Shadowing Practice: Best Things to do in Saigon - Overnight City Guide - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Good morning Vietnam.

This country has to be one of my favorite places on earth.

My first encounter with it was back in 2006 when I lived in Hanoi for about six months.

I quickly became enamored with the food and drinking culture there.

Back hurting on plastic stools, too cheap to believe beers,

a mountain of herbs, and a happy bewilderment each time a dish was put right in front of me.

Saigon is a type of city I could come to each weekend just to eat.

We try to make this show not just about food, but in a city packed with delicious aromas wafting through the air,

and side stalls at the corner of every street, it's tough to focus on anything else.

Saigon comes off as hot, brash, and unfriendly to most travelers looking to immerse themselves in an Asian country,

often becoming a quick transit stop for the regions of Da Nang, Nga Chang, Hanoi, Hoi An, or even Fukuok.

It has a strong, chaotic face that hides well the deep and rooted ethos of a nation.

While probably not the best place to travel to with children,

if you are a group of adults hungry and willing to walk through millions of motorcycles at every street crossing,

get your senses ready because they're about to combust.

Ho Chi Minh, or Saigon, is one of those cities that is just so full of lights and full of energy.

And today, where we stand is kind of a testament of what the city is today.

Behind us, we have the Notre Dame Cathedral, which is a remnant of the French colonization.

And we're surrounded by lots of different Vietnamese restaurants.

So I think that's what Saigon is today, is a good mix of both what is traditional French, traditional European, and traditional Vietnamese.

For this episode, I have a very special friend joining me, Chef JP Anglo.

I needed an extra stomach, I think.

And JP, what are you expecting in this trip, man?

Anything, man.

I'm open to everything that you're going to feed me.

It's all new to me.

This is all new to me.

So I don't know what to expect.

The whole point of overnight is we're going to show people what are the best places to eat, what are the best places to drink,

What are the best places to have fun and kind of go out

and then we'll try to do that in a 24 to 36 hour time frame.

You up for it?

Let's get to it.

You will land at the Tan Son Nat International Airport Which is located just six kilometers from district one

So it should take you without traffic about 20 minutes to get into the city.

Refreshing in Asia However, the new airport is planned to open in 2020 and is located 50 kilometers from the city

So come to Saigon now if you can.

If you need some quick cash and the need of the dong

Airport exchange rates are usually quite decent.

So we are now in Saigon and a lot of things you have to remember

when you land at the airport in Saigon The best way to get to the city is a taxi

But there are so many different scams and it can be a little aggressive

So use two different types of companies that I usually trust the Mylin and the Venus Sun company

You can see their collarways identify them and use them

So this time around we actually decided to book our hotel, our room rather, through Airbnb.

So it's right here on my app, so we're checking in right now.

What's cool is that you have a Google integration for Google Maps, so you know exactly where it is.

And yeah, it was just really simple to book.

I was talking to this girl called Han, and she set everything up for us, and the place looks awesome,

and I'm sure we're going to meet a lot of cool people over there.

This time around we decided to stay at the Trendy Artsy Boutique Hostel, The Common Room Project.

People from all over the world coming in and out, adding to the friendly house ambience.

It made us feel as if we were living temporarily with a bunch of travelers.

This makes it easier to share experiences and figure out what's not to miss in the city.

Now I know it may seem typical, but the first thing I had to do was eat something out of a bowl.

I've tried to fit all over the world, but there's something about eating it in Vietnam that will never be matched.

Outrageous humidity, cold stainless steel tables, and lots of pointing to be understood.

So what better way to start our trip in Saigon but with a nice hot piping bowl of pho.

I think it's JP's first time so he seems to be really excited about it.

This is one of the best places to fill it.

Just get the bowl with all the meat inside and kind of just enjoy it as much as you can.

I'm so excited.

Let's get to it.

Now there's always going to be a debate as to who sells the best bowl of pho.

Honestly, they are all better than what you're probably eating right now.

Other places I've enjoyed in the past are Pho Dao for Northern South Pho, Pho Hung for Southern South Pho, or Pho Phuong.

We got the standard Pho, which is basically all, like, I think four meats inside.

You've got tendons, you've got brisket, obviously, which is the most traditional one.

And then always served with, like, a shitload of herbs and beans which I love, because these things are so aromatic.

And I don't know if you've ever tried the Vietnamese limes, but they're so sweet and so tasty.

