First Impressions of Ho Chi Minh City (DON'T MISS THIS)

Good morning.

Coffee's ready.

Good morning. Today is going to be our first day exploring Ho Chi Minh City. But we've actually already been here for a week.

And when we say here, we mean this room.

All day, every day.

For a week.

You may remember back in May when we launched Fair Drop.

The service that helps you find cheap flights. Well, this is the apartment that we used as Far Drop headquarters during the entire launch process.

So even though we've been here for a whole week, 90% of our time here has been spent like this.

Now that everything is under control with the Fair Drop launch, we can finally leave our apartment and explore Ho Chi Minh City.

We have been staying in District 4 for the last week because that's where the big, cheap, nice apartments are. But we are currently crossing the river and heading over into District 1, because that's kind of like the main tourist hub of the city, where all the good restaurants are and all the stuff the Duke kind of is.

Feels good to be out in the sunshine, breathing in all the exhaust from the motorbikes.

Okay, so the traffic in Ho Chi Minh is crazy. And crossing. Crossing the road can be a little scary. But what we've noticed from the locals.

Is that all you do is kind of hold your hand up and you're like, I'm crossing. And people just go around you.

The real key is just to find a local and follow them across the street. That's the safest way to do it.

So the first time we came to Vietnam was our first year of travel in 2016. We'd only been on the road for a few months, and we totally foam love with Vietnam and their coffee culture. They have a ton of unique coffees, and we just have been thinking about it ever since, pretty much. How do they do it?

They whip an egg.

Wow. We specifically love their egg coffee and their coconut coffee. So today, our first stop is this little coffee shop, and we went with two giant iced coconut coffees because it is hot.

Cheers.

So this coffee shop is called the Note Coffee, and everybody leaves little sticky notes all over the walls. So we build one out, and we're going to put it right here at the top of the stairs. So if you come to Ho Chi Minh, you have to come and take a picture with it and send it to us, because that makes us really happy.

One of our favorite things to do when we're in Asia, or I guess really any city around the world, is go explore a local market. And the Bintan Market here, I think, is also the biggest, biggest tourist attraction so we're carefully making our way over there now.

Key is no sudden movement. Nice and slow.

This market was built back in 19, which is over a hundred years ago, And I'm assuming it was a little bit more local back then. Seems like there are a lot of souvenirs.

Now.

I've lost care because she was taking so long shopping, but this is pretty much an endless maze of knockoff sunglasses, watches, handbags, and the place to come if you want a T shirt with a bad fapan.

Okay.

I may never find her again if she doesn't pick up this phone call.

Everyone's so nice here.

Really.

I just wanted to buy everything. They're like, ma', am, what do you want? Can I help you?

Not the exact vibe I was getting. They're, like, grabbing me, like, T shirt, T shirt.

Yeah, I don't like being tight. Yeah, they didn't really do that to me. I pretty much made it through the entire market, and now I found myself in this other section that's pretty much all food. However, we have our heart set on a different restaurant for lunch.

Plus, behind me, I can see five rats the size of cats running around. They're so. They're just, like, out in the open, hanging out. I feel like normally they're scared, but this is, like, their domain.

So we are far away from the market now at a restaurant called Baba. And I don't want this whole video to turn into last time we were in Vietnam. But last. Last time we were in Vietnam, the only things we ate were pho and banh m sandwiches, which was awesome. But we thought we would branch out this time, try some new Vietnamese foods. And we have fallen in love with this dish. It's called bun bo nam bao. And according to this article that I found on the Internet, bun means noodles, bo means beef Nambo. Nambo means from the sphere of the South. So bun bo nambao is essentially noodles and beef, Southern Vietnamese style. There's some green lettuce in there, some crunchy garlic and onion bits on top. And then the sauce is fish sauce, sugar, lemon, and chili. So it's kind of like a sweet and sour sauce. It's absolutely delicious. You just mix it all together. You can add garlic, chili peppers, and squeeze lime on top.

Another reason we love this restaurant so much is because you can get a beef noodle salad, a coconut, and a plate of fried spring rolls all for less than 5 dol.

So we've eaten at this location a couple times, but we've had the food from this restaurant Almost every single day. And that's because delivery here in Vietnam is dirt cheap. That was one of the really fun things about working here for a week, is we could get this food delivered to our apartment across town on a motorbike. It was still hot when it arrived, and it only cost 75 cents. So we ordered food, like, every day.

From here and ate them in the air conditioning.

So we're here during rainy season, and every day about this time, it lives up to its name by pouring for about two hours, which it's just starting to do right now.

So we are going to take this as an opportunity to do something that we don't typically do on the vlog, because it's kind of boring to watch, but we're really excited about it.

Thank you.

Museums don't typically make for the best vlog content, so we'll try to keep this one short. But we decided to come to this museum that has the remnants of the American Vietnam War because we've heard about this war our whole lives from the American perspectives. We're really curious to see it from a new perspective. They have a ton of crazy war vehicles outside.

Well, that was a depressing two hours. There was nothing fun about that. And I couldn't help but, like, as we were walking through there, as Americans, just feel this feeling of guilt.

