1st Day in Vietnams Most Chaotic City Ho Chi Minh City

Do we go? Okay, thank you ma'am. I just gotta go? Yep, I gotta go. You speak Vietnamese so well. Is he getting an attitude with me? That is exactly what I was thinking of. I love them here. Today, I'm traveling to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The largest, most chaotic city in the entire country. Specifically, the driving is chaotic. There are actually more motorbikes in this city than any other city in the entire world. So for this video, I'll show you the whole arrival process, traveling to my hotel, finding Vietnamese food, I'll make the bad decision of driving a motorbike, and I'm actually going to pay to get through immigration faster. Because I've heard the lines at the airport can be that long. So today, I'll show you that whole process. Hopefully, everything goes smoothly. But when you're navigating a crazy city like this, nothing is ever that predictable. Let's go to Ho Chi Minh. And I've just arrived. Let's see what the arrival process is like. I heard the immigration could take several hours here. So I actually got something called a VIP fast track. I paid $21 for it so I can go through immigration faster. And supposedly, even that could take 30 to 40 minutes. So they even have a premium fast track that costs $65 to go through immigration, which is insane to me to pay $65 just out of principle to go through immigration. So I got the standard fast track, $21. Let's see what that process is like. Of course, I can't film the immigration officers, but I'll see if I can get a quick video of the line. Pretty basic. Just a standard airport. By the way, if you're American, a lot of nationalities, you need to get an e-visa in advance. You can apply online. Once you have your approval, it lasts for 90 days. So that is the normal line. It does look long, but I don't think it would take hours. So this is me, round plus. So he's escorting me now on a separate line. They already have all my information. This is going to save a lot of time. All right, I have to turn you off. And we are in Vietnam. That still took about 20 minutes even with the fast track pass, but essentially there are 20 immigration officers, I counted, and the normal line is about twice as long as the fast track pass line. So expect it to take at least 40 minutes if you don't do the fast track pass. You can use the trip.com app if you want to book the fast track pass. I'm not sponsored by them, but that's how I did it. But we've made it. This is Vietnam, everybody. The airport. First I gotta find my bag. I don't know which carousel it's on. There we go. Vanilla belt number two. Okay, I'm gonna look for an ATM and then we're gonna get a taxi or a grab actually. Those are usually very affordable, but let's see how expensive a grab is. It should be about a 45-minute ride into the city, into District 1, which is the city center. As far as the airport goes, very straightforward. You see English right there. You have Vietnamese at the top and then English below it. So very easy to navigate. We just walk out. Wait, domestic connection? I'm not connected. Did I just go with the wrong door? Okay, so she's calling for a taxi, but we're not gonna do a taxi. We're gonna do a grab. Ah, found an ATM. Okay, so I'm getting five million dong. That's a good sound. There we go. That's good. And we are in Vietnam and it is warm. It's very warm. I forgot how hot it is in Ho Chi Minh City. We got a nice breeze though, so it's good. But when you're in the sun, this is definitely a warm city. So you've got a lot of taxis, a lot of drivers, but I'm just gonna do grab. I'll just do it on my phone. It's okay. No thank you. No thank you. Yeah, I'll just do it myself. I'd rather just see the screen myself that he was offering me a grab ride. You see that in Vietnam. So you'll see people dressed as grab drivers with grab helmets and they'll want to give you a ride off the record and charge a little bit more, which is usually not that much more. And then they cut out the middle man and the grab doesn't get a cut. So since I already have internet on my phone because I had an eSIM, I had internet as soon as I landed on the plane, I can go ahead and order my grab to my hotel. The hotel is called Haven Hut, I think. There we go. So this is 6.68 kilometers. Let's see how much it costs. So it's making me go over here. I don't see the grab pickup location, but I do see a grab sign right there, so maybe that's it. Arrival terminal parking lot. So maybe I have to go upstairs to a parking lot. Is he getting an attitude with me? $300,000 Vietnamese. How much is that in U.S. dollars? He's ready to go. $11? $311.39. District 1? Let's see how far that is. So 32 minutes, $11. That's probably a little higher, but it's always better to use the app to be