. And they were very excited from from the moment they found it because they knew they'd found something remarkable on. Then they opened it up with Oxalis, with the owner of Oxalis, in 2013 for the first tour group that went there. And then, really, they opened in 2014 fully. Kerry Newsome : Yeah, you mentioned you know, the safety aspect. And maybe let's just touch on that a little bit more because, you know, there is sometimes, um, a concept about some of the things in Vietnam, you know? Are they safe? You know, Do they have the, you know, the kind of same levels or quality of safety that you know, are experienced in other countries, etcetera. I mean, talk to us a little bit about that. I mean, I've been up to Ba Na Hills and seen, you know, the extravagance of workmanship that went into that five kilometer cable car that takes you to the top of that hill. I mean, my heart still races every time I do it, but I I say to myself, geepaz, it's an amazing piece off of ingenuity. So just talk to us a little bit. So we can. We can cover that off for people, so people know it sounds like it's well, it's well managed. It's safe, etc. SAFETY OF THE CAVES Ben Mitchell: Yes, okay, I've been to the cave with the Oxalis tour company to the world's biggest cave and yeah, the safety, it was above, and beyond. Everyone's inducted; How to use the harnesses in the parts where they need to use the harness. Everything's bolted. Um, yeah, I mean, it was 100% kosher, fully safe. Yeah, it’s that's good. And as far as, the Phong Nha cave goes and some of the other tourism, that mass tourism, involves water. Um, there's life jackets and everything provided I mean at the springs. You're not allowed to swim without a life jacket there. Even if you can swim because they do have a lot of them, I guess that they can't swim properly. So they just make everyone wear a life jacket anyway. And when. Kerry Newsome: You have to wear a swimming costume for that, don't you? Ben Mitchell: Yeah. Yeah. When you're caving through like the Two Lung cave system, you would really want to wear a life jacket. Like I'm a strong swimmer. And I always wear a life jacket when I go through those river caves simply because it's so nice to lay on your back with a life jacket on. Just to relax. WHAT DOES A STAY IN PHONG NHA LOOK LIKE? Kerry Newsome : And not have to do all the work. Yeah, for sure. All right, now I want to talk about just what a stay a in Phong Nha could look like?. So you've seen a lot of changes and developments in accommodation and, you know, just the township I would expect has evolved with tourism to support it. So talk to us a little bit about the types of accommodation that you can experience now and a bit about the town itself. Ben Mitchell: Well, where we are at the moment here in Phong Nha, we've got a lot of local people have opened homestays. A lot of those homestays HERE NOW. Sort of borderline between a small guest house and a “bed and breakfast”. You get a room and you get maybe a nice view of the river or nice view of the rice paddies. Ah, lot of them have got swimming pools. Um, and they supply breakfast. And there's other restaurants around the town that you could go out to for your evening meal. Most of your lunchtime meals would typically come from most people traveling through Phong Nha and be out in the park or part of the tour. It would be be pre planned. Um, you know, Phong Nha to date hasn't sort of been the destination where a lot of people are sitting around during the day. They sort of come in quickly, see the caves doing a full day of activities or two full days of activities, and then leave. Um what, like it's just in that stage of development where people are putting it short, as you so put it, between Hanoi and Halong Bay. Um, I think most people, when they do come through Phong Nha, although wish they hadn't done that, but it's just not well known enough. They've heard about it, so they come to see the caves and move on. But once they get here, they sort of realized, Oh, well, we could have. You know, maybe this was actually better than Halong Bay. Because it's sort of got the feeling up to now of being a little bit rough and ready. Still, um, there's a few of us here that have started to build some nice accommodation that people can come and actually have a holiday and relax for a few days or a week. Um, pool villas, poolside villas, bungalows by the lake at the Lake house. Different, uh,They're starting to become a little bit of, ah, body of nice accommodation out here in Phong Nha. But there is a lot of budget accommodation and a lot of that budget accommodation is cheap, and you get good value as well. It's very competitive. Because there's so much at that base level, as far as villa and bungalow accommodation goes, You've got Victory Road Villas. You've got Elements Villas, JungleO, villas, the Phong Nhal Farm Stay the Lake House Resort. The pepper house home stay is really nice around a pool. Uh, in that mid range, there's a few places like it around the valley. Ah, lot of like in the town is a main strip that you would find in most tourist towns, with all the neon lights and a few karaoke bars and hostels and cheap cheap bars and restaurants. Um, in Son Trac Village near the boat station, which was the old ferry crossing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where you get the boats to Phong Nha cave. There's a big, long strip of that style tourism there, but depending on what you're after, that's where the bus stops. So most home stays and other places air measured on their occupancy, from how far they are from the bus stop due to the backpacker style accommodation that was here prior to Covid. Um, Vietnamese tourism has always typically stayed in Dong Hoi. But we have seen a trend has changed where they are now looking to come out and stay in Phong Nha in more unique style accommodations than the cheap hotels that they were attracted to in Dong Hoi in the past, especially as the domestic tourism is now, Oh, many Vietnamese now buying cars to go, like they're traveling in cars as family groups rather than traveling in large groups on buses, as the way they always typically did before. We're now seeing smaller groups of people in cars Kerry Newsome : A lot more wealthy Vietnamese. Ben Mitchell: Vietnamese have got a lot more expendable income now. And, you know, my friends up and down the coast have been talking lately. Since Covid hit, we've seen this massive amount of domestic tourists driving around the country, checking out their own country in their cars. Kerry Newsome: Yeah, fabulous. Yeah, on doing the D Y. I thing….do it yourself angle. HOW LONG SHOULD YOU STAY IN PHONG NHA Um, if we talk about the length of stay for someone planning a trip. You know, what would you say is a good amount of time? I mean, we've got now a better idea of the types of caves and access. And then, you know, who could do any of these? The show, the adventure or the multi the multi night caves. But on average, what would be a like, a good a couple of, you know, nights to stay two or three? Ben Mitchell: Yeah, Minimum of three. (3) Full days in the area are memorable days. Yeah. And, uh, one thing that we've noticed as well since Covid in March. We've noticed that they Well, we've had a lot of expats come and stay from Saigon and from down from Hanoi, and they typically stay for between five days and two weeks. And that's been a big change to the whole way we operate because they tend to go out and do something every day and then come back and relax. Whereas before we were full of people staying two nights, wishing they had four and trying to fit everything in everything in one or two days. Kerry Newsome: And, you know, we've talked a lot about the caves and the caves, obviously, you know, get the headline, but there's quite a bit to do just around the park. Is that right? IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE CAVES Ben Mitchell: Yeah. I mean, one thing I've noticed with all the expats coming through, they tend to rent a motorbike or go with one of our Phong Nha riders who used to be timber cutters or hunters. They take people. Yeah, they take people around the back of their motor bike all day. What we are typically finding now is that people are going up into the park and maybe they're going to eight Lady Cave and the Botanical Gardens one day. Then they're going to Paradise Cave another day, and then they're going to the dark cave and nuke Marquis Gautreaux Another day. That... Kerry Newsome: Sounds like a great idea.. TWO DAYS NOT ENOUGH - ALLOW 3-5 DAYS Ben Mitchell: Yeah, and they sort of just keep going up into the park and doing things each day because there's so much waiting. There's way too much to do now, for just two days, and so they're sort of If people come for longer, will they get to do more? And that way, they actually get to enjoy it, rather than and then on to the next thing, and then we'll have half an hour here and then onto the next thing. And then we have an hour here, and then we're onto the next thing. Um and then that's things you can do yourself. But then outside the park, you've also got, like, all this countryside to explore and do what you want, like bicycles or mopeds, and you could just explore. And we're very close to the coast here too. So …. Kerry Newsome : you said you went surfing this morning. So we don't think about surfing in Vietnam as the water mostly calm, but... Ben Mitchell: ...from September through to November. We get waves. Yeah, so we try to make the most of it. It's only a short short window of waves. So I'm going, Yeah, so? So there's there's a lot like: You've got the ocean; You've got the fishing villages; You've got the sand dunes; Then you've got all the rice paddy farmland; Then you've got the agricultural land between the rice paddy land in the jungle; Then you've got the jungle in the mountains. Then you've got the caves and you know it...a great cross section off Central Vietnam. Just within a 40 kilometer, 50 kilometer width area of the country. This is the narrowest part of the country here, like JUST SOUTH OF PHONG NHA , the country's only 40 kilometers wide. So it's the narrowest part of the country. And as a lot of experts have been telling, me over the last few months, they're like, …...Wow, we just never knew, You know, “we're here for like, two weeks, and we're you know, we're coming back”. They love it. They say “We'll be back again in a few months, you know?” Kerry Newsome : Yeah, it's on my list now. Well, it's been on my list for quite a while, but it's matching up the best time of the year. Let's just talk about when you would suggest is the best time of the year to come. WHATS THE BEST TIME TO VISIT? Ben Mitchell: Let's say the best time of the year to come would be March April. Um, it's Kerry Newsome : THATS all of Vietnam. Ben Mitchell : Yeah, best is April, It's spring here. So we have, if you look at it from down South, they only have two seasons, wet season or dry season. If you look at sort of north of us. They have four seasons. They have summer, autumn, winter and spring. Well, here in Phong Nha, we have six seasons and the crossover of those two climates. So we, uh, we have plants and animals that are endemic to both the North and the south of Vietnam. We also have plants and animals that are found only here. It's a very high biodiversity in the jungle here, but having said that March and April is spring here everything's blooming. Everything's coming to life. It's just not too hot yet. It's going to be hot in Hoi An in, May and June. Yeah, but it's cold here in January and February. If you are going to come here and do some hard core tracking and camping, I would highly recommend coming between January between December and February because yeah, then much in April's sort of the prime and then again September, October November. It's a really beautiful time of year, ….