Usually they serve it, so you have chili, fish sauce, soy sauce, I love putting this deep red chili, so good.

It's about to be fire in my mouth.

All right, I'm going for it.

So JP, as a pho virgin,

wow first impression meaty and done with a lot of soul right you can tell

that they cooked it for a long time and look at how they braced the beef that

Wow that was really good for that was legit

so people you know may not recommend walking around because of all

that heavy traffic but I see it as an adventure

while it may not be totally pleasant to keep having to stay alert

while strolling down the streets it's the only way to make sure

you never miss out on a hidden gen. Life happens in the streets so take full advantage of it.

I think there's so many motorcycles here it's crazy.

After a massive bowl of soup

and some sweet roasted coconuts next to the Independence Palace we digestively walk our way to the loft cafe.

So Vietnam has a very strong coffee culture, cafe culture rather, maybe something that they took from the French.

You'll find a lot of different styles of coffees here most of them roasted in -house for the purpose of serving them.

You can have it like JB's having it, black with condensed milk or like myself just espresso.

But what's great about these places is they're usually a hub for culture and people getting together.

The Loft Cafe right now which is on the second floor of a walk -up.

Very easy to miss if you don't know where it is.

You can go through an art gallery and we'll be checking out other coffee shop concepts.

The city is a perfect place for caffeine heads and if I had more time I would definitely go coffee shop hopping.

Other places you might want to check out are The Extra Hip and Cool Luzine, Café Runam for some local style beans,

Namlong Coffee Company, Bozgros Coffee, The Workshop, or our next stop, The Hard to Find Cupping Room.

Just use Google Maps and Street View.

It's pretty funny how nowadays, wherever you go in the world,

you come to these third -way coffee shops and you find the same type of people that come here, the same like -minded people.

I like to travel, but then I like to find things

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that are familiar and everyone kind of has their own version of it

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so this was a place called the cupping room

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so it's a second floor walk -up what was the entrance

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like you wouldn't expect anything very uh low -key very old

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and there's too many motorcycles here that they even park it inside

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and then even on the second floor there are bicycles parked inside

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and the sign outside was just a paper a paper yeah the cupping room

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so but you were saying that you you could smell the the beans from downstairs

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so basically if you're to find this place just follow the smell of the beans

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and you will find it

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so it's a nice little haven they roast their beans in -house just right in front of you um

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and then they they kind of spread over here

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so it's pretty cool not only that i'm eating and drinking

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so much coffee i'm also learning lots about history

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and about life with papa erwan and it's amazing

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when i'm with him all these chicks look at me all of a sudden spill over basically

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so here we are walking down the famous dong koi avenue

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which is probably one of the oldest boulevards kind of here it's a nice place to be

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because you have the opera house you have the big shopping centers

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and lots of side streets with colonial style buildings restaurants cafes

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and the likes so if you manage to pull your way out from all that eating

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if your stomach needs a much needed rest period take a stroll down district one

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it's the best place to see all the big monuments of the city.

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The post office designed by Gustave Eiffel, yes the Eiffel Tower dude, the Fine Arts Museum, the City Hall, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Independence Palace,

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or even the City Museum.

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Having worked up an appetite yet again we set off into another food adventure.

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It's important to come to Saigon with a few notes of what are the must -try dishes

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and to always try to leave some space for something unexpected.

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Here we go for a boon dish.

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Boon is basically anything with rice noodles in a bowl with a bunch of different toppings.

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So JP and I here we're about to have boon tit neung which apparently is two different types of pork.

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So we have pork shoulder and we have some sort of pork sausage which they're both marinated in lemongrass,

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soy, ginger, lots of the classical flavors and apparently there's a secret ingredient that madame here doesn't want to tell anyone.

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So these are like like many of the lunch ladies in Saigon, which is pretty cool, they're here.

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She's been here for 40 years.

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40 years, making one thing and making it really well.

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So all that pork and then the spring roll, which you have over here,

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is then placed on top of rice noodles with like a Thai fish sauce dressing and some peanuts.

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It's so simple, but it looks absolutely delicious.

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Like this is gonna be a killer meal, I can feel it.

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I can taste that crunch already.

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The noodles loaded with so many textures, deep -fried pork fat, peanuts, crunchy Vietnamese spring rolls, and just so much love.