honest. Oh no, we're going with him. And by the way, Vietnam is not a tipping culture. I also get a lot of negative comments if I ever tip in this country. I think sometimes it's deserved in certain situations or to round up, something like that. But I do get a lot of hate comments telling me not to bring my American tipping culture to Vietnam, but what are you gonna do? Okay, thank you. Oh, your Vietnamese is so good! Why are you so good at Vietnamese? Do you know a lot? A little. Which country are you from? Which country? America. Where are you from? Where am I from? United States, USA. Oh, U.S.A. America. Yeah, where are you from? What does that mean? I have no idea what that means. I have no idea what he's saying. I think maybe I know what he's saying. He's using a translator. I have a translator. My hands are just full. I'm being lazy. Okay, here comes the ride. I want to know what he was saying though. I'll never know what he was saying. If you speak Vietnamese, let me know what he was saying. Xin chào. Haven Hut Hotel. Alright, I gotta pull out the translator. We're in Vietnam. We're in Ho Chi Minh City. Here, we'll type it in. So I used to live here about nine years ago, but I'm curious how much that grab ride would cost. Let me see how much it would cost if I just use the app. Just choose this pickup. Let's see what it says. Oh, it's half. It's half. Look. 130,000 Vietnamese Dong for the ride. But I'm not complaining. $11 for a 30 minute ride. I'm happy. You can already see the motorbikes. But this isn't the crazy driving that I'm talking about. There are intersections where there's no rules. It's basically hundreds of motorbikes weaving in and out of each other. Tons of these little mom and pop restaurants all over the city. So much good street food. You just wander down any alleyway and you can find amazing food for about $2. And right now, what I want is something called Com Tam. This is one of my favorite foods that I would always get in the alleys here in Ho Chi Minh City. It's somewhere around here. It's hard to find a sign around here with this style of building. Found it. We have arrived at the hotel. So this is the neighborhood where I'm at. And you've got a ton of food all around here. We're gonna go explore after we drop off the bag. And by the way, how I had internet on my phone in the car and at the airport is because I installed an eSIM on my phone before flying to Vietnam. An eSIM is a digital SIM card that you install on your phone instead of switching out your physical SIM card with a local one once you arrive in a new country. And the company that I've always used for my eSIMs is called Olafly. And the reason I've always chosen to use Olafly is because they offer unlimited data in over 200 destinations around the world. So you can even be streaming YouTube videos on your phone and not have to worry about running out of data. You can buy an eSIM for an individual country or you can buy a regional eSIM that covers multiple destinations in that area. And now they're also offering a monthly subscription option that gives you access to more than 160 destinations all around the world. And they've also recently introduced something called the Always On feature. So whether you've bought an individual eSIM or you're doing the monthly subscription plan, even after that's expired or been cancelled, Olafly will continue to give you 1GB of free data every month. This doesn't cost anything extra and there's no expiration date on it. So this is really good for layover in a different country or for an emergency. If you want to try out an Olafly eSIM on your next international trip, you can use my discount code TRAVELESCAPES and I'll also put my affiliate link in the description below and in the comments. Here we go. Havenhut Hotel. Hello. Good. How are you? So far so good. Yeah, I'm making a video. Is that okay? Hello. Hi. I can give a shout out to Havenhut. What are your names? Vivian. Vivian. And Mira. Mira, okay. I saw your name in the comments. Vivian. I saw Vivian in I didn't see Mira but I read a few comments I saw Vivian saying. So you're meeting the famous one. They said you were really friendly. You're really nice. There you go. YouTube. You want to say hello to YouTube? I love them here. So do you want to see the room before you decide to play? Okay, sure. What is that noise? Music. Is there another room that's not on this side? The room looks great. Yeah, it's vibrating the wall. Alright, we're going to see if we can move. I don't know if you can hear that in the video but it's vibrating the wall to my bedroom. They're having a big party. We're trying another room. Sorry for all the trouble. Okay, higher up. I think this is good. Okay, awesome. Alright, thank you so much. Thank you for the upgrade. I really appreciate that. Okay, fourth