f984edd2-9297-48d7-bb3c-1b5898f9e2ddThe big Decision. A packaged tour or DIY The big decision. Packaged group tour or DIY Episode 8 S1-08 Join a packaged group tour or DIY 00:00 / 39:53 Let’s get real about travel planning to Vietnam. 
If you're heading to Vietnam, there’s one big decision you’ll need to make early on:
Should you join a packaged group tour… or plan your own trip?
Do you map it out yourself—or get expert help? This isn’t a simple yes-or-no answer. It’s one of the most personal choices you’ll make in your travel planning—and one that can completely shape how you experience Vietnam. In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on both options, sharing the honest pros and cons, and helping you figure out which style fits you best.
No fluff, no sales pitch—just personal and professional insights from years of experience as both a traveller and a travel advisor to Vietnam. Because I consider this decision one of the biggest you’ll make in setting the tone for your trip, I break down these key elements: • The structure and convenience of group tours—and when they shine • The freedom and deeper connection that individually planned travel can offer • Why group tours can sometimes feel like a blur of bucket-list stops • The trade-offs of a tightly scheduled itinerary versus one you design yourself (or with guidance) • Real talk: what people loved (and didn’t) about both styles If you follow this show, you’ll know from other episodes: the best trips happen when your travel style matches who you are.
Whether that’s with a group or through your own custom plan—choose what fits you. I truly believe that if you give Vietnam the thought it deserves, it will give you everything you’re looking for—and more. Link to Food and Textiles Sml Group tour spoken about on show - https://www.brunswickkitchen.com.au/food-and-fabric-tours-vietnam-2025-2026 Head to our Travel services page to secure a Trip Plan tailored to you - https://www.whataboutvietnam.com/request-form Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