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Other noodle dishes you might want to try are the bun tit at chi thong, the bun bo, which is the beef version,

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at bun bo huay dong ba, or the crab noodles at bang kang kwa 87.

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Our blowout continues and we decide to go try some ban khut, which are small rice pancakes with shrimps and toppings.

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I hope I don't fuck this up.

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Oh, there you go.

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Now I won't fuck it up.

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I thought that all those herbs were going to overpower the meat, but it's...

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Didn't.

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There's so many layers of flavor.

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The batter, and then you have the seafood, and then you have the shrimp powder, the greens that you put on top,

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the fish sauce, the chili, the papaya.

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Like six herms, but it's so simple right yep,

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but delicious Wow Next stop we head out for some banh kwon

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All right, so we're on our third food stop yeah must -have staples that we're trying to go through so here

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We have banh kwon in front of us

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which basically means banh means anything made with flour so rice flour in this case

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So the lady over there, you saw, she made a really cool mix of rice flour and water.

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Put it over a cheesecloth, over a steam pot.

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And so she makes this really thin layer, which is really nice, and then fills it with pork, mushrooms and stuff.

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And then they served us a fermented, I think it's called nam, if I'm correct, or nam.

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It's a fermented pork sausage.

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So it's raw pork wrapped in guava leaf with some vinegar, some sodium, just to kind of solidify it it's nice

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and sour and then finally a rice flour cake filled with coconut and then little little local Vietnamese pork hams.

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Two kinds of tofu?

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Two kinds of ham.

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Oh ham.

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This is made out of pork.

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The non -traditional one that we have here this skin is actually made out of cinnamon.

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All right let's try it out.

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I know this may seem like a lot

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but I'll give you some other places you might want to try to check out along the way.

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The egg pancake Pansayo at the famous 46a Banseo.

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Probably all the crab dishes at Kwan 94.

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The blood sausage at Kwan Lone is amazing or even the delicious suckling pig at Langluong.

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So we're in front of the Le Fang Tam Park.

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It used to actually be an old cemetery turned into a park.

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We're here to try out the papaya lady or she's known as the papaya lady.

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A girl whose papaya salad has become so famous

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that sometimes she sells over a hundred kilos of papaya she's been doing it for 27 years and

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because of this little business this little stall you see behind me

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she was actually able to send her son to university in the states little stories like

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that that make you happy so she's either at her cart in front of the park

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or she has people going around the park with pre -prepared plates

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if i were you seek her out we were there around 5 pm

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and things were in full swing it has some awful beef jerky fresh papaya

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and lots of crunchy textures

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and flavors no trip to Vietnam is complete without a banh mi

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so now we're here at the very famous banh mai thwat banh mi place banh mai thwat is

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that what you said just just can you just uh take just uh just pronounce it all right

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if you can see there's so many people lining up

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and everyone here is a local we're the only one we're the only foreigners here

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and what's special about this place is that they put seven different types of ingredients in the banh mi, right?

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There are different kinds of meat, cold cuts, pates.

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So there's pork cheek, pork belly, some sort of ham.

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There's pork floss, cucumbers.

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This is, what's it called?

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Jicama.

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Then you have a pork pate, then she puts some margarine in there, and then these are little spring onions.

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Yep, and the bread, right?

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Flaky bread.

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They actually toast their bread, so it's nice and warm and flaky.

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Yeah, they toast it a la minit.

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Oh, sorry.

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He just wanted to say that, Chik.

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I'm not doing that.

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So we forgot to mention a while ago

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that the good people bringing us around today with the private

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van are the people from Back of the Bike tours right here.

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We'll put up their links and everything.

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Awesome tour.

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They can kind of actually bring you wherever you want to go and whatever you want to try.

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Just let them know and they'll modify it for you, which is pretty cool.

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Go home, take a shower, and be awakened by how the city just changes at night.

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If you're tired of eating out on the street and in places with no air conditioning, I personally don't see how that could be,

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but some other more upscale options would be.

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Madhouse, the secret garden restaurant, refinery, Kwan B for some local cuisine, Trois Gourmands, or Saigon Lookout.

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So finally our resident grandfather has come out of his slumber.

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Do you feel better?

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Slightly.

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Okay, so he woke up and he basically said, I want to go to Bar Street.

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So we're here at Bio Viet.