floor. Thank you. They are awesome. Are they not? But I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm really not but I don't think you can hear in the video just how loud that was. You couldn't feel the vibration. I can't stay in a room that's constantly shaking like that. But look at the upgrade. Very nice digs here. Let's do a quick tour and then we're going to eat. Got a nice desk so I should be able to do some work right there. Got a mini fridge. TV. Some natural light. We'll do a bed test in a minute. We've got, hold on. Moment of truth. Most important thing. Good bum gun pressure. Boom. I'm happy. Does this open? I don't think so. Kind of reminds you of Bourbon Street New Orleans with the French architecture and the balconies. AC works. Quick bed test. Oh yeah. That's one of the reasons I booked this room too. I saw a review that said it had comfortable beds. We are connected to their Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi speed test. Let's do it. 80, 90. 100 download speed. Good. Let's see what the upload is though. That's what's more important for me. That's good. That's good for me. 50. But yeah, I like this room. All it comes down to for me, all that really matters is quiet. That's why I usually book a room with no windows. It's just because I want silence, darkness, and to be able to sleep. Let's go explore and let's go eat. Oh, and do you know a good... I want to eat Com Tam. I know one place. Do you have Google Maps? That's my favorite dish. I know. I love it. Oh, it's her favorite too. Yeah. You turn left right here. There's a crossroad. Okay. It's a restaurant? Yeah. No, it's like local. Just local. Like a small spot with the tables? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Awesome. Perfect. You cannot trust the restaurant if it's delicious, you know. When there's many locals, you know it's bad. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. If it's foreigners, it's not very delicious. Right, right. I agree. I trust you. Okay. Alright. Thank you very much. Alright, so now we are ordering a real grab to go get this food. And hold on. Let me make sure this is the right place. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. Next to the park. Okay, so this costs $14,000 for this bike. Standard bike. I drive motorbikes here, but I never like riding on the back of someone else because I have no idea. Some of them drive like a maniac. Some of them drive well. Alright, he's coming. It should only be a 5 minute ride, so it costs only $14,000 Vietnamese Dong. So this is less than $1 for this ride. Xin chào. Here we go. Alright, we're going to pass them in the wrong lane. And I think we just had a red light. I think we just ran a red light. Nah, this one, this is safe. But I've done these before where I did not. You see this type of architecture. You've got the old French colonial architecture. You've got a guy honking behind us. A bus. So we're just going. You just gun it. This is what you do in Vietnam. You just go for it. There's no rules. You can drive on the wrong side of the road. So this is the tourist area. This is District 1. Sugar cane juice right over here. That's really good here. Is that it? I don't know. One of these. Alright. Oh yeah, helmet. I forgot to take off the helmet. Oh, come on. Oh, I was paying him. I was reaching in my wallet. That's why I didn't say thank you straight away. It's because I thought I had to pay cash. I forgot that grab is linked to my card. But yeah, you can tell this is a tourist restaurant. Hello. No. Next one. Oh, maybe this one. Oh, this is it. That's it right there. Alright, perfect. That's exactly what you need to do. You have an obvious tourist restaurant but right next to it you've got this little stand and this is where you eat. This is easily one of my favorite meals in Vietnam. I'm used to getting it with this thinly sliced pork. Oh, and they're cooking it right back here. Com tam. Oh, okay. Thank you. Come on. They're cooking it right here. Fresh. Perfect. Little back alleyway. Right here. Little plastic stools. This is exactly what you want in Ho Chi Minh City. You want to be eating in an alleyway. Oh, come on. Come on. I know I want com tam. I don't really even see it. But with pork... This one for you? That's me. Yes. Come on. I don't know if it's the ribs or the pork belly. Same, same. This one I have. Rib? Which one is good? Which one do you like? Same, same. Okay. Come on. I don't know if this is the right thing. I don't know if this is what I want. I don't think it's pork belly or ribs, but it is pork and it's rice, so I don't know. I'm not sure what kind of pork it is. But we're about to find out. Come on. Okay. Alright. Come on. So we have fish sauce. We have the spicy. We got the egg, the com tam, which is the broken rice. And