Good morning from the Jade Emperor Pagoda here in Ho Chi Minh City,
and I have to say,
I'm confused. I'm so used to being in Indonesia
and knowing exactly what's going on when it comes to religion and stuff
that I don't really know what's going on here!
Apart from this place being absolutely beautiful,
people seem to be turning up over there and pray that statue,
picking up incense and then bringing it over here
and praying to this pagoda thing here,
and putting the incense in the sand before going inside and pray again,
but I have literally no idea what's going on.
It's weird, like the juxtaposition of this pagoda in the middle of the city,
and there's these link bonsai trees all around everywhere.
I'm gonna go inside now and try not to get in anyone's way while they're praying.
Inside there is absolutely stunning, there were so many Buddha statues
and samurais and... not samurais.
I don't know what they're called, but they're not samurais.
The keepers are doing their job, and believe it or not,
this is actually the first ever pagoda or buddhist temple I've ever been to in my life,
besides one really random reclining Buddha in Indonesia, which...
is so strange.
So the next place I'm going to is actually only a 15-minute walk away,
and if you've lived in Bali or Indonesia, you know that walking isn't really a thing,
so I'm gonna take a 15-minute stroll,
probably the longest walk I've done in almost a year.
I'm gonna enjoy it.
So after about 20 minutes of walking and filming,
there are a few things I've noticed about Vietnam.
The traffic basically works the same as it does in Indonesia.
You just gotta cross the road, put your hand up if you need to, and they'll stop.
They also love riding on the path. Check this out.
At this point, the path is just the extension of the road.
And people also wear this half helmet thing.
They're like glorified bicycle helmets.
There's hardly any helmets that actually cover people's heads.
I'm on the sidewalk, but I feel like I'm in the middle of the road at the moment.
So behind me here is one of the... I think there's a few pink churches here in Vietnam.
If you didn't know, Vietnam was actually colonized by the French for quite a long period of time
in the 1800s to the early 1900s,
and this was built in the 1870s, you know, for the French catholicism.
I think it wasn't pink when it was first built, though.
It turned pink in the 90s, I think like 1940s or 1950s,
but at the moment, the gate is shut and the front door is shut as well,
so I have no idea if I can actually go inside or not, so I'm just gonna admire it from the outside.
But yeah, it's a stunning piece of French gothic renaissance architecture.
Okay, I actually found a second gate that I come through, so...
it says that the church is open 24 hours, but it looks like the very front door is closed.
Let's go check it out.
So this is the front door to the church, pretty plain compared to the rest of the church, actually,
but like I said it's closed, and I don't think we can go in.
I'm gonna do like a lap of the church to see if there's another door to go in,
but I think it just might be closed today for some reason.
Maybe there's a ceremony or something going on, but let's have a look around.
Oh wow, look at all these memorial flags. I have no idea what they're for,
but there's thousands of them.
And they go all the way down.
Rio De Janeiro or La Favela?
If you know, you know.
I don't know what they're building here, but it looks like some sort of stage or set.
All these like funky doors and walls and stuff over here.
So I've just made it back to the back end of the church where the ceremony was, where I didn't go,
but, but, but...
I've also found a door.
It doesn't look like a very official door,
but it's a door and it's open.
Should we go have a look? I think we should.
It seems to be like a tiny service area at the back of the church.
This isn't the main atrium of the church but it looks good.
If you know what the name of this is in religious lingo, let me know.
Found myself a nice little park.
And I was walking down the road to the next place, which by the way is the Notre Dame cathedral.
Bet you didn't know there was a Notre Dame here in Vietnam.
And I came across this tiny little Banh Mi street store,
like next to a toy store or something like that,
and I thought "what first impressions of Ho Chi Minh or Vietnam video
would be complete without tasting Banh Mi for the first time".
It was only 20,000 dong, which is like less than a dollar.
Let's give it a try, let's see what it tastes like!
It's nice.
I feel like...
it's probably not the best one I'm ever gonna have.
I was right, but you'll see that in a future Hoi An video.
But it's really tasty, it's really good.
I'll give it a solid 7 and a half out of 10.
I'm gonna finish my Banh Mi, and then we're gonna carry on going to the Notre Dame basilica,
and also the Saigon central post office, which is pretty cool,
and I think I'm gonna send my mum a postcard.
And this is the Notre Dame basilica.
Beautiful isn't it. As you can see, it's it's closed at the moment.
They're doing restorations, you can't go inside.
I've only watched a couple of videos on this place,
but I thought it was gonna be bigger than that, actually.
But I've never seen the Notre Dame in Paris,
so I don't know what to compare it too, so let me know down below.
Does it look like Notre Dame in Paris?