S4-21 Beyond the Phong Nha caves What About Vietnam – S4- E21 Exploring Phong Nha beyond the caves Kerry Newsome: [00:00:01] Xin Chau And welcome to What about Vietnam? I'm happy to report Vietnam is really hitting its straps again as far as being a vibrant, healthy country to visit. I've just got back. I had a fabulous time. I could have stayed a lot longer, but there's just so much to do and trying to cram it in is always a challenge. I know I may sound a bit like a broken record, but there's just such a variety of things to do and discovery is endless. So today I wanted to focus on Phong Nha. Now, you know, Vietnam is kind of managed to get through the really hard years of COVID with a lot of hard work like most places, but also diversification in many cities and localities. And the Phong Nha locality is one such region that really pulled all their straps together to try and build on what was available with the caving to lots of other activities. And a great advocate for that is Ben Mitchell. Now I've had Ben Mitchell on the show before, along with Howard Limbert, but we really concentrated on the caves and I wanted today's story to be about some of the other cool things there are to do in addition to the caves in Phong Nha, because for you and your planning a couple of days might not cover a visit in Phong Nha you may want to extend it to a week and you'll hear from Ben as he actually says he wishes he had a dollar for every person that says, you know, we should have added in more time as there's just so much to do. Kerry Newsome: [00:01:56] Ben is really well known in the region. He's a strong advocate for tourism and really goes out of his way to. Educate to inform people about the region. And he's got some some great links and I'll certainly include those in the notes that you'll be able to get access to. His knowledge. You know it extends to the region's history and that includes its war history. He knows a lot about bike riding and getting around through the jungles, the Phong Nha Loop. He'll talk about all of these kind of activities in the show. And you know what's great it. It's the kind of region that I think a family could really enjoy a long stay there, lots of activities for kids to do, you know, healthy stuff out in nature and exploring farms and farm life and great tasty food from farm to table and just a very nice community spirit with really good, fun, cool things for kids to do that they'll be talking about for years to come. And I think, you know, if you can build into your trip some part that does offer a long stay, it means you kind of get to unpack your bags, leave them there for a week, and then do some really cool day trips. And Fong Na, I think gives you those options and that variety. I'm really grateful for Ben coming on the show, and I just know you're going to love all his stories and and some of the stuff that he's got to share with with us today. Ben, welcome to What about Vietnam once again? Ben Mitchell: [00:03:53] Hey, good morning, Kerry. Thank you. Kerry Newsome: [00:03:55] I thought what we'd get into now, Ben, was some of the things we talked about before we got on here, and that was just some of the things that you can do in Phong Nha that are kind of not for your cave lovers, not for people who are coming to Vietnam to do caves. We know that there's those people. But for those that have gone, gosh, you know, I really didn't have any real knowledge of Phong Nha, So maybe speak to Phong, Nha and a little bit of history. I'm going to make sure that I put in the notes, some of your links etcetera, to some of your historical aspects that we talked about, but maybe share with my listeners. Now just a little bit of the history of Phong Nha so that they can get a feel for it. Ben Mitchell: [00:04:42] Well, Phong Nha has…. Really got a lot to offer to people that want to experience the beauty of rural Vietnam. Um, the mountains here are karst mountains. They're covered in jungle. There is an incredible road which goes from the village of Phong Nha into the mountains up to a place called Tra ang Intersection, where it where it runs into the Ho Chi Minh Trail West. That road is called Highway 20 or Victory Road. And that was the road that essentially led North Vietnam out of the North Vietnamese army, out of Phong Nha to go to fight in the South. It's part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail network. But those roads were built and trails were built during the American war. And today they provide us with access into some really beautiful jungle mountain area national park. And that has become the loop, um, over the years with the backpacker tourism and the loop can be. Can be. Uh, utilized as a day trip by tour companies use it to go to the Dark Cave, the NUOC Moc Eco trail, and the Paradise Cave. You can rent a motorbike and go there for the very fit. You can do it by mountain bike and I mean very fit. We do have a lot of people do that but and I've done it but it's it's quite a quite a big ride. It's about about 60 to 70km of a couple of mountain passes in that. Um and what I highly recommend people do is go on the back of a local experienced motorbike rider. They've got their, their own scooters. They're very easy to book through your homestay. They generally charge about $20, a little bit more than $20 for the day trip. Ben Mitchell: [00:06:57] Basically, you've got a couple of things going on there. One is, is that those guys are. Are getting a day's salary. So, you know, for each person that goes out as a as a as a as a bit of money for the local riders. The other thing is the scenery. The scenery is just amazing off the back of a motorbike. It's an incredible way to see it. If you're on the back of a licensed rider, you can have a beer at lunchtime, one of the places around the park, you can relax and it's it's just an incredible day out that I've never met anyone who didn't rave about after they've done it. Um, what we've made ourselves. I actually made it with a gentleman from Da Nang. And he came up and helped me and I got with Hung from Karst Villas. Hung owns a little resort called Karst Villas. Huong and I used to run tours around the national park. We were we were actually the first people to run tours around the national park. And we had a lot of information that we've now put onto a bit of a podcast that people can listen to in chapters. That's the first chapters about Phong Nha Cave. To give people some background information about that. And then there's some other chapters about different things around the loop and about what you're actually looking at and experiencing as you go around. And that ties in really well with people who either rent a motorbike and go around or they sit on the back of a licensed rider and go around the park to give them a bit of background and give them a bit extra value for their for their trip. Kerry Newsome: [00:08:34] Okay. And I think that's good to mention because I'd like to put some links to that. Ben, if you'll allow me in the transcript and on the website so that people can get that. Because the other thing we kind of touched on at the beginning was this aspect that Phong Nha now offers the opportunity for a bit of a DIY trip, doesn't it? So you can kind of make it up as you go. Obviously there's access to people like yourselves in Phong Nha that can give some advice. I mean, you've only got to contact Ben at Phong Nha, Farmstay his links will be in the show notes. But maybe speak, Ben, if you would, talk about the kind of stuff that people can do as a family, stuff that, you know, can amuse kids. I know you know, you've got a young family as well, and I see them paddle boarding and I see them surfing and I see, you know, like I know the surf is not like Australia surf, but, you know, there are some different aspects which people wouldn't automatically think would be available from Phong Nha as a kind of a base. Ben Mitchell: [00:09:42] Yeah, well. Dong Hoi City itself is located on the East Sea and it has some beautiful big beaches. Um, there's Bo Ninh Beach and Nhat le beach and you can experience those beaches, can experience the seafood restaurants along the beaches. Um. Dong Hoi could be explained as being not. It's a place where you can really get Vietnamese modern culture. It's not, uh, not, not set up for Western tourism. It's set up for Vietnamese tourism. And in summer it's quite busy with Vietnamese tourists and quite a lot of fun for people that are looking for something very unique. You know, as opposed to going to, you know, beaches that are set up for Western tourism. Um, staying in Dong Hoi still gives easy access to the national park. There's tours you can do. You can rent scooters, You can get riders. You can stay in Dong Hoi for one night, two nights, and then still come out to Phong Nha. The whole province has got a lot of different things, a lot of diversity because of. It's a diverse place. You've got the mountains, the jungle, you've got the rural farmland, you've got the beaches, you've got these incredible sand dunes just north of Dong Hoi that have now got four wheel motorbikes that you can rent and ride around on the sand dunes. Um, so yeah, there's a lot of diversity there with the beach. I personally like to go over to a beach called Danha Beach, which is only about a 25 minute drive from Phong Nha farm stay where I live, and I like to go over there at dawn often and go surfing. Ben Mitchell: [00:11:35] The best surfing time is. The autumn and the winter when we get the storms. But we've been going over actually a couple of times recently for some little waves with the kids early in the morning. Um, as far as out here, things to do with families go. I really rate the Bungalow Valley as a great day trip. Most of the homestays around here have got bicycles included in your stay. Or you can rent better, better mountain bikes. And you can also do bicycle tours with she's another guy called. Shi has bicycle tours and he runs some incredible bicycle tours, including going up around the Bong lai Valley and other areas out in the countryside and along different parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and. He actually has a company here that does the bicycle tours. Mr. Shi JANG With Bong lai Valley. You can also go up there with the riders on the back of a scooter, or you can rent a scooter and go up there. It's a loop that you do in a rural valley with different stops around the loop that have just naturally evolved around backpackers and. You've got a few farm to table restaurants along the way, like Moi MOI which is one of my favorites, where they do barbecue chickens. When you order the chicken, you actually see people go off and start chasing chickens. Um, they do a really amazing dish where. Kerry Newsome: [00:13:15] They're frightened when they see people come in. Oh no, they are going to have me for lunch. Oh, they. Ben Mitchell: [00:13:21] Look pretty calm just cruising around doing their thing. These are really, really true free range chickens. You cannot get more free range than that. Ben Mitchell: [00:13:34] They're called Ga doi, which means garden chicken. And they're, you know, they're pretty happy chickens. Um, God knows. Ben Mitchell: [00:13:43] I've met. Some people who are vegans, you know, are not vegans, vegetarians for because of food industry reasons. And they will eat the chicken up there because they see it as being, um. A garden variety. Ben Mitchell: [00:13:58] Yeah. And, and, and happy chickens. Yeah. So, so, yeah, I was sort of surprised when I've seen that a couple of times. Kerry Newsome: [00:14:08] I'm kind of conscious that people want to plan and plan their time. So with all of the things that you're bringing in this episode to us, how should people plan their stay? Like how long, where should they do it from? How do they manipulate it? Because we also kind of agree that there's a lot of kind of mish mash of information out there. So a lot of people come to me and say, look, it's just overwhelming. I don't know what's good, what's not good, Like, so can we give a bit of a steer for people or, you know, how they kind of put this together? Do they come to Vietnam first and then do it from Vietnam? Do they do it all their research from home? Where can we where can we send everyone? Ben Mitchell: [00:14:55] Well, I think people can. If people say listen to your podcast, well, then by listening to different episodes, they will get different information about different areas from people who have a lot of experience in those areas. Um, and I think other, other sources of information at the moment, I think that tourism numbers are still very down and I think that if someone landed in Vietnam and started moving through the country, they would and they had already chosen all of their hotels and what they're going to do each day and that before they got here, 100% booked in, they would probably find that by talking to other travelers heading in the other direction at the moment, that they might have done things differently had they had they had more modern information, say, from up to date. Ben Mitchell: [00:15:55] Date. So yeah, up to date information. I'm hearing from a lot of people that they're wishing that they had booked maybe less time in some of the more developed areas and more time in some of the less travelled to areas. I'm also hearing that people are noticing big changes in what they're finding when they get to destinations they've been to before. Um, a lot of businesses have shut down, a lot of businesses have been knocked about in their management systems during COVID. Um, and a lot of businesses have done a full or partial changeover to domestic tourism and the domestic tourism has much different expectations. To what Western tourism has. You might find that when you get to that resort that you've stayed at before, that it's operating very differently with a much different atmosphere. So you've got to be a little bit adaptable and you've got to be prepared to maybe change your plans or not have such set plans if you're traveling through the country. I mean, it's probably different if you're going to come out to Holland again and stay there for two weeks and just chill and hang out and soak up what that town's got to offer, That would be yeah, you know, you're going to do that. But if you're if you're actually going to travel through Vietnam at the moment, you would probably have to make some of the decisions about what you're doing along the way by talking to people heading in the other direction that you're bumping into, because they're going to give you information that might conflict with what your expectations were. Kerry Newsome: [00:17:44] And I think for my listeners, if you if you kind of consider the fact that the industry was just so hit so hard that a lot of the Vietnamese workers that worked in the travel industry have since left that industry and that has. Ben Mitchell: [00:18:05] Big player. Kerry Newsome: [00:18:06] A very big player and I think best to just manage people's expectations at this point and to realize that has meant that a lot of the hotels that Ben's talking about also cannot actually take 100% occupancy because they don't have the staff to man the hotels that were originally operating at that at those levels. So they have small occupancies that they can manage with people. And as Ben also alluded, there's also some takeovers that have happened. So the hotel might, you know, that you went to before or that you looked once before on the website. Actually, it's kind of changed its name. It's having some, you know, renovations done. It's got a new manager, it's got a new style. And, you know, Ben's quite right. It is targeting more the, you know, nearly 100 million local residents of Vietnam rather than us Westerners and foreigners to the country. And likewise, I think we need to appreciate that there's a kind of a what I'm hearing from my chats with people is that there's a re- training going on. So the people that have left the industry and they're hiring back new people, they've got to start from scratch. So, you know, it's kind of evolving, but it's not evolving. It's not a flick of a switch. It's not that, Oh, okay. The gates are open. We're all, you know, Jack ready to go. That's just actually not happening. What is comforting to hear is that there's enthusiasm out there and there's hope out there and there's people aspiring back to, you know, to welcome international tourism back because, you know, I think the country does have so much to offer. Kerry Newsome: [00:20:02] And what I love about talking to you, Ben, is that you do get very much involved with the tourists as they come through. And I love how you can kind of share also that community spirit of Phong Nha . Because when I see anything about Foreigner with your name attached to it, you know, you're meeting and greeting people, you're sharing them, you know, with them what you know and experienced. Now you've been there, you know, a long time. So getting back to that question about people planning, I agree. I think being able to be adaptable and flexible with their bookings because if you're locked in, you're locked in. So people just be careful with your cancellation policies and things like that. I think you'll find there's some manoeuvrability. There is a lot of accommodation there. And one of the things I want to emphasize with Phong Nha is there is the beautiful homestays. But if you know you want luxury in that, you can go up, you know, to your four and five star villas and things like that as well. So there's that really broad scope of, you know, the adventure traveler or, you know, maybe the chill and luxury and, and have a gin and tonic kind of traveler as well. There's that really lovely mix. So just getting back, Ben, to people planning their time. You and I have talked about this before, that you actually get some visitors that come for a couple of days but wish they'd stay for longer, maybe Talk to us a little bit about that. Ben Mitchell: [00:21:33] Well, I wish I had a dollar for every one I heard say that. But I'm glad I have a dollar for every. Kerry Newsome: [00:21:38] You mean Dong, don't you? Ben Mitchell: [00:21:41] But I'm glad I've had. I have a dollar for every one who has stayed an extra day. But I think that the. Yeah, I mean, I'm hearing that daily as people leave that people wish they had longer in this area. They underestimated what the area had to offer. Um, and I do always look forward to them going away and telling people about the area because they enjoyed it so much. As far as things to do, I mean, the Bong lai Valley with those restaurants like Moi Moi and the pub with cold beer, with Kong's jungle experience, where he teaches people about rubber tapping and he's got a big swing up there and a full operating farm that he shows people around. Um, then there's Mr. Quyen at the duck stop, which is a somehow it's become like this world famous thing for people to go there and. Um, see be entertained by his ducks. He's performing ducks. Um, that's really popular with families. Really popular with, you know, travellers. And the food up there is quite a foodie experience for the farm to table dishes. Like they've got bamboo stuff with pork, they've got the Bun Loc cakes, which are a peanut and mushroom, little sort of pasty pie made from cassava. Um, all these delicious delicacies and different foods that if you go up there as a group, even like you often see families and groups of backpackers together sit down and all have a big sort of order different foods and sit around, eat together in a hut up there in the in one of the farm to table restaurants. Ben Mitchell: [00:23:29] That's a good day trip. And it's cheap. I mean, you do it yourself. It's simple as that. You've got to map. The maps are online. It's all available. Um, then as I mentioned before, the national Park loop is a good thing to do. There's many things to do along that, so you can sort of choose what you want to do before you go. Um, with a little bit of research and maybe talking to, talking to your homestay or talking to, to the locals, the, the Phong Nha Cave in itself is really still it's the original tourism thing to do here in Phong Nha. When I first came here back in 2000, early 2007, it was a tourism thing that you could do here you hop on a boat. At the at the father son ferry crossing and which is basically why the village was there. It was a village around a ferry crossing. Um, and you, you go up the river seven kilometers and then they turn the engine off on the boat. And then you go one kilometer into the cave. Now it's a great cave to visit. It's a great cave trip. Sadly, at the moment, there's still no information about what you're looking at and where you are. And there's a lot of really interesting information about that. So we're Hung and I have added that to the podcast that we made in order to try and share that information. I know at Easy Tiger Hostel, pre COVID at 9:00 in the morning every morning, people came from all the different hotels down to Easy Tiger for the 9 a.m. Ben Mitchell: [00:25:09] Talk where we would tell people about that then send them off to the cave in big groups so they could all share the boat. That is currently not happening at the moment because Easy Tiger did not survive COVID. Um, at the farm stay, we try and tell our customers, but what I'm finding is much easier for our staff and for us as a whole as we rebuild, um, at both our businesses that are still open is we refer people to the podcast just to get that historical information. And I'd like to start sharing that more with all the other homestays too, so they can their customers can benefit from that as well. As far as exploring the local area goes. A bicycle ride around in the countryside on either side of the river, heading away from town, either upriver or downriver is a great experience to get out into the countryside because I really fell in love with riding around all the islands in the delta behind Hoi ani 2007 through to about 2010. I found it to be like just Vietnam with no development and no nothing, nothing out there for foreign tourists. And then you could still be back at your hotel in the evening and like nice and comfortable and out for a beer or whatever you want to do. And Phong Nha was very much at that stage. At the moment, if you leave the village of Phong Nha, you sort of go out into the countryside. You can you can aim for some different things, like a ride out to the dark Cave for a day trip on a bicycles really good. Ben Mitchell: [00:26:48] You can ride bicycle out to the BONG LAI Valley and then come around past where I live. In the afternoon through CU NAM village. CU NAM Village has just been designated by the government as a tourism village for they want to try and get into the tourism market. But it's it'll be very different because it's much more low key sort of tourism in a rural environment. And that's where the Farmstay has always been. A book was recently written by an author called Sue Fleming. She was here on holiday during COVID, and she from, was from Hanoi. Um, and Sue was talking to my mother who was stuck here throughout COVID for two years. And my mother had done about eight years worth of research talking to old people in the village, using local interpreters. And Sue got hold of all Mum's research and and wove a novel around her. Her research, which we are now selling at the Farmstay with proceeds going to rebuilding the museum which was destroyed in the big floods that we have here every few years. That book's called ‘Two Pillars Remain’ and we're selling that here Now. There's also some great. Like there's a good documentary that's been made by Utah University and that is about, um. The war. My mother in law features in that documentary, along with a lot of us Marines that served on the DMZ and other Vietnamese combatants. And that that documentary is really good for people who want to just sort of hear about the human side of the war. Kerry Newsome: [00:28:46] And funny you mentioned about Utah. I want to say hello to many of my Utah listeners and I'll tell you why. Ben, Fascinating as it may be. Um, there are a lot of people who left Vietnam as war veterans, etcetera, and took their families and resettled in Utah in the US 1975, you know, onwards. Et cetera. So yeah, it's really interesting that that documentary is coming out of Utah. I can totally understand why and really good to know. Ben Mitchell: [00:29:22] Huge amount of young people coming into the tourism industry over here. A lot of them were actually studying tourism. During COVID. And they were they were frightened because they decided to go into a field that was that was. Not. Kerry Newsome: [00:29:39] Looking sustainable. Ben Mitchell: [00:29:41] Not looking sustainable. And so they're all quite enthusiastic and they're coming out now and looking for jobs. A lot of the best people from pre-COVID, they were the sort of people who had a lot of get up and go in them and they got up and went. When COVID hit. And I'm finding that a lot of the guys that I used to work with and and around there in places like Taiwan and Penang and different parts of the world now. Yeah. Doing, doing some doing the same job and a lot doing different jobs and they won't come back now I don't think I think that they've left the industry and that's making it very difficult for some of the tour companies. Yes, some of the tour companies are struggling to find those experienced guys that used to do that, used to carry their workload for them, and now they've got young, inexperienced people coming in. And that's adding to the stress of starting up trying to do the training that some companies really tried to do some unique measures to stay alive during the COVID. Um, that's really paying off for them now. Companies like Oxalis who kept all their tour guides busy and working and all their porters busy and working by diversifying. I hear different stories from up and down the coast of other companies that did the same. Um, that'll pay off for them. Now I know that, that I'm very grateful for a couple of the key people who run our businesses who have still got with us and, and I can see that I'm very lucky to have them still. Kerry Newsome: [00:31:20] Ben, thank you for being on the show. I'd like to share with everyone the links that you mentioned. I'll make sure that they're in the notes for people to access and yeah, just great to catch up and talk everything. Ben Mitchell: [00:31:32] Fun yeah. Really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks Kerry.