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He wants to get a snack of drinks we're just here to kind of drink beer

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so people are kind of sitting all over the place

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and just drinking really cheap beer about 50 cents per beer

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is pretty crazy really 50 cents of a dollar per beer and yeah

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so it's usually the place where people kind of start off

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you want something chill this is where you need to be

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if like us you've had your fill of food

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and just want a nice stiff drink saigon has multiple watering

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holes to offer from upbeat bars like blanche's bromo bar

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and the pasteur street brewing company for some nice craft beer to hip

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and happening party setups at chill bar glow or lush

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if your night stretches out to the wee hours

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you can always count on the underground observatory for a down artsy beat of the city

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or the always confusing apocalypse now there are just so many options

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so we just decided to ask some people who live here what they like to do in the city

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I think I will first time start with the common room project

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because it's a place where you can be creative you can meet people you

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You can play games, you can have some drinks.

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I think I will take them to a Broma bar in the center.

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I guess I will go to Lush because it's the discotheque in the area.

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I will talk about Outkast.

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I really like this place.

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It's a place in District 2 and it's a bit underground, there is some empty wall to draw on it.

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It's like free entry for artists and stuff if they want to do something there.

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I will talk about Hum, a vegetarian restaurant.

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It's on Vovantan Street, in District Street, and yeah, it's quite good vegetarian food.

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Tried many times.

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Big fan.

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I've been in Saigon for one year and eight months now.

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A lot of people don't know that when they hear Saigon they think Vietnamese people, Vietnamese food,

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but Saigon is actually a very international city with thousands

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and thousands of expats there's this place some people know about it it's called the lunch lady

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and she is located in this street one by the river she has a menu

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which consists of different soups every day traditional Vietnamese soups she got very famous through Anthony Bourdain

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Sunday morning

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if you have a whole day in front of you I

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would highly recommend taking a day tour of the Mekong River

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or diving into the underground of the Ku Chi tunnels used during the war.

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You could also have a look at the Jade Emperor Pagoda or the Vinyem Pagoda.

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So District 2 is a little bit more laid -back and spaced out than the districts surrounding the center.

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It's a good peek on how the expats live and if you ever decide on moving here,

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it'll give you a good indication on what to expect.

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It's filled with lots of good coffee shops, restaurants, and boutiques that can actually call for a full day of discovery.

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Alright so we're here at District 2.

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Erwan took us to the posh side of Ho Chi Minh.

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This is where all the expats live.

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It's very refreshing to be here after all the street food that we've been eating.

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You guys stayed.

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I left early because I was a little bit sick.

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I ended up having a bowl of pho with my motorcycle driver, Yong.

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I'm so jealous that you got to do that.

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And it was so cool because literally it was by the street, so random.

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I go, hey, let's have pho.

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Then he goes massage, I go no pho.

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Maybe he thought you meant prostitute.

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That's why.

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Did you say pho or pho?

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I said, I kept saying pho.

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Okay, for people that don't know, pho means prostitute and pho means the soup, right?

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But anyway, it was a good meal.

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We bonded in some ways, but we didn't really talk.

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But yeah, we just looked at each other and kept saying good, good, good.

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We had one last stop to make.

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We tried to go back to that banh mi place just

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because we wanted to hoard a bunch of sandwiches to bring back to our friends in Manila Unfortunately,

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just like many street vendors and street side restaurants in Saigon, it only opened after 3 p .m.

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In the afternoon, so we set out on the Bourdain path and paid a visit to his favorite lunch lady

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Even though it wasn't on the same day that he tried it so we didn't get the same dish

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Like every good stop in Saigon

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you cannot come to the city without trying the lunch lady made popular of course by Anthony Bourdain.

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As we've been seeing there are a lot of different lunch ladies

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and these kind of shops where people just pop up here and there.

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So yeah we're here every day then the menu changes.

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We're here on a Sunday it seems to have some sort of an egg noodle like a mommy noodle.

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Some pork as well so it's really good, really flavorful, all these nice condiments.

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Everyone here is really lovely and really nice.

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So I'm super starstruck again that I was able to sit down with Han, the lunch lady.

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I'm a big Anthony Bourdain fan and I've seen this online and I can't believe that I'm here.

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Thank you Irwan for taking me here.

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Each time I leave Vietnam my hunger pangs are satisfied

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but I get hit with such sadness knowing that I will not encounter that level of food until I come back again.

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Saigon is in my opinion a beautifully crazy Asian city that finds itself in the full upswing of development.