It was built between 1963... oh no,
1863 and 1880.
It was built by the French colonials for the new French catholicism that had just come into the country.
I wish I could go in and see what it looks like inside.
Unfortunately not going to happen today. However,
this is the central Saigon Post Office, also built by the French.
That one we can go inside, and we're gonna do that now.
I want to send a postcard to my mum, but I'm sort of just wandering around,
not really sure what I'm supposed to do.
I was hoping there'd be like some instructions somewhere, but...
thus far, cannot see any.
Some really cool knitknacks, though. Well, that was pretty dope.
The architecture itself was really cool,
and sending a postcard was actually really easy.
After wandering around and figuring out what to do,
basically you just have to pick a postcard, pay for it.
Mine cost 5,000 dong, which is like...
I don't even know. 20 cents, something like that.
Then you take it down to the bench, where you can write your message and your address,
and then you go up to these booths here
and exchange money for stamps. For two stamps was 19,000 dong,
so together it was around 25,000 dong, which is like one dollar,
to send a postcard to the UK.
Really simple and really easy to do, so...
And absolutely beautiful building as well,
something that I'm really glad that I came to see,
and I think you should too,
but I think I heard them say to the woman in front of me, who was also British,
that it's going to take about a month to get back,
so I have a feeling this video is gonna come out before that postcard gets home,
but like I said mother, if you're watching,
comment below. Did the postcard make it to you or not?
We'll find out.
I haven't been in one of these since Australia.
Also, another thing I've noticed, the cans are big again.
In Indonesia, the cans are tiny, they're like 250 mil.
I believe this is probably 320 mil, in the UK it's 330.
In Australia, it's 400 mil.
Indonesia has the tiniest soda drinks I've ever seen.
But it's nice to have a proper size coke again.
Now right here behind me is the reunification palace here in Ho Chi Minh City,
and if you don't know,
you probably should know, but there was a decades-long war in the 1900s here in Vietnam
between the allies, so the French,
the South Vietnamese and the Americans and the British,
and the the opposers, I don't know if they had a name.
The North Vietnamese and the Chinese.
But in 1975, right here in Ho Chi Minh City at the Reunification Palace,
was the point where a tank blasted through these front gates
and in North Vietnamese finally took South Vietnam, ending that war.
Imagine a tank smashing down these gates
at the end of a very long and very bloody war
where tens if not hundreds of thousands of people died.
Honestly, this city is so rich of history,
it's insane.
It's such a melting pot of French colonialism,
the Japanese, very slightly,
the Vietnamese, there's Chinese influence.
It's honestly stunning. I really really love this city.
Now I'm not gonna go in, because quite frankly unfortunately I do not have the time today.
I need to go to one other place, and then I need to pop back to the hotel,
and then this afternoon I'm meeting some friends from Instagram and LCA
which will be really really nice.
If you look there, it's a sneak peek of the Avengers' tower.
I'll be going up that later for sunset, hopefully.
See the city from all the way up from the top as the sun goes down.
Hopefully, fingers crossed, it's not raining.
So I had to get 2 tickets to get into the Ho Chi Minh City Museum.
30k to get into the museum,
and then 20k to allow my camera in. So 50k, that's like 2 dollars.
So I can film as well, which is great.
There's also There's also a photo shoot going on outside with some really good looking western girl,
in a pink dress and an old car,
or a film shoot, one of the 2. But...
let's go inside.
There's actually photoshoots going on everywhere inside,
there's so many.
Anyway let's go into the commercial port- trade-services Saigon of Ho Chi Minh City.
So I've got some quick facts here about Ho Chi Minh City Museum.
It was actually originally called the Gia Long Palace,
and it was a residence of a top of top politicians throughout the different regimes
that they had here in Southern Vietnam.
But it was originally built in 1890,
and now it serves as a Memorial Museum.
Not entirely sure what I'm going to find in here yet,
whether it's going to be about the war or whether it's just about Ho Chi Minh City Saigon itself,
but let's have a wander around and have a look.
Now we're in the industrial and handicraft section.
So what I've gathered so far is that this is just a history of Saigon
from the beginnin until now across all areas.
I actually haven't seen any mention of the war yet,
it's more just about, so far anyway, just about uh the industrialization,
how it was a port town,
even a little bit about how they got their first satellite into space, which is really cool.
This reminds me of the silver place I went to in Bali.
So this room covers a lot of the crafting and handiwork in Vietnam over the years,
including like pottery, jewellery making,
there's something about the satellite going up again over there.
And I know I keep comparing a lot to Bali,
but I've been there for the last year, so I do apologize,
but it seems like a lot of the traditional handicraft is very very similar,
or the processes are very very similar to Bali as well, so...
that's really interesting.
