First time in Ho Chi Minh VIETNAM ~ things to do in Saigon 🇻🇳

Trying to eat like a pasta dish there. Wait, wait, oh my god, oh my god. Just got to Ho Chi Minh. This is my very first time in Vietnam so let's go explore the city. Actually, we just checked in at our hotel and this is in District 1 which is kind of like a popular place. It's basically like the city center and all the places that we want to go to is within walking distance from this area. And because I'm a U.S. passport holder, it's 25 USD for the visa but my boyfriend, he's Thai and he's part of the ACN so he doesn't need visa to get to Vietnam. But immigration was super chill and easy. Okay, so now we're gonna go out and eat some pho. Okay, first stop. People don't really bring umbrellas but we're trying to protect ourselves so that's why we got an umbrella. Yeah, it's only 11 a.m but the sun is pretty strong like it feels like 1 p.m sun. The very first meal we're having in Vietnam is pho at Pho Vietnam. Right when you walk in, you smell the herb or like the pho broth which I like because one of my favorite food is noodles and soup. The smell, it reminds me of the Vietnamese pho shops in California but I'm not sure about the taste. It's like my first time having pho in Vietnam. Actually, the noodle size is a bit wider but I was kind of expecting or I'm used to like thin like size. Beef tastes beefy but it's a bit hard to chew. Maybe I need to find like a different pho spot that's more authentic like the ones where you eat on the street. But they have the iconic sauces which I'm gonna just put it in. I think the noodles has been soaked in the soup for a while so now the soup kind of tastes like the noodles. I realized the pho in the hot stone bowl is better. The noodles are not soaked in the soup for too long so the soup is still clear and the beef in this one also tastes better. Wow, they most likely got it from Thai, the dorian. This is the famous Ban Than market. It reminds me of Chatuchak slash Sampheng market but with a roof. But actually the roof is quite interesting. It looks really vintage and old school, like old style. Pretty hot in here, no fan. I know there is fan but you don't really feel much air or wind. It's more like a touristy place, like tourist trap so that's why we don't plan on buying anything. The floor reminds me of Thailand. This feels homey. We're just gonna walk to the museum. It's about a 15 minute walk and we'll pass by Independence Palace. Feels like a parallel universe of Thailand and the trippy part is that the flight is one and a half hour but the time zone is the same. So the same time but different place, different language but a little bit similar. Oh gotta cross. It's not as scary as you think but the thing is there's no light. I mean there actually there is light but it's not that clear and there's a lot of honking which it seems like honking is normal here. Oh we're gonna follow the guys in front of us. Apparently it's built in 1962. It's known as the Reunification Convention Hall. Normally you can buy a ticket to go in but we're just gonna take pictures outside. This is the highlight. It's called Chinook and people get in and out from the back. This thing will come down and then you just get down from here. Get out from here. It's 40,000 Dong per person to get in here to get yourself educated about the history. So we spent about an hour at this museum. There's three floors here but we will go to the next place which is at Saigon Post Office and instead of walking like 15 minutes there, we're gonna get a grab ride which is not that expensive. It's like 28,000 Dong so that's about one USD-ish for us to not walk. You gotta pay attention to the, wait, you gotta pay attention to the license plate because it's a bit long so and there's like a decimal point so just make sure you get on the right car. Okay finally made it here. I always see this picture or this building in postcards. It's a bit influenced by French architecture because it used to be colonized by France before Vietnam was unified and behind me is a cathedral. It's literally right in front of the post office but it's in construction right now. You can still see a bit of it though. Ho Chi Minh used to be called Saigon but they changed it in honor of Uncle Ho. So there's actually postcards here or some souvenirs that you can buy in here but it's more about the way that it's decorated and they kind of preserved how it looks with some updates like selling sim cards. In front of the apartment cafe which is another pretty instagrammable spot. The thing with Ho Chi Minh is that you can go to most of the touristy destinations all in one day. Like I think we checked all the places already. On the end of this here is the ASEAN flags. Oh and about the apartment cafe, it looks not as dramatic as you think but it's a cool idea. I feel like if you know how to take pictures you can make this look really aesthetic. We're having dinner at like 4 30 because why not? It looks a bit fancier than we thought. I mean like the way they decorated it. This is the one that I've been looking for but I never knew what the name was but I'm glad that they got pictures. So earlier we got this mango passion fruit tea from Vincom mall and it's actually really good. We've been sipping on it but this is gonna be our dinner. Iconic Vietnamese dish that I had as a kid but I think it's hard to find a place where it's good because the rice roll part sometimes is too thick. So let's see if this one is okay. I wanted to try this hue style of the beef noodle. Like a different type of broth compared to the normal pho. And the noodle, it's actually like the ones you find in Hong Kong. Yeah it's hard to find this type of rice noodle in general. It's red but it's not that spicy or I don't think it's supposed to be spicy. This soup has like a crab or curry taste to it which is different. I kind of like it. Ending the day with a head spa which is kind of what they're known for and the prices are pretty good. It's been a long day but it seems like more people are out at night time because it's not as hot. I feel like people here they really don't like the sun. Like they cover up a lot in the daytime and now people are not as covered up and the sun is pretty strong. Like we noticed some lines on us after half a day of walking outside and it's not like we're in the sun that much either. Yeah so this is it for today. Maybe I'll see you guys tomorrow. 