5e9ff723-f389-4d55-a827-80295ca29276As 2025 draws to a close here are some reflections. What About Vietnam S1-E11 Last words for 2025 Kerry Newsome: Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. This episode is going to be a little bit different. I wanted to take this opportunity to say hello to everyone and to kind of embrace this time of the year as we get closer to Christmas and turning over the calendar to 2026. If you are here, then I'm thinking that you are thinking about a trip to Vietnam and I definitely hope that through the podcast series and the website whataboutvietnam.com, I can offer you lots of information to help you plan your trip. Conversely, you can always reach out to me to create an itinerary for you. So, as I said, the episode is going to be very different. Today, instead of taking you somewhere new in Vietnam, I wanted to take you somewhere a little closer to home to reflect, to thank you and to share what's next. When I first started the What About Vietnam podcast back in May 2020, Really my only goal was to share the magic that I felt every time I traveled there. The smells, the sounds, the people, just those really genuine moments that made me fall in love with the country. Now, if you recall, at that time we were all home during the pandemic, so travel felt a long way away. The podcast became a way to travel through stories, to meet locals, guides, expats, returnees and to kind of shine a light on the Vietnam that lives beyond the brochures and the guidebooks, etc. Try and put some feet on the ground to it, I suppose. And certainly, you know, through the show, I can't help but share with you my experiences and my takes. But as we understand, everyone's experience is different. Now fast forward three years, a bit over three years actually, a hundred episodes later this podcast has become so much more than I ever imagined. It's been downloaded in over 70 countries and I've had the joy of talking with people from all walks of life. Historians, chefs, wellness leaders, adventurers and of course travellers just like you. To every guest who gave their time and voice, I want to send you a very sincere thank you. You brought this show to life. You, in fact, gave it the personality, the energy, the self-expression and the passion that you have. are for the country and for your time there. So extremely grateful. To my listeners, your messages, your questions, your stories about visiting Vietnam after hearing an episode They have meant the world to me. You've kept me inspired through every series, every late night edit, every challenge, every thought provoking thought I've had about, you know, what can I do differently? What can I do better? You know, what is important to you? What do you need to know? And how can I bring that to you in a way that is understandable and easy to comprehend? One of the things I love most about this show is that the stories are evergreen. Whether you're listening today or three years from now, the insights and emotions are still there, waiting to be discovered. If you've just joined us, There's a whole library of episodes to explore, from street food adventures in Hanoi, to the quiet beauty of Yen Bai, to the joy of wellness retreats, and even a few episodes about dental and cosmetic travel. It's all there, told through real experiences and open hearts. So even while this mic takes a rest, the stories live on. Okay, time to pause. After three wonderful years, it feels like the right time for me to take a step back and take a deep breath. I want to give myself space to reflect on everything what about Vietnam has become and to imagine what it could be in the future. I kind of need to put my tourist headset back on and have that freedom of curiosity to expand what I want to do with what about Vietnam in the future and how I want to bring the stories to you. So it may not look the same. Maybe it returns in a new form in 26, maybe with fresh voices or a new way of storytelling. I'm not sure yet. And I hope that's OK with you. But unless I do that, I just don't feel I'm going to give you the best of me. Sometimes, as we say, you have to stop for a while to truly move forward. While the podcast takes a little time out, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not dropping off the planet. My love for Vietnam and helping people experience it is still very much alive. So if you're planning a trip, I'm still here through my trip planning and itinerary building services at whataboutvietnam.com. You've only got to see the pages there to reach out to me to request a trip plan. So that's where I'm going to be focusing most of my energy, creating bespoke journeys for travelers who want something authentic, something crafted with care for them in particular as a private tour. And I'll continue to share travel updates, news on visas, and some personal stories through my social channels and website. However, I may not be as full throttle in social media as I am currently, as I want this pause to be in content creation as well. Otherwise, you know, one kind of cancels the other out. I wanted to leave you with five thoughts or maybe five lessons . (1) Stay curious . Vietnam will surprise you every time. And that couldn't be more pertinent than in recent months with typhoons, with, you know, weather conditions really changing things up for people. So, you know, keep an open mind about how your trip is going to take form. You know, holding steadfast to some things can, I guess, kill off other opportunities and can also not give you the fluid options that you might discover something else just as wonderful. And even engaging with people under some, you know, conditions which aren't ideal can bring you closer to understanding the Vietnamese and how resilient they are. in times of change and challenges that can come up during a trip. You know, open that door, try that dish, you know, go in through an alley that, you know, in our own country we would never go down and see what you can find. You'll be amazed. I'm still amazed every time I make that decision to poke my nose in places that, you know, I wouldn't do in my own country. (2) Number two is travel slow. Sometimes the magic kind of happens in the quiet moments. Give yourself a break. It's really important in the travel mix to build in some days of rest. Otherwise, it can kind of feel like a work plan, like you're going to have to tick off everything every day to make sure that you've You've seen it. So I really stress if you can make some time to just chill out, people watch, muse, read a book, soak up the sun, view a sunset, go for a walk on the beach, maybe even go to a pagoda, say a prayer, read something profound. take in and breathe where you are and just accept that this is an experience that you're never going to get again. So taking those few moments to just slow down is going to help you really appreciate where you are and the aspects of everything you're experiencing. (3) Connect deeply is probably my number three thing I'd like to leave you with for 25. It's about connecting with people and sometimes just saying Xin Chao, saying hello to somebody can open a door. I can remember years ago, I did a cooking class and I met the owner of this restaurant that was running it in An Bang in Hoi An. And just through that connection and meeting this lovely lady, You know, I made a new friend. She could speak really good English. She wanted to know. She was just as curious about me as I was curious about her. So, you know, we shared many journeys since then. And just that moment in time when I could have or could have not kind of stepped out of my normal reserved self, it opened a door. So if you can, connect with the people that, you know, are guiding with you or, you know, you're meeting at various locations, etc. You'll find the Vietnamese are very welcoming, very friendly, and as I said, probably just as curious about you as you are about them. (4) I think for number four, where you can support the local environment , your choices really do help communities thrive. There's lots of opportunities to do that. In fact, I do a podcast about human trafficking with Blue Dragon. and the services that they offer to help rescue people and rehabilitate people who have been trafficked. You know, you'll be surprised that when you walk around various communities, especially in the more rural areas, you know, you will see opportunities to be able to provide some assistance where you can, and it doesn't have to be much. But, you know, making choices about how you dispose of rubbish and, you know, that all sets a really good example as that's not something that, Vietnamese have really understood but are certainly coming to grips with now. (5) Lastly, I'd like you to really keep dreaming about travel like life. It's an ongoing story. I think as Vietnam is growing and certainly opening up to the world as a fabulous destination, it's a big country and it's got a lot to offer. And I don't ever want to see Vietnam limited to about five places, I think, you know, look left and right, do your research, get in touch with me, ask questions, you know, really do some homework on where do you want this dream holiday to take you. If you want a certain type of experience that, you know, evokes more quietness, more locations that are rural, ethnic, then you might need to kind of get off the tourist map. If you want beautiful resorts, if you want luxury, if you want fine dining, well, you know, then I'm possibly going to steer you to another part of Vietnam. So don't ever feel limited, keep dreaming and I think you're going to have a wonderful time in Vietnam. In closing, from my heart to yours, thank you. Thank you for listening, for sharing, for being part of this journey with me. Every download, every message, every moment you've spent here has meant a lot. So for now, this is me, Kerry Newsome, signing off from What About Vietnam. And until we meet again, online in Vietnam or somewhere along the way. Take care, keep exploring, stay curious and have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