Not looking forward to getting inside of them,
but you'll see that in the next... not the next video, the one after.
And now I'm out, standing on the balcony of the museum,
where the old palace seat used to be, or the supreme court as well.
Looking down over the road.
But it turns out this isn't just a museum for war.
There are some things about the war in here, but not just the war.
There's things about the Industrial Revolution and crafts,
there's stuff about cameras, there's stuff about music,
there's stuff about just everything.
This is actually a really really interesting museum and I really recommend you come check it out.
Like I said, only 15,000 dong to get in,
and you could probably spend about I'd say an hour here to 2 hours walking around, checking it out.
But I've run out of space on this memory card, so I'm gonna pop home, charge my batteries,
dump the memory card, and then we're gonna head back out
and explore some more of Ho Chi Minh this afternoon.
And just like that, after an hour or so at home,
I'm back out on the streets again.
And what better way to start off being back on the streets than with some food!
I need a snack, because I haven't had lunch and I've got a big dinner coming up later.
I'll tell you about it in a bit.
So I just needed a quick snack and I found this woman on the side of the road,
just like making these weird things.
I don't know what it is, I don't know what it's called.
I think it says on the front of the cart that I'll show you.
But basically, it's like rice paper that she grills on coal,
and she puts a bunch of different ingredients inside,
and it looks like spring onions and chicken and some other stuff,
and then she cracks a couple of quail eggs on top,
and then finishes off with some dairily cheese.
So this is what I have in my hand right now, it's 25,000 dong, so one dollar,
and I'm gonna give it a try.
That's really good.
I probably butchered the pronounciation.
Ended up being my favorite Vietnamese street food actually,
and this ended up being the best one I had, which is kind of sad.
I don't know what it is, but if you're ever in Vietnam, I recommend it.
That street food was really good, but I think I just got ripped off with this.
I just paid more for this than I did for a beer last night.
So the storm passed earlier, but I'm still hearing a lot of thunder.
I really hope it doesn't rain again, because I have a big video plan tonight
with another friend that I met through LCA. We're gonna go film a street food,
Vietnamese street food video,
but that's gonna be a separate video, so you're gonna have to subscribe to see that one,
and please do! I'm trying to hit 2,000 subscribers by the end of the year,
and I think I can do it.
We are going up there for sunset.
Hopefully it's that after rain sort of sunset where the sky blows up.
Fingers crossed.
It turns out the Bitexco building isn't just a financial building,
it's also a shopping center, that's something that I didn't know.
And they're ready for Christmas!
I'm not ready for Christmas yet.
I have no idea how I'm supposed to get to the skydeck, though.
I'm just going to keep going up these escalators until I...
hopefully reach the top!
Here a barrier.
Can't keep going.
A lovely security guard just told me I need to go around this side of the building.
So let's check this one out and see if he is right. Well, he should be right, he works here.
Oh, it's so tall!
Damn we're going up there. Okay!
Great success.
You don't go inside the building, you come round the side of the building
and you'll find this big door that screams "skydeck"!
How did I miss that?
200,000 dong, please.
Thank you.
I get the lift all to myself.
Okay it can't be too busy today, that must be nice.
We're going up to floor 49 to the observation dec ,
where I get 360 views. Let's see how fast it goes.
Hello!
Thank you.
Oh look at that.
Wow, what a view.
Damn, well.
We are high.
I can see there's a guy on the swimming pool on top of a building.
But anyway, I suppose I should show you.
I recently found out that that building over there,
that is the second tallest building in all of SE Asia now,
behind a new building that's in Malaysia, I've been told today.
But it's pretty damn tall.
They like smoke the glass and they put all these dots on them,
which like completely ruins it if you come here for photography.
So don't expect a clear photo if you want to come and take pictures of the skyline,
but if you just come here for a great view, this is a great view.
Bitexco Financial Tower,
a proud symbol of Vietnam's new wave of growth and prosperity.
And also HQ to Tony Stark and the Avengers.
They missed that bit out.
So this is what women's fashion in Vietnam, I think formal wear, looked like
from the early 1900s all the way through to the 2000s.
Pretty nice!
So, 200k gets you access to this floor for as long as you want,
as well as this museum of formal wear.
And a complimentary water. It's not too bad, that's like what?
8 dollars? I'm only gonna do this once.
And how often you get to say you're in the Avengers tower?
This was my full experience of my first full day here in Ho Chi Minh City.
My first day in Vietnam, and I really hope you enjoyed it.
Trying to hit 2,000 subscribers by the end of the year.
I think I can do it, you could really help out.
I look forward to sharing the next video with you guys,
so come back for more and thank you for watching!