then the pork belly. I love this sauce on it. Do we eat this with chopsticks or a spoon? Everyone else is eating it with a spoon. A little fish sauce on it. Cheers. Mmm. Very good. Very good. Thank you. If you don't want it to be as fatty, maybe you get the ribs. Because the pork belly usually has more fat. I love this broken rice. I don't know why, but it's so much better than normal rice. And the fish sauce, all the flavors of this. Really good. Such a good find. Okay. Come on. See, that's what I'm used to. That's a different cut. I'm not sure what the name of that one is. What I saw as I was walking out, that's the one that I was trying to order. But either way, the flavor is really good. But if you get the pork belly, it's going to have more fat on it. And then the one that I saw seemed to be the one that I'm used to. And it has more meat on it, less fat. So that's the one that I was trying to get. But either way, flavors of that are delicious. But I will tell you this. Already, I want to get out of this area. Yeah, I'm not really in the mood for the tourist area. I'm a hypocrite, by the way. I'm the tourist who doesn't like other tourists. But it's still cool. You've got the bars right here. This seems to be a popular strip. I don't really know where I am right now. But you've got spas. You've got tattoo shops. Plenty of bars. Plenty of food. I've heard that it's changed a lot. There's a lot more tourism here now. I'm seeing it. This reminds me of Thailand. Which is, of course, very touristy in many areas. Where am I? Let me see where I am right now. Oh, I'm on Bui Vien. Of course it's like this. Okay, never mind. It's too early for Bui Vien. I'm going to come back in the next video, in the next days, and we're going to come here at night. As you can probably imagine, this gets wild. I think they shut it off and it turns into a walking street. So we'll come back at night in the next video. This is one very isolated area that's like this. Okay, I've got to show you this. I used to drive in this every day when I used to live in this city. It's madness. It's chaos. But somehow it actually doesn't feel dangerous. Everyone is paying attention to the road. You drive with your hands on the brake ready at all times to stop. It's nuts. I have a bad idea, so of course we're going to do it. I found a motorbike and we're going to go drive in it. Just for fun. Do we drive on the left side or the right side of the road? This is a bad idea. So there's just people in the way. But, do we go? Okay, they went. I've just got to go? Yep, I've got to go. There's almost always somebody passing you. Okay, I just got myself stuck right here. So now you've got to pull out in front of all these people. How am I supposed to pull out in front of these people? Alright, I guess I'm just not getting out. I'm going left. This was a horrible idea. Alright, I've got to go left people. Oh my goodness. This was a horrible idea. I'm taking a break. This is madness. I used to drive in this nine years ago, but I don't. I'm rusty. Let's go try it again. I think I'm going to regret this decision. Oh man, do I just go? I'm just going I think. So we're all in line in the front row. And then behind me goes way back there. Here we go. And they're going to crawl. That was stressful. I'm back close to the hotel and I'm still hungry, I'm not going to lie. I'm going to get one more of those because I found another one right here next to my hotel. Com tam? Ah, com tam? Com tam? Ah, okay. Over there? Okay, alright, come on. And you have the tiny little chairs. Got a little plastic table. Like in kindergarten. That's what it was, that's what I'm talking about. They cut it with scissors and it's a grilled piece of pork like that with all the meat on top of the rice. Yeah, this is exactly it. Cucumber. Perfect. Carrots, some sauce, fish sauce I think. Come on, come on. That is exactly what I was thinking of guys. It's just a different cut of the pork though, but essentially it's the exact same thing. That is a beautiful thing ladies and gentlemen. Cheers. This is too much food. I can't eat two bites. I'm going to but I feel sick. It is delicious though. It just occurred to me I can't eat two meals back to back. I don't eat that much food, but this is the one. This is exactly what I wanted. This is delicious. So, District 1, this street is quiet, this one is fine, but that Boivian area, yeah, you know what you're getting. That's the heart of the tourism. So I'll probably show a little bit of that street in the next video, but I also want to show the local spots and the local places to eat to compare the tourist experiences versus the local experiences. So I'll probably do that in the next video. For this one, I have arrived. I am home. Thank you for watching this one. I will see you in the next one.