S5-E8 – Empowering the Traveller: In the fight against Human Trafficking S5-E8 – Empowering the Traveller: In the fight against Human Trafficking Episode 08 S5-E8 – Empowering the Traveller: In the fight against Human Trafficking 00:00 / 38:19 Join us for an insightful journey into the pressing issue of human trafficking in Vietnam, and discover how, as a traveller, you have the ability to effect real change. In this episode, I'm joined by Kim Miller, who offers firsthand insights into the challenges and the remarkable efforts undertaken by Blue Dragon, an organization dedicated to combatting human trafficking. As a listener, you'll gain a profound understanding of the poverty and vulnerabilities that fuel human trafficking, along with practical guidance on recognizing and responding to situations where individuals are exploited or in need of assistance. We start off by talking about Kim’s experiences of Vietnam since 2016—Kim shares her deep affection for Vietnam, recounting her experiences living there and highlighting her favorite Vietnamese cuisines like Phở chiên phồng and destinations you may not have heard about just outside of Hanoi called – Ho Dong Do lake district Kim shares her bold ambition of raising $200,000 by swimming the English Channel this July to support Blue Dragon's vital community initiatives. See link here Tune in as she outlines actionable steps travellers can take to aid vulnerable individuals they encounter. From simply reaching out or alerting organizations like Blue Dragon, travellers can ensure prompt assistance for those in need, empowering them to play an active role in combating human trafficking. This is an episode that I'm confident will offer you valuable insights and takeaways. Finally, you are one click away from supporting Kim's cause, please check the link here and let’s unite in making a positive impact during our journeys through Vietnam. To date, Blue Dragon has: Rescued 1,431 people from trafficking Represented 261 people in court cases Sent 6,314 kids back to school & training Provided shelter to 1,668 girls & boys Placed 445 teens in jobs Served 672,359 meals Built 262 homes for families Reunited 769 runaways with their families Obtained legal papers for 13,544 people Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

S5-E20 - Saigon Unseen: Missing the Sights S5-E20 - Saigon Unseen: Missing the Sights Episode 20 S5-E20 - Saigon Unseen: Missing the Sights 00:00 / 50:04 If you have the chance to spend a little extra time in Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City), you're in for far more than just the usual sightseeing—it’s a whole new adventure! In this lively episode, I chat with Matt Cowan, an expat of 15 years, travel aficionado, and fellow podcaster, as we uncover the hidden gems that only reveal themselves to those willing to go off the beaten path. Saigon is a city of contrasts, and we recorded this episode in one of its iconic French restaurants, The Refinery. Amidst laughs and our Aussie kinship, Matt shares what casual visitors often miss: the charm of historical cafes, the character of local bars, and the richness of local districts. Beyond the motorbikes and bustling streets lies a city with a unique rhythm and soul. Join us for a humorous and insightful journey that shows Saigon is more than a stopover—it’s a city worth savoring. Please enjoy some of the topics we managed to cover during the show. 00:07:03 - Exploring Saigon's Hidden Gems
00:10:33 - French Colonial Architecture in Saigon
00:12:47 - Nightlife and Expat Hangouts
00:14:06 - Saigon's Evolution and Modernization
00:18:10 - French Colonial Influence in Modern Cafes and Bars
00:20:05 - Exploring Historic Apartment Buildings
00:25:28 - Cultural Shows at the Opera House
00:27:47 - Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tours
00:30:01 - Saigon as a Night City
00:31:04 - Exploring Japantown and Chinatown
00:40:04 - Motorbike Tours in Saigon
00:41:08 - Historic Dining Locations
00:45:06 - Best Time to Visit Saigon
 Links as mentioned for you to explore further:- Continental Hotel video with architect Hoanh Tran (The Bureau Asia YouTube Channel) https://youtu.be/YBqwIGvOuXw?si=lYVTgbhtjT5kRTR_ Cho Lon Self-Guided Walk (The Bureau Asia Substack Mailing List) https://thebureauasia.substack.com/p/cho-lon-self-guided-morning-walk The best places to EAT, PLAY, LOVE in HCMC in 2024 (links out to the 25 Things to Do in HCMC video) https://thebureauasia.com/2024/03/30/the-best-places-to-eat-play-love-in-ho-chi-minh-city-in-2024/ Then & Now - Saigon 20 Years On (The Bureau Asia Podcast) https://podcasts.apple.com/vn/podcast/then-now-saigon-20-years-on/id1478396971?i=1000656875461 The Bureau Asia Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebureauasiagroup Opera House shows https://www.luneproduction.com/ Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

8db76043-cfb3-4ce7-93e8-f406afe7029aShopping for Designer, Tailoring and Sustainable in Vietnam Shopping in Vietnam Tailoring Designer and Sustainable Episode 2 Shopping in Vietnam Tailoring Designer and Sustainable 00:00 / 29:48 Our show today is for anyone who has ever thought Vietnam was just about cheap "copy" handbags, sweaty markets, tailoring and knock offs! ...You are in for a shock! Be ready to embrace everything from "wearable happiness to sustainable products that will save the earth and set tails wagging when you get home. Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

S5-13 - Out and About in Nha Trang - The city of 300 days of sunshine S5-13 - Out and About in Nha Trang - The city of 300 days of sunshine Episode 13 S5-13 - Out and About in Nha Trang - The city of 300 days of sunshine 00:00 / 18:55 Welcome back to What About Vietnam! Get your ears ready for another insightful episode in our mini-series, Out & About in Vietnam where I check out what Nha Trang has to offer, in a 3 day stay. Nha Trang is not just another beautiful beach destination; it's a cultural melting pot. From the moment you step foot in Nha Trang, you're greeted by its buzzy, somewhat noisy atmosphere along the promenade. For the best stunning beach shoreline view, in the evening, I suggest heading to the Skylight roof top bar. https://skylightnhatrang.com/ An even better idea is to get up early and enjoy a mesmerising sunrise in the quietness of the day. A quick mention about the lovely Potique Hotel https://potiquehotel.com/ who sponsored this episode. A relatively new elegant city hotel, offering spacious well-designed rooms in that rich Indochine style with amazing beach views. Private access arranged at the beach and cafés, and restaurants right at your front door. We loved our stay. Go direct to the hotel LINK HERE https://potiquehotel.com/ for the best offers and mention this podcast. But there's more to Nha Trang than meets the eye. Beyond the beaches, I briefly touch on the variety of cuisines available to tantalise your taste buds. I forget to mention the amazing feast I had of lobster. So cheap and so delicious, you can find the restaurant on Google maps under Luong Son Cang Restaurant. For those adventure seekers, Nha Trang is a treasure trove of adrenaline-pumping activities. From exhilarating water sports, including top-notch diving, to the excitement of island hopping, which we tried as it included the mud baths experience!!! Let’s just say, – it's an experience unlike any other! Journey beyond the city centre to uncover it’s real gems; like the Po Nagar temple, offering insights into Vietnam's fascinating Cham history and Salt mining in the salt fields about an hour out of town.