6 30 a.m and the first thing we're eating today is banh mi. This is how you know it's legit because it doesn't look Instagrammable. It looks pretty local. Are you guys open? Oh okay. Oh you can kind of see like the busyness inside and how they make it. Majority of places they speak English so that's good and it's already kind of made. Like you just say one or two or three. There's no veggies but it comes with veggies on the side. Oh they even give like this thing here. I got a lot of the bread the first bite but it's really crunchy. A little bit fluffy inside. Apparently after you order you have to hand the receipt to the staff and then they make it. So then we were kind of like just waiting there for a few minutes. But yeah it's actually overall really good because there's a lot of veggies. It balances out with the heaviness of the meat and the bread. They actually put all the different type of meat in the middle. It's like a combination type of thing. Crunchy from the cucumber and a bit spicy from the jalapeno. And just meaty overall. It's like 50% meat. There's two entrances but we're at the touristy one. Basically we're doing like a tour that I booked on Klook and it's 22 USD per person which is not bad and you get to see the tunnel which is what we're gonna do in a bit. It's about a two hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City Center to get to here. This one specifically it's more like a well situation. Oh my god. And it's designed for like Vietnamese size. So it's like interesting to imagine what it was like back then. There are still tunnels but it's not safe anymore. That's why we only saw the shorter routes. Showered, rinsed ourselves a bit but now we are trying a super popular restaurant called Pizza for Peace. Actually we're not big fans of pizza but we just want to see what's up. But I plan to eat like a pasta dish there. Wait wait oh my god oh my god. I'm still learning to cross the street properly but honking is pretty normal here but like when people honk it kind of reminds me of like an alarm clock. This place probably has the best service out of all the places that we went to but I think this is considered expensive or bougie for locals. They're known for pizza but we got the pasta. The pasta part is homemade and the texture kind of reminds me of ramen noodle. I thought it was gonna be fishy but it's not so that's good. Gotta get his protein. Total this meal is about 1,000 baht. Starting our last day in Ho Chi Minh with a cafe in the corner of the street. This is pretty iconic and I feel so down to earth. I've been wanting to sit on these short chairs for a while. Every time we drive by here at nighttime there's a lot of people sitting here in this corner and I guess it's kind of like a hangout spot or it's like a style of cafe where you just sit on the street you just watch the road and then you can order snacks. So we got beef jerky but they have sunflowers. Last time I saw someone munching on sunflowers. Oh yeah and it's pretty normal for the bikes to go on the pedestrian like sidewalk so it becomes more like a parking and not actually walkable. The tea itself is actually okay but it's a bit sweet for me but you gotta be careful because there's a lot of secondhand smoke. This is where we ate the first day. How this works they give you a super hot bowl and the soup will be boiling hot and then you add the meat and noodle and veggie. Soup is really clear. It doesn't get soaked with the rice noodle flavor. Like so the rice noodle is not overly cooked and you can still taste the clearness of the broth. You see the beef gets fully cooked actually not all the way let me cook this more and they always come with fresh veggies which I don't really use because I don't want to ruin the flavor of this. Makes you feel homey. I mean it's really comforting and I don't really feel bloated after eating this. I mean the broth is a bit salty but I think it's more like a flavor from them cooking it. 4 USD for a big bowl of pho. So I ended the trip doing some shopping before our flight. The shops that I looked at range between 300 baht to 1,100 baht per piece. So a lot of Vietnamese brand clothes. It's more flattering for my body shape so I just got two pieces total and then we headed to the airport. At the airport now literally ran to the gate and the immigration line was actually pretty long. It probably took about 45 minutes from check-in to getting past security and immigration but we made it and we're gonna go back to Bangkok which I'm so excited. Actually one of my favorite part of this trip was going to Chinatown which I didn't record. A lot of people in Chinatown actually can speak Cantonese because they came from Guangdong and parts of China. Coincidentally came during their 50-year reunification with North and South Vietnam so it's quite significant. But this is it to our trip in Vietnam and I will see you guys in another video when I'm back in Bangkok.