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With the rise of consumership, the erection of tall buildings and the Thanks expectations of a nation's promise.

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The Vietnamese people are working hard at becoming a strong economic and cultural player in the region.

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Each time I come back I experience something new yet I feel like nothing's changed.

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A certain magic touch of combining both the unexpected with the wonderfully familiar.

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I will be back because I always come back.

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Make sure to stay tuned for our next episode.

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We rent out a pimpin apartment in Kuala Lumpur, explore the cities different cultures and eat probably one of the spiciest meals of my life.

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Sweat and tears but it's all worth it.

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Make sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat for updates and behind -the -scenes pictures and videos.

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Also don't forget to subscribe to my channel.

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We would like to thank

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Axis Travel and Tours for making this trip possible and organizing all our logistics for us.

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Check out their site for more information.

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So overnight Saigon was brought to you by our good friends at Cebu Pacific

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and here's a quick travel tip from them as you know

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when you come to an airport you can expect a lot of lines

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but people are usually quite lazy

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so it's really easy to just look for the shortest line by going to the place

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that is furthest away from you the more distance you have to walk the less you need to line up.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Best Things to do in Saigon - Overnight City Guide”. This video has 323 sentences and 4073 words to shadow. The speech runs for 21:29. The speaker talks fast, about 190 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
dish noun	/dɪʃ/	A vessel such as a plate for holding or serving food, often flat with a depressed region in the middle.
bean noun	/ˈbi(ː)n/	Any plant of several genera of the taxonomic family Fabaceae that produces large edible seeds or edible seedpods.
delicious adjective	/dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/	Pleasing to the sense of taste; tasty.
soup noun	/sup/	Any of various dishes commonly made by combining liquids, such as water or stock, with other ingredients, such as meat and vegetables, that contribute the food…
motorcycle noun	/ˈmoʊtɚˌsaɪkəl/	An open-seated motor vehicle with handlebars instead of a steering wheel, and having two (or sometimes three) wheels.
flour noun	/ˈflaʊ.ə/	Powder obtained by grinding or milling cereal grains, especially wheat, or other foodstuffs such as soybeans and potatoes, and used to bake bread, cakes, and…
meal noun	/ˈmiːl/	Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.
underground adjective	/ˌʌn.dəɹˈɡɹaʊnd/	Below the ground; below the surface of the Earth.
beef noun	/bif/	The meat from cattle or other bovines; especially, that from adults.
flavor noun	/ˈfleɪvə/	The quality produced by the sensation of taste or, especially, of taste and smell in combined effect.
roast verb	/ɹoʊst/	To cook food by heating in an oven or over a fire without covering, resulting in a crisp, possibly even slightly charred appearance.
sausage noun	/ˈsɔsɪd͡ʒ/	A food made of ground meat (or meat substitute) and seasoning, packed in a section of the animal's intestine, or in a similarly cylindrical shaped synthetic…
dong noun	/dɔŋ/	The currency of Vietnam, 100 xus. Symbol: ₫
herb noun	/hɜːb/	A plant whose stem is not woody and does not persist beyond each growing season.
chili noun	/ˈt͡ʃɪli/	The pungent, spicy fresh or dried fruit of any of several cultivated varieties of capsicum peppers, used in cooking.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
come back verb		To return to a place.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
line up verb	/laɪnˈʌp/	To align; to put in alignment; to put in correct adjustment for smooth running.
make out of verb		To construct from; to create (something) using (a material or substance).
come off verb		To become detached.
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

It's all new to me.
You up for it?
It's about to be fire in my mouth.
All right, I'm going for it.
Did you say pho or pho?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	she's been doing · we've been eating · we've been seeing
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was put · is located · is planned
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've tried · I've enjoyed · you've ever tried
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	Cathedral, which is · Airport Which is · Pho, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 73 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thin /ˈθɪn/, grandfather /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌfɑðɚ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dish /dɪʃ/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/, refresh /ɹɪˈfɹɛʃ/, impression /ɪmˈpɹɛʃn̩/, integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: motorcycle /ˈmoʊtɚˌsaɪkəl/, unexpected /ʌnɪkˈspɛktɪd/, vegetarian /vɛ.d͡ʒɪˈtɛ.ɹi.ən/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like dish, bean, delicious.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Best Things to do in Saigon - Overnight City Guide - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?