Please refer back to previous episodes:- S4-E5 – With Colm Hutchinson as he shares 10 of the best things to do in Nha Trang S3-E06 – With Jeremy Stein as he talks about the birth of Padi diving in Nha Trang Until next time, happy travels from What About Vietnam! Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

17f693a3-e0d3-48a7-bc50-3b3790001b10Vietnam from a cultural and historical standpoint. Vietnam Culture and Visas Episode 6 S1-06 Culture and Visas 00:00 / 16:29 In this episode, I’d like to give you some general background to the country you will be visiting, from a cultural and historical standpoint. What to expect when you arrive! For most of us, it resembles - organised chaos! Heat, smells and officialdom. Cities where there are more bikes than cars. What is the Visa process amid Covid19, and what are the things you need to watch out for? Do you need a Visa? Download Transcript PDF Read the transcript here

2945b4d5-5239-4aff-b395-b00b0311b983A happening comedy scene for laughs in Saigon What About Vietnam - S3-18 Discover an emerging comedy scene in Saigon - A must do! Kerry Newsome: 00:00 Xin Chào and welcome to “ What About Vietnam !” . I'm very excited about this year. This is our first episode for 2022. I'm excited because I think we're going to be able to visit Vietnam as the airlines announce, just this week, opening flights to the UK, Europe, US and Australia. 00:25 I'm thrilled to have my guest, Niall Mackay on the show a Stand-up comedian, located in Saigon, he's going to be talking to us about the comedy scene in Vietnam. I'm also thrilled to have him on because he does what I do. He's a podcaster. He's based in Saigon, and he's been running "Seven Million Bikes Podcast " since 2019. And another one called “Did that really happen” as a sub set of the original podcast. A funny guy, very talented, interesting. And going to give us some background to just how the comedy scene has developed in Saigon over the last few years, he's been a big part of that and played a very instrumental role. 01:13 He likewise is going to give us all some insights, just how COVID has affected that, with 2020, being a year where it was, you know, all up and happening to 2021 literally being shut down. So, while it's been in hibernation, it's certainly not going away. The comedy scene is there to thrive. And I'm very excited to have Niall on the show to give us some insights. Please welcome him to the program. Hello, Niall. Welcome to What about Vietnam. Niall Mackay: 01:53 Hello, Kerry, thank you so much for having me, I'm excited to be on too. Kerry Newsome: 01:59 Look, I don't know where to start. But I'm just going to kind of throw up the first things that come to mind. And that kind of starts with someone arriving at Saigon. And they had done all the great things that you can do from Saigon and whether that's going to the Mekong Delta, whether-- we said, during the Cu Chi Tunnels, there's lots and lots of things to do. And we talk about that on other shows. But when it gets to nighttime, and it's still hot, but, the Vietnamese, as soon as it gets dark, something I've noticed is everybody comes out. And there's a lot of out and about kind of feelings. So, tell us a little bit about how people would find entertainment. And I'll just preface that with entertainment that is maybe more for Westerners. So English speaking entertainment, and more about comedy, because I figure, you've got a lot to talk about in the comedy scene. Niall Mackay: 03:10 Yes, sure. So, when I first came to Vietnam, I had the exact same struggles as well. My wife and I, we would get to the evening. And you'd be like, what do we do now. And it was difficult to find things to do, especially- we came here six years ago. And you're used to kind of western style entertainment, right. And especially English language speaking entertainment. So, we struggled a lot for a long time. So, there is obviously things you can do as a tourist: · You can go on a food tour. · You can be like a local and go sit on a street corner and drink beer on a plastic stool, and all that super fun. But if you're here long enough, or you just want something different, you can really have to seek out their entertainment, but it's gotten a lot better over the years. I like to think I've been part of that as well. But it's not just me as well. Like there's so many people doing so many amazing things who know you can find: · Music. · Quiz nights. · And like you mentioned, comedy as well. Kerry Newsome: 04:08 Comedy probably wouldn't be the first thing that I would think about, but I love comedy clubs. And I know you've got Seven Million Bikes as your podcast, but also, it's aligned, I think and I'm hoping you're going to share with us; aligned to your comedy shows because you're a Stand-up comic. I mean, let's get this out their people, this guy is funny and funny on stage. So, what you're hearing in this podcast might be serious, Niall, but he does have another half and that's on stage as a Stand-up comic. So, talk to us about the comedy scene and a bit of history bit of where- you're heading, lockdown, blah, blah, blah. Niall Mackay: 04:55 Well, thank you very much. First, I still find it weird when people call me funny and even, last week I sent a video to my best friend. I've known him since he was five years old. I sent him a video, just a short clip of me on stage. And his response was the best. He said, when did you become funny? You weren't funny in school. Kerry Newsome: 05:15 Thank God you've grown into that. Niall Mackay: 05:17 Only your best friend can tell you that. Right? I just thought it was brilliant. But no. So, the history of comedy here is quite amazing. So, when we first came in six years ago, and my wife and I, we lived in Australia, we'd love Stand Up Comedy in Australia and New Zealand. I loved it all my life. And then we found out about an open mic here, we called Brian and Diana do shows. And so, we went to that. And it was just great to see Stand-up comedy again. And I hadn't, I wasn't even doing it at that time. But I've been wanting to do it for years and years. And then we find out more about shores by a guy called Ben [inaudible 5:57], he'd been putting on shoes. And there actually had been a group here called Saigon Comedy or Comedy Saigon. Kerry Newsome: 05:24 --Funny People? Niall Mackay: 06:01 Saigon Funny People, they came afterwards. But before them, there was something else. And they were bringing over international comedians, quite sporadically. But there was a history of international comedians coming here. And so, from there on, we started getting into going into comedy shows. And then I started doing comedy myself. And like most comedians here, most comedians around the world, they just want to be on stage more. And it can be quite difficult to get stage time. It's the biggest thing for any comedian. 06:37 So, what a lot of comedians do, and I did the same, they end up putting on their own shows. So, I was like, I wasn't getting on stage as much as I wanted. I had a background in event management. I knew how to run an event, so I put on my own comedy show. And then luckily partnered with an amazing bar in District One, just near the Bến Thành market, Bến Thành food market. As a craft beer bar, I love beer as well was becoming friends with the owner, it was with fuzzy logic, it was a hop shop. And so that was the start of it. 07:07 One of the things I think, is my strength. And it seems kind of simple, but I know how to set up a room. And that was one of the things I really wanted to bring, to make a quality show, I was to make sure that the room is set up properly. There's sort of so little- so many subtleties, like just small things like make sure everyone faces the stage, make sure the stage is a focal point. The lights are done properly, things like this that can make or break a comedy show. So, I really focused on that. But then the other big focus was tourism because this was back in 2019. And being near Bến Thành market, I was like, "Right, we are going to get tourists in." I lived in New York previously, in a big thing in New York, especially around Times Square, as comedians go out during the day and they give out flyers, or they even do this in Thailand. If you want to perform at the Thailand Open, mate, you have to flyer for at least an hour outside the venue. 07:58 So, I was like, "Oh, Gung Ho!" I'm quite okay with publicity and promotion. So, I was like, right. All the comedians, we're all going to go round Bến Thành market and we're going to give out flyers and flyers printed. Most comedians, they don't want to do that. And so, most of them backed out, couple of them are like, "No, I'm not doing that." And I was just kind of like, "Yeah, well, I'm going to do it." So, I went around Bến Thành market, handing out flyers, like a wierdo, walking up to strangers, like. "Here, we’ve got a comedy show tonight." But to me, like, I'm not too bothered about doing that kind of thing. And because I have seen it in New York, and I knew, in Thailand, I was like, "This is what you do." And one of the best things was, sure enough, when an Australian couple showed up at the comedy show, because I'd given them a flyer. And they were the loveliest couple. They were from Perth. They loved comedy. They're like, "We go to Stand-up comedy shows all over Australia. We love going to the Perth Comedy Festival." 08:50 The thing about the Saigon comedy scene, it’s changed now. And we can talk about how and why it's changed, which is obviously pandemic related. But at that time, and for the next year or two, the standard was and still is, but was especially so high. And I know I'm biased to say that. But I know because people would come to the shows and the most common thing we would hear nearly after every show was, "Wow, I never expected it to be that good." And this couple, that came from Australia, they were like, "We go to the Perth Comedy Festival. And that was as good as anything we go to in Perth." 09:26 So, we knew we had good comedians here. I knew I could put on a good show. We had 20 to 30 people every show, the feedback was always amazing. And it was always the same thing, like I think people come- you're in Saigon. You think you're going to get some amateur comedians, which we all are, but you think you're going to get some probably like pretty bad comedy. I don't think that's bad comedy, but there's awkward comedy. So, I hate it. And I'm sure you're the same when you go in those- not just that there's no laughs like, that's fine if there's no laughs, but if the comedian makes it awkward, then it's just a horrible experience. And I've had that before we are sitting in, you’re like, "Oh, my goodness, he's been going on for 15 minutes now and-" Kerry Newsome: 10:04 When's he going to be over? Niall Mackay: 10:05 Yeah, exactly. So, you can watch a comedian, and they are not very funny, but you're still enjoying the experience, you know? Kerry Newsome: 10:12 Exactly. Niall Mackay: 10:13 So, our comedians were funny, and the room was just rollicking with laughter. And so, the beginning of it was really focused on tourism. Being around Bến Thành market. And every show, we had a nice mixture of local expats, local Vietnamese people, tourists coming in, we even had comedians who were touring, who were just on holiday, would get in touch with me and they said, "I saw your comedy show, can I get a spot?" And I'd be like, "Yeah, absolutely." So, there was a hilarious guy from Canada, another girl from- I think she's based in Hong Kong, someone else from America, like, all these traveling comedians is coming through. And then from there, it’s kind of snowballed, because these shows were going well. Then another bar, who was friends with the owner of this bar got in touch with me, and they were like, "We want to do shows." So, we started doing shows this time was in District Two, not too many tourists at that one, because it's a little bit further in town. 11:09 Then we started doing shows in District Seven, which again, no tourists at that one, if you probably know, District Seven is almost like Singapore. It's like a different country here. But that was the reason why we wanted to go to District Seven, because we wanted to bring comedy to the people in D7 because my biased opinion is they don't leave very much. But my friend who's from D7, he counters that and I'm probably again, having a biased opinion, they do leave, but you definitely- there are many of them, you need to go to them. 11:36 So, we started doing shows in D7, and then I started working with a Hard Rock Cafe here, which was just incredible. They have an amazing venue, like any Hard Rock Cafe, setup for music, but unbelievable sound systems, stage, sound engineer. And it was amazing. So, I went to this meeting with Hard Rock Cafe, and I was like, "Okay, what am I going to pitch them, so they do music, I do comedy. Alright, let's do musical comedy." So, I went into this. And I was like, "I think this will be a great fit. We'll do a musical comedy." They loved it. We thrashed out all the agreement and they were like, "Yep, okay, let's do it next month." We had no musical comedians in Saigon at the time. Kerry Newsome: 12:20 So, nobody can sing. But they can tell jokes, right? Niall Mackay: 12:24 Pretty much we had two musical comedians at the time, both are new, like one of them, [sysco 12:31] Wani West was new on the scene. The other one Tommy Boulevard. didn't perform too often. And he was super new. I could play a guitar, but I can't sing. And I was like, okay, so I went away, and I was like, "Okay, let's put this show on in a month." So, I contacted Wani first, he's Australian from Melbourne. He's hilarious. One of the funniest people I've met. And, so I went, "Can you do this?" "Yep, no problem." "Can you do 15 minutes? Three or four songs?" "Yep. No problem." She had to go and write a couple extra songs. I think at that point, he had two songs. I approached Tommy, same thing. "Yep. No problem." Right. Okay, I've got two comedians now, I need at least four and a host. I'm the host right. So, okay, I've got to go and write songs. So, I got to sit down and write some songs. 