It definitely made us want to walk out like this a little bit. But I'm definitely glad that we went, because even though, you know, we knew this war happened, seeing it, you know, like, in this city, like, where we are, like, these people lived through that, we just walked out feeling totally differently towards Vietnam than when we walked in.

I mean, the craziest thing is you saw all these horrific things happening to kids, and our parents would have been those kids aides. So, like, everybody that we see walking around the city who's our parents age experienced this war and has seen things.

Yeah.

No videos. Sorry. They're closed.

We've come back to the apartment, cleaned up a little bit, put on some fancier clothes, because tonight we are going on a very unique date. We don't do this often enough.

I'm so excited.

So tonight, for a date, we are going to be eating dinner in complete darkness.

The idea is that when you can't see anything, the flavors are enhanced.

So not only are we not going to be able to see our food, but we don't even know what we're going to be eating.

Hello.

We're learning how to play a game from an employee who is deaf. He's gonna Teach us without words.

Oh, okay. So I have to put on the eye mask and try to put the pieces back.

Okay.

We're getting used to not using our sense of sight. So the coolest part about this restaurant is that they employ people who have visual and hearing impairment.

I got one.

So our waiters and waitresses are blind and deaf. So when we're in the dark room, they're the ones who are gonna be leading us around. I did it.

I. I think I'm missing a piece. Oh, there it is. There it is. Two mistakes as well. The yellow one and the two mistakes. The yellow and the white. I can't see which one's yellow.

So the man who started this restaurant is Dutch, and he told us that 83% of our senses is our sight on average. So little gains like this become really difficult when you're blindfolded. I can only imagine how smoothly putting food in my mouth is going to go.

I want to introduce you to your guides. Here is Hugh. He will be your guide for dinner.

Tonight and taking care of you.

You're being led into the pitch darkness to start dinner. I can't.

Okay, no steps.

This is already terrifying. I'm sorry. I'm stepping on you. I have no clue how he's guiding us to where we need to be. Okay. Are you comfortable? And I'm saving your wine and the water I put next to the violet.

Okay.

Yeah. You're welcome.

Thank you.

Where are you? Can I reach you?

Yeah. Hold out your hand.

It's out.

Oh, I got it.

The good thing is, if you use bad manners here, no one can tell.

Oh, I almost don't do it wrong.

Oh, I just stuck my finger in my sew.

My soup tastes brown.

Where did I lay my spoon down? Slowly but surely. Cheers.

Are your eyes open or closed?

I feel like I need to touch it with my fingers to see what it is.

Big chunk of the bottom. Yeah.

Yo, cool. What kind of meat that is?

Chicken, maybe?

Well, my fork fell and I lost it, so now I'm just down to a spoon. I feel like it's crab. So, dice.

Did you enjoy your meal? Yes.

So much.

Yes. Okay. Thank you.

For you.

Kamena, are you there?

Wow, that was lovely. You were a lovely server.

Everything about that was crazy.

This is, without a doubt top three dates we've ever been on. We just came back out into the lobby, and they're about to bring us some photos of what we ate. We seriously have no idea. I would put a piece of meat in my mouth, and I would Be like, is this beef or pork? I don't know.

Okay, so we couldn't film anymore because we couldn't tell you what we actually ate because that would ruin the surprise for the other guests that come and eat here.

Let's just say we nailed a couple things, but we were also way off on other things.

My mind is blown.

We were like, for sure this is a peach. Like, this tastes just like. Like a can.

I literally think I said, I'm certain this is a peach in my mouth, and it's probably the only thing I'm this certain on.

And then it was a mango. Such a fun experience. I had high expectations going in, and my expectations were vastly exceeded.

We got to talk to the owner afterwards, and the way he talked about his employees, like, I almost got emotional talking to him. Like, he talked so highly about them.

His. His passion mixed with, like, kind of the mission of the restaurant mixed with, like, set all of the good stuff. Like, the wanting to, like, do good and better the world and give people jobs. Set that aside. It was just an incredibly delicious meal. I think we could sit here and talk about this for, like, 20 minutes, but I think we'll just end it by saying, if you do one thing, when you come to Ho Chi Minh City, go eat at this restaurant a hundred percent, you will not regret it. It just so. That's just one of those things we stumbled upon. I found it on the Internet, and I was like, oh, it'd be fun to eat in the dark. And then it was just so much more than that.

It feels silly talking about, like, eating in the dark is the best thing ever, but it was the best.

This is just like a date. Like, we. We paid for this. This is something we wanted to do. We just love the experience that much, so we wanted to highly recommend it. Okay, we're gonna stop.

Talk.

And I'm in this.

Smell it, smell it. Don't let this fall. Watch this.

Are you not. Sorry.

So this plate. Sorry.

Hello. Good. How are you? Usa? He really wanted us to go on a tour with him, and I was a little tempted because I liked his sales pitch so much. It was like the old school version of TripAdvisor, except instead of writing reviews online, he just had them all in a notebook. And he let us freak out if we had more time and less plans.

Well, it started raining.

That's all. Yep, that's it.

So tonight we are having dinner in complete darkness.

She's very excited.

I'm so excited. Oh, I just found myself peeking. I was like, looking. I can't close my eyes.

No. Oh. Cheers.

That was the bottom of my wine glass to my water.