13:17 Again, I can't sing. I spoke to a friend who's a professional singer, I was like, "Can you give me singing lessons?" And ended up not happening. I could sing better than I realized. I'm still a terrible singer, but I wasn't as bad as I thought. And then I was like, "Oh, Tommy", told me he did one verse of one song during his Stand-up, maybe he can do more. So, I approached and he's a beautiful singer. I was like, Tommy, can you do musical comedy? He's like, "Yeah, okay, I can do it." So, I played guitar for him for a couple of songs. He used a backing track. And then the last one was AJ Miller, who she did comedy. And she did music, but she never did them together. When she did well. So, I was like, "AJ, can you do musical comedy?" And she's like, "Yeah, absolutely." So that was it. We had a show. So, we did rehearsals, we practiced for a month. And then a month later, we had like, over 150 people in the Hard Rock Cafe. Unbelievable. And that was like probably the high point for me anyway. Absolutely. The high point for comedy here in Saigon for many other people as well. Kerry Newsome: 14:20 So, was that 2019? Niall Mackay: 14:23 That would have been 2020, through Christmas. I can't- I don't even know what year it is now. What year is it now? Kerry Newsome: 14:31 It's just clicked over to 2022. Niall Mackay: 14:33 Okay then it was Christmas, November 2020 was the first show there. Kerry Newsome: 14:39 2020, because let's just touch base, as we talked before, about a bit of a timeline, because 2020, when the rest of the world was kind of locked down and really feeling the full frontal of COVID, Vietnam at that point, was hubba hubba. Yeah, it was rocking and rolling. I was talking to some people who was saying they were going to 5-star resorts for cheap prices. There were some DJs that happened to just kind of get stuck when the borders got shut in Vietnam, so they couldn't get back as quickly. So, there was some talent walking the streets and like offering themselves up to various venues. So, I hear, 2020 was- it was pretty happening. Am I right? Niall Mackay: 15:33 Yeah, no, it was amazing. We had a brief lockdown of sorts in April for a month. And then everything went back to normal. We had zero COVID strategy, borders were closed, we were just basically like this little island. Shows went back on, comedy was thriving. I don't know too much about DJs. Because I'm not really in that scene. But that makes total sense that DJs would have been stuck here and then performing. We had so many comedians, so many new comedians, some got stuck, like absolutely, that same thing with comedy. Some comedians got stuck here and ended up performing. Regularly, we had more and more shows. And then yeah, that by the end of 2020, again, Hard Rock Cafe. And now even though I can't imagine doing a show with 150 people, I personally probably wouldn't want to do it. Not probably, I wouldn’t want to do it now. Kerry Newsome: 16:25 And I think something that you mentioned about a show is, sometimes it's not just down to the comedians' jokes, it's also about their presence. I think it's also about, as you said, the staging, and I'm glad you mentioned that, because if I walk into a venue, and it really looks clappy, like, it's crabby. And the feeling is, there's not that vibe, you can create a vibe, believe it or not, with the right setup. And I think if you give it every chance, and that comedian has also got every chance of being a success. So, I think it's great to see, because I probably would have thought, "Oh, gee, if I'm going to go to an English-speaking comedy show in Vietnam, run by a guy who's got a Scottish accent, I would have gone. What am I really in for here?" Like, is that kind of some of the feedback you get? How does this voice attach itself to Vietnam and comedy show? It's my God, that's a stretch. It's a stretch. Niall Mackay: 17:35 Yeah, I think so. I think that just comes in when people don't have that expectation that it's going to be good. One of the amazing things was and big changes where we used to have lots of Vietnamese comedians doing English comedy, and they were hilarious they were so, so funny. And, yeah, no, unbelievable. And you're just like, "How are you so funny in your second language, this is unfair." They are the some of the best comedians in Vietnam. And then in 2020, or 2021, I can't remember the exact timeline, I think 2021 They started doing comedy in Vietnamese, which had never really been done before. 18:18 This has been discussed a lot on my podcast and within comedy circles, to do comedy in Vietnamese is really, difficult, because of the language, because of the jokes just don't translate. And if you check out my podcast, I talked to a woman to who's a Vietnamese comedian, and she's not performing now, but she's one of the best, again, she explains all the things that make English language comedy funny. So, like double entendre, tone of voice timing. I mean, these are the biggest things, the way she explained it. The Vietnamese language doesn't lend itself to those types of, of nuances. 18:19 So, it's difficult. And traditionally, Vietnamese comedy was just really slapstick, even just like a guy dressing as a female was hilarious, a guy getting slapped across the head, all this stuff. So, there was never really a Vietnamese comedy scene in Vietnamese language. And then, suddenly, these guys who had been doing English language comedy, [inaudible 19:25], who had all been doing my shows, suddenly started doing their own shows in Vietnamese, and putting their stuff on YouTube and TikTok, they, of course, they just exploded. They got millions of views on TikTok, they used to come and do my little amateur shows. Now I can't book them for love, no money. They are like no huge celebrities. 19:47 They put all the comedy up in Vietnamese, so I don't know, what is same, but it looks amazing. I've watched a couple of videos. The crowd are laughing, too. They are now the pallbearers for Stand-Up Comedy in Vietnamese. And when I say separated themselves, I don't mean like, in a negative way, but they've completely separated themselves on another level from the existing comedy scene that was here because, there's 10 million people in Saigon and 90 million people in Vietnam. So, it's a massive market, to speak to, but the people- the expats seen, I think in Saigon, there was 100,000 expats, that's probably a half know, obviously, an English language speaking Vietnamese, and who do want Western culture and a lot of returning overseas Vietnamese, who appreciate Western culture, but it's still a completely small amount of people compared to the Vietnamese speakers. So those guys, they are amazing, they're killing it. Kerry Newsome: 20:43 And that was going to be my next question, which is like, do you steer your comedy, your stories and your kind of anecdotal situations or whatever? Do you steer them to things that you experience, and a Westerner is going to get, as well as a Vietnamese person? Or are you kind of having a bit of a spin off some of the nuances amongst Vietnamese, like, you kind of taking them on? How do you make it so that- because I'm thinking of- just say, I'm just flown in from, let's say, the UK, I know very little about Vietnam, and I'm at this comedy club, and you're telling some jokes that maybe only a local would get, because they don't know enough about Vietnam yet? So, tell us a little bit about how it is steered and what your focus is, so people can understand. Niall Mackay: 21:46 That's a good point. And sometimes I and even other comedians, you hear them tell a joke, and you're like, you only get that joke if you live here. And so that happens sometimes but you're trying to make your comedy accessible to everyone. Kerry Newsome: 22:03 Universal? Yeah. Niall Mackay: 22:05 Yeah, universal. I mean, most of my stuff, and a lot of the comedian stuff- everyone's different, I guess, maybe I think a lot of my stuff is the kind of fish out of water. So, you're an expat living in a different land. So, the fine line is well, and I've had positive praise on this from local Vietnamese, which I really appreciate, is being respectful of the local culture. So, you always want to make sure that you're not making fun of them for, but you can make fun of them. So, it's like, [crosstalk] yeah, that's always a good question, and I had this with a podcast as well. So, what you've got to try, and do I guess, what I always try and do, to answer your question is, I'm the part of the joke, not the Vietnamese person or the Vietnamese culture. I'm the part of the joke for not understanding it. erry Newsome: 22:58 Yeah, I get it. Niall Mackay: 23:01 You don’t want to make fun of them, even though you can, make fun of them. But yeah, so, I do think about that. Kerry Newsome: 23:08 I'm cheering you on all the way with what you're doing. Because it's something that I think is a great add on for a traveler coming to Vietnam, as the doors are starting to open, and they're starting to look at new scenes and new things to do. I mean, Vietnam has been in hibernation now for a couple of years. So, we're all coming out of a pandemic. I haven't been back for two years where I normally am, like three, four times a year, for extended stays to get around and experiencing kind of stay. So, I'm missing Vietnam a lot. How do I direct? Or how do people find these gigs? Where do they go? Are there other places? Advertise? Because I've never seen it in the hotels or anything yet. Maybe that's coming? Niall Mackay: 23:58 Yeah, that's neat. You gave me a good idea. Hotels. Yeah, that's a good one. You probably know what it's like in Vietnam. As someone said to me, Facebook is king here. I think. Kerry Newsome: 24:09 Oh, gotcha! Niall Mackay: 24:09 I think it is less around the world. Now it's declining or not growing as fast. But in Vietnam, everything happens through Facebook. So that's just the main thing to do is go on Facebook, go to the events page. But there's also like [sysco 24:21] Saigonese, so, we partner with Saigonese, we post our events on there, and they post, they have a calendar of events. So, you can find things there. As you mentioned, we have just gotten the Seven Million Bikes website, you'll find all our events on there. But if you're looking for any event on any night, you go to Facebook, go to Events. Look up what's happening tonight, and you'll find it there. 24:43 But as you know, with anything, it's all marketing, right? Like there's no shortage of marketing ideas. If I had unlimited budget, I would have posters in every hotel and I would have ads on YouTube and then the shows will probably all be packed because, the more you spend on marketing, the more people are going to come. Everything's done on a shoestring. Everything's done with a small budget that you have, which is often zero, the only time I've really thrown any budget at anything, it was the Hard Rock show because it was a big show. And we knew that the more we threw at it, the more people we would get through the door, but most of our shows is kind of a 20, 30 people, Max. 25:16 But it's sad, because before the pandemic, as I mentioned, with the tourism and the locals coming out, and even just the children of expats, which is regular as well, people come for a year or two at a time. We had every single show was 20, 30 people sold out. And then the Coronavirus came in it's never recovered since then for various reasons, unfortunately. So, we've been on a holding pattern there, like you and the opposite. Do you have not left Vietnam in two years, but a great place to be. But we've been on a holding pattern just like when the pandemic hit, well, they are six months, Christmas time, we'll be back the tourism will be back, the shows will be back, everything will be packed. 25:56 And then that didn't happen and then start this year. Again. We're like, "Okay, the things were looking up, the vaccines were coming, cases went down." Things were opening by April, May. Well, by March, April, like, "Yes, okay, it's going to be the year.” And then May came and [sysco 26:10] Delta came in. And, again, we've never recovered. So, we shut down all the events, move them all online. Or we did online comedy, which was unbelievable. I did a show in Australia, Quote Unquote, which was three o'clock Vietnam time, but it was in Australia. It was amazing. We did it for free for healthcare workers. And so, we had a massive audience. Kerry Newsome: 26:31 Oh, Fantastic! Niall Mackay: 26:32 Yeah, that was a connection through my sister. As I mentioned, she's in the healthcare industry in Victoria. So, she opened it up to all her healthcare professionals, and we offered it to them for free. So, t that was incredible. And so, we moved everything online, we were doing weekly quiz nights, we were doing comedy nights, everything was amazing. And then October 1st, the government opened the country. So, nobody wanted to be online. But we couldn't do events either. So that was crushed. So, we went from being offline to online to nothing, and just now shows are finally starting to recover. So, I'm doing my first comedy show, hosting my first comedy show in like nine months next week, I'm performing this week, not the first time, but I'm performing this week at somebody else's show. There's a whole bunch of other show runners here. That all put on comedy shows. And so, it's getting exciting again, but like everything, I think we're all just thrilled to see what's going to happen next. So hopefully, nothing happens. But we'll see how it goes. Kerry Newsome: 27:34 Yeah, and, I was talking to someone in Vietnam, earlier this morning. And they were saying that the government is talking about now counting hospital numbers, rather than case numbers. And, if that's going to be the case, I think that's probably, to be honest, a good measurement for the future. Because if Vietnam follows Australia, and many other countries with the Omicron virus, fortunately, if the country is highly vaccinated, then the Omicron comes as probably more of a slight flu. And you are certainly unwell. And certainly, if you have any underlying conditions, you are going to be in a worse situation. But so far, Omicron is not our biggest issue with a hospitalization. 28:38 So, I can only cross my fingers. Because as you know, I'm in the travel industry, what an industry to be in, in the era. So, I think news for everyone listening is that Vietnam is opening and the way you can tell that most prolifically is with the airlines opening their routes again. And that's already happened. The first of January was a big release with Vietnam Airlines, Singapore Airlines, in January as well. Bamboo is going to be flying out of Melbourne, and we're waiting for the release of dates there. But certainly, Vietnam Airlines has started selling. 29:20 I think, just for people to be aware, it is a situation to watch. And I'm hoping your comedy shows and events can continue. And as they are and I'm sure Vietnam is going to embrace that because they know they're going to have to have that kind of entertainment when everybody does come back, because everyone's going to be wanting to get out there, have fun, throw off the Omicron badge, look in the rear vision to COVID and get out and have a good time. 29:56 So, Niall, I want to say thank you again for coming on the show. It's been great to chat and great to get an understanding of the comedy scene and what's going on in Saigon. I'm just yet grateful for your time and to learn a little bit more about what's going to happen and what I can come and do when I arrive in Saigon, first stop, I'm coming to a show. Niall Mackay: 30:22Awesome. Well, we can't wait to see you. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. I could talk about Vietnam and comedy and entertainment here all day long

ba8c349b-ceb1-4781-b785-c42cb80e29d5These episodes remind me why I started this journey The Top 5 Vietnam Travel Podcasts for 2021 Episode 10 S3-10 Top 5 Travel Podcasts 00:00 / 37:56 In todays' world of media there are so many news broadcasters competing for your attention, it’s hard to know which one to trust. 
With the advent of Covid’s most devastating outbreak in Vietnam and Saigon happening in 2021, getting local insights in English has been challenging. Albeit, when many other countries around the world are opening up, it's been hard to comprehend, let alone fully appreciate the ferocity of the Delta variant as it forced Saigon into one of the strongest city lockdowns of the last 20 years.
Michael Tatarski is my guest and in his role as Editor-in-Chief of Saigoneer, the Vietnamese culture and history website, and author of the Vietnam Weekly newsletter is well respected for his local knowledge and reporting in Vietnam and most particularly Saigon.

I catch up with Michael just as the October 2021 ease in lockdowns is about to happen. In this episode he talks about what it’s been like during the lockdown from July to October 1st, 2021 and what aspirations and advice he has on travel coming out of the lockdown, both domestically and internationally. It's great having Michael come on the show to give everyone the insights into the behind the news stories of Saigon during this devastating time of hardship. 
Read his latest report of the week commencing 1/10/21 - "The Lockdown is lifted".

I see this as a historic recording. You may wish to listen to this again before you visit, so you can marvel at the city's resilience and determination. I expect a lot of changes and hopefully most for the good.

Saigon is a truly vibrant and energetic city bursting with heritage that sits alongside creative eateries, secret alleys, coffee houses, river cruising, artisan shopping and roof top bars, that many a news crew were known to drink at in years gone by. 
When you go to visit Saigon, you may wish to listen to previous episodes talking about the Saigon Nightlife, and Best Districts to visit as great guides to maximise your time there. Download Transcript PDF Read transcript

9a6d1613-985b-413d-9059-740f70feef70 Rich in history and culture and yet bursting to change. Street life experiences in Hanoi through the lens of a camera Episode 9 S3-09 Photographic experiences 00:00 / 34:32 Hanoi, where the old and the new live side by side. A city rich in history and culture and yet bursting at the seams to change. Whether you decide to walk the streets or ride a bike to get around it, there are some great tips you should listen to, for when you visit. My guest, Lavonne Bosman, decided to visit Vietnam for the purpose of capturing what she calls “disappearing worlds”. Lavonne, is a South African born, Photographic Artist. Her passion is travelling the world and capturing places and people in the midst of rapid development. In her words, it’s about finding the art of “disappearing worlds” as we know it. In my opinion her work is insightful and unpretentious. Make sure you check it out. Lavonne landed in Hanoi in 2019 and while teaching English since her arrival she has been expanding her portfolio with the street culture of the city. She has an exceptional portfolio of work which you can access through the links below and photo postcard booklet, which is simply divine and it can be purchased here... You can order direct from lavonnebosman@gmail.com or via Facebook:. https://www.facebook.com/LavonneBosmanPhotoArt 
If you would like to support Lavonne in her quest to continue photographing the city of Hanoi: https://www.patreon.com/Photoartstories Download Transcript PDF Read transcript